Africa

Algeria

BBC 10 Oct 2002 Berber riots rock Algerian poll Berbers see themselves as a persecuted minority Rioting in Algeria's ethnic Berber region has marred local elections with at least five people injured in clashes with police. Elsewhere, voting ended smoothly in elections seen as a test of political stability under President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Mr Bouteflika has vowed to restore peace to this country of about 30 million which has seen tens of thousands killed in fighting with Islamic militants since 1992. Berbers protesting at what they see as discrimination by the majority Arab population seized ballot-boxes and burnt down polling-stations in the Kabylie region. Building barricades, they hurled stones at riot police, beefed up to a strength of 20,000 by the government in the run-up to the election. Police fired tear gas near the Kabylie city of Bejaia to break up protesters as they attacked polling-stations and tried to burn ballot-boxes. In the city of Tizi-Ouzou, at least five protesters were wounded, one of them seriously, in clashes with the security forces. Interior Minister Noureddine later announced that voting was disrupted in 20 of the 67 municipalities in Tizi Ouzou Province and 19 out of 52 municipalities in Bejaia Province. Bouteflika's party ahead National election results are due to be released at around 1100 GMT on Friday but analysts already predict that President Bouteflika's ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) will capitalise on its May general election victory and win most of the votes. Correspondents say that while local elections have limited significance in Algeria, a successful vote is seen as shoring up the president's portrayal of Algeria as a stable democracy, attractive to foreign investors. The vote passed off peacefully in most of the country However, in addition to the Berber unrest, attacks attributed to Islamic militants continue, with massacres of civilians routinely reported In the Berber region, politicians called a boycott of the vote as part of their continuing campaign for greater recognition. But one Berber party, the Socialist Forces Front, broke ranks and rejected the boycott. A security clampdown in Kabylie in the spring of 2001 left some 100 people dead. The Berbers, who have their own language and make up at least a fifth of Algeria's population, are demanding greater rights from the central government.

Angola

IRIN 10 Oct 2002 UNITA reunification boost for peace process JOHANNESBURG, 10 Oct 2002 (IRIN) - After several months of negotiations Angola's former rebel group UNITA was unified this week, paving the way for national reconciliation and the implementation of outstanding aspects of the 1994 Lusaka peace agreement. "It has taken some time but we have successfully accomplished a very important task. We are now working towards a concrete programme of action. Already we have set up 18 working groups which will act as a shadow cabinet to the government," George Valentim, secretary-general of the now defunct UNITA Renovada faction, told IRIN. He added that UNITA would work on transforming its image from that of a guerrilla movement "to something that appeals to most Angolans". Splits in the rebel movement surfaced after the abortive 1994 Lusaka peace deal. The Luanda-based Renovada was formed by Eugenio Manuvakola in September 1998 along with other dissidents who had fallen out with UNITA's founder, Jonas Savimbi. The new group was recognised by the government as the interlocutors for the 1994 Lusaka Protocol. However, since the 4 April ceasefire between UNITA and the government this year, the splinter group has found itself on the sidelines of the broader political changes happening in the country. In July Manuvakola resigned from the Renovada leadership, saying his decision would pave the way for the reunification of the party. Valentim was appointed caretaker of the splinter group until the final reunification of the party. He had earlier been appointed to conduct negotiations with the main wing of UNITA. "We have to restructure the united party so that it can reflect democratic principles. Admittedly, we [UNITA] do not have a very positive image but our focus is on bringing new ideas to the people. Angolans must be free to voice criticisms of the way public affairs are conducted," Valentim said. On Wednesday church groups welcomed UNITA's reunification saying that,"a unified UNITA is very good for everyone who has been involved in the peace process". Daniel Ntoni-Nzinga, executive secretary of the Interchurch Committee for Peace in Angola said: "UNITA now has to show that they are capable of standing as a political party without a military wing. They must prove they have the capacity to mobilise the Angolan people." Meanwhile, Joao Porto, a senior researcher at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, told IRIN that as a unified political movement, UNITA could prove to be a serious contender for political power. "Although reduced to a fraction of what it once was, UNITA now constitutes a serious contender for power in Angola as was demonstrated in the 1992 legislative elections where UNITA commanded 34 percent of the votes. "UNITA could substantially increase this result in the next elections should it demonstrate to the Angolan people that it has the capacity to address some of their major concerns," Porto said. A peace agreement in 1991 led to elections the following year. The ruling MPLA won 129 of the 220 seats, with UNITA particulalrly strong in its traditional central highlands stronghold. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos received just over 49 percent of the vote, just short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a second round against Savimbi who secured 40 percent. Savimbi refused to accept the result and returned to war. His death in February this year has given Angola another chance for peace and reconciliation under the terms of the Lusaka settlement. "After so many years in power it would interesting to watch if the MPLA government opens a political space for multiparty politics. Will civil society be permitted to voice criticisms of the government?" Porto said. The government-controlled media dominates the scene. The country's only news agency, Angop, and the only daily newspaper, Jornal de Angola, are state-owned and they all carry little criticism of the government. Porto said a successful transition to political pluralism would replace, once and for all, the violence and mistrust which has historically marked relations between the government and UNITA.

Benin

Washington Afro-American 9 Oct 2002 Benin Seeks Forgiveness For African Slave Trade By LaWanda Johnson WASHINGTON - In an unprecedented move, Cyrille Oguin, ambassador to the United States from the African Republic of Benin, has admitted his country’s part in the transatlantic slave trade that peddled millions of Africans over 300 years, and is seeking reconciliation and forgiveness. Oguin said the loss of millions of Africans from the continent has led to its lack of development and prosperity. “If a vital part of you was missing, would you not miss it?” asked Oguin at a press conference at the embassy of the Republic of Benin in Washington, D.C. "No amount of money can fix anything that has already happened. This apology is from the heart. And that is much more valuable than money because of the psychological impact." The slave trade - or the “Middle Passage,” the journey of Africans kidnapped from their homeland and put on European vessels to be transported to Europe and the Americas for enslavement - has been described as the most horrific and disgraceful crime against human beings in history. This peddling of human beings, an untold number of African men, women and children, between the 15th and 19th centuries cost millions of lives and robbed Africa of her most valuable natural resource, her people. What has always been clear is that Europeans implemented, organized and fueled the slave trade for their own greed and prosperity. The part that has always been unclear is the involvement of African leaders in assisting in the capture, exportation and exploitation of millions of Africans. Oguin echoed the Republic of Benin President Mathieu Kerekou’s sentiment expressed at a 1999 reconciliation conference: “We owe to ourselves never to forget these absent ones standing among us who did not die their own deaths. We must acknowledge and share responsibility in the humiliations.” Oguin said that admitting guilt is the first step in reconciliation, to clean the blood of millions from the past from his country’s hands. “I think that’s a very important move on his part,” said A. Peter Bailey, a lecturer and editor of “Vital Issues: A Journal of African American Speeches.” “There has been a tendency to blur over the pivotal role that some African chiefs played in the enslavement of African people. It is a good sign to hear someone acknowledge it and express regret over what happened.” Originally called Dahomey, Benin changed its name after gaining independence from France in 1960. A country of about 6.5 million, it is between Togo, Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria in West Africa. It is about the size of the state of Pennsylvania and borders the Atlantic Ocean. That, said Oguin, allowed its country to be used as a major port for the slave trade. Slaves were marched down a path that cuts through Oguin's country, branded or otherwise marked, and held at holding camps in the port of Ouidah, now part of a toured slave route in Benin, said Oguin. From this port city, thousand of slaves were stripped, chained in pairs by the ankles and taken by canoes, at night, to slaving vessels anchored in the harbors. For this assistance and for sometimes even providing the cargo for the slave merchants, Oguin says they are sorry. The meeting shed light on rumors and innuendoes that have plagued relationships between Africans and African Americans, according to some observers. This basis for mistrust, according to Oguin, keeps African Americans from benefiting from an economic relationship with the continent. "The apology is too late. The damage has been done. The apology cannot compensate for everything we’ve been through." Charlene Crafton | Government Worker Prince George's County “There are many people who have negative ideas about Africa,” said Oguin. “Nowadays, many people are rushing to the continent because of the enormous opportunities it presents. In this move, African Americans should not stay out while they have a special relationship - a historical connection - and blood links with Africa.” For over a decade, Benin has been noted for its political stability and encourages a market economy that fuels its economic expansion. However, like Ghana, it courts the attention of African Americans to spearhead development in a country that has seen years of painfully slow growth. They feel that ignoring the damage inflicted by slavery would impede the peace and reconciliation they seek. “No amount of money can fix anything that has already happened,” said Oguin. “This apology is from the heart. And that is much more valuable than money because of the psychological impact. Once we have that confidence that we have spiritually addressed those concerns, then the relationship in business, trade and culture will follow and become larger, stronger and long-lasting.” “The apology is too late,” said Charlene Crafton, a 30-something local government worker. She spoke for many in her Prince George’s County community. “The damage has been done. The apology cannot compensate for everything we’ve been through.” “I believe in retribution,” said lecturer Bailey. “And I do believe that Africa, as a continent, has paid a severe price for what those chiefs did. Now both of us will only advance together. It is to the advantage of Africans and African Americans that we develop a serious, mutually beneficial relationship.” Oguin announced plans for the first annual international festival, “Gospel and Roots,” from Oct. 27 to Nov. 3. The festival is expected to be a forum of cultural expression to pave the way for reconciliation. The festival will bring musicians from all over the world to Benin, including King Sunny Ade of Nigeria; Ron Kenoly, Spiritual Jubilation Choir, Righteous Choir and Rodnie Bryant, all of the United States; Rebecca Malope from South Africa; Shekina from Cote d’Ivoire; Roberte Laporal from Guadeloupe; and the Winneba Youth Choir from Ghana. Benin hopes that thousands of African Americans and “sisters and brothers in the Black Diaspora” will take advantage of this festival to come “home.” Crafton was wistful. Bitterness aside, Crafton said, smiling, “I wouldn’t mind visiting any part of Africa.”

Burundi

IRIN 2 Oct 2002 Hundreds more flee as conflict escalates, UN agency says NAIROBI, - A recent influx of some 900 Burundians into Tanzania brings refugee arrivals to at least 3,000 in September, the office of UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported on Tuesday. It said this represented a nearly a 10-fold increase from August. Most of the refugees had fled "after a period of internal displacement", the agency reported, while others who had previously been in Tanzanian refugee camps and gone home only to find themselves having to flee the current fighting between government and rebel forces. A UNHCR report from Kibondo, Tanzania, near the border with Burundi, said many of the new arrivals were in poor health, "with children showing signs of malnutrition". The refugees had said the fighting between the army and the rebels had escalated, and that some soldiers had burnt down their homes after accusing them of complicity with the rebels. Meanwhile, the flow of Burundian returnees had dropped dramatically, the UNHCR spokesman, Kris Janowski, said on Tuesday in Geneva. In recent weeks, he said, an average of 600 refugees had gone home each week, compared to up to 1,500 per week a few months ago. At least 45,000 Burundian refugees have returned home since the beginning of the year, 25,000 of them with UNHCR help. The agency has maintained that it is only facilitating the return of refugees to relatively safe parts of northern Burundi. Tanzania was hosting some 350,000 Burundian refugees in camps, UNHCR reported, with nearly 500,000 others living on their own outside the camps.

IRIN 3 Oct 2002 Military investigates parasitic contamination among peace troops NAIROBI, 3 Oct 2002 (IRIN) - South Africa's military has opened an inquiry into an outbreak of parasitic contamination among its troops serving in Burundi, a South Africa Internet news service provider reported on Wednesday. "From a group of 23 sick soldiers tested, two had abscesses on their livers that may be the result of drinking contaminated water," news24 reported. The South African Military Health Service is conducting the investigation. The military's surgeon-general, Lt-Gen Rinus Jansen van Rensburg, said the type of parasite concerned was usually transmitted via contaminated water, but could also be passed on through vegetables, fruit or even meat. Most of the affected soldiers are from the 46 SA Brigade in Johannesburg, news24 quoted him as saying. He added that water sources in the Burundi capital, Bujumbura, were being investigated, as well as the circumstances surrounding the supply of fresh produce to the South African base there. South Africa deployed 701 soldiers to Burundi in November 2001 as a special unit to provide protection for returning Burundian exiles who are now members of state institutions.

IRIN 4 Oct 2002 Army officers imprisoned for Itaba killings NAIROBI, 4 Oct 2002 (IRIN) - Two army officers have been imprisoned in connection with the killing of some 173 people in Itaba, in the central province of Gitega, Net Press reported on Thursday. The officers, whom Net Press identified as Maj Budigoma and Lt Ngendakuriyo, are being held at the Gitega Central Prison. Their arrest followed "intense pressure" from Hutu parties in the country. "It is the first time that military officers have been imprisoned following army operations," Net Press, a Bujumbura news organ, reported. Speaking from Bujumbura on 26 September, Amnesty International Secretary-General Irene Khan told IRIN that all those killed in Itaba had been civilians, including women and children. She described the act as "cold-blooded", and said Burundian President Pierre Buyoya had promised that the state would prosecute those who had ordered the killings. The massacre occurred on 9 September, but was only made public several days later. It is unclear what prompted the killings although the army has been active in trying to put down a rebellion by Hutu fighters in parts of the country. Burundian soldiers also killed at least 100 civilians in July in the province of Muramvya, northwest of Gitega, the Missionary Service News Agency reported on Wednesday, citing a report from an independent parliamentary commission of inquiry. The first reports of this incident emerged a day after Buyoya confirmed that soldiers had been responsible for the Itaba killings.

Reuters 4 Oct 2002 Burundi struggles to remember life without war By Maria Eismont BUJUMBURA, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Sitting on the softly-lit terrace of an expensive restaurant on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, you can clearly see the flare of rebel gunfire in the hills that flank the Burundian capital. "Usual problem in the hills," a seasoned expatriate or wealthy Burundian will shrug, glancing briefly at the red flames lighting up the night sky before turning back to his beer. After nine years of civil war, shelling in the sinister hills around Burundi's capital can no longer surprise. Night attacks, road ambushes and kidnappings have all become part of everyday life, a strange routine in a country devastated by conflict. Rebels of the ethnic Hutu majority have been fighting the Tutsi-led army since 1993, and the civilian population has been caught in the crossfire. For the privileged few who live in the centre of town, in large stone houses with shady tropical gardens, it is easy to forget that a war rages outside. "My family in France reads newspapers and listens to the radio and they think it is hell here -- bombs and bullets everywhere," one young expatriate NGO worker told Reuters. "But if they knew how good my life is out here, they would come over themselves." But for those living in the lush green hills that rise above the small capital, the war is a frightening reality. Many spend nights outdoors, hiding in fields for fear that armed rebels or government soldiers will come to their houses to loot and destroy. "We have forgotten what normal life is," 43-year-old Evelyne told Reuters. "One day it is quiet and we thank God, but the next day we hear bullets and it is time to run away, leaving our fields and our cattle." Evelyne's home is near the Kibira forest, which Burundi's two main rebel groups use as a base. The Burundian army often ventures to the area, launching offensives to root out the Forces of National Liberation (FNL) or the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD). "They all say they are protecting us, but none of them do," Evelyne said. "When they fight each other, it is us who die." WAR IGNORED While the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda and its aftermath was relatively widely covered by Western media, Burundi's conflict has been largely ignored outside the region. The two countries share the same ethnic divide -- majority Hutu, minority Tutsi -- but unlike in Rwanda, Tutsis have dominated Burundi's government since independence from Belgium in 1962 and have committed many of the worst massacres. Since the Belgians left, politicians at all levels have manipulated ethnic divisions between Hutus and Tutsis, with extraordinarily violent results. At least 100,000 people were killed in 1972 when the army put down a Hutu uprising, wiping out a generation of educated Hutus. The event sealed Tutsi control of government and army. Another 5,000 people died during a 1988 uprising of Hutu farmers and the subsequent army repression. The civil war was sparked in 1993 when the army murdered Melchior Ndadaye, Burundi's first elected Hutu president. The current conflict is thought to have killed around 200,000 people since, but experts say the actual death toll is impossible to assess. "Those figures are very estimated and...have nothing to do with reality," said Pie Ntakarutimana, from the Burundi-based human rights group Ligue Iteka. "It is really difficult to count. When there are more then 100 people dead, who counts them? Who knows about all the massacres going on? People are dying anonymously." REBELLION CONTINUES Last November, a new government sharing power between Hutus and Tutsis was inaugurated under a peace plan brokered by former South African president Nelson Mandela, to try to steer Burundi away from ethnic conflict. But neither of the two main rebel groups have signed a ceasefire, and the ambushes, kidnappings, grenade attacks and raids on the capital have continued. The rebellion is divided, and talks between the various rebel factions and the government have so far yielded little. Both the army and the rebels are accused of indiscriminate killings, and it is civilians who bear the brunt of the suffering. Thousands have been displaced by fighting, fleeing to refugee camps in neighbouring Tanzania or the Democratic Republic of Congo, itself racked by war. In early September, 173 civilians were killed in Itaba, in central Gitega province. Human rights groups have accused the army of deliberately carrying out the killings, which included women and children. The government says it will carry out a formal investigation, but for a population battered by war the mass killing is just another chapter in a seemingly intractable conflict. Back in Bujumbura, a change of wind brings the sound of artillery and grenade explosions echoing back off the hills. The noise is familiar enough and far enough away to allow life to keep going on as normal. "Sometimes I feel like thanking God I was born and live in Bujumbura," said one of the capital's residents, referring to the city's relative safety. He glanced up at the luxury residential district of Kiriri, home to President Pierre Buyoya and most of Burundi's top politicians. "But I also have a question," he said. "Do you really think that if it was Kiriri burning, the war would last even a day longer?"

Pan African News Agency (PANA) 25 Oct 2002 68 percent of Burundians live below poverty line Bujumbura, Burundi (PANA) - Structural economic deficiencies in Burundi have deepened because of its protracted civil war, forcing about 68 percent of the population below the poverty line, officials said at a UN Day function Thursday. According to a document released by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), public investment in Burundi has seriously decreased, with the bulk of available resources going to civil service salaries, military spending and debt servicing, rather than fighting poverty. It further noted that foreign aid fell from 280 million US dollars in 1992 to 90 million in 1999, and that Burundi's public debt currently stands at 1.4 billion US dollars, or 14 percent of GDP. The report said more than 95 percent of Burundians work in the primary sector, which accounts for more than 50 percent of GDP. It noted, though, that the displacement of the population, climate change, lack of input and dwindling aid has weakened the sector. Due to forcible displacements, about 1.2 million Burundians live in extreme poverty in and outside Burundi, the report indicated. It also noted that poverty was mostly felt in the sphere of basic education, health and employment, due to the destruction of schools, displacement of people, illiteracy, lack of access to health care and safe drinking water, coupled with a paralysis of the private sector. The new cooperation framework between the UNDP and Burundi is aimed at improving the situation, with the specific objectives of reducing the incidence of poverty from 68 to 25 percent of the population by 2010, the document said.

Cote d'Ivore - Ivory Coast (see also France and Nigeria )

NYT 1 Oct 2002 Ethnic Clenching: Misrule in Ivory Coast By NORIMITSU ONISHI ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, Sept. 30 — The conflict that has gripped this country for almost two weeks has its source in xenophobic policies unleashed nine years ago by the death of Félix Houphouët-Boigny. He was the autocrat who made Ivory Coast into one of Africa's most stable countries, keeping close links with France and emphasizing ethnic harmony in a region with sharp divisions. When he went, so did his vision. In the decade since, the three men who have led Ivory Coast have differed greatly, except on one front: all three have used ethnic and religious differences to gain and keep power, at the expense of national stability. The three leaders, Christians from the south, saw the cold numerical reality that they were outnumbered by Muslims from the north. So they invented a logic, called "ivoirité," which held that the southerners were the only pure Ivoirians. Over the years, through one ploy or another, the leaders made sure that Alassane D. Ouattara, a popular northerner who would almost surely have carried a general election, was disqualified from running for president. They said he was a phony Ivoirian, a citizen from neighboring Burkina Faso, even though he had once served as Mr. Houphouët-Boigny's prime minister. Under the politics of xenophobia, ordinary northerners began facing daily harassment from the authorities, including the police and military. Northerners were removed from positions of power in the security forces, or shunted aside. In large part it is these disaffected soldiers who rose up in three cities two Thursdays ago. And today the country's ethnic and religious divisions are physically manifest. Ivory Coast is split in half. The rebel soldiers control the north and the government clings to the south. So far, President Laurent Gbagbo's government has rejected any suggestion that internal problems may have caused the uprising. To do so would, of course, mean acknowledging misguided ethnic policies. At first the government said the uprising stemmed from a failed coup by the former military ruler, Gen. Robert Gueï, who during the unrest was killed with a bullet through the head. Then, through its media, the government shifted the blame to Mr. Ouattara and the president of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaoré. The rebels were branded terrorists. At a meeting of West African leaders in Accra, Ghana, on Sunday, Abdoulaye Wade, the president of Senegal, who is known for his blunt talk, seemed to dismiss the Ivoirian government's explanation. "It was not a coup d'état," he said. "It was not a mutiny. It is a group of military — former military, including officers — who have taken up arms to make a number of demands." What Mr. Wade left unsaid, at least this time, was how the government's policies had pushed those soldiers and others to such a desperate act. Last year he was not so reserved on the subject, asserting that a native of Burkina Faso faced more discrimination living in Ivory Coast than an African living in France. The Ivoirian government's policies were condemned throughout West Africa, though more discreetly. On a continent with poorly educated, easily manipulated people, many believe that talk of ethnic purity opens a Pandora's box leading to catastrophes like the Rwandan genocide. In Nigeria, generals held power for years, partly by arguing that politicians would inflame ethnic and religious divisions for selfish goals. Since Nigeria was handed over to civilian politicians in 1999, about 10,000 Nigerians have been killed in ethnic and religious clashes fueled by politicians, more than at any other time in the country's history. West African leaders may feel little genuine sympathy for the Ivoirian government's present predicament. But given its regional importance, they quickly agreed in Accra on Sunday to send mediators and perhaps, eventually, a peacekeeping force. "A threat to Ivory Coast is a threat to all of us," said President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, the country that would almost certainly dominate any regional peacekeeping force. During the glory years under Mr. Houphouët-Boigny, Western and African tourists flocked to Abidjan, the so-called Paris of Africa, where they could go to the Hôtel Ivoire and skate on its ice rink. The hotel so impressed Mobutu Sese Seko, the ruler of Zaire, that he had a similar one built in Kinshasa (albeit without the rink). In the Ivoirian capital, Yamoussoukro, tourists visit Notre Dame de la Paix basilica, which is bigger than St. Peter's in Rome. But since a coup in 1999, instability has become part of everyday life here. Soldier mutinies have occurred every few months. Restaurants and clubs have had to factor in periodic curfews. The Gbagbo government has pursued the politics of ethnic exclusion. Tourists have scratched the country off their lists. The ice at the Hôtel Ivoire rink has melted. And what used to be one of Africa's most stable countries may soon witness the arrival of the West African intervention force — the same one deployed in recent years in failed states like Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Prévention Génocides (Belgium) 3 Oct 2002 Release Ivory Coast , A Crisis Foreseen The Ivory Coast is now undergoing an attempted coup d’état that has cost numerous deaths. The situation is worsening and becoming more complex each day. Some observers are warning of another Rwanda. For more than two years, the non-governmental organization (NGO), Prévention Génocides, based in Brussels, Belgium, has attempted to call attention both to Ivorians and to Western policy makers, of the dangers of ethnic, xenophobic identity politics that has developed for a dozen years during the Ivorian economic crisis. A film was produced entitled, "Ivory Coast, An Explosive Identity Crisis". Paradoxically, this alert got more attention in Ivory Coast than in Belgium and the West. The film was broadcast on Ivorian television in August 2001 and provoked a debate in the press. Steps of the original analysis Our involvement began in October 2000. A team of sociologists of our NGO was sent to the Ivory Coast . Field research was carried out including hundreds of in depth interviews at many levels of the society and in many geographical regions. An analysis of recorded narratives, testimony, and images by Spring 2001 resulted in a clear diagnosis: Ivorian society is undermined by several crises: A crisis of the political elites: a battle among four leaders ( Bédié, Guéi, Ouattara and Gbagbo ) has rocked the political life of the country for ten years and has often led to petty tactical calculation to gain or preserve power at the expense of the long-term goals of development. Corruption has also undermined the foundations of the rule of law. A crisis of finances of the Ivorian state due primarily to the fall of the price of cacao, and the suspension of certain international assistance in light of evidence of massive theft of subsidies from the European Fund for Development in the health sector. A deep identity crisis. For almost ten years the concept of "ivoirité" ("ivorianess") was fabricated by politicians in search of legitimacy. An ideology and propaganda directed by those in power created, little by little, in the social imagination two identity groups: the "100 percent Ivorians" from the "roots"; and the "dubious Ivorians, " of whom the leader is Alassane Ouattara, leader of the opposition RDR (former prime minister of Houphoët Boigny.) He was excluded from elections for his "dubious Ivorianess." Besides him, his whole community is targeted. Beyond his own community, there is a linkage of "dubious Ivoirians" with foreigners. An equation is readily made: Ouattara = RDR militants = people of the north = Muslims = Dioulas = foreigners. In these representations, the cleavage "us versus them" is deeply embedded. There is nothing "natural" about such images. They are socially constructed. In Ivory Coast , there is the desire to portray one part of the inhabitants as not belonging to the political community. It is the place of birth, the village, and blood that count. This is the logic of a political elite. It is a politicization of identity to gain or maintain power. It is an ideology founded on purity of identity determined by origin. It is a paradox that such an illusion of identity founded on blood, on a myth of a common past, appears in particularly mixed societies, thereby including some and excluding others. It is said of a naturalized Ivorian whose family has lived in the country for many generations,"It is not because of his papers that he is Ivorian." Thus the culture is "naturalized." It becomes, as the sociologist Michel Wieviorka says, a sort of "genetic" attribute that one acquires at birth and that one cannot acquire otherwise. This is the idea of "essence." It is why in the Ivory Coast , certain people call themselves "100 percent Ivorian" of multisecular origin. It is this way that collective life is deeply racialized and ethnicized. It leads to practices of apartheid, of forced emigration, and finally of ethnic cleansing. A second aspect of this ideology and propaganda is the self-perceived victimization of the "true Ivorians." They are would-be victims of the RDR, the Dioulas, the foreigners, the foreign press, etc. Stereotypes are durably fixed in people’s minds and feed their hatreds. These social markings are powerful. The propaganda feeds fear and hatred of the "other", perceived as impure and threatening. Humiliations, extortions, and discriminations are daily. They constitute social landmines, and the smallest thing can make them explode. The virus of origins and the powderkeg The Ivory Coast appears to us to be a veritable powderkeg. Most of the elements that preceded the conflagrations like the ethnic cleansings in Bosnia and Kosovo or the Rwandan genocide are present. These are what we call the "constants." Among the most important of these is the policy of manipulating identity and ethnicity. We are not determinists. On the contrary, we are convinced like the writer Gilles Deleuze, that history has forks in the road, and we think that even if the probability of a crisis is only one in a hundred, one must do everything to avoid it. On the strength of this sociological analysis, and despite acts of intimidation by certain Ivoirian groups, we have attempted to deliver our message of prevention and alert. We have notably pled for a substantial augmentation of the aid to the Ivory Coast . (We have often called publicly for a Marshall Plan for the Ivory Coast .) This aid should be directed to new socio-cultural conditions in addition to the classical criteria of good government and respect of formal rights. For example: judgment of those responsible for ethno-political crimes, such as the perpetrators of the mass grave at Yopougon, because impunity always feeds the spiral of desire for vengeance; condemnation of the concept of "ivoirité" (Ivorianess); promotion of multiculturality, development of a politics of integration, etc. Along with good government and formal democracy, addressing these new social dimensions would reverse the logic of hatred and rejection of the "other". Prevention: Mission Impossible? In doing this, we have been confronted with difficulties in the work of prevention and in alerting Western decision makers. This situation presents the following obstacles to awareness: How can one act when very little has happened so far? The regime of Laurent Gbagbo has launched several initiatives for reconciliation, including a forum held in Autumn 2001. Why not let oneself be convinced that the Ivory Coast is taking the route of pacification, because that is the line of Ivorian opinion leaders? Based on our sociological analysis of the Ivorian culture (the images of self and of others, the relationship to the world, to time and space), we remain convinced that the conditions for long-term reconciliation have not yet come together. Without them, reconciliation will be reduced to an arrangement at the top, which can only leave buried the seeds for future conflict. As Claudine Vidal (CNRS, specialist on the Ivory Coast ) has noted, "the political action of the principal leaders is entirely oriented toward the 2005 presidential elections, without addressing the fundamental conflicts that divide the society." (Le Monde, 27 September 2002) The blindness of the Western lenders In reality, international lenders are content to condition the resumption of aid, notably that of the European Union, upon economic structural adjustment (privatization) and formal political reforms. It is a sign of short-term memory. Collette Braeckman, journalist for the Brussels newspaper "Le Soir" and recognized internationally as an expert on Africa, reminds us in her interview at the end of the film, "Ivory Coast, An Explosive Identity Crisis" that in Rwanda, the Arusha Accords, praised by Western foreign ministries as a decisive step for reconciliation, preceded the genocide by only a few months. The fundamental problem is to understand the reality of a society, of its dynamics, in order to deduce the role that international aid can play. The sociological task attempts to understand the rationality of individual or collective actions. It analyzes representations, beliefs, values, and social discourse that determine the social behavior of actors as functions of the results they expect. For a sociologist, abstract collective entities such as the state, the nation, the law, or the school have no autonomous existence by themselves, but can only be understood according to the representations of actors, even when these abstractions are the objects of proceedings by jurists or diplomats. A powderkeg and the pyromaniacs Today, in the light of the sparks from the fire, we see that the risks that we pointed out yesterday, are unfortunately becoming realities. Listening to the speeches of political leaders and reading the press, one is led to conclude that the fragile reconciliation process is dead. More than ever, fear and hatred of the other are manufactured. Old stereotypes are again dominant. Everything is to be done again. If only the worst could be avoided! What is to be done? As administrators and directors of the NGO, "Prévention génocides" : We earnestly and strongly call upon all Ivorians (political, press, and leaders of civil society) to voluntarily abstain from any act that could accentuate the ethnicization of the conflict. This often results from speech that is indirect but damaging. For example, When Alassane Ouattara reported that "the police who came to assassinate me spoke the Bété language," his words could be perceived as suspicion cast upon the whole ethnic group of his rival, the president Gbagbo. When the President called on television for the "cleansing of the neighborhoods" and the press of his party cited explicitly Burkina Faso as an invader of the Ivory Coast , such statements could appear as encouragement of ethnic cleansing of Burkinans living in the country. They are about three million out of sixteen million inhabitants ! Passing from these words to deeds, the police have burned many Abidjan shantytowns whose population is mostly of foreign origin. All references to individual acts can in this context lead to the collective: it is the whole group that is immediately designated for popular revenge, if not for massacres. The most xenophobic Ivorian press fans the flames, accusing pell-mell the Western media, neighboring African countries, opposition parties, and foreigners on Ivorian soil of wanting to destroy the country. They are thus putting in place all the conditions necessary for a large-scale conflagration. We ask the international community to quickly conceive an integrated plan for the support of the Ivory Coast in order to create conditions for long-term reconciliation. We reiterate our call for criteria of good government and formal democracy to be well-suited to socio-cultural conditions in the Ivorian context. Without this intervention, the worst-case scenario is to be feared. If the calls for xenophobic and ethnic hatred do not stop and if, on the contrary, politicians continue to exploit ethnicity, the following may occur: Massive emigration of a major part of the three million Burkinans living in Ivory Coast to their country of origin. For Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries on earth, this would be a catastrophe; they would be inassimilable because of incapacity to receive, much less to feed, such an influx of refugees. An essential resource of its fragile economy would disappear – financial transfers from its citizens working in Ivory Coast . The economy of the Ivory Coast would probably be heavily affected by the brutal disappearance of such a large number of laborers essential to the survival and vitality of its economy. Consequences for Ivorian society would be frightening: virulent ethnic hate speech, growing rancor, search for economic scapegoats, and social catastrophe that could lead straight to civil war. Contrary to what is sometimes prophesied, this will not be a "simple" war of secession between North and South. Many religious and ethnic groups of the Ivory Coast are present in each city, village, neighborhood, and courtyard of the country, as intricately inter-related as are the Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda. A civil war in Ivory Coast would soon turn into thousands of local pogroms, and if there were secession, it would come at a price of mass forced displacements of the population as occurred in India and Pakistan. The dissolution of the state and the rule of force that would follow could only lead the Ivory Coast into a situation like Sierra Leone or Liberia, with all the predictable effects on the stability of the sub-region, of which the Ivory Coast is the economic heart (40 percent of the GDP of the West African Economic Community). Brussels, 3 October 2002

News 24 SA 4 Oct 2002 Ivory Coast's demons are back Abidjan - Ivory Coast's ethnic demons are coming back to haunt it, two weeks after a rebellion, which has seen mostly Muslim rebels from the north - soldiers who had fled into exile, and mutineers - seize half the west African cocoa-producing nation. The demons, some let loose by former leaders, are national identity, xenophobia, tribal tensions, and animosity between the predominantly Muslim and animist north and the mostly Christian south. President Felix Houphouet-Boigny, who ruled from independence from France in 1960 until his death in 1993, was able to keep the demons bottled up, but they emerged triumphant as soon as he was gone. President Laurent Gbagbo, a Christian from the southwest, set up a National Reconciliation Forum towards the end of last year in a bid to end several years of political violence, but it manifestly failed to bring Ivory Coast's disparate population of 16 million together. The country is now cut in half, with the rebels controlling part of the centre and the whole of the north, from Guinea to Ghana, while the loyalist army controls the south and the Atlantic seaboard. The two sides were due on Friday to sign a ceasefire as a prelude to examining the rebels' grievances. The last census, in 1995, which gave Ivory Coast a population of 15 million (it is estimated to have increased by a million since then), showed that close to a third of the population - 4.5 million - were foreign-born. Most of the "foreign Ivorians" were immigrants who had come from nearby west African states to work. Houphouet-Boigny encouraged the migrants to come to Ivory Coast to work in the cocoa plantations - under his rule, the country became the world's biggest producer, now exporting 40% of the world total - or to set up businesses. He gave them land, government jobs, and the right to vote. In 1990, Gbagbo, running against Houphouet-Boigny in presidential elections, contested that policy, accusing the president of using the foreigners as "electoral fodder". But it was Houphouet-Boigny's successor as president, Henri Konan Bedie, who campaigned from 1995 for the concept of "Ivorianness" - excluding foreigners, and Ivorians with foreign roots, from the mainstream. That explosive concept quickly saw Muslim immigrants from countries such as Burkina Faso and Mali make common cause with their "brothers" in the north of Ivory Coast. In many cases they were ethnic Dioulas, from a tribe that spreads across half a dozen countries in the region. In recent years, conflict between locals and immigrants over land has become a major problem, particularly in the southwest, leading to thousands of Burkinabes being displaced, and some of them killed. Even if the rebels advance south into territory controlled by Houphouet-Boigny's tribe, the Bouale, its political and military heart will remain in the north. Some pro-government newspapers in Abidjan are fanning the flames by describing leading opposition figure and former prime minister Alassane Ouattara, a Muslim Dioula from the northern town of Kong who has taken refuge with the French ambassador in Abidjan, as a Burkinabe. The rebels are making it clear they are fed up with such discrimination. "We're sick of being described as Malians, as Burkinabes," said one. "We're Ivorians, like everybody else. Enough is enough." Dozos, a hunter caste renowned for their markmanship, and reputed to have mystical powers, are also fighting alongside the rebels. Abidjan has long accused Ouattara of using Dozos as a private army. A diplomat in Abidjan opined that the current crisis was a clear posthumous indication of the role "the old man", as Houphouet-Boigny was respectfully known, played during his 33 years in power. "He alone, like Tito in Yugoslavia, was capable of keeping the country united." Ouattara, whose nickname, from his initials, is ADO, took refuge with the French ambassador during the first day of the uprising, with the blessing of the government. Defence Minister Moise Lida Kouassi warned at the time: "If anyone touches a single hair on ADO's head this country will explode." Since then, many of the officials of Ouattara's Rally of Republicans party have been arrested and others are in hiding, as the security forces, officially hunting down rebels, have stormed into shantytowns inhabited largely by migrants, where they have burnt down hundreds of shacks. The Burkinabes and other foreigners are now the best customers of the vendors selling rosettes in the Ivorian colours of orange, white and green - wearing their "patriotism" on their lapels. - Sapa-AFP

AFP 7 Oct 2002 Ivory Coast president snubs peace efforts Jacques Lhuillery Posted Mon, 07 Oct 2002 Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has not only angered West African mediators by snubbing their attempts to broker a ceasefire with rebel soldiers but also clearly demonstrated that he is now in war mode. The embattled Gbagbo, whose government has been struggling with an army rebellion which has claimed the lives of some 400 people and seen half the country fall into rebel hands, on Sunday spurned mediation attempts after dragging his feet for a week. Going against the counsel of senior regional ministers from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), who had been advocating prudence and a truce, Gbagbo now appears to have burnt his bridges. The army uprising, which began on September 19, shows no sign of abating and all-out war seems the only option left. Signing of peace pact deferred The rebels are bent on toppling Gbagbo, whose regime they say fosters a policy of discrimination against the Muslim-majority population of northern Ivory Coast. The ECOWAS-brokered ceasefire accord was due to be signed on Friday but was deferred as both sides examined the fine print. On Saturday, the Ivorian government failed to send a document authorising a military official to sign the pact on Gbagbo's behalf. On Sunday, Gbagbo finally spelt out the truth: he was not signing the pact because his was a "legitimate" government which could not be put on a par with rebels. He said the rebels had to disarm before any pact was signed. Mediators furious at Gbagbo’s refusal to sign The ECOWAS mediators were furious. Drawn from about half a dozen countries, they immediately packed their bags and left, without attending a dinner hosted by Gbagbo. Gbagbo on Sunday claimed that the ECOWAS mediators had "moved away" from the tenets of an ECOWAS emergency summit in the Ghanaian capital Accra on September 29, where it decided to despatch mediators to broker peace and to send regional peace keepers to act as a buffer force between government troops and rebels. "It's totally false, it's a lie!", a minister from the ECOWAS contact group exclaimed as he left the Ivorian presidency. Gbagbo “open to dialogue” – aide However, an aide to Gbagbo said the Ivorian president "is open to dialogue and is not opposed in principle to a cessation of hostilities," but parroted the line that ECOWAS mediators "must know that legitimacy is on the side of Laurent Gbagbo." The president's stance has upset local politicians. A leading politician said he feared the crisis could assume "dangerous" ethnic proportions. Crisis takes on ethnic overtones Ivory Coast's state television on Sunday, in an echo of "hate-radio" Mille Collines in Rwanda during the genocide there, said the "key to victory" against rebel soldiers who have overrun half the country lay in expelling immigrants from neighbouring Burkina Faso. "According to a 1998 census, Burkinabes represent 50 percent of foreigners living in Ivory Coast with 2.3 million individuals," the journalist said. Ivory Coast has blamed a regional "rogue state" for the military uprising which has effectively split the country into Muslim-dominated north and Christian-dominated south. An Ivorian daily has directly fingered neighbouring Burkina Faso, a charge Ouagadougou denies.

AFP 10 Oct 2002 Ivory Coast rebels rule out ceasefire, want transitional government KORHOGO, Ivory Coast, Oct 10 (AFP) - Rebels in Ivory Coast believe a ceasefire with the government army is now out of the question, and want President Laurent Gbagbo to quit to make way for a transitional government, an insurgent commander declared Thursday. Warrant Officer Messamba Kone, the rebel chief in Korhogo, the main town in the Muslim-dominated north of the west African nation, said he had agreed on these aims with Master Sergeant Tuho Fozie, a rebel commander in the central city of Bouake, during a telephone conversation Thursday. "What interests us from now on is the liberation of Ivory Coast, with a transitional government," he told AFP. "Our principal concern now is the reconconstruction of Ivory Coast, so that anyone who wants to can contest democratic elections." The rebels had earlier said they were open to a ceasefire. Gbagbo told west African mediators last week that he would sign one, and then negotiate with the rebels on their grievances, but reneged on that pledge on Sunday, saying he would not put his elected government on a par with the insurgents. The rebels, former soldiers who have returned from exile, and mutineers, want an end to discrimination against northerners. Kone confirmed rebel plans to launch a general offensive as the uprising enters its fourth week. The insurgents hold the entire north and key towns in the centre, west and east. "We shall attack simultaneously on several fronts, including the town of Daloa," Kone said, adding that the rebels were just 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Daloa, a strategic crossroads town in the western cocoa-growing region. Ivory Coast produces 40 percent of the world's cocoa crop, and prices have shot up to 17-year highs on fears that the imminent harvest will be disrupted. Foreign journalists in Korhogo saw men and weapons leaving the northern town Thursday. Rebels said they were headed for Daloa. An AFP correspondent in Korhogo also saw around 100 young men enrolling in rebel ranks. \

Xinhua 11 Oct 2002 WFP launches emergency operation in Cote d'Ivoire LAGOS, Oct 11, 2002 (Xinhua via COMTEX) - The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) Friday said the agency launched an emergency operation in Cote d' Ivoire to address pending "large-scale humanitarian crisis." Btu Arnold Vercken, deputy WFP directory general for west Africa, told a press conference here that the agency's normal operations would be replaced by the emergency program in the troubled country, where more than 300,000 people, mostly children, have been receiving WFP food. Vercken said that the priority is helping people coming south from rebel-held areas and foreigners who had been attacked. There was heavy fighting this week around rebel stronghold of Bouake during two days of failed assaults by government troops. The International Committee of the Red Cross said up to 150,000 people had left the strategic central city of Bouake since fighting erupted after a failed coup three weeks ago. The WFP said it was looking at what it could do in the event of massive movements of people within west African region, which has been already racked by hundreds of thousands of refugees from wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The security situation in Cote d' Ivoire is becoming increasingly volatile as thousands of terrified people were on the move in the west African country on Friday. The rebel soldiers, who are holding about half of the world's largest cocoa-producing country, have extended their control in the north by holding a string of towns in the center, north and west since they launched a rebellion on Sept. 19. A diplomatic mission launched by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) collapsed earlier this week after President Laurent Gbagbo refused to agree to a ceasefire. However, Gbagbo is facing increased pressure to seek a negotiated settlement to the crisis. The ECOWAS has said that it will try and revive negotiations between the government and rebels. ECOWAS Executive Secretary Mohamed Ibn Chambas is to travel to the country on Saturday. Meanwhile, Senegalese Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio is in Cote d'Ivoire on a new mediation mission and is hoping to meet rebel leaders in the second largest city of Bouake, on Friday. France, the former colonial power in Cote d' Ivoire which has sent logistical and military assistance as well as more than 1,000 troops, has urged Gbagbo to sign a ceasefire with the rebels. The rebellion has plunged Cote d' Ivoire into its worst crisis since its independence from France in 1960 and has claimed hundreds of lives and wounded thousands of people.

Reuters 11 Oct 2002 Frightened civilians flee in Ivory Coast By Silvia Aloisi BOUAKE, Ivory Coast, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Thousands of terrified people were on the move in Ivory Coast on Friday after rebels vowed to press on with a revolt that has sent prices for the cocoa beans used to make chocolate spiralling higher. In a country poisoned by years of ethnic hate, the three-week-old war has sharpened divisions between the mostly Christian south, the Muslim north and immigrants who make up a quarter of the West African country's 16 million people. The rebels, who hold most of the north, were expected to meet later on Friday with a new regional negotiator, Senegal's Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, but there was little sign the latest mediation effort would fare better than the last. "There is no more ceasefire to negotiate," one rebel, Cherif Ousmane, told reporters in the stronghold of Bouake, the biggest city after the coastal business hub Abidjan 360 km (225 miles) to the south, where President Laurent Gbagbo is based. "We're going to tell him to tell Gbagbo to resign before we march on Abidjan," he added. Gbagbo's forces launched a major offensive this week but failed to capture Bouake. They have said they are keeping to their positions to allow the rebel Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast to consider a government offer of talks if they disarm. But Cherif ruled out freezing the front line, saying: "While we're talking, if we can advance, we will advance". THOUSANDS FLEE ETHNIC ATTACKS Thousands of people have fled their homes in Bouake and in the main cocoa growing region further west, fearing more ethnic bloodshed after several people were burned to death this week. French troops helped foreigners escape from behind rebel lines and the International Committee of the Red Cross says up to 150,000 people have fled Bouake, a city of over 500,000 that is running short of food three weeks after a failed coup. The U.N. World Food Programme said it was looking at what it could do in the event of massive movements of people within a region already burdened by hundreds of thousands of refugees from wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The conflict has fed a tide of nationalism in Ivory Coast, increasing ethnic tensions. Gbagbo has urged an end to a wave of attacks on immigrants, but foreign relations remain tense. "If the abuses and humiliations suffered by our compatriots in Ivory Coast should continue despite our repeated appeals, the people of Burkina Faso and its government are prepared for any eventuality," Prime Minister Paramanga Ernest Yonli of Ivory Coast's northern neighbour Burkina Faso said on Thursday. Millions of Burkina Faso nationals live in Ivory Coast, providing labour to the world's biggest cocoa industry. In the western region where most beans are grown, at least 5,500 immigrants, mostly from Burkina Faso, have fled farms after attacks by locals who accuse them of backing the rebels. Benchmark London cocoa futures neared 17-year highs on Thursday as rebels advanced to just 30 km (20 miles) from the key industry town of Daloa. Traders said cocoa shipments had already been disrupted since fighting began on September 19. Some of the rebels are soldiers who say they were unfairly kicked out of the army. But they also complain of ethnic discrimination and say they will put in place a system in which all Ivorians are treated equally so fair elections can be held.

IRIN 11 Oct 2002 Increasing number of civilians flee war zones YAMOUSSOUKRO, 11 Oct 2002 (IRIN) - Three weeks after the 19 September failed coup d'etat, the number of civilians fleeing Cote d'Ivoire's "war zones" was increasing rapidly and the administrative capital, Yamoussoukro, was by Friday turning into a transit town for the displaced. The secretary general of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Mohammed Ibn Chambas, was expected to return to the commercial capital, Abidjan, on Saturday to re-start peace negotiations between the government and rebellious soldiers controlling the "war zones", news reports said. President Laurent Gbagbo had on Tuesday said he was not opposed to talks as long the rebels first disarmed. He also said the ECOWAS chairman President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal had suggested a new peace proposal. In Yamoussoukro, four hundred people arrived on Thursday at St. Augustin cathedral from Bouake, 111 km to the north, church officials said. Some had walked through the bushes. The number, mostly women and children, was the largest to arrive at the town in a single day. They told church workers that "several hundreds were still on their way". Their displacement was motivated by "fears of an attack" on the besieged town of Bouake, they told Church officials. Some 114 people had arrived on Wednesday. A few rooms have been temporarily converted into sleeping rooms, Cathedral officials said. As at 9 October, the cathedral had received 1,065 people of whom 603 were women, 232 children and 230 men. Yamoussoukro's Catholic Diocesan Center has also been transformed into a shelter area and had received 450 people. Some of them were from the northern town of Korhogo, 353 km from Yamoussoukro. A logistics base was being established by the World Food Programme (WFP) in Yamoussoukro "to respond to the unfolding crisis in the northern areas of the country". Plans were being made to provide emergency food aid rations to 2,000 displaced people. WFP, in a press statement in Abidjan on Friday, also reported that together with its partners, it was assessing the food aid needs of nearly 10,000 displaced immigrant workers in the western Man region. These included 6,500 people in Duekoue town. It was discussing with the Burkina Faso government a mechanism to cater for a massive return of immigrants from Cote d'Ivoire, of whom some 4,500 had reportedly already arrived in Burkina Faso. WFP said five transit centers would be set up and assistance would be provided for two months. A mechanism was also being set up in Mali to respond to possible return of Malians, of whom 4,000 had already crossed back. "The UN Country Team has mapped out available resources in the country and put together a set of Reponses for the Malians," the WFP statement said. Similar discussions were going on with Ghana. "The WFP food stocks in Ghana are very limited and by next week 40 tons of emergency food rations and high energy biscuits will be airlifted to the country," WFP said. In Yamoussoukro, church officials said food, accommodation and medical attention ranked as the most urgent needs as some walked for days with little or no food. Most of the displaced, they said, were on "transit" and would be assisted to join their families in the economic hub Abidjan or other major towns. The Ivorian Ministry of Solidarity and Social Security, The Red Cross, NGOs such as CARITAS and Medecins sans Frontieres, the District of Yamoussoukro, some business owners and others had been providing aid to the displaced. A UN inter-agency humanitarian needs assessment of the displaced was being conducted in the areas around Yamoussoukro, Bouake and neighbouring towns.

Reuters 15 Oct 2002 Shooting Sweeps Across Key Ivory Coast Cocoa Town By David Clarke DALOA, Ivory Coast (Reuters) - Machinegun fire and explosions Tuesday swept across Ivory Coast's battle-scarred town of Daloa, which has changed hands twice in four days of fighting. Rebels who control most of the north of the country after a failed September 19 coup said they had sent massive reinforcements to fight off a government offensive at Daloa. "Parts of Daloa are putting up resistance (to government forces). We have sent massive reinforcements," Guillaume Soro Kigbafori, secretary-general of the political wing of the rebel Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI) told Reuters by phone. Fighting has plunged the West African country into crisis, left hundreds dead and forced tens of thousands from their homes, terrifying a region little prepared to cope with the turmoil that could spill over from a full-blown civil war. Days of fighting in Daloa, a hub for the cocoa industry in the world's biggest grower, has pushed futures to their highest level in nearly 17 years, though prices were off their highs on Tuesday. The town is a microcosm of the political, ethnic and religious tensions that have poisoned Ivory Coast in recent years and which have been sharpened by the rebellion. On one side of the central town are southerners, for the most part Christians and backers of the government. On the other are Muslim northerners who cheered the arrival of the rebels, many of them their kinsmen. Army spokesman Jules Yao Yao called on citizens not to take the law into their own hands, and not to turn it into an ethnic or religious conflict. HEAVY FIGHTING Monday's fighting left Daloa, 450 km (250 miles) northwest of Abidjan, littered with smashed and burned vehicles. A cemetery worker said 16 bodies brought in included one young man caught in crossfire. Witnesses said the others were mostly rebels, including one wearing the charms of a traditional northern Dozo hunter, believed to give magic protection. The rebels, who say they want to hold fresh elections and end ethnic discrimination, said Monday they had stopped all negotiations, saying Angolan forces had flown in to help President Laurent Gbagbo, himself a Christian from the west. "It was the Angolans who cleaned up this sector," said Londry Tagro, 29. "We know that it was the Angolans because of their special combat uniforms and because they are much fitter than our men." President Gbagbo has spoken of seeking help from friendly countries, though not specifically troops. Angolan embassy officials repeated their denial Tuesday that Angolan forces were in Ivory Coast either officially or as mercenaries. Some of the soldiers on the pickup trucks cruising Daloa's streets wore battle-dress that was clearly different from that of the Ivorian forces, but they would not speak to reporters. "We are ready to systematically massacre the Angolan soldiers who are on our soil and we have the means to do it," said commander Cherif Ousmane in the rebel stronghold of Bouake, 225 miles north of Abidjan. Senegalese envoy Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, who has been trying to bring the two sides together, said he was still waiting to hear from the rebels after their pullout. "What we want is to convince them it is in the best interest of the country to sign an agreement," he told Reuters. He said he would not comment on the possible presence of Angolans. West African countries fear that a civil war in Ivory Coast could send millions of refugees spreading over their borders and create a crisis even bigger than that resulting from more than a dozen years of war in nearby Liberia and Sierra Leone. Tens of thousands of people have already been displaced by the fighting in northern and western Ivory Coast. "The humanitarian situation in the north...seems to be deteriorating by the day," said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

News24 SA 3 Oct 2002 11:54 - (SA) Rape, a weapon of war Bukavu, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo - Every kick from the child in her belly is a dull reminder to Agnes of the night armed men burst into her home and raped her until she fell unconscious. What local laws remain in Congo's war-ruined east prevent the 20-year-old from having an abortion. "It is a child of evil, but it is also partly my blood, so I don't know what to do. It torments me," she says in a whisper, explaining she was a virgin before the attack. So distraught are the 15 women huddled under a tree at a help centre in the town of Bukavu that occasionally they vomit at the thought of their experiences. Those experiences are steadily emerging as a terrifying pattern of mass rape in Africa's biggest war. Consolate, a 40-year-old mother of eight was raped on three separate occasions over the past two months, most recently by five armed militiamen who stole what little her family had, including four goats and a pig. Borrowed rags "Men who do this are not normal. If I could kill them I would, but it's impossible to catch them," she says through a translator, adding that she is reduced to dressing in rags borrowed from a friend. "They took everything, even my clothes," she says. Such stories are all too common in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where many rural families no longer spend nights at home, opting instead to sleep in groups in the bush "with our ears open" for fear of attacks from the brutal militias and rival rebel soldiers who roam the lawless mountains and forests of the former Zaire with impunity. More than two million people have died in Congo's four-year conflict involving six national armies, several rebel movements and countless bandit gangs all fighting for control over the central African country's vast supply of natural resources, including gold, diamonds and timber. But hidden by taboos and the fear of confession, the added horror of sexual violence used as a weapon of war is only just emerging. "Sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war by most of the forces involved in this conflict. Soldiers and combatants rape and otherwise abuse women and girls as part of their effort to win and maintain control over civilians and the territory they inhabit," said a recent Human Rights Watch report. Ignored crisis The conflict has created the worst and most ignored humanitarian crisis on the planet, observers say. "I can't think of anywhere else where the situation is as bad as it is here. Forget Afghanistan under the Taliban, eastern Congo is probably the worst place in the world to be a woman. And the thing is, very little is being done to change that," said one foreign aid worker requesting anonymity. The region was plunged into anarchy when thousands of Hutu extremists known as Interahamwe fled into Congo's wilds after committing the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Rwanda and an allied Congolese rebel army pursued them, triggering a messy war that has seen Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia support Kinshasa's central government, which has also battled rebel groups backed by Uganda. The civilian population is caught in a circle of violence that includes traditional Mai-Mai warriors who, like the Interahamwe, have links to the government and mostly fight the Rwandans and their rebel allies, the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), who loosely control a vast swath of Africa's third largest nation. The sheer number of factions has dampened hopes for peace that were raised in July by a deal under which Rwanda would pull out troops in exchange for the disarmament of the Hutus. Weapon "Rape is frequently used (by the RCD) as a weapon against women to punish husbands suspected of collaborating with the Mai-Mai. Some combatants are said to have boasted about having infected women they raped with Aids," said a report published this month by a Canadian human rights organisation. Experts estimate that up to 60% of soldiers and militias in Congo are HIV positive. With the massive scale of rape, the long-term consequences for the country are likely to be catastrophic. In some villages such as the remote gold-mining town of Shabunda, up to 80% of women have been raped, witnesses say. Local gynaecologists in Bukavu say women have had their genitals mutilated with sticks, knives, razor blades and guns. Several women have been shot between the legs and killed after being raped by RCD soldiers, according to Human Rights Watch. The hunters follow a pattern, attacking at night or targeting women collecting food, water of firewood from fields. Women and girls are frequently abducted, kept as sex slaves and forced to cook, do laundry, and transport looted goods for their captors. Those who survive abduction or attack are marked for life. Insanity "For many it means death from disease and infection or insanity from the trauma. And because rape is socially unacceptable, women are often shunned by their husbands, families and communities," says Mathilde Muhindo, a nun who runs Bukavu's Olame Centre, where the 15 women under the tree arrived on a recent morning. The centre, which has seen a sharp increase in arrivals recently, tries to provide rape victims with shelter and basic medical care. But with limited means, it can only offer a meal, a hospital visit and a night's accommodation before the victims must return to the hills where attackers wait to strike again. "I have to go back because where can I flee to? If I'm going to die, I will die at home. The entire population is suffering and so am I," says Janine, a 15-year-old girl who was forced by nine Interahamwe armed with machetes and guns to carry goods looted from her village 30km outside Bukavu. Three men raped her before she escaped when they got drunk. Less than 10% of women raped in Congo admit to it because of the social stigma attached, experts say. The extent of the problem is only now surfacing because women have long suffered in silence. "Finally, there are coming and talking because they realise they have nothing left to lose," said a worker from Doctors Without Borders, one of the few foreign agencies helping victims. "I am the object of mockery in my community. It's a double insult because I'm pregnant and I have no hope of getting a husband or reclaiming my dignity. But it's not my fault," says Agnes, who has lost four members of her family in the war.

AFP 10 Oct 2002 Hundreds flee DR Congo fighting into Burundi BUJUMBURA, Oct 10 (AFP) - Over 500 people, mostly women and children, have fled fighting in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to take refuge in Burundi, officials said Thursday in the country's capital Bujumbura. Joseph Havyarimana, a local official in the region, said the refugees had fled across the Rusizi River, which runs along the border between Burundi and the DRC, to escape fighting between anti-government rebels and militia groups which are generally on the side of the government in the vast, mineral-rich country. He said the fighting, pitting militia groups known as Mai-Mai against anti-government forces of the Congolese Rally for Democracy, had taken place in the villages of Ruvunyi and Bwegera, in Citiboke province. The Burundian official said 95 of the refugees had been put up in a local school, while others had been taken in by relatives and friends living in Burundi.

IRIN 11 Oct 2002 Food aid reaches 44,000 people after years of isolation NAIROBI, 11 Oct 2002 (IRIN) - The International NGO World Vision and two UN agencies have begun evaluating a joint food-aid delivery to 44,000 war displaced now living in Ankoro, in the territory of Manono, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Friday. OCHA and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) - partners with World Vision in this relief effort - visited Ankoro on Thursday, where 8,000 malnourished children under five years old are among the internally displaced persons, who have been without aid for three years. Over a three-month period, World Vision will distribute 556 mt of maize, soya, oil, sugar and salt to the displaced. After this period, World Vision and WFP will determine if more aid is still needed. Food distributions are also taking place in Kitanda, Kibao, Kiofwe, Kuboko-Kamina, Kizuki, Kashia, Makena, Kitanda - the towns and villages where the displaced are concentrated. Most of them come from Manono, Nyunzu, Kabalo and Lenge. They had been receiving food aid at the time the war started in August 1998, but this has been interrupted for the last three years by insecurity and the inaccessibility of the area. OCHA reported that the area was "totally isolated" because of the poor state of roads and by the closure of river traffic. The access route to Ankoro is by the railway running northeast from Kamina through Kitanda. The only road capable of taking trucks is that linking Kitanda and Ankoro. The remaining roads in the Manono area can only be used by bicycle or mopeds. Apart from the current aid, World Vision was supplying essential drugs to the Ankoro referral hospital, OCHA reported. "The nutritional situation in this area is not extremely grave, other than the displaced, who do not have land to farm," it added.

VOA News 23 Oct 2002 UN: Armed Groups in DRC Incite Ethnic Hatred , A senior U.N. official says armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are deliberately inciting ethnic hatred to prolong fighting there. The U.N. deputy emergency relief coordinator, Carolyn McAskie, says the international community must act to defuse the situation, or, she says, the country could experience "a massacre of horrific proportions." Ms. McAskie made the remarks at a press briefing after her recent mission to the Congo and Burundi. She said U.N. agencies and non-governmental organizations routinely report widespread killings, torture and other human rights abuses against civilians by armed groups on all sides. Ms. McAskie said in one incident a hospital was surrounded and hundreds of people were killed. She also said children have been turning up in hospitals with mutilations and machete cuts. The Democratic Republic of Congo has been torn by war since 1998 when ethnic Tutsis based in the eastern region revolted against the government. Other armed groups, including rival ethnic-Hutus are also active in the same area. The Hutus fled to eastern Congo after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The United Nations estimates that at least two-and-half million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1998.

Ethiopia

IRIN 3 Oct 2002 Over 60 reported dead in tribal clashes ADDIS ABABA, 3 Oct 2002 (IRIN) - Fierce clashes between rival ethnic groups in western Ethiopia have left more than 60 people dead and forced thousands to flee their homes, an Ethiopian human rights organisation said. According to the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO), the fighting broke out in July between the Agnuak and Nuer tribes who live in Gambella National Regional State, bordering Sudan. It is one of the most remote parts of Ethiopia. “During the conflict great destruction was caused to both human life and property,” EHRCO’s head office in Addis Ababa said. The Nuers claim that their rivals – the Agnuak – have deliberately prevented them from gaining political representation after their vice president died last year. He still has not been replaced. According to EHRCO, the Nuers attacked the Agnuak, burning down dozens of houses in eight local districts. Some 8,700 people were forced to flee their homes. EHRCO says the fighting has still not subsided. “The failure on the part of the appropriate authorities has contributed towards a worsening of the conflict that has caused a lot of damage,” it added. It also warned that the final death toll could be much higher as full details have still not been received. EHRCO argues that the federal government in Ethiopia should step in to ensure that the Nuer tribe regains some kind of political representation in Gambella. It also called for local officials who are found to be complicit in the violence to be brought to justice.

IRIN 11 Oct 2002 UN peacekeepers in confrontations with armed Ethiopians ADDIS ABABA, 11 Oct 2002 (IRIN) - The UN has made an official protest after a group of Ethiopian militiamen illegally entered the temporary security zone (TSZ) and threatened its peacekeepers. The militiamen, who were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, fired several bursts over the heads of the UN Blue Helmets in an angry confrontation inside the demilitarised TSZ. This was the first-ever clash between armed Ethiopian militia and peacekeepers of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE). "Armed threats to the peacekeepers – this is the first of its kind," said Col Rajesh Arya of UNMEE, speaking from the Eritrean capital, Asmara. He added that what happened was a major violation of the peace agreement signed by Eritrea and Ethiopia at the end of the war in December 2000. The TSZ is a 25-km buffer zone between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Villages inside the TSZ are inhabited mainly by Eritreans. Cheikh-Tidiane Gaye, the Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, has delivered a letter of protest to the Ethiopian authorities regarding the clash. UNMEE said that since the two incidents of this nature, which happened on 4 and 5 of October, there had been no further incursions into the buffer zone. It also reported that Ethiopian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Tekeda Alemu promised to investigate. UNMEE said as many as 60 Ethiopian villagers, armed with knives and axes, had entered the TSZ in the central sector with the militiamen. The incidents took place in Irob, about 10 km northeast of Zela Ambesa – a border town that was the scene of heavy fighting during the bloody two-year war between the two countries. Tensions have been high in Irob since the Border Commission announced the new international boundary between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Both countries claimed sections of Irob, and local populations are still unsure where the demarcation will actually be. "The locals on either side are not exactly aware what will be the results once demarcation takes place, so they are not sure whether this area belongs to them or not," Arya said. He noted that tensions increased as villagers wandered with their animals in search of grazing lands into territory that did not belong to them. Arya added that the Ethiopian villagers had made threatening gestures and abused the Indian battalion's peacekeepers, who had approached them to order them to return to Ethiopian territory. The militia then fired over the heads of the soldiers as a warning not to interfere. "Eight militiamen did fire two bursts of rounds into the air threatening the peacekeepers. At the end of it, nobody was hurt and everyone went back to their respective areas," Arya, the UNMEE chief of staff third in the line of command of the 4,200 peacekeepers, said. UNMEE also revealed that villagers along the border had complained about abductions at gunpoint and widespread cattle rustling. It said it believed that many such incidents were being sparked by the severe drought in the region.

Gambia

Agence France Presse, 8 Oct2002 Gambia becomes 13th country to sign ICC immunity deal with US, WASHINGTON, Oct 8 Gambia has become the 13th country to sign a deal with the United States exempting US troops from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the State Department said Tuesday. US and Gambian officials inked a so-called "Article 98" agreement at a ceremony in Banjul on Saturday, spokesman Richard Boucher said. Under the terms of the deal, the west African nation pledged not to extradite US soldiers for prosecution to The Hague-based court that Washington virulently opposes. The United States has concluded similar deals with 12 other countries since the court came into being on July 1 -- Afghanistan, the Dominican Republic, East Timor, Honduras, Israel, the Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Palau, Romania, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Only five of the 13 countries -- Gambia, Honduras, Tajikistan, Romania and the Marshall Islands -- have signed and ratified the Treaty of Rome that created the ICC, the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal. Two others, the Dominican Republic and Uzbekistan, have signed the Rome treaty but not yet ratified it. Israel, along with the United States, signed the treaty but has no intention of ratifying it. Afghanistan, East Timor, Mauritania, Micronesia and Palau have not signed the treaty at all. Washington fears the court may be used as a tool to unfairly prosecute US servicemen and women for political reasons and has warned that it may withdraw military aid to large numbers of countries which refuse to sign Article 98 deals. US diplomats around the world have been racing to negotiate as many agreements as possible since July 1.

Kenya

IRIN 9 Oct 2002 Lawyers boycott courts over constitution NAIROBI, 9 Oct 2002 (IRIN) - Kenya's lawyers on Wednesday boycotted the law courts in various parts of the country, in protest against what they consider to be attempt by the executive and judiciary branches of government to frustrate the ongoing constitutional review process, ahead of this year's crucial general elections. The lawyers are demanding the withdrawal of a case in which the judiciary has sued the Kenya Constitutional Review Commission (KCRC), a body established last year to review the constitution. The judges have expressed a number of reservations to changes proposed in a new draft constitution that affect them and are seeking to block public debate on the draft document. The lawyers, whose have been joined by human rights and other civil society organisations, have however, argued that the judiciary and the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) were planning to prevent the completion of the constitutional review process before the elections, expected in December. The Kenya Television network reported that the lawyers, led by Raychelle Omamo, chairwoman of the Law Society of Kenya, also marched through the streets of the capital, Nairobi, to the high court, but refused to attend court proceedings. The march was joined by hundreds of members of public, according to a journalist who covered the event. President Daniel arap Moi, who under the current constitution has the power to dissolve parliament and call elections at a date he deems suitable, has publicly stated that this year's elections will be conducted under the current constitution. Moi, who is also KANU's national chairman, is due to retire after completing his two five-year terms in office under a multiparty system established in 1992. Meanwhile, the case against the KCRC, which was scheduled to be heard on Wednesday morning was not heard, KTN reported.

Liberia

IRIN 10 Oct 2002 Retracing the footsteps of a nation NEW YORK, 10 Oct 2002 (IRIN) - In a new documentary Liberian filmmaker Nancee Oku Bright chronicles the history of her country since its “colonisation” by freeborn black Americans in the early part of the nineteenth century. Titled “Liberia: America’s Stepchild,” the film analyses US/Liberian ties against the backdrop of the sometimes difficult relationship between the incoming black settlers and the indigenous communities who had occupied the territory for centuries. “Today people generally think of Liberia as a disaster, but it was not always so,” said Oku Bright, who also works for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “It was the only black republic in the sea of colonial Africa and it made the colonisers very uncomfortable and the Africans very proud.” The film begins in the early 1820s when the Washington, DC-based American colonization society tried to send free blacks to Africa. The society’s purpose was to reduce the possibility that free blacks might encourage slaves to revolt against their oppressors and to spread Christianity and “civilization” to the African continent. The documentary retells the early story of Liberia, including its early struggles with disease; the eradication of slavery on its own shores; warring indigenous communities; its evolution as Africa’s first independent republic; and the nurturing of its international diplomatic relations, particularly with the United States. “As someone who got parachuted into the middle of the story in the mid 1980s, this filled in a lot of holes,” former BBC West African correspondent Elizabeth Blunt told IRIN. One hundred and fifty years later, the film explains, Liberians were divided into two distinct groups: the often privileged American descendants – known as “Americo Liberians”- and the indigenous population. It was a division that would sow the seeds of the turmoil that has ravaged Liberia since Samuel Doe, a master-sergeant in the Liberian army, grabbed power in a bloody military coup in 1980, which ultimately led to a seven-year civil war, leaving 150,000 Liberians dead and more than half the population displaced. “Many of the events that occur in Liberia happen partly because people simply don’t know their own history and, in that vacuum, history can be terribly manipulated,” Oku Bright said. Part of what the documentary portrays is that Liberia’s usefulness to the United States ended, in the eyes of U.S. policymakers, with the end of the Cold War, leaving Liberians, who used to call their country “Little America”, with a great sense of disappointment. “I hope that this film can show us how tragedies unfold when there is no political will to do the right thing, either from leaders or from those who they believe to be their allies,” Oku Bright said. Copies of the video can be ordered through the PBS web site.

Libya

Rueters 6 Oct 2002 Shi'ite group threatens Libya over Lebanese cleric BEIRUT, Oct 6 (Reuters) - A shadowy Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim group threatened vengeance on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his country on Sunday over the disappearance of a charismatic cleric 24 years ago. Lebanese Shi'ites have long believed Libya kidnapped and killed Imam Musa al-Sadr, who organised Lebanon's 1.2 million dispossessed Shi'ites, during a visit to Libya in 1978. Libya says Sadr, founder of the pro-Syrian Shi'ite Amal movement, left the country safely. But Lebanese Shi'ites have demanded that Tripoli explain his fate. The Shi'ite Sadr Brigades said proof of Libya's involvement had reached them recently from Iran. "The killing of the leader imam and his companions was confirmed to us through reliable news that reached our brothers in Iran a long time ago and we were able to get a few weeks ago," the statement said. "We shall avenge the blood of the martyred imam...in the appropriate way and at the appropriate time. We shall strike without mercy the interests of Gaddafi and his men in every place on the face of the earth in revenge," it said. It called on Lebanon to sever diplomatic ties with Libya. Libya sent out a call in August for information on the fate of Sadr, after the issue resurfaced several months ago at an Arab summit in Beirut. Shi'ites had protested against allowing Gaddafi to attend the summit and the Sadr Brigades warned they would take unspecified action if he did.

Mozambique

Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo) 28 Oct 2002 Chissano Visits Memorial to Rwandan Genocide Kigali Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano said on Sunday that he had been deeply shocked by a visit to Murambi, one of the sites of appalling massacres during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Speaking to Mozambican journalists, after his Rwandan hosts had shown him the remains of genocide victims at Murambi, in Gikongoro province, Chissano said that, although he was familiar with images of earlier atrocities, such as the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz, what he had seen on Sunday was still a shock. "The feelings I have are of shock and revulsion", he said. "This is something that should never be repeated anywhere in the world". Murambi is about 200 kilometres from Kigali. Here the government has preserved the remains of some of the over 40,000 people who were massacred here in April 1994. Hundreds of human skeletons have been preserved in more than 20 rooms, some of them still bearing the clothes they wore when they were murdered. Some of the skeletons are of babies. One room is filled exclusively with human skulls. A survivor named Mutanka told Chissano how about 40,000 people were enticed to Murambi in the belief that they would obtain protection there (the place was close to a contingent of UN observers). But instead they were slaughtered in an orgy of killing that lasted for two days. "Those who were not shot, were hacked or beaten to death", said Mutanka. "I saw how they killed children by smashing their heads in". During his visit, Chissano laid a wreath on a symbolic grave in memory of the victims. Speaking after this ceremony, Chissano called on Rwandans not to nurture any spirit of revenge. The best way to honour the memory of those who died, he said, was to go forward and rebuild the country. Chissano noted that Mozambique too has passed through a period of great violence in its recent history - but with the difference that in Rwanda the conflict was motivated by hatred. Chissano said that, although a large number of different languages are spoken in Mozambique, "we feel that we are brothers". He said he could not understand how, in a country such as Rwanda, where only one language is spoken, "people were capable of killing their own brothers, sisters, even their own children". He stressed the importance of dialogue as a means of solving problems. In Mozambique, he said, "we learnt that we had to sit down and talk about what happened, in order to guarantee that no Mozambican would ever be used again as an instrument". Perhaps nobody will never know exactly how many people perished in the Rwandan genocide of April-June 1994. The usual estimate given is "over half a million". The victims were mostly from the Tutsi minority, but those moderates among the Hutu majority who opposed the fanatics of the Interahamwe militias were also massacred.

Nigeria

This Day (Lagos) 8 Oct 2002 National Assembly Releases 32 Constitutional Breaches Chuks Okocha, Bature Umar, Tokunbo Adedoja Abuja And Lagos The House of Representatives yesterday said that it was not bound by the plea made last week to the National Assembly by former President Shehu Shagari and one-time military head of state, General Yakubu Gowon to drop the impeachment threat against President Olusegun Obasanjo. The House also released an aggregate 32 constitutional breaches the president allegedly committed. And from the Senate came indication that the upper chamber would take a definite stand on the threat to impeach the president this week after receiving the report of the Senator Mohammed Tukur Liman Ad-Hoc Committee saddled with the task of investigating budgetary and constitutional breaches allegedly committed by Obasanjo. The position of the House was made known by the Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Hon. Farouk Lawan. One of the new charges against Obasanjo is that he unlawfully authorised the Minister of Aviation to deal with the assets and liabilities of Nigerian Airways Limited and the shares of Air Nigeria Plc in a manner purporting to be "privatisation to Airwing Aerospace Limited as a core investor contrary to sections 11, 13 and part 1, of First Schedule to Privatisation and Commercialisation Act No 28 of 1999, which act amounts to gross misconduct." According to Lawan, the House members may meet with Shagari and Gowon before the end of this week, adding that before the request by the former leaders to intervene in the face-off with the executive, the House in conjunction with the Senate had already completed the itemization of the alleged constitutional breaches by the president. In their joint letter last week, Shagari and Gowon had urged the lawmakers to back off from the impeachment proceeding against Obasanjo and allow an amicable resolution of the dispute. But Lawan said that "The House is not prepared to shy away from its constitutional duties." He explained that the House had over two-thirds of the required signatures to commence the impeachment proceedings against the president. The spokesman of the House said that none of those who "have signed the impeachment notice against the president has indicated or served notice of withdrawing from the process," adding "if for anything, members are itching that the process should commence without further delay. "But, we have to hear General Gowon and former President Shagari out first. That is our mark of respect for them. But their intervention does not in any way stop us from doing or performing our constitutional duties," Lawan said. He also ruled out the chances of submitting the 32 charges to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for consideration, stating that the new list is the consensus between the two arms of the National Assembly. And in Lagos yesterday, the National Conscience Party (NCP) questioned the qualification of Gowon and Shagari to mediate in the face-off between Obasanjo and the National Assembly. In a statement signed by its National Secretary, Mr. Femi Aborisade, NCP said that the two leaders while in office at various times breached the nation's constitution and also abused the democratic process. Commenting on General Gowon, NCP said during his regime, democratic norms had no place at all as he was an absolute dictator adding that the former head of state had to be overthrown after nine years in power when it was clear that he wanted to perpetuate himself in power. On Shagari, it said that the ineptitude and corruption that characterised his administration coupled with the unconstitutional deportation of Bornu State majority leader, Alhaji Shugaba Abdulrahman-Darman striped him of any qualification to advise the National Assembly on its constitutional duties. "Only in a country like Nigeria can failed past rulers like Shagari and Gowon have the effrontery to advise on the process of democratic governance and enjoy media reception", it added. The Senate would receive and deliberate on the report of the Senator Mohammed Tukur Liman Ad-Hoc Committee this week. In a chat with THIS DAY, Senate spokesman, Jonathan Zwingina, said the inability of the Senate to take a formal position on the impeachment of the president so far was as result of the non-completion of investigations by the Liman committee. Zwingina said the problems which had hampered the committee's work had been taken care of and that its final report would be made available to the upper chamber within the week. But he did not state the exact date. He said: "You know what caused the delay on the declaration of the position of the Senate on the issue was inability of the Liman committee to submit its report to us, but the committee will file in its report within the week and our position would be made known thereafter on the allegations against the President." Last week, the Senate had to issue a bench warrant for the arrest of the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Jackson Gaius-Obaseki, for his failure to honour summons by the Liman committee. The arrest warrant on the NNPC GMD which followed complaints by Liman, who is also the Senate Leader, was to compel him to supply information on the domestic revenue profile of the company from May 29 1999 to date. The 32 alleged constitutional breaches are as follows: . . (excerpt) . 4. That you, Chief Olusegun Mathew Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo in the year 2000, ordered the deployment of military troops to Odi in Bayelsa State to massacre innocent citizens without recourse to the National Assembly contrary to Section 217(2)(C) of the 1999 Constitution, which requires firstly for some conditions to be prescribed by an Act of the National Assembly for the deployment of the Military in that regard which act amounts to gross misconduct.

IRIN 10 Oct 2002 Obasanjo says Nigeria may intervene in Cote d’Ivoire LAGOS, 10 Oct 2002 (IRIN) - Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo has written the senate saying the country may have to intervene in the conflict in Cote d’Ivoire to protect its citizens there, officials said on Thursday. A top official of Nigeria’s upper legislative chamber told IRIN the letter was addressed to senate president, Pius Anyim. It informed the National Assembly the government was studying the situation in the fellow West African country closely and might intervene to protect millions of Nigerian nationals there if the situation deteriorates. "There is no commitment to deploy troops on combat duty in Ivory Coast," Obasanjo was quoted as saying in the letter. "But I will seek Senate approval when the need arises." The Nigerian government estimates that more than two million of its citizens are resident in Cote d’Ivoire. Following the 19 September mutiny by a section of the country’s armed forces against the government of President Laurent Gbagbo, Nigeria had sent three military aircraft and a small contingent of troops to Cote d’Ivoire’s commercial capital, Abidjan. But the troops and aircraft have since returned with the government explaining it was an exploratory visit. Nigeria had intervened in the past decade in civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone as the dominant power in the Economic Community of West African States regional intervention force known as ECOMOG.

IRIN 10 Oct 2002 Abia governor vows to revive vigilante group LAGOS, 10 Oct 2002 (IRIN) - Governor Orji Kalu of Nigeria’s southeastern Abia State on Wednesday vowed to revive a controversial vigilante group, the Bakassi Boys, which has operated in the region in the past two years but was recently disbanded by the federal government. State-owned Radio Nigeria reported the governor as saying the passage by the state legislature of an enabling law creating the group indicated their operations had popular support. "Nobody has the power - unless they want to cause problems - to stop us from having the vigilante services," Kalu said on the radio. He said when reconstituted in the state, the Bakassi Boys would not engage in extra-judicial killings and would cooperate with the police authorities. The vigilante group was first set up by traders in the main Abia State trading town of Aba in 1999 in response to apparent inability of the police to contain unprecedented levels of violent crime, especially armed robbery. Kalu, who was elected governor of the state in the same year as Nigeria ended more than 15 years of military rule, quickly provided the group government backing. Another southeastern state, Anambra, also adopted the services of the Bakassi Boys the following year under the official name of Anambra Vigilante Services. The group appeared effective in quickly curbing violent crime, but critics and human rights groups were alarmed at their unorthodox methods, including public beheadings and burning of suspected criminals. Amnesty International estimates that more than 1,000 people were summarily executed by the group in two years at Onitsha, the main city in Anambra State. The group has also been blamed for the brutal murder early in September of lawyer, Barnabas Igwe, president of the Onitsha branch of the Nigerian Bar Association, and his wife - both well-known critics of the group and the Anambra State government. In recent months the police authorities have raided the offices of the vigilante groups in Abia and Anambra States, arresting their operatives, confiscating their weapons and freeing scores of detained people. But the latest stance of the Abia governor indicates a continuing conflict in Nigeria between local and federal laws, which has seen states in the south passing laws to create vigilante groups, while those in the mainly Muslim north have passed laws for strict Shari’ah law prescribing punishments including stoning to death for adultery and amputation of limbs for stealing.

Daily Trust (Abuja) NEWS 15 Oct 2002 16 Killed in Fresh Plateau Violence By Buhari Bello And Rakiya Mohammed Jos Sixteen people were reported to have been killed in a renewed attack by suspected Fulani assailants at Haipang village in Barikin Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State. Our correspondents report that the village was attacked at the early hours of yesterday by the Fulani assailants who killed 10 people and destroyed property worth millions of naira during the raid. The Plateau State Joint Task Force on Internal Security said it killed six of the retreating Fulani assailants in a shoot-out immediately after the incident. The State Commissioner for Information, Dr. Patrick Dokun, disclosed in a statement that those killed were suspected armed Fulani's who allegedly burnt down several houses and injured many people in the raid. According to the statement made available to Daily Trust in Jos, the commissioner said that residents of Kassa blocked the Haipang-Barikin Ladi road in what he described as self-defence. The action, however, led to a serious traffic problem along the road. Most motorists and passengers from Mangu, Yelwa, Shendam and Langtang Local government areas could not pass through the road yesterday in fear of being attached. However, the intervention of the law enforcement agents in the visit of the State Deputy Governor, Chief Michael Botmang, cleared the blockage. According to the deputy governor, it is regrettable that the renew violence was coming at a time the government is making a concerted effort to broker peace among the various communities in the state after the series of crises that enveloped it in the past. He further assured that a joint security patrol team will be intensified in order to flush out those harbouring miscreants who are bent on disruption the hard earned peace in the state. In another development there was pandemonium with in the Jos metropolis yesterday afternoon when a soldier (name withheld) opened fire at a civilian leading to his instant death at a police station ("C" division). Our investigation revealed that trouble started when the civilian allegedly brushed the soldier's car in a hold up. On sensing trouble, it was gathered that the civilian ran to a near by police station where the soldier caught up with him and allegedly shot him directly at his forehead. Efforts made by the policemen of the station to get the soldier arrested proved abortive as he threatened to open fire on them. It, however, took the intervention of some soldiers stationed at the Jos Central Mosque to get him arrested.

Rwanda (see also France)

IRIN 2 Oct 2002 Rwandan ex-combatant mission arrives in Kigali KAMINA, DRC, 2 Oct 2002 (IRIN) - An exploratory mission of disarmed and demobilised Rwandan Hutu former combatants based in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) arrived in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, on Monday to gauge whether it was safe for their return, new organisations reported. "We will see if the conditions are sufficient for our security and reintegration in Rwanda, then we will decide on a definitive return," Ephraim Hakazimana, one of the 79 volunteers, told IRIN before departing Kamina, southeastern DRC. Seventy-nine ethnic Hutus volunteered for the week-long mission, after which they will return to the southeastern DRC military base where they have been housed to report their findings to another 1,711 former fighters of the Forces democratiques pour la liberation du Rwanda (FDLR). Of the 79, 66 are ex-combatants, 10 are women, and three are children. "You hold the key to the repatriation process," Bill Maselta, an adviser to South African President Thabo Mbeki, said at a ceremony before their departure. South Africa and the United Nations constitute the third party to the agreement signed on 30 July in Pretoria, South Africa, between presidents Joseph Kabila of the DRC and Paul Kagame of Rwanda. The agreement commits Rwanda to withdrawing its troops from the DRC in exchange for Kinshasa taking steps to address security concerns in the DRC. In particular, this means the dismantling of the former Rwandan army (ex-FAR) and Interahamwe Hutu militias who fled to the DRC following their involvement in the massacre of some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994. The UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, and several international human rights NGOs have developed a follow-up mechanism to help guarantee the safety of returnees during both the exploratory mission and the actual repatriation and reintegration of all Rwandan ex-combatants. "We will monitor the returnees for several months to make sure that their rights and liberties are assured and that nothing bad happens to them in their country," Luc Henkinbrant, a MONUC human rights officer, told IRIN. Rwandan authorities have said that it will be up to legal authorities to determine which of these ex-combatants might be implicated in the 1994 massacres. Aside from the 1,780 Hutu ex-militants in Kamina, another 201 wounded and sick who are currently hospitalised in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, and the southeastern city of Lubumbashi are also waiting for the results of the exploratory mission to decide whether they will return. The DRC government recently indicated that an additional 2,000 Hutu combatants could be found in the vicinity of Kamina. A number of the volunteers expressed their concerns about the treatment they would receive upon their return, and one withdrew from the exploratory mission at the last minute. An FDLR leader was asked to intervene to reassure the remaining members of the delegation.

Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne) 14 Oct 2002 Gacaca Takes Off Slowly Kigali After a break of several months, pilot 'Gacaca' courts have been starting work again one by one since the middle of September. 'Gacaca', meaning literally 'judgement on grass', has been introduced in Rwanda to speed up the trials of around 115,000 people who are accused of participating in the genocide, in which more than a million people were killed between April and July 1994, including Tutsis and moderate Hutus. These popular courts were in effect, temporarily suspended at the end of July, at the end of their fifth public meeting. This was principally to allow the coordination to take stock of the situation, see what had been accomplished and what problems they had faced. It was also to prepare the judges for the two next stages, during which the public assemblies will establish lists and individual details of the accused. At the end of this process the real trials will finally begin. But already the Gacaca pilot courts have shown up a number of problems which it will be necessary to take into account before eleven thousand courts are due to begin their work all over the country, at the beginning of next year. The pilot courts began on 19 June this year in 73 cells of 12 sectors chosen from the 11 provinces of Rwanda and the city of Kigali. Rwanda is divided administratively into cells, sectors, districts and provinces, with the city of Kigali treated separately. Every level of the administration will have its own gacaca court. Adding it together, there are 9001 cells, 1545 sectors and 106 districts, making 10662 tribunals, which call upon 254,152 voluntary judges. They are known as the 'Integres' meaning people with integrity and were elected in October 2001. During their first meeting on 19 June the 73 gacaca courts began by fixing the day of the week of which their public assemblies would regularly meet. The whole population of the cellule can take part in the public assembly, along with the 19 judges. According to the law, the quorum or minimum level of participation is 100 people. During their second meeting during the next week, the assemblies concentrated on listing every family and their members who were living in the cellule until 6 April 1994 (the date that the genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus started), as well as their current probable addresses. The law allowing for "the assembly to present the means of proof in the trial," the census will be the basis for identifying potential witnesses. The third meeting, from 2 July onwards, established the lists of the victims of genocide killed in the cellule between 1st October 1990 and 31 December 1994, house by house, those who were residents, those who were passing through or were refugees. This list was finished during the fourth public meeting when the courts also put together a list of those who were permanently resident in the cellule between 1st Oct 1990 and 31 December 1994 but who were killed outside the cellule. During the fifth stage, the assemblies filled out forms for genocide survivors who are asking for compensation, family by family. When a person has been identified, the files mention his relation to the victim, as well as material damage. The sixth meeting, which is happening now, puts together the lists of those accused. In the lists are all the charges against an individual. For the seventh stage, the last one in this preparation phase of the judicial papers, the courts classify the accused by category. During this first phase, the public assemblies of the pilot gacacas met every week in each cellule. This rhythm will slow down when the trials start, with one ordinary meeting per month according to the law. All the steps followed by the 73 cellules in this pilot phase are a sort of practice. They will be followed to the letter by all the other jurisdictions when they get going. The pilot cellules were not chosen at random. One reason is that a some of them, around 475, have a high number of previous residents who have pleaded guilty. Once the gacaca courts start, they will first of all judge those who have admitted their guilt. Officially, that means more than 21 thousand people. According to the Department for Gacaca courts at the Supreme court, these cellules were also chosen because they were more cooperative than elsewhere. SPEED UP THE PROCESS AND RECONCILE THE RWANDANS Each of the four administrative levels in Rwanda, cellules, sectors, districts and provinces has its own gacaca courts. And each administrative court has a level of responsibility for judging. At the cellule level, the gacaca court is authorised to judge those suspected of looting and other material damage, meaning the fourth category of detainees. Those judged guilty will repair or reimburse the victims. According to the gacaca law there is no possibility of appeal at this level. At the next level up, gacaca courts of the sector are concerned with third category matters, meaning suspects who injured without intending to kill. At the district level the courts will judge second category suspects, meaning those who have killed and for whom the maximum penalty would be life imprisonment, along with hearing appeals from sector level judgements. Finally Gacaca at the provincial level would only be dealing with appeals. In the Gacaca trials the accused do not have lawyers. According to the law, the population will at the same time be both complainant and judge. As for the first category suspects, comprising the organisers and planners of the genocide, along with those suspected of rape and other sexual torture, for whom the maximum sentence is death, they will continue to be judged in law courts where the jud