Global

UN Reform: BBC 30 Nov 2004 UN plan demands more intervention By Paul Reynolds World affairs correspondent The UN should be reformed to make intervention in failing states easier, a commission is set to recommend. The panel, which has examined how the UN could respond better to global threats, also calls for the Security Council to be enlarged, the BBC has learned. The report has been called the "biggest make-over" of the UN since 1945. It is thought that if the UN shows greater readiness to act, unilateralism by member states would be less likely. A year ago, in the wake of the international divisions over Iraq, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned the UN was at a "fork in the road". He said the organisation had to review its fundamental policies in order to address the increasing threats of global terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and nuclear proliferation. UN operations, finances and spending At-a-glance He asked a panel of 16 veteran diplomats and politicians, chaired by former Thai Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun, to examine ways the UN should be reformed. The route the panel is set to advocate is much more interventionist, moving away from the UN's traditional emphasis that it cannot meddle in the internal affairs of a member state. Pre-emptive The BBC has been told that among the panel's main findings are calls for a peace-building commission to be established to monitor potential trouble spots, offer help and advice, give warnings and prepare the way for armed intervention as a last resort. The panel wants member states to accept a new obligation - a "responsibility to protect" their own citizens. If they failed to do so, then intervention by the Security Council would be much more likely than under current UN procedures. At the moment, the Council can order intervention, and a member state can act in self-defence, if there is an imminent threat. The Council can declare a threat to international security but the definitionis vague and the procedure unwieldy. This report recommends that the Council should be more willing to act pre-emptively, though according to five strict criteria: 1) the threat should be defined, 2) the purpose of intervention should be clear, 3) it should be a last resort, 4) the means should be proportionate, 5) the consequences should be examined Whether the Council would in fact take action would depend on what the crisis was and how it voted. The UN would not have its own peace-keeping force, although several members of the panel wanted this. Broad definition Among the other main findings, the panel suggests threats to international security should be defined widely and should include poverty, pandemics like Aids and environmental disasters, not just threats from weapons of mass destruction, wars and failed states. The Security Council should be enlarged from 15 members to 24 - the five permanent members, the US, Russia, China, the UK and France, should keep their seats and their vetoes (any changes to that would simply not be agreed, it was felt). The panel does not, however, recommend how this should be achieved and simply offers two models. In the first, there would be more permanent members without a veto. In the second there would be some semi-permanent members who must be voted onto the Council every four years. Terrorism would be defined for the first time and should be made part of an international convention. Terrorism would mean any action targeted against non-combatants and civilians. To help stop the spread of nuclear weapons, countries wanting fuel for their nuclear power should have automatic rights to get supplies under the International Atomic Energy Agency so long as they complied with inspection regimes. These inspections should themselves be drastically tightened up. The system would work rather as the International Monetary Fund does where members have drawing rights on currencies. Regional organisations like the African Union should be strengthened. Any peacekeeping operation should be funded by the UN itself and member states should pay automatically. The G8 group of countries should be expanded and changed. One idea put forward is that membership of the G8, which is made up only of the rich, should be widened to 20 bringing in developing countries. The UN Human Rights Commission should be re-invigorated with more human rights activists and fewer diplomats on members' delegations. The report will now be considered by the Secretary General and then by the member states. Any institutional changes are likely to come only slowly but the thrust is clear - the UN must reform or lose its role. Panel's members Anand Panyarachun (Chairman), former Prime Minister of Thailand Robert Badinter (France) Joao Clemente Baena Soares (Brazil) Gro Harlem Brundtland (Norway) Mary Chinery-Hesse (Ghana) Gareth Evans (Australia) Lord David Hannay (United Kingdom) Enrique Iglesias (Uruguay) Amre Moussa (Egypt) Satish Nambiar (India) Sadako Ogata (Japan) Yevgenii Primakov (Russia) Qian Qichen (China) Nafis Sadik (Pakistan) Salim Ahmed Salim (Tanzania) Brent Scowcroft (United States)

www.dw-world.de/dw/ 30 Nov 2004 UN Reform Targets Security Council Reformers offer two paths to reach the goal of a more efficent UN Recommendations for reforming the United Nations are due on Thursday: According to early reports, they include two models to expand the Security Council. Germany remains hopeful it will get permanent membership. Expanding the Council, the UN's central decision-making body, from 15 to 24 members is one of the main suggestions included in the reform recommendations, according to German public broadcaster ARD and Reuters news service. On a more general basis, the high-profile panel charged with drawing up reform plans reportedly suggests that the Council needs to be "more representative of the broader membership, especially of the developing world." It also states that the Council is the UN's body "most capable of organizing action and capable of responding rapidly to new threats." Two competing models While clear on the need to expand the Council, which currently has five permanent members with veto powers and 10 non-permanent members, the reform panel has drawn up two competing models. The first one would add six new permanent members without veto powers -- two from Africa, two from Asia and one each from the Americas and Europe. It would also add three non-permanent members with a two-year term like the ones currently elected to sit on the body. The second option would add eight new seats for semi-permanent members, which would be elected for four years and could have their terms extended. Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas would each get two of these seats and one additional non-permanent member would also be added. Germany's favorite Both versions have backers: The first model is supported by German officials, who hope to secure one of the new permanent seats for the country. According to ARD and Reuters, Germany intends to introduce a resolution in support of this model as soon as possible and is working on securing a two-thirds majority in the 191-member nation general assembly that's needed to get it passed. Japan, Brazil and India support the plan as well as they all hope for permanent seats for themselves. While Britain, France and Russia have indicated support for the aspirations of these four countries, the US has so far refused to give Germany a nod of approval. Bush administration officials have, however, voiced their support for Japan, a supporter of the Iraq war unlike Germany. According to Reuters, Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt would compete for the African seats. The Italian alternative Support for the second version comes from countries such as Italy, a US ally in Iraq and a strong opponent of handing a permanent seat to Germany. Italy, which locked heads with Germany and France over Europe's role in Iraq, worries giving a Council seat to Germany, in addition to the two permanent seats already occupied by France and Britain, would weaken its role in the European Union. Others favoring the plan to introduce eight semi-permanent seats include Pakistan, which rejects India's place on the Council and Mexico and Argentine, which oppose Brazil's claims. The proposed reforms would be the first major revamp of the organization in more than 50 years and would have to be approved by the UN General Assembly next September.

Africa

Knight Ridder Newspapers 2 Dec 2004 African Union limitations appear in Darfur conflict Sudarsan Raghavan TAWILLA, Sudan - The war in Sudan's Darfur region is the kind of conflict the African Union was intended to resolve when its 53 member countries created it two years ago. Yet fighting here last week has revealed the group's limitations. A multinational peacekeeping force, drawn from among African Union members, is headquartered at El Fasher, 40 miles from Tawilla. Another 200 African Union troops are based at Kebkabiya, no more than 30 minutes away by helicopter. But no peacekeeping troops were dispatched when fighting broke out in Tawilla between black African rebels and the Arab militia known as the Janjaweed. The first African Union troops came to Tawilla on Saturday, five days after the fighting, on a fact-finding mission. They stayed one night. advertisement "We're not authorized to intervene to stop the fighting," said Jean Baptiste Natama, the African Union's senior political officer. "What happened in Tawilla is because we don't have the mandate." On paper, the African Union has the power to intervene in the nations that belong to it - most in Africa do - in cases of genocide, war crimes or gross human-rights violations. Darfur is the African Union's first real test as to whether it can act on this power. "If we succeed, it means that the international community will take us seriously. They'll say at last the Africans can solve their own problems," Natama said. "If we fail, we'll take a long time to recover our credibility." On the plus side, the African Union sent troops to Sudan when no Western nation or group of nations would. It's opened a dialogue between the rebels and government in Darfur. It's brokered prisoners' release and eased access to war-afflicted areas. It may have saved men's lives. On Monday, the government released 11 prisoners it alleged were rebels into the African Union's custody in El Fasher. The men, who said they were workers returning from Libya, had been held for six days and beaten with rubber tubes and camel whips. Two showed recent scars that crisscrossed their backs. Yet the force is struggling to end the 22-month-old war, which many observers worry is pushing Darfur toward anarchy. Despite the presence of AU peacekeepers and a cease-fire agreement, both sides continue to attack. The violence is choking the flow of humanitarian aid, endangering an already fragile and frightened population.

Benin

IRIN 29 Nov 2004 Regional intervention force begins 10-day training in Benin [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © ECOWAS COTONOU, 29 Nov 2004 (IRIN) - A rapid deployment force being groomed by West African countries to intervene in the region’s conflicts began a 10-day training exercise in Benin on Monday. The Defence Ministry said in a statement that up to 2,000 West African, European and North American military personnel were due to take part in the exercise in southern Benin which was organised by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The largest West African troop contingents came from Benin, Nigeria, Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali and Ghana, it added. Military sources said 96 Ivorian troops who were due to take part failed to arrive in time for the start of the exercises and it was unclear whether they were still coming. Cote d'Ivoire suffered a fresh upsurge of internal fighting earlier this month. The ECOWAS secretariat in the Nigerian capital Abuja said in a statement at the weekend that 1,500 troops would take part in the Benin exercise, which would focus on providing humanitarian assistance within the context of managing a regional crisis. The manoeuvres would be conducted with the help of the French armed forces under a French programme to reinforce Africa’s peace-keeping capabilities, it added. Several other Western countries, including the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and Austria are also providing support. ECOWAS said a key aim of the exercise in Benin was to attain the standards required by the United Nations for the provision of humanitarian assistance in peacekeeping operations. The 1,500 ECOWAS troops are due to form the vanguard of a much larger intervention force envisaged by the organisation. The deployment of this Task Force to a conflict hot spot in West Africa would be followed by the dispatch of up to 5,000 more ECOWAS troops within 30 days. West Africa remains one of the world's most conflict-prone areas. The United Nations currently has about 26,000 peace-keeping troops deployed in Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire and Sierra Leone. While Liberia and Sierra Leone are both emerging from more than a decade of civil wars, Cote d’Ivoire has been sliding deeper into conflict since a failed coup in 2002 split the country into a rebel-held north and a loyalist south. More than one million people have been displaced from their homes by the conflict in Cote d'Ivoire, which was a bastion of stability in the region until it plunged into civil war two years ago. The recent resurgence of this conflict threatens to destabilise the peace process in Liberia and diplomats fear it could also infect neighbouring countries, particularly Guinea. West African defence chiefs announced the creation of the 6,500-strong rapid intervention force at a meeting of the ECOWAS Defence and Security Commission in Abuja in June. They agreed that a Task Force of 1,500 troops would form the spearhead of such operations. A further 3,500 troops would provide a back-up brigade, with 1,500 more ready in reserve if needed. The creation of the Task Force was prompted by the difficulties encountered by ECOWAS in the rapid deployment of peacekeeping tRoops to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire. ECOWAS, which groups 15 West African countries, was founded in 1975 to promote regional economic integration. In recent years it has increasingly assumed a high-profile role in tackling local conflicts. Since 1990, ECOWAS troops have intervened to try and quell conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau and Cote d'Ivoire. Often they have gone in as the precursor of a UN peacekeeping force. France's military presence in its former colonies in West Africa, where it has more than 8,000 troops stationed in four countries, has been back in the spotlight since the latest eruption of violence in Cote d'Ivoire on 4 November. The latest trouble there has involved conflict between France's 5,000 peacekeeping troops in the country and supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo.

Burundi

Reuters 30 Nov 2004 US accused of delaying Burundi probe November 30, 2004, 05:15 The United States for weeks blocked a UN statement supporting an investigation into a massacre in Burundi because of Washington's disdain for the International Criminal Court, diplomats said yesterday. The council statement, initially drafted by France in mid-November and now transformed into a resolution, is finally expected to come to a vote today after the United States agreed to a compromise, the diplomats said. Based in The Hague in the Netherlands, the court is the first permanent world tribunal set up to prosecute individuals for war crimes, genocide and other gross human rights abuses. It came into being last year under UN auspices, and 97 countries, including the entire European Union, have ratified the 1998 statute creating it. Washington, which fears politically driven prosecutions of its officials serving overseas, calls the court "fatally flawed" and has been campaigning hard in recent weeks to prevent it from becoming a routine part of UN operations. In recent weeks US diplomats campaigned unsuccessfully to have the tribunal taken off the agenda of the UN General Assembly and have fought to prevent the use of UN funds to support it, even trying to bar discussions of it in UN meeting rooms. Burundi's government has been trying for more than three months to fix blame for the August 13 slaughter of more than 160 ethnic Tutsi Congolese in the Gatumba refugee camp. Washington argued the language of the French draft's offer of "international support as appropriate" was a hidden reference to the International Criminal Court and blocked its approval. French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere complained about the US drive during a November 15 closed-door council meeting after the United States blocked his draft statement on the investigation into the massacre, council diplomats said. A US source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "We were very concerned about having the council expressly announcing the offer of international assistance." In the compromise reached yesterday, the council linked the possibility of international support to a commitment by the Burundian government to quickly wrap up its investigation.

ICG 9 Dec 2004 Elections in Burundi: The Peace Wager After a decade of civil war, Burundi has a chance for real peace but only if it holds to its tight election schedule -- five months with a constitutional referendum, local, national assembly and senate elections, and finally selection of the president by parliament. The sequence is ambitious but necessary to finalise a difficult peace process. Negotiations on power-sharing and a post-transition constitution have been completed, and the remaining rebel force still fighting in the field is too weak to upset arrangements. Still, the process will not be credible without the necessary international help. The UN Operation in Burundi (ONUB) needs continued financial support to assist in organising elections and disarming, demobilising and reintegrating combatants. Crisis Group reports and briefing papers are available on our website: www.icg.org

Côte d’Ivoire

IRIN 29 Nov 2004 Ivorian refugees start trickling home - UNHCR DAKAR, 29 Nov 2004 (IRIN) - The flood of refugees fleeing Cote d’Ivoire into north-eastern Liberia since early November trickled to a halt for the first time this weekend, with a few even returning home as tension eased, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Monday. “Today the Cestos river that divides the two West African countries is no longer bustling with canoes carrying Ivorian refugees to Liberia,” UNHCR spokeswoman Francesca Fontanini said in a statement. “Instead, the population movement has been reversed, with small groups of refugees crossing back to their villages in Cote d’Ivoire,” she added. UN officials in Cote d'Ivoire confirmed that small groups of refugees had returned home. A total 10,045 Ivorian refugees have been registered in Nimba county, north-eastern Liberia, by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Liberian National Red Cross Society since the latest round of hostilities erupted between Ivorian government troops and rebels on November 4. Aid workers have estimated that up to 19,000 people may have crossed the border. The refugees being assisted by UN agencies are dotted along a 45-km section of the border near the towns of Butuo and Gporplay. Many refugees are housed in a UNHCR transit center in Butuo, but both UNHCR and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) say it has been extremely difficult to provide food aid and relief items such as soap and blankets to remote areas that are virtually impossible to access by road. Work has begun to recondition roads to allow trucks to pass through, and UNHCR staff based in the town of Saclepea in north central Liberia, have been making daily visits to remote villages and points along the border “often taking narrow roads to the middle of the jungle,” the statement said. Liberia is still struggling to recover from 14 years of brutal civil war, and the WFP estimates that nearly a third of its three million people will need food hand-outs in 2005. The influx of Ivorian refugees consists of people from rural areas of both government and rebel-held areas of western Cote d'Ivoire, where the situation has remained turbulent since West Africa's most prosperous country was split in two by civil war two years in September 2002. Some of the refugees said they were fleeing across the border for the second time in two years. The latest round of fighting began when government troops broke an 18-month ceasfire and bombed the rebel-held north. Despite an easing of tension since then, Moses Okello, the UNHCR representative in Liberia, said his agency “will continue to watch the situation very carefully snd be prepared in the event of any inflow of refugees again from Cote d’Ivoire.” The UNHCR said the arrival of the refugees had not caused problems with the local population. People were working side-by-side on farms and helping each other with child care. “Africans are the same people and the Ivorians helped us during the height of the Liberian crisis. Now it is our turn,” it quoted Albert Fanga, the Liberian government superintendent of Butuo as saying.

IRIN 1 Dec 2004 Row develops over killings by French troops [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © IRIN Should the French troops have used less firepower? DAKAR, 1 Dec 2004 (IRIN) - The French government has admitted that its soldiers in Cote d'Ivoire killed "about 20" people in Abidjan last month when they fired into angry crowds of supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo. The revelation, in a statement by the Defence Ministry on Tuesday, has raised questions within France and furher afield about whether the French troops used an excessive amount of force to control the situation during four days of anti-French rioting in the city. The Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) immediately called for a parliamentary investigation of the killings and the opposition Communist and Socialist parties joined forces to demand a commission of enquiry. The FIDH also called for a separate inquiry into the Ivorian government's suspected role in instigating the violence. "The xenophobia shown by the the Young Patriots (pro-Gbagbo militants) with the complicity, possibly even at the instigation of certain Ivorian authorities could only have exacerbated these demonstrations of hatred," it said. Corinne Dufka, the Cote d'Ivoire researcher of New York-based Human Rights Watch, told IRIN she was worried by what appeared to be the French troops' "disproportionate use of firepower," but had not yet been able to speak directly to eyewitnesses of the clashes. The confrontations took place between 6 and 9 November near Abidjan airport and the Hotel Ivoire, a skyscraper luxury hotel situated only 200 metres from Gbagbo's official residence. The hotel was occupied by French forces as they helped to evacuate nearly 9,000 foreigners, mainly French nationals, who had decided to flee the country following a fresh outbreak of fighting with rebels occupying the north of the country. However many Ivorians feared that the French troops were positioning themselves to trap and isolate Gbagbo himself with the intention of backing a military coup against him. Defending the decision of French troops to fire into the crowds, Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie noted on Wednesday that many pro-Gbagbo militants in the crowds had fired into the French lines. "We ourselves suffered a very large number of injuries which shows that they (the French troops) were not confronted by unarmed civilians, but by people, whether they were Ivorian servicemen, Young Patriots or others, who were armed with kalashnikovs, air guns and hand guns," she told reporters Defence Ministry officials told Agence France Presse that about 80 French servicemen were wounded in the clashes and were repatriated to France. The violence in Abidjan erupted after French peacekeeping troops in Cote d'Ivoire destroyed two jet bombers and five attack helicopters on the ground to prevent them from continuing a two-day bombardment of rebel positions in northern Cote d'Ivoire. They moved into action swiftly after a bomb dropped on the rebel capital Bouake killed nine French peacekeepers who were based there. The French government gave its first estimate of Ivorian casualties in the confrontations with French troops shortly before Canal Plus, a French television station aired a graphic documentary about the three days of violence. This included images of French helicopters firing canon rounds to try and clear crowds of anti-French demonstrators from two key bridges that cross the lagoon about which Abidjan is built. "Firing like this upon civilians who are not carrying fire arms far exceeds what is required to maintain order and indeed the mandate of the French armed forces. We cannot remain silent about these events or minimise their importance," FIDH said. The Ivorian government has claimed that 57 people were killed by French forces in Abidjan and more than 2,200 were injured. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported that it assisted nearly 3,000 people in the city during seven days of disturbances in the city. The row over France's alleged heavy handedness in its former colony blew up shortly before South African President Thabo Mbeki was due to return to Cote d'Ivoire to try and persuade Gbagbo and the rebels to resume peace talks on the basis of the January 2003 Linas-Marcoussis peace agreement Mbeki, who was mandated to act as a mediator by the African Union (AU), was due to fly in to Abidjan on Thursday to meet Gbagbo, Prime Minister Seydou Diarra and leaders of the parliamentary opposition before heading for Bouake for talks with the rebel leader, Guillaume Soro. The UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Cote d'Ivoire following last month's decision by Gbagbo to break an 18-month ceasefire in the civil war and launch an abortive attack on the north. It has threatened to impose further sanctions on the country unless he resumes peace talks with the rebels by 15 December. This does not give Mbeki, a newcomer to international efforts to resolve the Ivorian conflict, much time to bring the two sides together. The AU has called a summit meeting of its Peace and Security Council in Addis Ababa to discuss the situation in Cote d'Ivoire on 10 December, five days before the UN ultimatum runs out. The meeting will be chaired by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi who currently holds the rotating chairmanship of the 15-member AU committee.

AFP 1 Dec 2004 African Union to meet over Ivory Coast Heads of the 15 states that sit on the African Union's (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) will hold a summit to discuss the situation in Ivory Coast on December 10, the organisation announced on Wednesday. "The 15 heads of peace and security council member states have been invited to a meeting mainly dedicated to the crisis in Ivory Coast on December 10 in Addis Ababa," said Assane Ba, spokesperson for the AU's conflict management centre. The PSC, a body similar to the UN's Security Council, will meet at ministerial level on December 8 to prepare the summit, which was planned during an AU meeting of heads of state in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on November 14. The aim of the Addis Ababa summit is "to find a political solution to the crisis in Ivory Coast," said Ba, adding that a report on the troubled west African state, the world's largest cocoa producer, would be presented to the heads of state. South African President Thabo Mbeki, whom the AU has appointed to try to end the crisis, is expected to travel to Ivory Coast in the next two or three days, his deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad said Tuesday. South Africa sits on the PSC. It was not clear Wednesday if all of the body's 15 member states would be represented at the presidential level. The meeting will be chaired by Ethiopia, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the PSC. Since September 2002, Ivory Coast has been a divided country, with the government controlling the south, rebels the north. Foreign peacekeepers monitor the lines betweent the two sides. The Ivorian crisis escalated dramatically when the government launched air strikes on key towns in the north on November 4, in violation of an 18-month-old ceasefire monitored by French and other military peacekeepers. The air strikes killed nine French peacekeepers causing the French to retaliate by destroying the small Ivorian air force. The French retaliation unleashed a torrent of anti-foreigner violence and vandalism and prompted the exodus of more than half of the 14,000-strong French expatriate population from the country. Mbeki went to Abidjan on November 9 for talks with Gbagbo and has since met in Pretoria with opposition leader-in-exile Alassane Ouattara, rebel leader Guillaume Soro and Prime Minister Seydou Diarra. During a first round of talks with Gbagbo, Mbeki said he was "very pleased" with the Ivorian president's commitment to the accords signed in January last year and a ceasefire reached in May 2003. Rebel leader Soro told Mbeki during talks in Pretoria at the weekend that Gbagbo was the problem. "No credible or lasting solution for peace is possible as long as Gbagbo is around," Soro said following the talks. Mbeki has joined a chorus of African leaders in supporting a UN embargo slapped on Ivory Coast on November 15 banning arms sales for the next 13 months. Targeted sanctions such as the freezing of assets and a travel ban could follow on December 15 failing progress towards implementing the peace accord. South Africa has scored some diplomatic successes in its peace efforts elsewhere on the continent, including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi in central Africa.

BBC 6 Dec 2004 Ivorian parties agree Mbeki plan Rebel leader Guillaume Soro held closed-door talks with Thabo Mbeki South African President Thabo Mbeki has reached agreement with all sides in the Ivory Coast conflict to speed up implementation of the peace process. Mr Mbeki - an African Union emissary - extended his peace mission into a fifth day to take part in the talks. "We've agreed with everybody on all these matters and specific programmes must be carried out," he said. Scepticism is likely to greet the plan, the latest attempt to bring peace to the divided country. Mbeki 'certain' Mr Mbeki insisted this peace initiative would produce results. "I'm absolutely certain that as of now all of the parties are indeed committed to the implementation of what they've agreed," he told reporters in the main city Abidjan. He added that the delegation had not tried to produce a new plan but had worked on the basis of the existing Marcoussis peace pact, which was backed by former colonial power France. Mr Mbeki said his delegation had set time frames for implementing the measures, but he would not make them public immediately. The plan focuses on four key areas. The first is the need for legislative reform within the Ivorian constitution. This includes the revision of Article 35, which requires presidential candidates to have both "a father and mother of Ivorian origin" - a stipulation which has previously prevented opposition leader Alassane Ouattara from standing in elections. All sides agreed that a process of disarmament must start and that a functioning government of national reconciliation, "with all ministers returning to their posts" was needed. Lastly, all parties agreed on a need for greater security, with joint patrols of the Ivorian army and the UN forces in the capital Abidjan. Rebel demands On Sunday, Mr Mbeki went to Bouake in the rebel-held north where he was welcomed by tens of thousands of people. President Gbagbo is the problem. He can't resolve the problem Rebel spokesman Sidiki Konate The former rebels are demanding the resignation of President Gbagbo as a first step to ending the rebellion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general's special envoy to Ivory Coast, Albert Tevoedjre, has resigned, UN officials announced. His relations with President Gbagbo have been tense, with the Ivorian leader accusing the UN envoy of backing the rebels. Unrest flared last month after Mr Gbagbo ordered air strikes on rebel-held areas after a disarmament deadline was not met. Observers say that since then, rebels calling themselves the New Forces have become more focused on getting rid of the president. "President Gbagbo is the problem. He can't resolve the problem," rebel spokesman Sidiki Konate said. Concession? In Bouake, Mr Mbeki told crowds who cheered his arrival that he wanted to "clear the way for a better life for everyone in Ivory Coast". The BBC's James Copnall in Abidjan, says trust between the belligerent parties in Ivory Coast is all but non-existent. Restoring mutual faith might be President Mbeki's biggest challenge as a mediator, he says. A day earlier after talks with Mr Mbeki, Mr Gbagbo announced that he would allow the National Assembly to consider changes to rules governing who may stand for president. The existing law requiring candidates to have two Ivorian parents was used controversially to prevent opposition leader Alassane Ouattara running for president four years ago - a dispute that remains at the heart of the Ivorian crisis, correspondents say. Some observers see Mr Gbagbo's move as a concession, but the rebels said it was just another attempt to stall the peace process in Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa-producer and once a stable and prosperous country. "Don't let yourselves be distracted," Mr Konate told reporters on Sunday.

DR Congo

Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne) 24 Nov 2004 Kinshasa Reported to the UN for not Cooperating in Arrest of Suspects Arusha The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was on Tuesday formally mentioned at the UN Security Council for its lack of cooperation in the arrest of people accused of taking part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. In a press statement published by the UN, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Hassan Bubacar Jallow from Gambia, told the Security Council that 14 indicted people were still at large and "the bulk of the fugitives continued to be based in the Democratic Republic of Congo". Jallow and the president of the ICTR, Eric Møse from Norway, were presenting their annual reports to the council. Jallow exhorted Member States "to live up to their legal obligations" and cooperate in accordance with the statutes of the tribunal. The prosecutor continued that despite the ICTR's efforts to have suspects arrested, only a former militia leader, Yusuf Munyakazi was arrested from the Congo this year. The first arrest from the DRC was Colonel Tharcisse Renzaho in 2002. The press release continues that the USA representative, John Danforth , called upon the DRC and Kenya to arrest fugitives whom he said were inciting conflicts in the Great Lakes region. Rwanda's Deputy Prosecutor General, Martin Ngoga advised the ICTR to inform the Security Council on the level of cooperation of all member states, particularly the DRC. He said that it was regrettable that the prosecutor had drastically reduced the number of people being investigated, known as "Big fish", which was originally estimated at 300. The Rwandan envoy regarded not pursuing certain individuals as "a mockery of justice". He claimed that according to the UN's own figures, only a quarter of all their original suspects will have been brought to court in 10 years. As part of the tribunal's exit strategy, all investigations will come to an end at the end of the year and uncompleted cases to be transferred to national jurisdictions, Rwanda included. On the issue of transfer of trials, Jallow told the Security Council that discussions were going on with Rwanda and other states. He promised to file motions on the transfers at the beginning of 2005. Only judges have the powers to decide on the transfer of cases. "Apart from Rwanda, it was not proving easy to find States ready, able, and willing to take on cases for the prosecution from the Tribunal", the UN press release quoted Jallow as saying.

Reuters 29 Nov 2004 Congo to send troops close to Rwanda Mon 29 November, 2004 18:40 By David Lewis KINSHASA (Reuters) - Congo will send up to 10,000 soldiers over the next two weeks to reinforce the eastern province of North Kivu bordering Rwanda, President Joseph Kabila's spokesman says. Over the last week, Rwanda has repeatedly threatened to send troops into Congo to target Hutu rebels, many of whom took part in Rwanda's 1994 genocide. "We will be sending two or three brigades into North Kivu within two weeks," spokesman Kudura Kasongo said on Monday. A Congolese brigade consists of roughly 3,200 soldiers. "Firstly these people will be there to stop the Hutu rebels from launching an attack on Rwanda from the Congo. But we are also sending them there to contain the Rwandan aggression on our border. This is logical," Kasongo added. Rwanda says neither Congo nor U.N. peacekeepers deployed in Congo have done enough over the past 10 years to deal with the rebels based in the jungles of Africa's third biggest country. Congolese officials have branded Rwanda's threats a declaration of war and said the Kinshasa government might be forced to respond. Rwanda's Foreign Minister, Charles Murigande, told Reuters Kigali was not unduly alarmed by Congo's troop deployment. "It is their sovereign right to deploy their troops in their territory," he said. The rebels are known as the Democratic Forces for Rwandan Liberation (FDLR). They include many members of the former army and Hutu militiamen who took part in the 1994 genocide, killing 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, before fleeing to Congo after they were defeated. Since Rwanda threatened to attack last week, there have been several reports that hundreds of Rwandan troops have crossed into the former Zaire, although the U.N. mission there says it has no evidence of their presence. Rwanda denies that its troops have moved into Congo. Rwanda has invaded Congo twice over the past eight years. The second invasion, in 1998, was one of the triggers for Congo's five-year civil war, which sucked in five other African neighbours and killed 3 million people, mostly through hunger and disease. The FDLR is thought to number about 10,000 fighters scattered in the dense forests of North and South Kivu. Rwanda officially withdrew all its troops from Congo in 2002 but there have been consistent reports of soldiers moving freely across the border. The area is also under the control of Rwandan-backed former rebel fighters from Congo's war.

Irin 30 Nov 2004 Rise in violence undermines relief efforts in Ituri [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] NAIROBI, 30 Nov 2004 (IRIN) - Armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's northeastern Ituri District are pillaging humanitarian aid, confiscating the vehicles of relief workers and refusing access to vulnerable populations. "Ituri is experiencing a renewed cycle of violence," a statement issued on Thursday by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. "Humanitarian actors have been strongly advised to avoid the northern axes of Bunia," OCHA said, referring to the main town in Ituri. It said two international NGOs had suspended their activities following "violent attacks" by militias on the roads to the north and south of Bunia. OCHA said armed groups were also targeting MONUC, the UN Mission in the DRC, and that shootings between the militia and MONUC were "becoming a common event". OCHA reported little success in implementing the National Plan of Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration. "Fighters who do want to disarm are being killed or molested if they attempt to go to the transit sites," OCHA said. [Full OCHA report on: www.reliefweb.int ]

BBC 1 Dec 2004 Rwandan troops seen in DR Congo The Congolese are to send thousands more reinforcements to the east A group of about 100 Rwandan troops has been spotted inside the Democratic Republic of Congo in a first sighting by United Nations observers. Thousands of civilians have been fleeing renewed fighting in the east. The Congolese say more than 6,000 Rwandans have crossed the border and are attacking and burning villages. Rwanda's president had threatened to send troops across the border to engage Hutu rebels inside Congolese territory who have not been disarmed. A UN spokesperson said a team of peacekeepers had seen about hundred soldiers, who they thought were Rwandan, near the border town of Goma. "Infiltration is nothing new but this is something else, it has the appearance of an invasion," Monuc's chief in Goma, M'Hand Djalouzi, told journalists. Last week, the UN warned Rwanda not to use military force, saying such a move could undermine international efforts to stabilise the region. Rwanda has consistently warned that it is prepared to take military action because of the threat it says is posed by the group which include fighters who took part in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus. QUICK GUIDE The war in DR Congo But some Congolese analysts say that the real reason behind Rwanda's threats is that President Joseph Kabila has recalled the governor of North Kivu province, based in Goma, who is from the Rwandan-backed RCD former rebel group. They say Rwanda wants to ensure it retains control of the border area. Warnings On Wednesday, from the eastern town of Beni, Congolese regional cooperation minister Mbusa Nyamwisi said villages were being targeted nearby. "We are being attacked by the Rwandan troops," he said Earlier, President Paul Kagame said in a speech that Rwandan troops may already have crossed into DR Congo in pursuit of ethnic Hutu rebels. He told senators attempts to disarm forces across the border "will not take long, or it is even happening now". Rwandan troops were first reported by diplomats to be in the DR Congo on Monday. The DR Congo authorities say they will send more than 6,000 troops to the border area within the next two weeks. Residents of the Congolese border town of Bukavu have reportedly been gathering stones to use to fight off any Rwandan incursion. Slow progress Rwanda has twice invaded its much larger neighbour - in 1996 and 1998 - accusing successive Congolese governments of backing the Hutu rebels. DR Congo's majestic mountains are ideal rebel hide-outs It withdrew its troops in 2002, under a regional deal to end five years of war in DR Congo, in which some three million people died. Under that deal, the Hutu rebels were supposed to have been disarmed but progress has been slow. Rwanda says that the rebels are now attacking its territory under the noses of the international community. Last week, the first of 5,000 extra UN peacekeepers arrived in DR Congo. There are already more than 10,000 UN peacekeepers in DR Congo; troops have been placed on alert and patrols have been despatched to check for any Rwandan incursion.

AFP 1 Dec 2004 100 suspected Rwandan troops spotted in east DRC: UN GOMA, DR Congo, Dec 1 (AFP) - The UN mission in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said Wednesday one of its teams had spotted a group of 100 soldiers thought to be Rwandan near the eastern town of Goma. Kigali declined to confirm or deny it had sent troops to DRC. "This morning I received information that has yet to be confirmed that a team we sent to Rutshuru region, in Virunga park, had come across a group of 100 soldiers suspected to be Rwandans," the mission's chief in Goma, M'Hand Djalouzi, told journalists. "How can they say they are Rwandan soldiers? I will neither confirm nor deny it," Richard Sizibera, Rwandan presidential envoy for the Great Lakes region, said in Kigali. Djalouzi's remarks follow days of unconfirmed reports that Rwanda had sent troops across the border to eastern DRC to target Rwandan Hutu extremists who fled there after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and who Kigali says still threaten Rwanda's security. "Infiltration is nothing new but this is something else, it has the appearance of an invasion," said Djalouzi. Rutshuru town lies about 70 kilometres (40 miles) north of Goma, a town on the Rwandan border which was the headquarters of a DRC rebel group Kigali backed militarily and politically during DRC's devastating 1998-2003 war. On Tuesday, DRC President Jospeph Kabila annonced 10,000 extra soldiers would be deployed to the east to maintain security there. Also Tuesday, Rwandan President Paul Kagame reiterated his intention to send troops to eastern DRC to attack the Hutu extremists and suggested such troops might already have beend deployed. "We have said we would do it, but we won't tell you when or how," Sezibera said Wednesday. "As long as MONUC (the UN mission) and the DRC government fail to resolve the problem of the Interahamwe (Hutu extemists) and ex-FAR (soldiers from a defunct Rwandan army) we reserve the right to do what is neccesary to solve this problem alone," he added.

AP 2 Dec 2004 U.N. says its observers encounter 100 suspected Rwandan troops in Congo A U.N. armored vehicle drives through the streets of Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo Wednesday. U.N. observers encountered what they believed to be 100 Rwandan troops in eastern Congo. (AP Photo) GOMA, Congo (AP) -- U.N. observers encountered what they believed to be about 100 Rwandan troops in eastern Congo, a U.N. official said Wednesday, marking the first reported U.N. sightings since Rwanda threatened to send in its forces against Rwanda Hutu rebels sheltering here. The suspected Rwandan forces withdrew toward Rwanda after Tuesday's encounter, said M'hand Ladjouzi, head of the U.N. mission at Goma. He spoke at a news conference in Goma, the largest city of the east. A Rwandan diplomat denied Rwanda had invaded again, after a week of warnings that raised fears of a return to the six-nation war that devastated Congo, Africa's third-largest nation. '); // --> But the denial came even as a Western envoy in Kinshasa, Congo's capital, said Rwandan President Paul Kagame warned that Rwandan troops would carry out "surgical strikes" against rebels in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. In the letter, which circulated among embassies in Congo on Wednesday, Kagame said military operations would last two weeks, according to the envoy, who spoke on condition of anonymity. U.N. officials in Kinshasa said they had no knowledge of the letter. The U.N. Security Council scheduled closed-door consultations Thursday in response to Congo's request for an emergency meeting. Congo has asked the council to condemn Rwanda's threat and impose sanctions finding Kagame "personally responsible for the threat posed to the sovereignty of Congo and to the entire peace process in the region." Kagame told Rwandan lawmakers Tuesday that Rwanda would act against 8,000-10,000 Rwanda Hutu rebels based in east Congo, saying a five-month-old U.N.-led disarmament program had failed to neutralize the Rwandan Hutu rebel forces. In Kinshasa, Congo's capital, U.N. spokeswoman Patricia Tome said Wednesday that Rwanda's threat "astonished" the U.N. mission in Congo, as it came at a time when authorities hoped to speed up the U.N.-led disarmament effort. U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli urged Rwanda and Congo "to solve their differences diplomatically and not militarily, through the exchange of gunfire or the movement of troops in the area." Until Wednesday, U.N. officials said extensive sweeps by their more than 11,000-strong force in Congo had turned up no signs of Rwandan incursions since Rwanda's threat. Small-scale infiltrations by Rwanda since foreign armies formally withdrew from Congo's war "are not new. Of course, it's taking different dimensions now," Ladjouzi said. "But this gives the impression of an act of aggression," he said. A joint patrol with Congolese troops last week arrested nine Rwandan troops who remain in Congolese custody, he said. He did not say what the suspected 100 Rwandan forces were doing when the U.N. observers encountered them, whether they were armed, and how they were traveling. Tome said the sighting was at Rutshuru, a town a few miles inside Congo. Ladjouzi said U.N. forces also were investigating reports of three villages being burned between Rutshuru and Lubero. Large numbers of Rwandan Hutu rebels have begun moving west out of the Rutshuru region, sending civilians fleeing, Ladjouzi said. Rwandan forces did not cause those refugee flights, he said. "If Rwandan forces target the civilian population, MONUC will take action," he said, using the U.N. acronym for its mission in Congo. Rwanda invaded eastern Congo in 1996 and 1998 to hunt down Rwandan Hutu combatants responsible for the 1994 genocide of more than a half-million Tutsis and Hutus. The 1998 invasion sparked a war that drew in four other African nations and split Western Europe-sized Congo. Some 3.2 million people died, most through famine and disease. Peace accords by 2002 saw the withdrawal of foreign armies and establishment of a power-sharing government.

BBC 3 Dec 2004 DR Congo troops 'to repel Rwanda' The Congolese troops are ill-equipped to halt a major invasion Some 10,000 troops are being sent to expel Rwandan forces from the Democratic Republic of Congo, President Joseph Kabila has said. He accused Rwanda of invading to loot DR Congo's natural resources. Rwanda has denied that its forces have entered DR Congo. The UN says there were indications, but "no proof", of Rwanda's presence. Rwanda has twice invaded DR Congo in recent years - it says to attack Rwandan rebels based there. 'False sightings' "Rwanda has goals that are political, economic, exploitative and predatory," Mr Kabila said, in his first public reaction since reports emerged that Rwanda had sent troops into eastern DR Congo. QUICK GUIDE The war in DR Congo Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said that military action against ethnic Hutu rebels was "imminent" but promised not to attack Congolese troops. But the BBC's Mark Doyle, who has just returned from the region, says that any Rwandan military action could unravel tentative moves towards peace throughout central Africa. Following a debate on the crisis at the UN Security Council in New York, Council President Abdallah Baali from Algeria said: "The general sense is that there were Rwandan troops, although nobody can really confirm it in the clearest way." Mamadou Bah, a spokesman for the UN mission in DR Congo (Monuc), said: "Our helicopter reconnaissance patrols have been able to take photos of abandoned bivouacs and well-equipped soldiers who are moving with new uniforms and materials." But Mr Kagame's adviser on DR Congo, Richard Sezibera, insisted that there were no Rwandan troops across the border. "All reported sightings of Rwandan troops in the DRC are false. Rwanda does not have any troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo," he said. The Congolese government said 6,000 Rwandan troops had crossed the border and attacked villages. Some 2,000 people have fled amid reports of the Rwandan advance in North Kivu province, says the UN. The Security Council urged Rwanda not to send troops into DR Congo but did not condemn Rwanda's action or impose sanctions on Mr Kagame, as the Congolese had wanted. 'World war' Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, chairman of the African Union, has told the BBC that Rwanda has a case in its conflict with DR Congo but that his authority would be undermined if Rwandan troops had entered DR Congo. Rwanda has consistently said it is prepared to take military action because of the threat it says is posed by the group of some 8,000 men, which includes fighters who took part in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Rwanda invaded its much larger neighbour in 1996 and 1998, accusing successive Congolese governments of backing the Hutu rebels. DR Congo's majestic mountains are ideal rebel hide-outs It withdrew its troops in 2002, under a regional deal to end five years of war in DR Congo, in which some three million people died. The armies of at least six foreign nations - and countless rebel groups - were embroiled in "Africa's first world war". These armies were all accused by the UN of exploiting DR Congo's rich natural resources, including gold and diamonds. Under the peace deal, the Hutu rebels were supposed to have been disarmed but progress has been slow. Last week, the first of 5,000 extra UN peacekeepers arrived in DR Congo. There are already more than 10,000 UN peacekeepers in DR Congo; troops have been placed on alert and patrols have been despatched to check for any Rwandan incursion.

Agence France-Presse 6 Dec 2004 Local groups clash in east DR Congo: UN KIGALI, Dec 6 (AFP) - Local groups have been locked in clashes for the past few days near Minova in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN mission in the vast country, MONUC, said Monday. "The clashes began a few days ago in Bweremana. They're linked to land rights," MONUC spokeswoman Jacqueline Chenard tolf AFP in Kigali by telephone from Goma, the main city in the province of Nord Kivu. "This prompted people fleeing towards Minova", she added, without putting a figure to the number displaced by the latest clashes in the volatile east of DRC. According to MONUC, the clashes "are in no way linked" to the reported presence of Rwandan soldiers in eastern DRC. Minova lies 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Goma in neighbouring Sud Kivu province. In June, dissident DRC soldiers holed up in Minova after being chased out of another east DRC town, Bukavu, by the army. The dissident soldiers had seized Bukavu to protect fellow ethnic Tutsis who lived there. The latest clashes pitted ethnic Hunde against Congolese who speak neighbouring Rwanda's Kinyarwanda language, corroborating sources said. The same sources have said that tribal militias called Mai-Mai have sided with the Hunde and "aggravated the crisis."

BBC 7 Dec 2004 Mass grave unearthed in DR Congo Jerome Kakwavu's commanders deny committing human rights abuses A grave containing "numerous" bodies allegedly killed by rebels has been found in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, UN peacekeepers say. An underground jail had also been found in a "torture camp" run by the FAPC rebels, said a UN spokesman. The rebel-run Ndrele camp was on Sunday the scene of clashes between the rebels and the UN after peacekeepers tried to investigate reports of abuses. A senior FAPC commander denied the claims, saying camp inmates were free. Ndrele camp is about 20km from the Ugandan border, close to the town of Mahagi in Ituri province, which has been riven by fighting between rival militia groups. QUICK GUIDE The war in DR Congo The BBC's Mark Doyle, who has just visited Ituri, says there are at least seven militia groups there, which are formed along ethnic lines and present themselves as self-defence groups for their communities. But he says their real purpose is to extract economic rent on behalf of the warlords who control them. The FAPC, headed by Major General Jerome Kakwavu, has long controlled a key gold mine in mineral-rich Ituri. 'Looting, killing' A spokesman for the UN mission in DR Congo (Monuc) said after being denied access to Ndrele on Sunday, the UN troops launched an attack in which two FAPC militiamen were killed. Several Monuc troops were injured but are now safe. These Ituri warlords have even conducted violence against men who wanted to disarm voluntarily Mamadou Bah UN spokesman Meeting General Jerome Monuc spokesman Mamadou Bah says there is no doubt that the FAPC forces have been carrying out human rights violations in the area under its control. "They were looting, killing and raping children," he said. FAPC's chief of operations Colonel Didier Wanican, currently in Kampala, vehemently denies that his militia has carried out any human rights abuses. "This is not true. We are giving security to the people," he said. "They are free to do what they want. They are the ones who asked us to be there." The BBC's Will Ross in Kampala says this claim of popularity contrasts greatly with Monuc's reports that following the operation in Ndrele on Sunday, the local population has celebrated as the militia fled and has welcomed the arrival of the blue helmet troops of the UN. Mamadou Bah said the operation serves as a warning for leaders of other armed groups - such as Thomas Lubanga of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) - which the Monuc spokesman said has been harassing the UN operations. Although Monuc says it has now liberated Ndrele, the problem is clearly not solved as the militia has now scattered - the guns are still out there, our correspondent says. Key challenge Colonel Wanichan claims the FAPC troops are willing to disarm and join the national army but he blamed the Kinshasa government for acting slowly. However, Monuc's Mamadou Blah reports that militia including the FAPC have been sabotaging the disarmament process. "These Ituri warlords have even conducted violence against men who wanted to disarm voluntarily." Mamadou Bah urged the Kinshasa government to offer positions to the warlords in the transitional government. Disarming and forming a national army is one of the key challenges for DR Congo where elections are optimistically due to be held in six months' time.

Reuters 9 Dec 2004 Thousands flee new eastern Congo fighting -official By David Lewis KINSHASA, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Thousands of civilians have fled more fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a local official said on Thursday, highlighting continued instability in the lawless jungle frontier region near Rwanda. Fears of a return to full-scale war in Congo were fuelled last month when Rwanda threatened to attack rebels based there, some of whom took part in its 1994 genocide, and clashes between armed men in Congo were reported earlier this month. "There was fighting yesterday just over the (provincial) border in North Kivu and I heard heavy weapons. As of late last night it has been calm," said Jean Shweka, the administrator of Minova, a town in eastern Congo's South Kivu province. "There are now about 7,000 displaced people here in Minova," he told Reuters by telephone. He had no details on casualties or who was involved in the fighting in three nearby villages. There was no immediate independent confirmation of the violence. Shweka said civilians were reporting that their houses had been burned and looted. Rwanda, which invaded Congo in 1996 and 1998 ostensibly to hunt down the Hutu rebels, has denied sending any troops across the frontier but said on Wednesday it was massing soldiers on the mountainous border with its vast neighbour. Congo said it was accelerating the deployment of 10,000 soldiers to the region to counter any threat, a move which has put the fragile mix of ethnic communities on edge and angered Rwandan-speaking Congolese in the town of Goma. Hundreds marched through the town on Thursday saying they feared soldiers might attack them out of anti-Rwandan prejudice, sparking a rival demonstration by other Congolese residents. SHOOTING IN THE AIR "This resulted in violence with some demonstrators throwing stones at vehicles and shops which forced soldiers to fire in the air to disperse them," said Goma's mayor, Xavier Nzabara Matsetsa. "The reports I have at the moment indicate four people died and two are seriously injured." A United Nations spokeswoman in Goma said two people had been injured after military police shot into the air. Congo's Rwandan-speaking community, made up of both Hutus and Tutsis, says that rising tension between the two countries has led to them increasingly being persecuted by Congolese who see them as stooges of Kigali. Congo's five-year war, which began with Rwanda's 1998 invastion and sucked in five other neighbouring countries at its height, officially ended last year but the International Rescue Committee said thousands of civilians are still perishing. "In a matter of six years, the world lost a population equivalent to the entire country of Ireland or the city of Los Angeles," said Richard Brennan, one of the authors of a report by the private New York-based refugee relief agency. The IRC's mortality study updates a previously widely agreed death toll of 3 million people from the war. It says 3.8 million were killed and 1,000 civilians were still dying each day, nearly all from disease and malnutrition. Peace deals were signed in 2002 and a transitional government set up last year charged with leading the vast central African nation to elections in 2005 but the mineral-rich east remains volatile, home to myriad armed factions which have not been integrated into the national army. "If the effects of insecurity and violence in Congo's eastern provinces were removed entirely, mortality would reduce to almost normal levels," IRC said. (Additional reporting by Arthur Asiimwe in Kigali and Themis Hakizimana in Goma)

International Rescue Committee 9 Dec 2004 Mortality in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Results from a nationwide survey Apr - Jul 2004 Executive Summary The Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) is struggling to recover from a devastating six-year conflict that continues to destabilize Central Africa and cause immense suffering to the country's civilian population. The war that commenced in August 1998 and quickly engulfed the country has been characterized by extreme violence, mass population displacements, widespread rape, and a collapse of public health services. The outcome has been a humanitarian disaster unmatched by any other in recent decades. Over the past four years the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has documented the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis in DR Congo through a series of four mortality surveys. The first three surveys, conducted between 2000 and 2002, demonstrated that an estimated 3.3 million people had died as a result of the conflict. The fourth and latest study, covering the period from January 2003 to April 2004, is among the largest ever conducted in a conflict zone. Investigators used a three-stage cluster sampling technique to survey 19,500 households in total, visiting every province in the country, and measuring mortality among nearly 58 million people (over 90% of the Congolese population). An estimated five million people were inaccessible due to security problems. The key findings and conclusions are: 1. The humanitarian crisis in DR Congo remains the world's deadliest: More than 31,000 people die every month as a result of the conflict. Eighteen months after the signing of a formal peace agreement, people in DR Congo continue to die at a rate that is one third higher than the average rate for sub-Saharan Africa. The national crude mortality rate (CMR) of 2.0 deaths per 1,000 per month is 67% higher than that reported for DR Congo prior to the war (1.2). Between January 2003 and April 2004 almost 500,000 deaths occurred beyond what would normally be expected during this period. This is equivalent to over 31,000 lives lost every month and more than 1,000 people dying every day as a result of the conflict. Nearly half of them are children under five years of age. When analyzed in conjunction with the IRC's previous mortality surveys, the findings indicate that from the beginning of the war in August 1998 to the end of April 2004, approximately 3.8 million people have died as a result of the crisis. The survey demonstrates that the Congolese conflict is by far the deadliest war in the world since World War II and the deadliest in Africa ever recorded. 2. Death rates are highest in the unstable eastern provinces. The CMR in the eastern regions of DR Congo (CMR = 2.3) are more than one third higher than those for the West (1.7). The five eastern provinces, where the conflict has been most intense and protracted, have a CMR of 2.7, which is 80% higher than the average rate for sub-Saharan Africa (1.5). The mortality rate for children under five years of age (U5MR) in these provinces is 70% higher than the regional norm. The eastern provinces account for 77% of the excess mortality documented in DR Congo, with 27% of eastern health zones experiencing a CMR that is higher than the accepted emergency threshold of 1 death per 10,000 per day for the entire 16-month recall period. These rates do not include the period since April 2004, during which there have been several violent incidents in the East. 3. The majority of deaths are due to easily preventable and treatable diseases. While security problems continue in the eastern provinces, less than two percent of deaths over the past 16 months have been due to war-related violence. The most devastating byproducts of the conflict have been the disruption of the country's health services and food supplies. As a result, the vast majority of deaths have been among civilians and have been due to easily preventable and treatable illnesses such as fever and malaria, diarrhea, respiratory infections, and malnutrition. Children under five years old are at particular risk from these diseases. They account for 45.4% of the 500,000 deaths documented in this last survey period, even though they represent less than 20% of the total population. 4. Lack of security has a direct effect on the number of deaths from both violent and non-violent causes. Deaths from non-violent causes, such as infectious diseases, are highest in the most conflict-prone regions where security problems continue to impede access to health care and humanitarian assistance. In health zones where violent deaths were reported, CMRs are 75% higher than those of health zones where no violent deaths were reported. If the effects of insecurity and violence in the eastern provinces were removed entirely, it is estimated that mortality rates would reduce to almost normal levels (from 2.7 to 1.6 deaths per 1,000 per month). In the health zone of Kisangani-Ville, for example, fighting stopped in 2002 allowing health, water, and sanitation services to be rehabilitated. Since then, the CMR has declined by 79% and excess mortality has been eliminated. 5. In spite of positive trends, mortality rates in DR Congo have not improved significantly since 2002. During the period of this survey, January 2003 to April 2004, there was a gradual decrease in the total number of deaths in eastern provinces, largely due to improvements in security that allowed for increased humanitarian access. The national CMR has reduced from 2.4 to 2.0 since 2002, but this change was not statistically significant because of overlapping confidence intervals with the previous survey. Similarly, the CMRs for both eastern and western DR Congo have declined, but -- for the same reason - are not significantly different from the survey of 2002. For the fourth time since 2000, data from representative mortality surveys has demonstrated that the conflict in DR Congo dwarfs other emergencies in both its scale and humanitarian impact. No other recent conflict has claimed as many lives as DR Congo and mortality rates remain elevated at an alarming level. In spite of these unambiguous facts, the international community has not yet mobilized the necessary will or resources to effectively address the crisis. The survey's findings provide compelling evidence that improving security and increasing access to simple, cost-effective health interventions such as clean water, immunizations, and basic medical care would dramatically reduce preventable deaths. During the months the survey was undertaken and since its completion, a number of serious security incidents have occurred that threaten to further destabilize the country and the region. The few recent political and humanitarian gains are now in jeopardy and a return to a full-scale war that engulfs the region is a distinct possibility. International engagement is tragically lacking in DR Congo, and hundreds of thousands of innocent people are dying as a result.

IRIN 10 Dec 2004 UN troops break up militia camp in Ituri [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] KINSHASA, 10 Dec 2004 (IRIN) - UN troops shut down a militia camp on Thursday in the embattled northeastern district of Ituri in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a UN official said on Thursday. Christophe Boulierac, a spokesman of the UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, said the militia camp was near a transit demobilisation centre that had been set up in the town of Mahagi, to receive fighters from the Forces armees du peuple Congolais (FAPC) militia group. "The operation aimed to force the militiamen out of the camp because they were a threat to demobilised soldiers whom they threatened with death," Boulierac said. MONUC broke up the camp early on Thursday. It subsequently discovered 15 AK-47 rifles, a rocket, munitions and some documents. "A small number [of militiamen] accepted to leave of the camp and surrender their weapons, the others fled and about ten of them went to the transit camp for demobilised soldiers," Boulierac added. Boulierac said UN Pakistani soldiers were now occupying the militia camp. The Mahagi demobilisation centre was one of five set up to receive soldiers as part of the country’s disarmament, demobilisation and reinsertion programme. MONUC's operation on Thursday came in the wake of allegations on Sunday that child combatants, who had accepted to be demobilised, were executed; that other civilians were also killed; that taxes were being levied illegally; and that there were other violations by FAPC militiamen in another camp in Ndrele, 20 km southeast of Mahagi. It also comes as the public prosecutor is investigating these abuses. According to MONUC, the prosecutor arrived in Ndrele on Wednesday and has begun interviewing some of the accused militiamen. "There are testimonies on executions, on children being used in Ndrele as workers or sexual slaves and the existence of an illegal detention facility," Boulierac said. Boulierac said MONUC had discovered human bones in the dismantled militia camp, but it was unclear if they belonged to one or more persons.

Reuters 11 Dec 2004 Congo Army Factions Clash in Eastern Congo - U.N. By REUTERS Filed at 1:44 p.m. ET KINSHASA (Reuters) - Rival army units in Democratic Republic of Congo clashed on Saturday not far from Rwanda, the United Nations said, in another sign of military and political turmoil in the east of the former Zaire. ``We have heard reports of heavy fighting south of here,'' U.N. spokeswoman Jacqueline Chenard said by telephone from the eastern town of Goma before the 11,000-strong U.N. force in Congo sent up a helicopter to have a look. ``We flew over the area and the situation was calm. Whatever had happened must have finished by the afternoon,'' she said later on Saturday afternoon. Congo's mountainous eastern border region has been on edge since Rwanda threatened in November to send troops into its vast neighbor for the third time since 1996, to hunt down Rwandan Hutu militants it blames for cross-border raids. Chenard said the fighting appeared to have involved two army factions of the 8th military region based in Goma, which is the capital of North Kivu province, and that more government troops had been sent to try and quell the clashes. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Mineral-rich North Kivu province is ostensibly under the command of Congo's new national army, created after a string of peace deals ended a five-year war in the former Belgian colony involving armies from six countries at one point. REMOTE JUNGLE REGION However former foes who are now supposedly on the same side, such as government-backed militias and former Rwandan-backed RCD rebels, are still vying for military and economic control of the remote jungle region. The situation is complicated further by splits within some of these groups. ``The fighting is heavy. It's fighting between a pro-Kinshasa element of the Mai Mai (Congolese militia) and some (Mai Mai) renegades that still back the (RCD) rebels,'' said a Congolese security source in the distant capital Kinshasa. He said the fighting was near a place called Kirotshe, about 35 km (22 miles) southwest of Goma. Congo's war was officially declared over last year but the ensuing humanitarian crisis has been dubbed the world's worst. An international aid agency said in a report this week the war has killed 3.8 million people, mostly from hunger and disease. Kinshasa accuses its tiny neighbor of meddling in Congo's internal affairs to keep influence in the mineral-rich east, a charge supported by a United Nations report in July which said renegade Congolese soldiers had been helped by Rwanda. Rwanda says the U.N.'s 11,000 strong peacekeeping force and Congo's army have failed to disarm the Hutu rebels, some of whom took part in the 1994 genocide, so it has the right to do so. Rwanda denies sending any soldiers into Congo since making the threat, but has massed units on the border. Kinshasa is rapidly deploying 10,000 soldiers to counter the threat.

AFP 13 Dec 2004 DRC churches warn against tribalism Goma 13 December 2004 09:20 Roman Catholic and Protestant religious leaders in the troubled eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Sunday warned their congregations against a "spirit of division and tribalism". "We call on all believers take measures through prayer not to slip into the spirit of division and tribalism but to advance in the [spirit of] welcome and mutual acceptance," the priest at the Holy Spirit church in Goma said. There have been persistent reports that neighbouring Rwanda has sent its soldiers across the border to deal with Hutu extremist rebels in the DRC. The message replaced the traditional sermon and was read in all the churches in Goma, the main town in North Kivu province and close to the border with Rwanda. The government in Kigali has been dominated by the Tutsi minority since current President Paul Kagame defeated and ousted extremist Hutu Rwandan troops and militias who carried out genocide in Rwanda in 1994. - Sapa-AFP

washingtonpost.com 13 Dec 2004 Failure in Congo Monday, December 13, 2004; Page A20 ONE OF THE MOST costly wars of the past half-century is on the brink of resuming: There are reports of heavy fighting around eastern towns in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some say the army of neighboring Rwanda has again invaded, as its government threatened it would do last month. Congo's government is sending its own troops to the area; refugees are once again on the move. Last week the U.N. Security Council issued a stern warning to Rwanda and threatened unspecified "further actions" if it did not withdraw. Yet if Congo once again becomes a regional battleground, the United Nations will have mainly itself to blame. Rwanda has sent its army into Congo twice before, in 1996 and 1998. In both cases, as now, the announced aim was to attack Rwandan Hutu militias based there, including fighters responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The last incursion led to a five-year war involving at least seven African countries; by common estimates more than 3 million people died, mostly from disease or starvation. A peace agreement 18 months ago was to end the war, and Rwanda and other nations withdrew their troops. But the keys to the accord were that U.N. peacekeeping troops fill the vacuum in eastern Congo, a vast area where the central government and its forces have little presence, and that the militias whose presence ignited the conflict be disarmed. In both these tasks the U.N. peacekeeping mission, known by the acronym MONUC, has failed miserably. Though it is the largest such mission in the world, with more than 10,000 troops, it has failed to keep order or even to prevent massacres in some of the principal towns of the region. In Bukavu and Bunia, it has stood by while local militias have raped and murdered civilians within sight of its bases. Worse, its own troops have raped or sexually exploited women and girls; the practice "appears to be significant, widespread and ongoing," according to a confidential U.N. report described by The Post's Colum Lynch last month. With Rwandan troops massing, the U.N. force finally raided a couple of militia camps in the past few days. But its policy of relying on persuasion rather than force to disarm hard-core Hutu militants has, not surprisingly, achieved next to nothing. Rwanda is wrong to respond to this situation with a new invasion, which may be aimed at Congo's lucrative resources as much as at the Hutu militias. If its troops have crossed the line and are not withdrawn, the Security Council should consider sanctions. But it should also, at the same time, take an honest look at the wreck of its mission in this strategic African country. Perhaps there are mitigating circumstances; it's probably true, for example, that the force has always been too small to do its job. Still, the disastrous performance of U.N. peacekeeping in Congo ought to lead to a broad reconsideration of such missions. Neither Africa nor the rest of the world can afford such failures.

Egypt

Assyrian International News Agency ^Dec 2004 www.aina.org 3,000 Egyptian Copts Protest Mubarak's Neglect of Coptic Persecution A Coptic priest's wife has been abducted by Muslim extremists, prompting nation-wide demonstrations by more than 3,000 Copts in various parts of Egypt. The demonstrators-including the clergyman and fifty hunger-strikers-have denounced President Hosni Mubarak's neglect of the recent escalation in anti-Coptic hate crimes. 3,000 Coptic demonstrators in Cairo, el-Minia, el-Behara and Assiut provinces gathered on December 5 and 6, 2004 to protest the abduction and forced conversion to Islam of Wafaa Constantine, the wife of a Coptic priest. Demonstrators further protested President Mubarak's inattention to Coptic pleas for protection from government persecution. The on-going two-day protest is a response to the predominantly Muslim Egyptian government's sanction of anti-Coptic hate crimes such as arson, torture, murder, and the abduction, rape, and forced conversion of young Coptic women. Although Egypt's native Christian Copts- numbering between 12-15 million and constituting approximately 15 percent of Egypt's population-have long been targets for Muslim extremists, a recent rise in anti-Coptic sentiment has prompted an escalation in violence against Copts. Recent crimes denounced by demonstrators include mob violence in the village of Mankateen (Samalout province). On Friday, December 3, 2004, 5,000 Muslim villagers stormed and set fire to a building housing a Coptic prayer room. The mob then swept through the village, looting and burning Coptic homes and businesses, destroying a Coptic priest's car, and injuring several Copts in the process. The mob was prompted by the announcement that President Mubarak had once again refused Mankateens' Coptic community their request to build a church. Other crimes protested by the Coptic community include the alarming rise in the kidnapping, rape, and forced conversion of young Coptic women such as 19-year old Manal Gurguis Abd El Malak, whose kidnappers have yet to face justice due to discriminatory police neglect. Even high-ranking officials such as Assiut province's National Democratic Party Leader Mohamed Abd El Mohsen Saleh have been implicated by the national media in the kidnappings and forced conversions of several young Coptic women; President Mubarak has censured neither Saleh nor other officials implicated in similar crimes. In a letter to President Bush, Michael Meunier, president of the U.S. Copts Association, appealed for Bush's immediate intervention with President Mubarak on behalf of Egypt's persecuted Copts. "Mubarak's regime has not only ignored, but in many cases contributed to the alarming increase in anti-Coptic violence," said Meunier. "Only President Bush's personal intervention can help prevent the escalation of these hate crimes into full-fledged cultural genocide." U.S. Copts Association The U.S. Copts Association, founded in 1996 and based in Washington D.C., advocates for democracy, religious freedom, and human rights in Egypt. The Association represents over 700,000 Egyptian Christians in the United States.

Ethiopia

AP 26 Nov 2004 Ethiopia Belatedly Accepts Ruling on Eritrea Border ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Nov. 25 -- Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told parliament Thursday that Ethiopia had decided to accept "in principle" a disputed ruling on its border with Eritrea, made as part of peace deal that was reached four years ago. Ethiopia has until now refused to respect the April 2002 ruling by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, part of the Permanent Court of Arbitration based in The Hague. Meles told lawmakers that Ethiopia still considered the commission's finding "illegal and unjust" but had decided peace was more important. The government will start dialogue with Eritrea immediately, "with a view to implementing the decision of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission in a manner consistent with the promotion of sustainable peace and brotherly ties between the two peoples," Meles said. But the prime minister said Ethiopia's acceptance of the commission's decision did not mean it would cede any territory. The 547-member parliament voted to endorse Meles's five-point plan by 428 votes to 10, with three abstentions. One hundred and six members were not present when the vote was taken. Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a 2 1/2-year border war between May 1998 and December 2000 in which tens of thousands of people were killed. As part of a deal to end the war, Ethiopia and Eritrea agreed to form an independent boundary commission and that its decision would be final and binding. Eritrea accepted the April 2002 decision, but Ethiopia said it disagreed with some aspects, including the awarding of the disputed town of Badme to Eritrea. Since signing a peace deal in 2000, Ethiopia and Eritrea have had little contact. In January, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed a special envoy to try to get the two countries talking.

AFP 29 Nov 2004 Ethiopia becomes 144th nation to ratify landmine pact at conference NAIROBI, Nov 29 (AFP) - Delegates from 140 countries began a week-long conference Monday to assess progress made in implementing a pact to eliminate landmines, which kill or maim more than 40 people around the world every day. As the conference got under way, Ethiopia -- one of the countries in the world worst affected by mines -- became the 144th nation to ratify the Ottawa Convention, which bans the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of landmines and calls for a mine-free world in the next 10 years. "I am delighted that on the first day of this historic event, one of the world's most mine-affected states has joined the effort to end the suffering caused by anti-personnel mines," said Wolfgang Petritsch, Austrian diplomat to the United Nations in Geneva, who is presiding over the week-long summit. "Ethiopians can now look forward to a brighter future without the terror of landmines," Petritsch said, noting that "Ethiopia must now destroy its existing stockpiles of anti-personnel mines within four years, clear mined areas within 10 years, and cease any use, production or transfer of the weapon immediately." "Other states must now also rise to the challenge of assisting Ethiopia in fulfilling its obligations," he added. In addition to evaluating progress made in applying the 1997 Ottawa Convention, the conference will discuss how to help up to 400,000 survivors of mine explosions in 121 countries, most of them in Africa. Civilians make up to 86 percent of those killed or wounded by the mines. Between 1999, when the treaty entered into force, and 2003, more than four million anti-personnel mines were destroyed, said a Landmine Monitor Report, prepared by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a coalition of groups behind the treaty. But Thai Deputy Foreign Minister Sorajak Kasemsuvan lamented that "progress has not been fast enough." "There is still a long road ahead of us, as countries with stockpiles of landmines are still outside the convention," he told the opening session on behalf of his foreign minister, who is the Convention's current president. "There is need to take timely action if we are to eradicate landmines," he added. Organisers of the Nairobi Summit on landmines said 107 states that are party to the Convention and 23 non-parties are attending the week-long conference. The African Union, European Community, Organization of American States, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, are attending as observers. Representatives from China, Iraq, Ukraine and Somalia will also be at the conference, to be addressed later in the week by Presidents Mwai Kibaki of Kenya, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed of Somalia, and several deputy prime ministers. It will also try to convince China, Russia and the United States to join the treaty.

Liberia

UN News Service 29 Nov 2004 Over 100,000 Liberians have turned in weapons to UN 29 November 2004 – Over 100,000 Liberians have turned in guns, ammunition, rocket propelled grenades and other weapons to the United Nations peacekeeping force in their country, the head of the mission said today. “We’re now at 96,333 people disarmed, and we have another six or seven thousand in the pipeline,” Jacques Paul Klein, head of the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), told the UN News Service. The Mission has already destroyed more than six million rounds of ammunition – a figure Mr. Klein described as “incredible by any measure.” The success of the disarmament push was revealed late last month when disturbances rocked Monrovia and surrounding areas, Mr. Klein said, pointing out that only a handful of the nearly 250 people injured at the time were wounded by firearms. “If [arms] had been here at the time, they would have come out,” he observed. Mr. Klein added that while he is not “naïve enough to think we’ve got them all,” he is confident that during the disturbances there would have been “a lot more shooting” were it not for the comprehensive disarmament effort, which involves not only collecting arms but also retraining and reintegrating former combatants. The UNMIL chief also welcomed the return of normalcy and the Government’s recent decision to lift the country-wide curfew that had been imposed during the disturbances. If the curfew had stayed in effect for too long, it would have proved counterproductive, he noted. Meanwhile, children separated from their families during the country’s conflict have been reuniting with loved ones in large numbers. Of the 7,179 boys and 2,308 girls who have gone through the disarmament process – which involves housing them in separate camps and providing services tailored to their specific needs – 98 per cent have gone back to live with either their parents or other family members. “At first I was very worried that we would have to rely on orphanages and foster homes,” Mr. Klein said. But through persistent efforts to return the children to their homes, the results have been “amazing,” he added. Liberia’s children are also being helped by UN-led efforts to provide immunization against common diseases. Half a million Liberian children have been immunized against measles, 230,000 have been vaccinated against yellow fever, and over 830,000 were immunized against polio, said Mr. Klein, who coordinates the work of all UN operations in Liberia. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has provided Liberia with 10,000 school supply kits, while 13,000 Liberian teachers have been trained in emergency education orientation during two- to three-week courses, the envoy added.

IRIN 6 Dec 2004 National army to get back on its feet after years of civil war [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © MONROVIA, 6 Dec 2004 (IRIN) - Liberia's transitional government has begun paving the way for a new national army to emerge from the ashes of 14 years of civil war, backed by funding from the US government, a top military official said on Monday. Most of the soldiers in the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) defected to rebel factions after civil war broke out in 1989, providing many of the groups' senior commanders. The national army has been in disarray ever since and for the 16 months of peace Liberia has known, the world's biggest UN peacekeeping force -- made up of some 15,000 soldiers -- has been stationed in the country. Now moves are afoot to rebuild the national army. "From October to end of November, we started the restructuring program by re-documenting the present strength of the army," army spokesman Richard Barnah told IRIN. He said the process was designed to work out how many people had reached retiring age or had left the army. The United States' role of training armed forces in Liberia, the country founded by freed American slaves in the early 19th century, would continue in the post-war era, Barnah said. Washington offered a helping hand with army training from the 1950s up to the outbreak of civil war. "There are now negotiations between the transitional government and the US government for the latter to provide training for the army," Barnah said. The US ambassador to Liberia, John Blaney, said last week that his government had already set aside US$ 35 million to carry out the army restructuring before general elections, scheduled for October 2005. "Training the military is a long-term process," Blaney told reporters. "The intention of the US is to start this process in the first half of 2005. We have about 35 million earmarked for this task." Disarmament has now been completed in the heavily-forested West African country, with more than 102,000 men, women and children disarmed and around 27,000 weapons handed in. Rebels and militia groups formally disbanded last month in line with a peace deal signed in August 2003 and now attention is turning to reviving a national force, which has been effectively redundant since 1989. There were attempts to restructure the army during the years of civil war but none of them successful. Under the Abuja peace accord that led to a break in the fighting in 1996 and general elections in 1997, the West African peacekeeping force (ECOMOG) was supposed to retrain a new national army based on fair ethnic and geographical representation. But Charles Taylor, who won the 1997 elections, sidelined the issue, saying the restructuring was solely a matter for the elected government. A year later his government established a commission which recommended a 6,000-strong army but the proposal was never implemented. Then in 1999, civil conflict erupted again and plans for the army fell by the wayside as Taylor favoured his former rebel fighters, who formed militia groups that battled rebel insurgents until 2003 when a peace deal was finally imposed and Taylor fled into exile.

Nigeria

www.vanguardngr.com 30 Nov 2004 Ijaws petition UN over Ojobo crisis ...Accuses Shell, Army of genocide By Emeka Ugwuanyi Tuesday, November 30, 2004 Ijaws of the Niger- Delta have sent a petition to the United Nations as well as all foreign embassies in the country, accusing Shell of conspiring with the Nigerian Army to commit genocide in Ojobo community in Delta State. The petition written by the Ijaw Monitoring Group and signed by Comrade Joseph Evah on behalf of the group, condemned the attack on defenceless citizens of Ijaw at Beneseide Flow Station by the Army which it alleged is being sponsored by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC). "The killing of Ijaws at the aforementioned area, the group said, is on daily basis and has become a daily occurrence in the Niger- Delta region." The group stated that it is the right of the citizens of the community to carry out a peaceful protest against non-implementation of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between the oil companies and the communities. The Ijaw Monitoring Group explained that what Shell does is to meet with the community with a promise to undertake a community development project such as construction of water boreholes or electricity project, among others. After the community has signed the MOU with it, Shell would give the contract to a contractor who will either do a substandard job or not do the job at the end of the day. Niger-Delta communities, according to the group, have asked Shell not to give anybody cash to avoid embezzlement, that Shell should rather carry out the projects by itself to ensure standard. But the method Shell adopted is to award such contracts to people who would always do a substandard work and when the people protest such jobs, Shell would set the Army against them. The group said: “Like the Ojobo case where Shell disregarded the MOU, there is no community in the Niger-Delta where Shell religiously respect and follow the conditions stated in the MOUs. Shell prefer to bribe security agents with contract favours and physical cash in order for the soldiers to kill and maim the citizens who may organize themselves to protest Shell's fraudulent activities.” The group also stated that soldiers and officers assigned to oil rigs and platforms in the Niger-Delta area are richer than their counter- parts assigned to other duties in other areas in Nigeria because they are in the pay roll of oil companies who use them to commit inhuman acts in the region. “We wish to inform the international community that all the figures displayed by Shell as money spent on development projects in the Niger-Delta are false because ninety-nine per cent of the money goes into the pockets of security agents and the black managers who Shell use as business front to siphon funds meant for the development of the Niger- Delta region and its people." The Ijaw Monitoring Group also reminded the world body that the Ijaws lost 25 per cent of its population before the of age 50 as a result of the consequences of oil and gas exploration and production. Aside the physical and environmental devastation, there is also the human and material anarchy with accompanying mental depression. The group also alleged that Shell put aside 10 per cent of its yearly budget to bribe government officials in the legislature, judiciary and executive, including security agents, to cover its inhuman acts in the region. "Therefore, we urge the international community to check the activities of multi-national oil companies in the region before a breakdown of law and order which may threaten the lives of foreign nationals working in the oil firms. The petition copied to the embassies in Nigeria warned that the Ijaw will not guarantee the safety of lives of foreign workers in the region because of the genocide committed against the Ojobo community where according to the group over 25 persons are missing apart from countless number of people killed while 50 percent of the community has been destroyed. The Ijaws urged the world body to intervene as quick as possible to prevent unprecedented crisis in the region.

The East African Standard (Nairobi) 5 Dec 2004 Obasanjo View On Genocide By Ken Ramani Nairobi Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo says he's unconvinced genocide is taking place in Darfur, western Sudan. Over the weekend, he dismissed the United State's determination that "genocide" is being inflicted on Darfur's indigenous black Africans. When asked at an interview with CNN if he agreed with the call on Darfur by the US administration, Obasanjo replied: "Now, what I know of Sudan does not fit in all respects of that definition-genocide". "The government of Sudan can be condemned, but it's not as genocide" Obasanjo said hours after meeting President George Bush at the White House. Obasanjo poured cold water on outgoing Secretary of State, Colin Powell who has been lamenting that other nations have not joined the US in declaring genocide is underway in Sudan's troubled western region of Darfur. Obasanjo said he agreed with Bush there is an acute problem in the region that needs to be addressed.

Mozambique

Reuters 30 nov 2004 FEATURE-Opposition militia scars Mozambique's era of peace 30 Nov 2004 02:03:09 GMT Source: Reuters By Manoah Esipisu BEIRA, Mozambique, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Thirty armed men arrive at a police station and demand the release of two fugitives arrested over the assault of a government official. Outnumbered and outgunned, police free the offenders who vanish into the night. The armed men were members of the "Presidential Guard" of the Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo), which is based in northern Mozambique, and its leader Afonso Dhlakama, who is standing for president in Dec. 1 and 2 elections. The militia is a relic of a 1992 deal to end 16 years of civil war in this former Portuguese colony which allowed Renamo, Mozambique's main opposition movement, to contest multi-party elections two years later. The men -- whose numbers have swollen from 150 in 1992 closer to 500 now -- were supposed to keep their weapons only to protect Dhlakama and his key aides until after 1994 elections. Their designated bases were Dhlakama's government-provided villa in the capital Maputo, his home of Maringue and the nearby Cheringoma districts in the central Sofala region. Now the "Presidential Guard" have become Mozambique police's biggest nightmare, blamed for robberies, car-jackings and low-scale political thuggery in Sofala province, a Renamo-leaning region that is seen as one of the key battlegrounds in this week's elections that will lead to the retirement of veteran President Joaquim Chissano. The "Presidential Guard", Mozambican officials say, serve as a warning to Africans negotiating peace that quick demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration are essential in finding a lasting solution to conflicts elsewhere on the continent. Officials say they can understand concerns in the Great Lakes region over the presence of militia linked to Rwanda's 1994 genocide that have not been demobilised. MISTRUST OF POLICE Felicio Zacarias, Sofala's provincial governor, says Renamo's leaders were deeply suspicious about the police department, which they said they could not entrust with Dhlakama's life. Zacarias argues that mistrust of the police was no reason to maintain an illegal militia. He said the Renamo militia were thugs who ordered supporters not to pay taxes, beat up police officers sent to guard Dhlakama during his visits to his native Maringue and attacked anyone who publicly spoke in favour of the government. Zacarias was supported by Frelimo Secretary General Armando Guebuza, who said he supported demobilisation and reintegration of the Renamo men. "They (Renamo) were not allowed to keep arms after the elections (in 1994). They were supposed to keep them between the moment of signing and after the elections -Â… people should be guided by the rule of law," Guebuza told Reuters in Maputo, adding that Renamo's security concerns were no longer valid. Dhlakama told Reuters police blamed his guards for all violence in central and northern Mozambique as part of a government campaign to discredit him and disguise their inability to deal with high rates of crime, the cause of which he blamed on mounting poverty. "They blame everything on Renamo, but it is Frelimo that is in power. They ought to enforce the rule of law," Dhlakama told Reuters on a campaign stop in Beira. "RENAMO MUST AGREE TO DISARM" Mozambique's police chief Miguel dos Santos says Renamo must agree to disarm its men and take a government invitation to integrate them in the police service. "Some of the attacks that have been carried out by this militia, like that on the police station, are plain terrorist acts," he said. Analysts say the Renamo militia poses a threat to Mozambique's stability. Dos Santos and analysts said Dhlakama and his aides were reluctant to allow their militia to be integrated into the police service because they would lose control and the threat of going back to the bush if their interests were not guaranteed. "A police officer takes orders from his superiors in the department and not from a political party. That is why there is resistance to this plan," said dos Santos. Renamo officials admit that their guards have beaten up government officials and gunned down a policeman in August, but say it was self defence. Dhlakama told Reuters that those who say he kept the guards as a threat of war were keen to tarnish his image: "We shall never go back to war. Reintegration is a matter that we have to discuss and agree conditions, it cannot be done by force." Professor Eduardo Sitoe, analyst at Mozambique's Eduardo Mondalane University, said he saw the militia as a limited problem but their activities always sparked excessive reaction by the police special reaction forces. "The police often react against the guards like they were dealing with a war or state of emergency and this is not exactly the case," Sitoe told Reuters. .

Rwanda see Canada

BBC 30 Nov 2004 Rwandans 'making DR Congo raids' Rwandan troops left DR Congo in 2002 Rwandan troops have been accused of carrying out raids inside the Democratic Republic of Congo and attacking and burning villages. From the eastern town of Beni, Congolese regional cooperation minister Mbusa Nyamwisi said: "We are being attacked by the Rwandan troops." United Nations peacekeepers say they cannot confirm the allegations. The UN humanitarian agency (OCHA) says thousands of people are reported to be fleeing their homes. Border control Earlier, President Paul Kagame said in a speech that Rwandan troops may already have crossed into DR Congo in pursuit of ethnic Hutu rebels. QUICK GUIDE The war in DR Congo He told senators attempts to disarm forces across the border "will not take long, or it is even happening now". Rwandan troops were reported in the DR Congo on Monday by diplomats, but UN forces on patrol have not sighted any. The Congolese authorities say they will send more than 6,000 troops to the border area within the next two weeks. Rwanda has consistently warned that it is prepared to take military action because of the threat it says is posed by the group which include fighters who took part in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Some Congolese analysts say that the real reason behind Rwanda's threats is that President Joseph Kabila has recalled the governor of North Kivu province, based in Goma, who is from the Rwandan-backed RCD former rebel group. They say Rwanda wants to ensure it retains control of the border area. Residents of the Congolese border town of Bukavu have reportedly been gathering stones to use to fight off any Rwandan incursion. The rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) says that a brigade of Rwandan soldiers has crossed the border into North Kivu province, reports the AFP news agency. Slow progress The United Nations last week warned Rwanda not to use military force, saying such a move could undermine international efforts to stabilise the region. Rwanda has twice invaded its much larger neighbour - in 1996 and 1998 - accusing the different Congolese governments of backing the Hutu rebels. It withdrew its troops in 2002, under a regional deal to end five years of war in DR Congo, in which some three million people died. Under that deal, the Hutu rebels were supposed to have been disarmed but progress has been slow. Rwanda says that the rebels are now attacking its territory under the noses of the international community. Last week, the first of 5,000 extra UN peacekeepers arrived in DR Congo. There are already more than 10,000 UN peacekeepers in DR Congo and troops have been placed on alert and patrols have been despatched to check for any Rwandan incursion. However, they say they have no knowledge of Rwandan forces having crossed the border. A spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping mission told the BBC's Network Africa that their patrols by air and on the ground have not encountered any Rwandan presence in DR Congo since the threats were made.

Independent OnLine ZA 29 Nov 2004 Survivors of genocide always the first target November 29 2004 at 04:26PM By William Maclean Kigali - Rwanda's threats to send troops into Democratic Republic of Congo to crush Hutu rebels have drawn international condemnation but find support among survivors of Rwanda's 1994 genocide. Francois Ngarambe, who heads a group that assists genocide survivors, has said that attacks by the rebels of the Hutu majority were motivated by the same murderous ethnic ideology that tore the country apart a decade ago. "Survivors of the genocide are always the first target of the genocidal forces," he said in an interview, recalling that survivors had often been the victims of the last regular cross-border raids staged by the rebels in 1997 and 1998. 'They are the living symbol of the killings they wish to finish' "This is because they are the living symbol of the killings they wish to finish. Eradicating them also means in a sense that they delete their guilt and erase their own memory (of 1994)." Rwanda's Tutsi-led government last week threatened to enter Congo for the third time to try to crush the rebels once and for all, in a move that raised tensions in central Africa. Ngarambe is Rwanda's most prominent representative of the victims of the 1994 slaughter, when 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered by Hutu militants in the space of 100 days. He heads Ibuka, a government-funded relief organisation that helps many of the widows, widowers and orphans of the victims of the fastest genocide in modern history. His thinking sheds some light on the motives behind Rewanda's profound sensitivity to the rebels' presence in Congo. 'The hardliners do not want the survivors to testify' He says it is reasonable to suspect the rebels' presence in the former Zaire, where they fled with families after taking part in the genocide, boosts the morale of ethnic extremists in Rwanda, especially those due to go on trial for 1994 killings. He points to the unsolved murders of 20 people this year in what he calls genocidal circumstances. Authorities fear the killers wanted to eliminate people due to testify at genocide trials being held by village-based popular courts. "The hardliners do not want the survivors to testify. We have had people who are threatened daily," he said. "And the rebels are trying to have links or alliances with people inside the country who have this genocidal tendency." The rebels, who nowadays manage only to fire rockets into Rwanda from Congo sporadically, deny they harbour ethnic hatred and say they want only to take part in Rwandan politics. Can the precarious cohesion of Rwandan society survive the strains another war in Congo might bring? Ngarambe sighs. "We still have a long way to go. Genocidal ideology survives in the present day. Many people still live in fear, or are killed, because they are survivors or because their killers fear they would testify against them." The rebels are not particularly popular among the Hutu majority, Rwandans say, but any diversion of state spending from health and education to a fresh war effort could test nerves in a society mired in desperate poverty. Ngarambe hopes any new war effort will leave his funding untouched. The semi-autonomous body is funded by a five percent slice of state tax revenues, spending the bulk of it on education, with the remainder going mainly to health programmes. "The situation will remain sensitive for a long time. But we should be optimistic. I like to compare us to 10 years ago, not to some ideal situation. We have made amazing progress which makes us hope we can achieve miracles," he said. "From hell we have not yet reached heaven, but at least we are alive on earth."

Somalia

Reuters 6 Dec 2004 About 100 die in spreading Somali clashes - residents MOGADISHU, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Factional fighting in central Somalia killed an estimated 100 people, wounded more than 180 and displaced thousands in the past five days, residents said on Monday. Women and children were among those wounded in the violence, which erupted around Gelinsor town in Mudug region near the Ethiopian border on Wednesday and spread over the weekend to Hobyo town on the Indian Ocean, eyewitnesses said. There has been no firm word on what triggered the initial violence but subsequent killings created a revenge cycle that was fuelling the fighting, residents told Reuters in Mogadishu by radio. Thousands of civilians have fled the affected towns as militiamen battle each other using light artillery, anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft guns fired horizontally and heavy machineguns mounted on pickup trucks. One resident reported that some fighters had also used a number of T-54 tanks, leftovers from the defunct army of the government of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, ousted in 1991. Since his overthrow the country has been a patchwork of fiefdoms run by warlords backed up by heavily armed militias, though a new Somali government formed in neighbouring Kenya aims to go home and reest