February 2004 News Monitor - Prevent Genocide International

Home
Prevention

Prevent Genocide International

News Monitor for February 2004
Tracking current news on genocide and items related to past and present ethnic, national, racial and religious violence.
See also Selected news reports on the Stockholm International Forum on Preventing Genocide (Jan. 26-28, 2004)

Current Month, - Search News Monitors - Past Months: Jan 2004, Feb 2004, Mar 2004
2003: Jan 2003, Feb 2003, Mar 2003, Apr 2003, May 2003, June 2003, July 2003, Aug 2003, Sep 2003, Oct 2003, Nov 2003, Dec 2003
2002: Jan 2002, Feb 2002, Mar 2002, Apr 2002, May 2002, June 2002, July 2002, Aug 2002, Sep 2002, Oct 2002, Nov 2002, Dec 2002
2001: Jan 2001, Feb 2001, Mar 2001, Apr 2001, May 2001, June 2001, July 2001, Aug 2001, Sep 2001, Oct 2001, Nov 2001, Dec 2001
For abbreviated news sources (ie: AP, BBC) see below . Use Find (Ctrl+F) to search this webpage.
For larger text: on your browser's "View" menu, point to "Text Size" and click the size you want.
Also see the weekly Peace Negotiations Watch (since Sept. 2002) and the monthly CrisisWatch (since Sept. 2003).

Africa

Americas

Asia-Pacific

Europe

The East African (Nairobi) 9 Feb 2004 ANALYSIS Africa's Own Security Council Means No More Pariahs Peter Mwangi Kagwanja Nairobi This is "more than a dropping of one letter", quipped BBC World Affairs correspondent, Paul Reynolds, on the historic transformation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) into the African Union (AU). Now African states have passed yet another milestone by ratifying the protocol relating to the establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union. The protocol, adopted by the inaugural meeting of the AU held in Durban on July 9, 2002, came into force on December 26 when the Charg d'Affaires of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, L.K. Iyanda, deposited his country's instrument of ratification. The approval of the protocol, which required the ratification of 27 out of a total of 53 AU member states, closes nearly 18 months of vigorous lobbying on what is perhaps one of the most innovative and revolutionary of the African Union documents. The protocol heralds the dawn of a new era of commitment to peace, security, good governance and respect for human rights, rule of law and human dignity on the continent. It also brings to a close the grim interlude in African history when pariah regimes stalked the continent and hid behind the fortress of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of states enshrined in the OAU Charter to brutalise their citizens and trample upon democracy. One of the most revolutionary aspects of the protocol is its effort to redefine the benchmarks of the sanctity of state sovereignty for the greater good of human life, dignity and freedom. For instance, the protocol gives power to the Assembly of the African Union to make a decision to intervene in a member state in such grave circumstances as war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. In a sense, this ensures that the African Union does not find itself in the same predicament as its predecessor, which stood by and watched as such unspeakable dictators as Idi Amin (Uganda) and Jean Bedel Bokassa (Central African Republic) committed crimes against humanity with abandon, and as Rwanda descended into a genocide that claimed nearly a million lives. Another groundbreaking aspect of the protocol is that it empowers the PSC to impose sanctions in situations where unconstitutional change of government has taken place in a member state, as provided for in the Lome Declaration. It also allows the Peace and Security Council to take appropriate measures where the independence and sovereignty of a member state is threatened by mercenaries, among other acts of aggression. This sounds the death-knell for the unlawful takeover of governments by soldiers and mercenaries. In spite of this revolutionary remit, the Council is hardly likely to turn out a rogue elephant. It is, on the contrary, expected to abide by the principles of peaceful settlements of disputes and conflicts. Its immediate task is to realise a common African defense policy and an African Standby Force. It is also expected to implement the OAU treaty on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism and to harmonise and co-ordinate international, continental and regional treaties on terrorism. Not only is the Peace and Security Council cast in the mould of the UN Security Council, it is also based on the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, it appears less hegemonic and more equitable and representative than the UN Security Council - where the US, Britain, France and the Russian Federation are accused of undermining global democracy by continuing to hold veto votes and permanent seats. For instance, such leaders as Abdelaziz Bouteflika (Algeria), Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria), Abdou Wade (Senegal) and Thabo Mbeki (South Africa) - the driving forces behind the "African Renaissance" that led to the formation of the AU and Nepad - have not sought for their countries either a veto vote or a permanent seat on the AU Peace and Security Council. When fully operational, the PSC will be composed of 15 members, 10 elected for a term of two years and five elected for a term of three years to ensure continuity. Election to the PSC will be carried out on the basis of equal rights, and equitable regional representation and rotation. The elections for the PSC take place in March to pave the way for its inauguration in April. The protocol provides for a powerful Panel of the Wise, a remarkable innovation in continental governance. Comprising five highly respected African personalities drawn from all segments of society, the Panel of the Wise will advise the PSC and the Chairperson of the African Union Commission in their efforts to promote peace and security. Like the Panel of Eminent Persons of the African Peer Review Mechanism that is currently steering Nepad's reforms on democracy and good governance, the Panel of the Wise reveals a growing trend in Africa's multilateral institutions to embrace "traditional" governance. Recently, one observer warned, rather cynically, that "Africa faces the danger of collapsing under its own weight" if it does not harmonise its proliferating institutions. Apart from the African Union and Nepad, Africa has more than a dozen regional economic communities, each with peace and security functions. In this regard, the Council needs to harmonise the peace and security work of the AU with that of Nepad's Peace and Security Committee as well as with the peace efforts of Igad, Ecowas and SADC. In the same vein, the PSC should harmonise its governance priorities with those of the African Peer Review Mechanism. The success of the PSC is a litmus test for the AU and its aim of promoting "democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance". Dr Kagwanja is a researcher based in Pretoria, South Africa.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 27 Feb 2004 Millions of Africa's refugees could go home soon, says UNHCR official GENEVA, Feb 27 (UNHCR) - Millions of Africans uprooted by war are in sight of the day when they can return to their countries, UNHCR's head of operations in Africa told a press conference at the agency's Geneva headquarters today. Speaking to the media at the Palais des Nations, Africa Bureau Director for UNHCR David Lambo said that thanks to ongoing peace efforts in various regions of Africa, there are potentially more than 2 million refugees who may want to return home over the next three to five years. Noting that the world is seeing "a new dawn in Africa", Lambo said that several conflicts on the continent had recently ended while in other regions, parties were now seriously sitting around the negotiating table. He stressed that for the first time in many years, millions of refugees may have the chance to return to their countries, where they would join millions more of their countrymen internally displaced by war who are also starting to go back to their communities. UNHCR is planning a ministerial conference, the Dialogue on Voluntary Repatriation and Sustainable Reintegration in Africa, to be held in the Palais des Nations on March 8. Lambo said the meeting will bring together key African ministers, donor governments and other partners to discuss peace processes that will, over the next few years, present unprecedented opportunities to find solutions for Africa's protracted refugee problems. The upcoming meeting will be opened by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers. Joining the 14 ministers who Lambo said have so far agreed to attend the meeting will be keynote speakers Poul Nielson, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid; Julia D. Joiner, Commissioner for Political Affairs, Commission of the European Union; and Julia Taft, Assistant Administrator of the UN Development Programme. "The March 8 meeting will raise the awareness of the international community and help them to understand the potential for return," Lambo said. "We're trying to spread the message that donors must help the peace processes now underway on the continent to be sustainable." "One of the major problems is to break the cycle of repatriation and then of despair," Lambo said of situations where refugees finally make the step to return to their countries, but then lack the economic and social support necessary to become self-sufficient. The refugee agency's intention behind the upcoming conference is to spotlight countries where Lambo said UNHCR is "cautiously optimistic" about the direction of the peace process and consolidation efforts. The agency has noted that Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan all fall into the list of states already welcoming back or on the verge of seeing exiles return from neighbouring states. Lambo said the agency believes that the international community needs to seize this opportunity and take a comprehensive regional approach to ensure repatriation and sustainable reintegration in Africa. "It is very important that we make this effort sustainable and that we really do break the cycle of violence," Lambo declared. "We can demobilise combatants and help people home, but it is an entirely different matter to rehabilitate and rebuild a country." As such, UNHCR sees the March 8 meeting as an opportunity to bring senior government officials from nearly 40 African countries into contact with key donor states and humanitarian and development actors. This will give them a chance to begin outlining a coordinated repatriation and rehabilitation effort in their states to ensure that returning refugees and displaced persons can be absorbed by communities that are themselves recovering from years of neglect. In an encouraging sign, UNHCR has received the first contributions to what could be its biggest repatriation operation in the near future - Sudan. The United States has donated $2.7 million while Canada contributed $380,000 in response to the agency's November 2003 appeal for $8.8 million to fund preparatory activities for the return of Sudanese refugees.

NYT February 16, 2004 Algeria Shows Willingness to Abandon Its Violent Past By SIMON ROMERO ALGIERS, Feb. 11 — Little of note happened at OPEC's gathering here this week, other than an announced cut in oil production. There were no explosions. No kidnappings. No assassinations. That was exactly what the tough-minded military-backed government would have demanded, after a decade of fighting Islamic insurgents, a battle that has left an estimated 120,000 people dead. The government's next big test will come in presidential elections, set for April 8, elections in which some parties are not taking part, to protest the state of emergency still in effect. In the meantime, there are signs that the country is returning bit by bit to the fold of diplomacy and international commerce. A few days before ministers from the 11 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries began arriving at an airport patrolled by commandos armed with submachine guns, the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, led a state visit that produced agreements allowing China to explore for oil and gas in Algeria's rich southern Saharan fields. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell came here briefly in December during a trip to North Africa to applaud Algeria's "exceptional cooperation in the war on terrorism." He called for fair presidential elections. In March, the French president, Jacques Chirac, accompanied by executives from France's largest companies, dropped by in a display of cordial relations between Algeria and its colonial ruler until 1962. The eight-year war of independence cost a million lives. The host of the OPEC meeting, the Algerian oil minister, Chakib Khelil, spoke of strengthening ties with other nations, illustrated by the decision of Air France and British Airways to operate flights to Algiers for the first time in years. The area around the capital is relatively safe, but attacks are breaking out farther away. "The security situation appears to have improved in some places but the Algerian military and government are still on a knife edge," said George Joffe, an expert on Algeria at Cambridge University. "As much as the army would like to declare otherwise, the war in Algeria is not over." Just this week, Islamic fighters killed seven paramilitary police officers in an ambush at a coastal city east of Algiers, Bejaia, the official APS news agency reported. In Algiers, where plainclothes and uniformed police officers keep watch, consumer trappings are becoming visible, like the Peugeots and Renaults on the streets, Korean cellphones and satellite dishes perched on balconies of crowded tenements. The government has begun a heavily publicized campaign to raise awareness of traffic safety and road accidents, adding to the impression that Algeria may finally be ready to address issues other than terrorism. The police advertise the slogan "Speed Equals Death." "The police are supposed to be fining motorists for not wearing seat belts instead of hunting people down," said Mostefa Bouchachi, a lawyer and president of the human rights commission of the Algiers Bar Association. "Traveling safely around the city or even between cities, something unthinkable not long ago, is one of those subtle achievements." The meeting in Algiers was only OPEC's second in Algeria in the organization's 44-year history. Nearly three decades ago, Ilich Ramírez-Sánchez, the Venezuelan terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal, fled to Algiers with 11 of OPEC's ministers who had been kidnapped from a luxury hotel in Vienna. The military has assumed great powers since 1992, when the army halted elections that Islamic opponents seemed about to win, an action that began the civil war. In a later election, in 1999, the military's candidate won the presidency only after six rivals dropped out, claiming fraud. Fully rekindling the economy, which is heavily dependent on oil and natural gas exports, is another matter. But government officials insist that the nation is on its way to attaining stability that could soon allow it to join groups like the World Trade Organization. "This country passed through a very difficult period in the 90's, but it is recovering fast," Abdellatif Benachenhou, Algeria's French-trained finance minister, said in an interview. He cited economic growth that was reported to be more than 6 percent last year, largely because of high oil prices. Mr. Benachenhou said he expected the economy of this nation of 32 million people to grow 6 percent again this year. Such prospects are tied chiefly to oil and natural gas sales to Europe and the United States. Once shunned by all but a handful of American and European energy companies, the nation is expected to soon become the largest supplier of gas to Spain and one of the largest to France and Italy. Still, even Mr. Benachenhou admits that robust exports cannot easily repair the damage from a decade of civil war or bridge the hard divisions between the French-speaking elite and the mostly underemployed and underpaid masses, many of whom still receive benefits dating from the nation's once rigid socialist past. Tension over how to share the nation's oil bounty has spilled over the campaign before the presidential elections in April. Despite the state of emergency, the city's French- and Arabic-language newspapers carry fierce critiques of the administration of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was elected in 1999 with the blessing of the army amid widespread accusations of vote rigging. Under his presidency, thousands of Islamic militants have been pardoned. "Algeria and the Algerians deserve better from the present debate," La Tribune, a French-language paper, said in an editorial this week. It accused Mr. Bouteflika of using oil and gas revenues to finance social programs to win electoral support. Facing pressure to guarantee fair elections, Mr. Bouteflika has asked the United Nations, Arab League, African Union and European Union to send observers in April. The lack of strong opposition candidates has many convinced that he is likely to be re-elected, though he has not yet officially announced his candidacy. Mr. Bouteflika's government has yet to account for 7,000 or more people who, according to Human Rights Watch, disappeared at the hands of security forces in the 1990's. As if to change the topic, the government has unflinchingly endorsed the Bush administration's campaign against terrorism; it did not permit protests against the war in Iraq.

AFP 1 Feb 2004 Burundi army says 30 rebels killed in clashes in west BUJUMBURA, February 1 (AFP) - A top army commander in Burundi said Sunday that about 30 fighters from the central African country's sole remaining active rebel group had been killed in clashes the previous day near the capital. "Yesterday (Saturday) about 30 FNL (National Liberation Forces) were killed and 18 rifles taken in fighting in Nyabibondo zone," General Germain Niyoyankana, head of the army staff, told AFP. The area is about 20 kilometres (12 miles) east of Bujumbura. The general went on to "categorically" deny an earlier report that 15 soldiers and eight allied fighters from a former rebel group had been killed by the FNL in Nyabibondo on Friday. He said only a soldier and one member of the former rebel group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy, which has made peace with the government, had been killed on Friday. The FNL said there had been clashes over the weekend but declined to give details about casualties. "There were casualties on our side, as there were with the army and their allies," FNL spokesman Pasteur Habimana said by phone. "You can see that even when they are allied, the army and the FNL are unable to dislodge us," he added. Since January 12, FDD units have been attacking FNL positions in several areas near the capital. Hopes that the FNL might, like other armed groups drawn from Burundi's large Hutu majority, reach a peace deal with the government were raised in January when President Domitien Ndayizeye met leaders of the movement for the first time, in the Netherlands. Burundi's civil war has claimed some more than 300,000 lives since 1993.

AP 1 Feb 2004 French foreign minister optimistic on U.N. peace force for Ivory Coast Baudelaire Mieux, Associated Press, 2/1/04 France's foreign minister said Sunday he was optimistic the United Nations would put together a new peacekeeping force to help secure peace in Ivory Coast and hoped it could be deployed to the war-divided country in a few weeks. Dominique de Villepin told journalists after closed door talks with Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo in the commercial capital, Abidjan, that he would press the issue at the United Nations in New York next week. "France is engaged, and I know that the international community wants to move in this direction," de Villepin said. "I am optimistic that in a few weeks this force could be put together and be deployed here." France already has 4,000 troops in its former colony, helping 1,300 West African soldiers uphold a peace deal agreed last year. Although the Ivorian government officially declared the nine-month long civil war over in July, the country remains split between government-held south and rebel-controlled north. De Villepin said French troops would stay on if the United Nations deploys troops. West African states have called for U.N. peacekeepers to replace their soldiers. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called for a peacekeeping mission with 6,420 troops, but the exact size and mandate of such a force would have to be approved by the U.N. Security Council. The United States has expressed reservations about the size of the proposed force, and says it wants to examine the justification for sending U.N. troops there. A beaming Gbagbo, surrounded by a posse of bodyguards, echoed de Villepin's optimism. "I've asked Ivorians to steel their muscles so that we can get out of this crisis," he said. "France and Ivory Coast are walking hand-in-hand to make the last steps" toward peace. Underscoring the difficulty of that task, de Villepin's own bodyguards were prevented by soldiers from entering the room where he met with Gbagbo. Tensions between France and Ivorian government loyalists, who often accuse the former colonial power of favoring the rebels, have risen recent months, with anti-French mobs launching violent protests and riots in the streets. An estimated 9,000 French expatriates have fled since war broke out with a failed coup attempt in September 2002. A peace accord in 2003 ushered in a new government of national unity which included figures from the rebel factions and opposition parties. The transitional administration is due to hold elections in 2005, and French troops are supposed to depart at the same time. Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer, fueled the regional economy for decades since independence in 1960. A 1999 coup shattered its reputation as an oasis of stability in a turbulent region, ushering in a series of military revolts and violence along ethnic and political lines. The civil war began with a failed coup attempt in Abidjan in September 2003. De Villepin will visit four South American nations - Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico - next week, before heading for talks at the U.N. headquarters in New York.

UN Commission on Human Rights 9 Feb 2004 Visit by Special Rapporteur on racism and racial discrimination to Côte d'Ivoire Doudou Diene, the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, is today starting a visit to Côte d'Ivoire which will last until 20 February. The aim of this visit is to examine the evolution of inter-communal and inter-ethnic relations in the context of the conflict in the country. Mr. Diene will visit Abidjan, where the Government is situated, the Ivorian capital Yamoussoukro, as well as other regions in the country in order to gather information which will allow him to understand the socio-political dynamics in Côte d'Ivoire. He hopes to meet with Ivorian authorities, representatives of the "Forces nouvelles", members of the international community in Abidjan as well as representatives of civil society. Mr. Diene is the former Director of the Department of International Dialogue and Cultural Pluralism at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). He has been Special Rapporteur since 25 April 2002. Since his appointment, he has visited Canada, Colombia, Guyana and Trinity and Tobago.

IRIN 9 Feb 2004 Tension still runs high in the Wild West [This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] BIN HOUYE, 9 February (IRIN) - Hundreds of Liberian refugees were lining up to receive their first ever ration of food aid in Bin Houye, a small town near the Cote d'Ivoire's volatile western frontier with Liberia, when the sound of gunfire sent the inhabitants of nearby villages running for cover into the bush. The guns fell silent everywhere else in Cote d'Ivoire after the government and rebels signed a ceasefire nine months ago. But here in the "Wild West," they still talk loudly. This time it was only the garrison of government soldiers in the border town of Zouan Hounien, 20 km up the road, letting rip with every weapon in their possession to protest that their special bonuses for serving on the frontline had not been paid for three months. No-one was being targetted by their bullets. But that is not always the case. Ethnic rivalries and land disputes, marauding bands of armed Liberians, squabbling rebel warlords and the threat of Liberian rebel fighters spilling back over the border into Cote d'Ivoire all combine to make Western Cote d'Ivoire an explosive place where 150,000 people were displaced from their homes as a result of conflict. Killings and violence remain common here, nine months after a ceasefire brought relative calm to the rest of the divided country. "Too many weapons are in the hands of people and many young people have been drafted into fighting forces or vigilante groups," a security officer remarked. Even so, conditions are slowly improving. French peacekeeping troops patrol the area - they even have a small base at Bin Houye, a small town whose shops are mostly closed, but whose market has once more burst into life. And villagers who fled the helicopter gunships and indisciplined bands of government and rebel militiamen 12 months ago are gradually returning. Nearly all the 50,000 inhabitants of Bin Houye and the surrounding districts melted into the bush as the town became a battlefield between January and April last year. But the local authorities estimate that between 26,000 and 32,000 local residents have returned since July. In some nearby villages you can see new houses being built. International relief agencies have moved in to assist the returnees. Doctors of Medecins Sans Frontieres Holland run a health clinic in Bin Houye, whose quiet dirt streets are virtually free of vehicle traffic. And last month, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) distributed food to 25,000 people who had returned to the town and the surrounding area to resume farming. At the end of January, WFP also began distributing a 30-day food ration to 7,000 refugees from nearby Liberia. Bin Houye lies just three km from the border. Relief workers said the the UN refugee agency UNHCR had been slow to register these people as refugees because the local authorities were uncertain how many of them might simply be gunmen fighting for one or other faction in the conflict and looting freely for themselves. "This was the cause of the delay in the registration of the refugees and also in the relief agencies, especially the UN agencies, coming into the area," the security officer operating in the west told IRIN. But the refugees are glad that help has finally arrived. "Thank you so much. I don't know what I would eat without this," said one elderly Liberian woman as her family received its standard WFP ration of bulgar wheat, corn-soya blend, salt, beans and cooking oil. Men carried away the sacks of food in wheelbarrows and sacks balanced on their head. Ironically most of the refugees in Bin Houye arrived after the signing of a peace agreement in Liberia in August last year to end 14 years of civil war. The peace accord led to an immediate ceasefire in the capital Monrovia, but it was largely ignored for three months in Nimba county, just across the border from Bin Houye. There, Liberia's three armed factions continued to fight among themselves and harass civilians. On the Ivorian side of the border, the situation has been no less chaotic. With the outbreak of civil war in September 2002, the Guere people in the west mainly sided with the government of President Laurent Gbagbo. The Guere are closely related to the Krahn who live just over the border in Liberia and many Krahn gunmen joined hastily formed Liberian militia groups known as "Limas." These were raised by the Ivorian army to help battle against rebel forces sweeping down from the north. The rebels, on the other hand, drew strong support from the Yakouba people who live in the same area as the Guere. General Robert Guei, who led a military government in Cote d'Ivoire from 1999 to 2000, was a Yakouba. But when Guei was shot dead in Abidjan the night the civil war began, most of his people instinctively sided with the rebels. So too did many of the Yakouba's kinsmen in Liberia, the Gio, who came over the border with guns to help out on the rebel side. Pro government groups have claimed that the rebels also commanded widespread support among the Burkinabe and Malian immigrants who came to the west to set up cocoa farms in the thick forest of western Cote d'Ivoire. Since the outbreak of hostilities, some Ivorian communities have tried to seize their land. Near the town of Bangolo, 150 km east of Bin Houye, land disputes between the Ivorian and Burkinabe settlers have given rise to countless massacres since the civil war began 16 months ago. In the latest round of blood-letting there, 35 people were killed between late December and mid-January in the village of Kahin. About 7,000 displaced Burkinabe settlers have sought shelter at a makeshift camp in the town of Guiglo, which also hosts a camp for Liberian refugees. In Bin Houye, the Guere and Yakouba communities came to blows during the thick of the fighting a year ago. When government forces re-established firm control of the town, most of its Yakouba population fled north to the rebel occupied towns of Man, Danane and Odienne and few have returned. Many of Yakouba homes in the town have been occupied by Guere people and Liberian refugees. "There are people from both the ethnic groups who are afraid of going back to their original homes because they still fear for their safety," one local chief remarked. The Liberian refugees in Bin Houye scrape a living by working as farm hands for their Ivorian hosts. Many work on the cocoa and coffee farms. Others work in rice fields. Some have become petty traders, selling firewood, kola nuts and palm wine. "A few of us had relatives on the Ivorian side of the border, because most of us here are from the Gio tribe in Liberia which speak the same dialect and are related to the Yakouba in Cote d'Ivoire, " Mentuah Kayo, the head of the Liberian refugee community in the town, told IRIN. Now Kayo wants the relief agencies to provide the refugees with seeds and farm implements so that they can grow their own food. "We went to several villages and met with the local chiefs and elders and people said they were willing to give land for cultivation to Liberian refugees. We therefore need vegetable and rice seeds," he said. The international relief organisation Solidarite plans to start an agricultural resettlement programme this month in Toulepleu, 27 km south of Bin Houye which is designed to benefit 80,000 people. Philippe Guerin, an agronomist with Solidarite, said the organisation would give out seeds for both swamp and upland rice and tools such as ploughs, watering cans and knife sharpeners. Conditions are not only hazardous on the government side of the front line in western Cote d'Ivoire. The rebel-held towns of Man and Danane have seen repeated skirmishing between the gangs of rival warlords, despite the presence of French peacekeepers there since May last year. A five-day battle broke out between rival factions in Man on January 22 and was only quelled on 27 January when the rebel leadership sent a force of 600 men to restore order and arrest the ringleaders. The reason for the spat remains unclear. Some residents said it was an argument over who got to keep the "taxes" levied on trucks passing through Man and other towns in the area at a series of checkpoints. Others said it was a scrap over the spoils from a bank raid in the town. Dely Gaspard, the new rebel military commander in Man, told IRIN that the battle was simply sparked off by one military commander accusing another of trying to take his girlfriend. It is impossible to predict where the next flashpoint will occur. "We always have to be on the alert and I cannot say whether we will see more or less of these breaches of security," said the security officer attached to a relief organisation operating in the west. "I cannot tell which place is more dangerous than the other. All we can hope for is that peace returns and becomes secure and people feel more secure," he added. .

www.monuc.org 6 Feb 2004 UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo / NewsWire 06/02/2004 Gun battle reveals tensions in Congo's east Reuters Kinshasa - Government troops battled fighters loyal to a former rebel leader in Bukavu in eastern Congo, United Nations officials said on Thursday. This is latest sign of serious rifts threatening peace in the region. The hour-long gunfight highlighted the challenges facing UN troops charged with cementing a fragile peace process in the central African country's mineral-rich east where rag-tag armed groups with entrenched loyalties and separate agendas roam. Wednesday's gunbattle was between troops loyal to General Prosper Nabyolwa, the military commander of South Kivu province, and soldiers loyal to Colonel Georges Mirindi, a former Rwandan-backed rebel and now brigade leader in Congo's new army. 'This is more than just a spat' "This is more than just a spat. These are two opposing currents in the bid for politico-military dominance," said a western diplomat in the capital Kinshasa. Under a peace deal to end Congo's five-year civil war, a power-sharing government has been set up and the warring factions are being integrated into a new army. But success will depend on securing the loyalty of the men with guns - including 15 000 Rwandan Hutu rebels, many of whom were involved in the 1994 genocide in their country, who are still based in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Sebastian Lapierre, UN spokesperson in Bukavu, said one of Mirindi's soldiers was killed in the shootout and a civilian was injured when a rocket fell on a transit centre for refugees. "Today the situation is calm," he said. "The UN is present in the area to observe and deter any further action." There have been long-standing tensions between Nabyolwa and Mirindi and also between the former and South Kivu's governor Xavier Ciribanya Cirimwami. Both the governor and Mirindi are former members of the Rwandan-backed RCD-Goma rebels. Congo's civil war claimed more than three million lives, mainly through hunger and disease and drew in fighters from Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and other neighbouring countries. The conflict was declared over last July but sporadic clashes have continued in the east. The United Nations has sent 10 800 peacekeepers to the country.

AFP 8 Feb 2004 Tension grows in DR Congo's Ituri between UN forces and ethnic militias by Helen Vesperini KIGALI, Feb 8 (AFP) - Tension has been growing in the volatile Ituri region of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo between UN peacekeepers and local militias during the past three weeks, observers said Sunday. Relative calm prevailed in Ituri in November and December following the deployment in September of a reinforced UN peacekeeping force. The UN force took over from French-led European Union troops to restore security in an area riven by inter-ethnic violence that has cost 50,000 lives and left about 500,000 wounded since 1999. Since mid-January, however, the UN have been the target of five attacks outside Bunia, the main town in Ituri, but there were no casualties among the UN troops. No casualty information was available from the attackers. The UN has blamed the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), a minority ethnic Hema faction in Ituri commanded by Bosco Ntaganda, for at least three of the five attacks. "It is probably Bosco who is behind the attacks," Leo Salmeron, a spokesman for MONUC, the UN mission in the DRC, told AFP by telephone from Bunia on Saturday. In the most recent attack last Wednesday, unknown assailants opened fire on five speedboats carrying a UN team to Gobu, a village situated on the shores of Lake Albert, about 60 kilometres (37 miles) north of Bunia. The group of UN officials were investigating a massacre that allegedly took place in the area in January. The boats came under fire around Djo, seven kilometres (four miles) south of Gobu, and the UN team, made up of soldiers, returned fire. "We can't confirm who the assailants were, but we strongly suspect that they were Boscos's people," said Salmeron. The UPC has also been blamed for two other attacks against the UN on January 19 and 20 in Drodro, about 90 kilometres (55 miles) north of Bunia, and in Iga Barrier, 25 kilometres (15 miles) north of Bunia. Militias detained following the two attacks are said to be loyal to Ntaganda, according to MONUC, which quoted witnesses as saying that his group had committed "serious human rights violations", including rape. Towards the end of last year, the UPC split into two. One of the two splinter factions is led by Ntaganda and the other one, which is close to the government in Kinshasa, is headed by Floribert Kisembo. According to sources close to Ntaganda, who asked not to be named, Ntaganda's faction wants to take revenge against MONUC for detaining two commanders close to him -- Rafiki Aimable, a UPC commander and his deputy Etienne Nembe, who were arrested in October and December. The two men are still being held in Bunia. In the first attack on January 16, a MONUC helicopter flying over the village of Kisenyi was fired on five times. Kisenyi is situated about 50 kilometres (31 miles) south east of Bunia and the attack is thought to have been carried out by the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI), a faction of the majority Lendu ethnic group in Ituri, according to MONUC. The perpetrators of the attack on January 21, when militiamen fired on Pakistani UN troops at Nizi, about 30 kilometres (21 miles) north of Bunia, have not been identified. Union des patriotes congolais (UPC) http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/upc.htm

AP 15 Feb 2004 Congo peacekeepers fire back IGA-BARRIERE, Congo (AP) --From positions on three hills, tribal fighters unleashed a surprise attack at sunset, their bullets smacking into the high sand ramparts around the U.N. checkpoint below. Then the peacekeepers did what the United Nations all too often is accused of failing to do: They fought back. Helicopter gunships, armored personnel carriers and infantry sent the assailants fleeing. Quiet returned, and people in this dusty gold-mining town of 15,000 breathed easier, knowing they had probably been spared another round of rape, murder and cannibalism. Peacekeeping has changed dramatically since the troops from more than two dozen nations arrived in eastern Congo in 2001 to protect U.N. installations and unarmed military observers monitoring the cease-fire lines that separate government and rebel armies. Nowadays, with a stronger U.N. Security Council mandate to pacify a volatile chunk of Congo twice the size of Colorado, the peacekeepers talk -- and act -- tough. "We need to intervene very forcefully and very quickly," said Dominique AitOuyahia-McAdams, the Frenchwoman who heads the U.N. mission in northeastern Ituri province and is headquartered in Bunia, the provincial capital 16 miles south of Iga-Barriere. The strategy may be risky, "but we all have to take risks because the price for the population is too high not to take any risk," she said. Backed by a fleet of 52 helicopters and transport planes and a $600 million budget, the 10,500 peacekeepers are helping the transitional government regain control of Africa's third-largest nation, curb armed groups and prepare for elections that could be held in less than two years. "U.N. troops first entered as peacekeepers and have been transformed into peace enforcers," said Taylor B. Seybolt of the U.S. Institute of Peace, an independent, federally funded think tank in Washington. "The U.N. is responding to events on the ground in a way they have not done in the past in other countries and other times," Seybolt, who studies peacekeeping and ethnic conflict, said in a telephone interview. Seven months after the three main rebel groups joined President Joseph Kabila in a transitional government in faraway Kinshasa, peace is yet to be restored in large parts of eastern Congo. This is the region hardest hit by the five-year civil war in which an estimated 3 million people have died, mainly through war-induced hunger and disease. Hutu militiamen, who fled to Congo in mid-1994 after taking part in the Rwanda genocide, are still active in South Kivu province, attacking villages and terrorizing the population. "Congo is a huge country. It's the heart of Africa. There is no infrastructure, so the challenge for anyone to help the government to do anything is multiplied by ten," AitOuyahia-McAdams said. "We are being asked to address a country of between 50 and 60 million people, so the challenge is much bigger for us than any other U.N. mission existing today." The turnaround came in July with the new Security Council mandate "to use all necessary means" to do the job. That was after the peacekeepers were fiercely criticized for failing to stop tribal fighting in Bunia in which more than 500 people were killed, despite the presence of hundreds of soldiers from Uruguay. The present force draws armed troops plus unarmed observers from Bangladesh, Chile, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, South Africa and Uruguay. An additional 25 nations provide observers only. With most of the U.N. troops in Ituri based in Bunia, seat of the U.N.-backed interim provincial administration, the town has quieted down. Newly painted shops advertise cell phone companies, and U.N. engineers from Uruguay use bulldozers to cover the potholes. But more work remains. Although many gunmen have been disarmed and removed from Bunia, the rebels are still able to run a clandestine network extorting illegal taxes in the city, U.N. officials say. In the South Kivu city of Bukavu, blue-helmeted peacekeepers patrol, ready to use force to prevent more fighting between the private army of the former rebel governor and troops loyal to the regional military chief. In Ituri, the tribal fighters were armed by neighboring Uganda and Rwanda in a proxy war to protect stakes in the province's timber and mines. They have morphed into criminal gangs that attack U.N. helicopters, troops and civilian staff, hoping to halt their deployment in the areas they control and plunder with impunity. "There are some elements in the armed groups who have been thriving on violence, on extortion, and they want to continue with that way of living," said Brig. Gen. Mahmood Rashad, commander of the 4,700 U.N. soldiers in Ituri. Rashad arrived three months ago, thinking his job would be to peacefully disarm and demobilize tribal fighters. But the Pakistani officer now hunts them down with helicopter gunships and sends peacekeepers to arrest them because the local police have no guns, vehicles or handcuffs. There are plans to send U.N. troops in to oust the Rwandan Hutu militiamen and pave the way for the new Congolese army to secure the volatile region. "All our assessment is, whenever we've moved into an area -- and when there is a rumor that we are moving into the area -- the rebels pull out," said Lt. Col. Tim Wood, British chief of staff of the U.N. force in eastern Congo. But in Ituri, the tribal fighters aren't giving up so easily. They just shed their uniforms, hide their weapons and wait to inflict casualties on the peacekeepers. On Thursday, a Kenyan army officer was shot dead when his team of U.N. observers, sent to investigate tribal fighting in northeastern Congo, came under fire, the U.N. mission said. Troops called in by helicopter fired on the assailants and scattered them before they could make off with the dead Kenyan's vehicle. Last year two unarmed military observers, a Jordanian and a Malawian, were killed and mutilated in Mongbwalu, 35 miles northwest of Iga-Barriere. Also last year, a Russian military observer died and another was injured when they drove over a land mine outside Bunia. U.N. observers have been abducted, robbed and wounded when attacked with stones and gunfire in several places. The United Nations says it is prepared to hold its ground and fight the rebels, strengthened by battle-hardened U.N. troops from Pakistan, India and Nepal. "They can shoot at us from a distance. They can do a little bit of guerrilla-type warfare," AitOuyahia-McAdams said. Pressure from the U.N. force has split tribal fighters into even smaller groups that often fight each other for control of resources in places where there are no U.N. troops. How long will Congo need peacekeepers? President Kabila says they won't be required after the end of this year, and should start training the new Congolese army and police. Seybolt is skeptical. "In the Balkans, foreign troops have been there for eight years, and they are not likely to pull out any time soon because there is a general sense that the place will gradually fall apart in such an event," he said. "The same may be true for Congo."

The NAtion 19 Feb 2004 Silence=Rape by Jan Goodwin Last May, 6-year-old Shashir was playing outside her home near Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), when armed militia appeared. The terrified child was carried kicking and screaming into the bush. There, she was pinned down and gang-raped. Sexually savaged and bleeding from multiple wounds, she lay there after the attack, how long no one knows, but she was close to starving when finally found. Her attackers, who'd disappeared back into the bush, wiped out her village as effectively as a biblical plague of locusts. "This little girl couldn't walk, couldn't talk when she arrived here. Shashir had to be surgically repaired. I don't know if she can be mentally repaired," says Faida Veronique, a 47-year-old cook at Doctors on Call for Service (DOCS), a tented hospital in the eastern city of Goma, who took in the brutalized child. "Why do they rape a child?" asks Marie-Madeleine Kisoni, a Congolese counselor who works with raped women and children. "We don't understand. There's a spirit of bestiality here now. I've seen 2- and 3-year-olds raped. The rebels want to kill us, but it's more painful to kill the spirit instead." In the Congo today, age is clearly no protection from rape. A woman named Maria was 70 when the Interahamwe, the Hutu militia that led Rwanda's 1994 genocide and now number between 20,000 and 30,000 of the estimated 140,000 rebels in the DRC, came to her home. "They grabbed me, tied my legs apart like a goat before slaughter, and then raped me, one after the other," she told me. "Then they stuck sticks inside me until I fainted." During the attack Maria's entire family--five sons, three daughters and her husband--were murdered. "War came. I just saw smoke and fire. Then my life and my health were taken away," she says. The tiny septuagenarian with the sunken eyes was left with a massive fistula where her bladder was torn, causing permanent incontinence. She hid in the bush for three years out of fear that the rebels might return, and out of shame over her constantly soiled clothes. Yet Maria was one of the more fortunate ones. She'd finally made it to a hospital. Two months before we met, she had undergone reconstructive surgery. The outcome is uncertain, however, and she still requires a catheter. Rape has become a defining characteristic of the five-year war in the DRC, says Anneke Van Woudenberg, the Congo specialist for Human Rights Watch. So, too, has mutilation of the victims. "Last year, I was stunned when a 30-year-old woman in North Kivu had her lips and ears cut off and eyes gouged out after she was raped, so she couldn't identify or testify against her attackers. Now, we are seeing more and more such cases," she says. As the rebels constantly seek new ways to terrorize, their barbarity becomes more frenzied. I, too, was sickened by what I saw and heard. In three decades of covering war, I had never before come across the cases described to me by Congolese doctors, such as gang-rape victims having their labia pierced and then padlocked. "They usually die of massive infection," I was told. Based on personal testimonies collected by Human Rights Watch, it is estimated that as many as 30 percent of rape victims are sexually tortured and mutilated during the assaults, usually with spears, machetes, sticks or gun barrels thrust into their vaginas. Increasingly, the trigger is being pulled. About 40 percent of rape victims, usually the younger ones, aged 8 to 19, are abducted and forced to become sex slaves. "The country is in an utter state of lawlessness; it's complete anarchy," says Woudenberg. "In this culture of impunity, people know they can get away with anything. Every armed group is equally culpable." In the Congo, rape is a cheaper weapon of war than bullets. Experts estimate that some 60 percent of all combatants in the DRC are infected with HIV/AIDS. As women rarely have access to expensive antiretroviral drugs, sexual assaults all too often become automatic death sentences. Médecins Sans Frontières operates five health clinics offering antiretrovirals in the conflict zone of northeastern DRC, but many women don't know about the drugs and cannot travel safely to the centers. Moreover, according to Helen O'Neill, a nurse who set up MSF's sexual-violence treatment program, such drugs must be taken within forty-eight to seventy-two hours of the rape to prevent infection. If a woman has been exposed to the virus, the treatment is 80 percent effective. But in the Congo, rape victims who are not captive sex slaves must walk for days or weeks, often with massive injuries, and risk new capture by roving rebel bands, before reaching assistance. "So far, 30 percent of rape victims being treated at our hospital are infected with HIV/AIDS," says Dr. Denis Mukwege, the French-trained medical director of the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu. "And nearly 50 percent are infected with venereal diseases like syphilis that greatly increase their chances of contracting HIV." Rape as a weapon of war is as old as war itself. What has changed recently is that sexual violence is no longer considered just a byproduct of conflict but is being viewed as a war crime, says Jessica Neuwirth, president of Equality Now, a New York-based international women's human rights organization. "Rape as a violation of war was codified in the Geneva Convention, but only now is it being taken seriously. But it is still not effectively prosecuted, not proportional to the extent that sexual violence takes place," she says. Armed forces now have a legal obligation to stop rape and hold the offenders accountable. "This is a major shift in consciousness. But it needs to be followed by a major shift in conduct," says Neuwirth. In the DRC, rape is used to terrorize, humiliate and punish the enemy. Frequently husbands, fathers and children are forced to watch and even participate. Women sexually assaulted by members of one rebel organization are accused of being the wives of that group and raped again as punishment when a new militia takes over the area. "It's happened repeatedly to the women of Shabunda in the far east of the Congo, every time the region has changed hands," says Woudenberg. Even the camps for internally displaced people are not safe. The barbed-wire encampment in Bunia is home to more than 14,000 people, but enemy militia infiltrate at night. Shortly before I arrived, an 11-year-old girl was dragged off and gang-raped, a not uncommon occurrence. There are more than 3 million internally displaced people made homeless by the war, many of whom have been forced to flee over and over again. UN officers admit they have nowhere near the numbers they need to be effective, or even to stay safe themselves. "The rebels are all around us here. We don't feel secure and we've seen what these guys do to people, especially to women and girls. Our own people have been killed, after they were horribly tortured," a European UN major told me. "The DRC is the size of Western Europe. We're supposed to have 8,500 troops here, but we've only got 5,000! I was in Bosnia, which is a fraction of the size of the Congo, and we had 68,000 NATO troops, and even that wasn't enough." Patrols of MONUC, the UN's peacekeeping force in the DRC, have refused to pick up wounded rape victims and escort them to medical care when they were afraid they would be outnumbered by nearby rebels. "People denounce the rapes but do nothing to bring the rebels to justice," says Woudenberg. "There isn't the political will, domestically or internationally, to make it happen. I've never seen anything like this, when war has become this horrible, and human life so undervalued." Trevor Lowe, spokesperson for the UN World Food Program, echoes this view. "The nature of sexual violence in the DRC conflict is grotesque, completely abnormal," he says. "Babies, children, women--nobody is being spared. For every woman speaking out, there are hundreds who've not yet emerged from the hell. Rape is so stigmatized in the DRC, and people are afraid of reprisals from rebels. It's a complete and utter breakdown of norms. Like Rwanda, only worse." Adds his colleague Christiane Berthiaume, "Never before have we found as many victims of rape in conflict situations as we are discovering in the DRC." Yet where is the international media coverage? The outrage? The demand for justice? During the Rwanda genocide, rape as a war crime received extensive international media coverage. Despite initial reports of 250,000 women being sexually assaulted (a third more than there were Tutsi women living in the country at the time), evidence later suggested the total number was closer to one-fifth of that. In Bosnia, where the European Community Investigative Mission concluded there were some 20,000 victims, reports of systematic rape by the Serbs first made international headlines one year into the war, and remained a major news focus for the remaining three years of the conflict. It was only after the Bosnia war, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague in 1997, that rape was first prosecuted as a crime against humanity. A year later, at the Rwanda tribunal, rape was found to be a form of genocide. Everyone I spoke with in the DRC and in the international UN, NGO and human rights community said they believe the incidence of rape there greatly exceeds that in both Bosnia and Rwanda, although it will be years before precise figures are available. The systematic nature of the assaults has been amply documented by the UN, humanitarian agencies and human rights organizations. Yet for the most part the media look the other way. As one editor of a national newspaper told me, "It's just another horror in the horror that is Africa." One has to ask, Does this kind of cynicism merely reflect public opinion or help create it? Says Lowe, "Look at the square footage of Bosnia, a country that is dwarfed by the Congo, and look at the enormous number of reporters who covered Bosnia compared to the DRC. Clearly, Africa doesn't get the same coverage as Europe. The reasons are racial, geopolitical interests, ease of access, etc. The DRC conflict is an extremely dangerous one, which is one reason the press is not there. Selling Africa, and being part of an agency that does it all the time, is difficult. Africa is clearly not a place where the major powers have a lot of interest. The Congo is not on the geopolitical map. And the major-league press follows that geopolitical map." There is also media faddishness, what Lowe refers to as the CNN factor. "If CNN shows up, then other reporters become interested," he says. Another factor is the complexity of the Congo conflict. In Rwanda, the media were able to present the issues as clear-cut, with the good guys and the bad clearly defined. "People consider the Congo conflict confusing; they label it tribal or ethnic, which is totally wrong," says Woudenberg. "The war in the DRC has been an international war, involving a number of different countries." Conduct a straw poll among Americans who are usually well informed and few know of the vicious campaign of sexual violence against women in the DRC. Many are even unaware that the country is six years into a brutal conflict, in which up to 4.7 million people have died--the highest number of fatalities in any conflict since World War II. Or that six countries--Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia--have been fighting proxy wars in the DRC, and helping to plunder the country's tremendous mineral wealth to fill their coffers. The indifference, according to Woudenberg, extends to the arms of government that should be most deeply concerned with the DRC's crisis. "In November I tried to raise the issue with the US Mission to the UN in New York, and they told me fairly point-blank that they were aware rape was going on in the Congo, and it was just not high on their priorities," she says. "I had a similar response from the US State Department." Meanwhile, a UN Security Council panel has cited eighty-five multinational corporations, including some of the largest US companies in their fields, for their involvement in the illegal exploitation of natural resources from the DRC. The commerce in these "blood" minerals, such as coltan, used in cell phones and laptops, cobalt, copper, gold, diamonds and uranium (Congolese uranium was used in the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki), drives the conflict. The brutality of the militias--the sexual slavery, transmission of HIV/AIDS through rape, cannibalism, slaughter and starvation, forced recruitment of child soldiers--has routinely been employed to secure access to mining sites or insure a supply of captive labor. If that isn't enough to awaken the international community's interest, one would think it would be of concern that "blood" business practices also fund terrorism. Lebanese diamond traders benefiting from illegal concessions in the Congo have been tied to the Islamic extremist groups Amal and Hezbollah. According to a UN report, the Lebanese traders, who operate licensed diamond businesses in Antwerp, purchased diamonds from the DRC worth $150 million in 2001 alone. Such linkage between African rebel groups and global terrorist movements is not new. Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front reportedly sold diamonds to Al Qaeda, thus helping to finance both organizations. The lobbies of the two luxury hotels in Kinshasa, the DRC's capital, are full of elegant, $5,000-a-day corporate lawyers from New York, London and Geneva, and scruffier diamond dealers from Tel Aviv and Antwerp, as they while away the hours waiting for government ministers and senior representatives of armed groups to smooth their way. These institutional fortune-makers are 1,800 miles away from the nightmares of northeastern Congo. Yet they are not so far removed from the atrocities perpetrated there. Rape is a crime of the war they are fueling with their greed. Today's conflict profiteers are not the first to sponsor a campaign to ransack, rape, pillage and plunder in the Congo. A century ago, Belgium's King Leopold II amassed a fabulous fortune this way. During the monarch's genocidal reign of terror, when villagers couldn't meet his impossibly high quotas harvesting rubber or mining ore, their hands were amputated and women were taken as slaves. By the time he was finished, an estimated 10 million Congolese, half the population, were dead. Kinshasa's policy-makers, who serve in a government with four vice presidents in a misguided attempt to appease various factions, now claim a new political beginning after the so-called peace accord last year. But there is a "huge and dangerous gap" between what is happening in Kinshasa and what is going on in the northeast, says Irene Khan, Amnesty International's secretary general. "In Kinshasa there is talk of peace and political progress, of regional harmony and democratic elections. But while the newly appointed members of government are wrangling for power and privilege in Kinshasa, in the Kivus and Ituri people are confronted daily with death, plunder and carnage. Mutilations and massacres continue. Rape of women and girls has become a standard tactic of warfare. It is absolutely outrageous that many of the senior members of the government and the political parties they represent are closely linked to the armed groups who are committing these abuses." At the time of King Leopold's predatory rule, an international Congo reform movement was formed with the support of Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle and Joseph Conrad. It was Conrad who described what was being done as "the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience." He would recognize what is happening now. For the sake of 6-year-old Shashir and tens of thousands of girls and women who have been infected with HIV/AIDS, forcibly impregnated or so badly damaged internally they will never be able to have children, and who are so psychologically traumatized they may never recover, we can only hope that a similarly prominent group of today's social commentators will find its conscience and its voice soon.

News 24 South Africa 1 Feb 2004 Ethiopians asked for mercy Addis Ababa - Thirty three former government officials on trial for genocide have asked Ethiopia's people to forgive them for crimes they committed during the former regime of exiled dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. "We, the few who are being tried for what had happened, realise that it is time to beg the Ethiopian public for their pardon for the mistakes done knowingly, or unknowingly," they said in a letter to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, published on Sunday by Ethiopia's Reporter. "We are the people who remain from the regime, our actions had the support of the majority of the people who benefitted, while we believed it was also the cause of the civil war that has consumed the life of the people and destroyed property," the letter said. Dated last August 13, the letter was signed by former vice-president Colonel Fisseha Desta, former prime minister Captain Fikersellasie Wegederesse and Major Melaku Tefera, widely known as the "Butcher of Gondar", a town 800 kilometres north of Addis Ababa. "Even though we were the sworn servants of the regime of the emperor to protect it, when the people showed their dissatisfaction against the regime, we decided to side with them, instead of protecting it," it added. Of the 108 people believed to have participated in the alleged genocide, only 66 were either arrested or surrendered in May 1991, when Mengistu was ousted by Meles, and 33 others have so far died in prison. Ethiopia has since 1994 been conducting trials of people accused of genocide and crimes against humanity, particularly during the Red Terror period, when tens of thousands of Ethiopians were killed or disappeared. Nearly 5 200 former soldiers and communist activists are due to be tried by the courts, about 2,200 are currently in prison in Ethiopia, while several key accused are to be or have been tried in absentia. Mengistu, who has lived in Zimbabwe since fleeing in 1991, was convicted in absentia. The trials that are due to be concluded next year, Ethiopian judiciary sources said. Although the Ethiopian parliament is discussing a new bill to empower the president to pardon convicted people, the current constitution bars anybody convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity from benefitting from the presidential prorogative of mercy.

IRIN 2 Feb 2004 Ethiopia: Human Rights Watch accuses government of continuing abuses ADDIS ABABA, 2 February (IRIN) - An international advocacy group has criticised Ethiopia for its continuing human rights abuses and condemned foreign donors for failing to help prevent them. Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the government "continues to deny" its citizens their basic human rights while the international community takes no action. In its 2004 World Report, the New York-based group said foreign donors who were pouring about US $1 billion into Ethiopia each year were focused on other issues. "Foreign donors have not played any role in correcting these abuses, and have been diverted by famine, the possibility of a renewed Ethiopia-Eritrea war arising from Ethiopia's refusal to honour an arbitration decision on the location of its border with Eritrea, and Ethiopia's cooperation in the US war on terrorism," the report stated. But the government insists that improvements have been made, stressing that democratic institutions were put in place until 12 years ago after the overthrow of the former military regime. "We accept everything is not perfect," the government spokesman, Zemedkun Tekle, told IRIN, "but we are trying to make the improvements demanded of us. This report highlights the problems and not the achievements we have made. It is expecting us to be fully developed, but we are beginners in everything." In particular, the report cites restrictions on the country's media, attacks on political parties, serious abuses by the police, including torture and mass arrests. "The private press leads a precarious existence, and editors, publishers and reporters are frequently arrested or harassed," the report stated. "A proposed new press law would tighten government oversight of private newspapers, despite some modifications," it said. HRW added that physical torture, including forcing detainees run barefoot and kneel on gravel, was a common abuse perpetrated by police. "More severe torture remains a problem," said the report, which was released by the organisation in January. "Excessive force has often been used to quell peaceful demonstrations. Demonstrators are subject to mass arrest and mistreatment," it noted. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who heads the country's coalition government, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, has pledged to crack down on abuses. He has backed the creation of an ombudsman and a human rights commission to tackle abuses, although neither is functioning yet. HRW criticised the delay in the creation of the commission and ombudsman despite promises by Meles, and the non-implementation of promised reforms in the broadcasting law. It said that "local leaders of political parties allied with the ruling coalition" were often implicated in physical assaults on supporters of registered opposition parties. The Ethiopian Human Rights Council (ERCHO) has been a constant critic of the government, accusing it of heavy-handedness and failing to take human rights seriously. The HRW report comes just weeks after fierce fighting in western Ethiopia, in which, ERCHO said, at least 93 people had been killed, and claimed that local security forces had played a role. Moreover, it follows a decision by the government to ban the country's free press association, a group representing the private press. Attempts by international organisations have been made to enhance the status human rights in Ethiopia. The International Committee of the Red Cross is working with the police, prison officials and the military in an effort to improve their performance in the context of human rights.

IRIN 6 Feb 2004 Ethnic violence leaves 18 dead in the east ADDIS ABABA, 6 February (IRIN) - Ethnic violence has left at least 18 people dead and several hundred homes burnt down in eastern Ethiopia, the country's human rights organisation revealed on Friday. The Ethiopian Human Rights Council (ERCHO) said fighting had erupted between the Somali and Oromo ethnic groups competing for political power in West Harerge. It noted that the violence had been sparked by plans for a referendum on who would control the Meisso District administration, 500 km east of the capital, Addis Ababa. The district, which earns substantial tax revenue from the mildly narcotic shrub, khat (Catha edulis), is located between the Somali and Oromiya regional states. Scores of ethnic groups live peacefully alongside each other in Ethiopia. But ERCHO argues that ethnicity is gradually seeping into the political arena and daily life. "Since the coming into effect of the ethnic- and language-based division of administrative units, several ethnic and religious conflicts have occurred in many parts of the country," ERCHO stated in a special report released on Friday. Its president, Prof Mesfin Wolde-Mariam, said the government's policy of dividing power along ethnic lines, was fuelling conflict. "These conflicts are becoming alarming and [are] increasing," he warned. Details of the killings in West Harerge came to light just days after a highly critical report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), which accused the government of continuing to deny basic human rights. HRW also blamed foreign donors, who last year pumped US $1.3 billion in aid into Ethiopia without adequate regard for human rights abuses. In the last two years, Ethiopia has witnessed severe clashes between various ethnic groups. British government officials estimate that 150 people were killed in fighting in the western region of Gambella in December, mostly in reprisal killings against local Anyuaks. ERCHO claimed that government troops had been involved in the killings - an allegation vehemently denied by the defence ministry, which described it as "baseless". In March 2002, at least 128 people were killed after political protests by a local ethnic group in the Tepi region in the far southwest, about 700 km from Addis Ababa. The incident sparked a public outcry, with the EU demanding an "open, transparent and public" inquiry into killings of ethnic Sheko people. In May 2002, at least 17 Sidamas were killed when local security forces opened fire on a demonstration in Awasa, some 250 km south of Addis Ababa. The EU, one of Ethiopia's most prominent donors, has extended financial support for the establishment of a human rights commission and an ombudsman to help tackle abuses. But the commission, whose establishment was announced in 2001, has yet to get off the ground. Ethiopian officials told IRIN that suitable candidates to fill the posts were still being sought. The government has pledged to crack down on ethnic violence, with new legislation passed in 2003 entitling federal authorities to intervene in cases of human rights violations at the regional level and below. Diplomats say this indicates a growing willingness to accept "ultimate responsibility" for rights violations at both the regional and local levels. But opposition leaders fear that the new law will place too much power in the hands of the ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front.

BBC 4 February 2004
Western Ethiopia tense after clashes By Mohammed Adow BBC, Ethiopia The town of Gambella, in the west of Ethiopia, has been tense for several months. It is a cosmopolitan town, but also home to some of the poorest people in Ethiopia. Gambella, just 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the Ethiopian-Sudan border, is inhabited by the Nuer, Anyuak, Majenger, Opou and Komo tribesmen. Other Ethiopian tribes like the Amhara, Oromo and Tigre who are locally known as the Highlanders also live in this region. And last month tensions between Highlanders and other groups over land spilled over into violent clashes. The violence was sparked off by an attack on a United Nations vehicle which killed eight people, including three government workers. Hundreds of homes were burnt down and the killings continued for several days. Desperation The Anyuak group was blamed for the attack. Eyewitnesses contacted by the BBC then said Ethiopian Highlanders, supported by the military, had attacked the Anyuaks. But army spokeswoman Major Harnet Yohannes said the soldiers were there only to keep the peace.When I visited the villages belonging of the Anyuaks in Gambella, volunteer government workers were helping rebuild some of the burnt houses. Akinyi Owuor, stood with her six children, in her compound where three huts housed them before the violence. Desperation was evident all over her face. "Five of my relatives were killed. When the raiders came to attack our village we ran away. Then they set our houses on fire. I survived only because the raiders were after the men and not the women," said Akinyi. The Anyuak men were not present when I got to the village, only women and children could be seen among the government volunteers rebuilding the torched houses. Ethiopian troops Moments later, I was led into a hut in a corner of the village where the men had gathered - perhaps for security reasons. They were drinking a local brew and playing chess when we finally located them. It is here that I met Ojullu Ochalla, an Anyuak tribesman. Mr Ojullu says that many Anyuaks have fled the violence. He says that about 15,000 of them have fled to Puchalla in southern Sudan. Many others, Mr Ojullu said, are still missing and their whereabouts are not known. One of the village elders, Akim Obara, says the problem is far from settled. " While we appreciate the government's efforts in deploying troops here to keep peace, we still fear for our lives." said Mr Obara He said their attackers were still intimidating and abusing them. 'Distorted figures' "We have even advised our children not to reply to people who abuse them," Mr Obara told me through a translator. But the acting regional president, Keat Tuach Bithow, says details concerning the Anyuaks who fled their homes have been distorted. Mr Bithow says the government is aware of only 4,000 Anyuaks who fled to the Sudan-Ethiopia border. He said that they had already dispatched two teams of government officials to convince the fleeing people to return to their homes. Mr Bithow said that there was need to speak to the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) on the other side of the border to facilitate the return of Ethiopians who had crossed the border. Although up to 5,000 Ethiopian troops have helped restore calm, tension remains high. Their military presence cannot be a long-term solution to the problems in Gambella, aid agencies operating in the area have said.

UN World Food Programme 6 Feb 2004 www.wfp.org Emergency Report n.6 - Ethiopia (a) Following a number of attacks on highlanders by armed personnel from the Anuak tribe in western Ethiopia and the clashes between Government soldiers and Anuaks, UN staff (WFP and UNHCR) based in Dimma camp were relocated to Mizan Teferi on the advice of the UN Security Coordination Office in Addis Ababa. Dimma hosts about 18,700 Sudanese refugees. These security incidents come on the heels of similar incidents that took place in the Gambella area in mid December 2003, which resulted in the loss of lives and damage to property. UN staff were pulled out of Gambella and relocated elsewhere following the civil strife between Anuaks and highlanders in the Gambella Region. Highlander is the name given locally to all Ethiopians originating from outside the lowlands such as Gambella and Dimma. Although security conditions in western Ethiopia have deteriorated significantly over the last several weeks, WFP has been able to maintain food deliveries and distributions to Sudanese refugees. http://www.wfp.org/newsroom/subsections/year.asp?section=18

IRIN 9 Feb 2004 Renewed fighting reported in the west ADDIS ABABA- Renewed fighting has erupted in the western Gambella region bordering Sudan, claiming as many as 40 lives, according to UN and humanitarian sources. The clashes broke out just weeks after fighting had left up to 150 people dead in Gambella, officials told IRIN on Monday. It had broken out on Friday at the Dimma refugee camp, about 800 km from the capital, Addis Ababa, and home to 18,700 Sudanese refugees, the humanitarian sources said. Clashes had also occurred around a gold mine, 30 km from Dimma in late January, as well as in the town itself a day later, they added. The UN said that following the January attacks, staff of the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were relocated for their safety. In its weekly bulletin released on Friday, the WFP said security conditions in the region had "deteriorated significantly" over the last few weeks. "These security incidents come on the heels of similar incidents that took place in the Gambella area in mid-December 2003, which resulted in the loss of lives and damage to property," the WFP bulletin stated, but noted that food distributions to refugees had continued. The fighting in western Ethiopia has also sparked international concern. British International Development Secretary Hilary Benn, who arrived in Ethiopia on Sunday, has told the British parliament that up to 150 people died in the December clashes. "There is still a high level of ethnic violence in Ethiopia," Benn told parliament recently. "We take human rights very seriously." The US government, meanwhile, has sent a security team to the troubled Gambella region. Asked whether it had raised the issue with the Ethiopian government, a US embassy official said: "As a practice, the US government does not comment on diplomatic communications between the US government and other governments. The United States, however, is always concerned for the welfare of its citizens, and others, in cases of reported ethnic violence." The Gambella clashes have prompted a wave of Anyuaks to flee to Sudan. UNHCR says about 5,000 of them, mostly men and boys, have arrived in the Sudanese town of Pachala. Senior UN sources also told IRIN that the UN were planning to send high-profile human rights officials into Pachala to interview the Anyuak refugees. The fighting has largely been between Anyuaks on the one hand and Ethiopian highlanders, who have moved into Gambella in recent years, and government troops on the other hand. It was initially sparked by an attack on a UN-plated vehicle in which eight government refugee workers were killed. The Anyuaks were blamed for the attack, and dozens of them killed in reprisals. The Anyuaks are resisting plans for a new refugee camp on land they regard as their territory, and claim they are being forced out of the area and are losing political power. Human rights organisations argue that tensions are being fuelled by government policies which divide political power along ethnic lines. Analysts in the region say they fear that the instability in the region could reignite conflict between the Anyuak and another ethnic group, the Nuer. The two groups have traditionally fought over land rights and political representation. The defence ministry insists that troops sent into the area after the first spate of fighting broke out in December, are trying to restore calm. A spokesman of the federal affairs ministry contacted on Monday said he was unable to immediately comment on the fighting.

IRIN 9 Feb 2004 Renewed fighting reported in the west ADDIS ABABA, Renewed fighting has erupted in the western Gambella region bordering Sudan, claiming as many as 40 lives, according to UN and humanitarian sources. The clashes broke out just weeks after fighting had left up to 150 people dead in Gambella, officials told IRIN on Monday. It had broken out on Friday at the Dimma refugee camp, about 800 km from the capital, Addis Ababa, and home to 18,700 Sudanese refugees, the humanitarian sources said. Clashes had also occurred around a gold mine, 30 km from Dimma in late January, as well as in the town itself a day later, they added. The UN said that following the January attacks, staff of the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were relocated for their safety. In its weekly bulletin released on Friday, the WFP said security conditions in the region had "deteriorated significantly" over the last few weeks. "These security incidents come on the heels of similar incidents that took place in the Gambella area in mid-December 2003, which resulted in the loss of lives and damage to property," the WFP bulletin stated, but noted that food distributions to refugees had continued. The fighting in western Ethiopia has also sparked international concern. British International Development Secretary Hilary Benn, who arrived in Ethiopia on Sunday, has told the British parliament that up to 150 people died in the December clashes. "There is still a high level of ethnic violence in Ethiopia," Benn told parliament recently. "We take human rights very seriously." The US government, meanwhile, has sent a security team to the troubled Gambella region. Asked whether it had raised the issue with the Ethiopian government, a US embassy official said: "As a practice, the US government does not comment on diplomatic communications between the US government and other governments. The United States, however, is always concerned for the welfare of its citizens, and others, in cases of reported ethnic violence." The Gambella clashes have prompted a wave of Anyuaks to flee to Sudan. UNHCR says about 5,000 of them, mostly men and boys, have arrived in the Sudanese town of Pachala. Senior UN sources also told IRIN that the UN were planning to send high-profile human rights officials into Pachala to interview the Anyuak refugees. The fighting has largely been between Anyuaks on the one hand and Ethiopian highlanders, who have moved into Gambella in recent years, and government troops on the other hand. It was initially sparked by an attack on a UN-plated vehicle in which eight government refugee workers were killed. The Anyuaks were blamed for the attack, and dozens of them killed in reprisals. The Anyuaks are resisting plans for a new refugee camp on land they regard as their territory, and claim they are being forced out of the area and are losing political power. Human rights organisations argue that tensions are being fuelled by government policies which divide political power along ethnic lines. Analysts in the region say they fear that the instability in the region could reignite conflict between the Anyuak and another ethnic group, the Nuer. The two groups have traditionally fought over land rights and political representation. The defence ministry insists that troops sent into the area after the first spate of fighting broke out in December, are trying to restore calm. A spokesman of the federal affairs ministry contacted on Monday said he was unable to immediately comment on the fighting.

AFP 10 Feb 2004 Up to 70 killed in ethnic clashes in western Ethiopia ADDIS ABABA, Feb 10 (AFP) - Between 50 and 70 people were killed late last month in ethnic clashes in western Ethiopia, aid workers in the capital, Addis Ababa, said Tuesday. The deadly clashes erupted onA January 29 at a mine near Dimma, in Gambella state, near the border with Sudan, where thousands of artisanal workers dig for gold, the sources said, asking not to be named. Some sources said the fighting, which continued into the next day, was sparked when indigenous workers at the mine, members of the Anuak ethnic group, attacked so-called "highlanders", people originating from other areas of Ethiopia. An Anuak policeman reportedly killed a highlander on January 30, and the situation degenerated into widespread violence, prompting the army to deploy to try to disarm the Anuak miners. Instead, the army suffered heavy losses, according to some sources. This could not be independently confirmed and the government had not commented officially as of late Tuesday. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, have temporarily removed their staff from a camp housing 18,000 mostly Sudanese refugees near Dimma. "Following a number of serious security incidents in Dimma, WFP and other UN agencies staff at the Dimma refugee Camp were relocated to Mizan Tefri, northeast of Gambella, on the advice of the UN security Coordination office in Addis Ababa," a WFP statement said. Dimma lies about 920 kilometres (575 miles) southwest of Addis Ababa. In mid-December Gambella's eponymous capital, 200 kilometres (1209 miles) to the north, was hit by similar clashes. According to the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, 93 people were killed then. The government put the toll at 57. That episode was sparked after eight people, including a policeman, were killed while driving to Gambella town. The Council accused the state authorities of failing to take action to prevent the violence, despite clear indications of tension before the killings."As a result of the government ethnic policy, it is becoming a common occurrence to see Ethiopians who (once) lived in peace and harmony killing each other, categorizing themselves along ethnic lines," the statement said. With more than 65 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is Africa's second most populous country after Nigeria and is home to some 87 ethnic groups. Under Ethiopia's federal system, the largest ethnic group in each state -- the Anuak in Gambella's case -- are meant to control local government affairs and dictate the official language. But recently the Anuak have felt their authority has been undermined by outsiders, the so-called "highlanders" from the capital and other areas, who are accused of lording it over the indigenous population. A year ago, a UN report highlighted the prevalence of arms in Gambella and said this, as well as the tension in the state, was due to the presence of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army on the other side of the border. The same report noted that Gambella had suffered ethnic tension since the early 20th century with the principal antagonists being the Anuaks and the Nuer. Clashes between these two groups over government posts claimed 60 lives over the course of a month in 2002 and displaced several thousand, according to the human rights council. [ The Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO www.ehrco.net ) is an independent, non-governmental, non-profit making, non-partisan and non-political organization established on October 10, 1991.]

www.genocidewatch.org 18 Feb 2004 IMMEDIATE RELEASE Survivor’s Rights International & Genocide Watch Call for Immediate Steps to Stop Massacres in Southwestern Ethiopia February 18, 2004 – Survivor’s Rights International and Genocide Watch are calling on the Ethiopian Government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, the United Nations Security Council, and the African Union to take immediate steps to halt escalating violence in the Gambella region of southwestern Ethiopia. Interviews conducted January 16-23, 2004 with Ethiopian refugees in nearby Pochalla, Sudan confirmed that Ethiopian government troops massacred over 400 members of the Anuak ethnic group in Gambella December 13 – 16, 2003, and that rapes and murders are continuing. On January 29, 2004, members of the indigenous Anuak minority responded with violence to the torture and execution of an Anuak gold miner in Dimma. Exemplifying the climate of gross impunity, soldiers bragged about the murder to members of the Anuak community. Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Defense Forces (EPRDF) attempted to disarm other Anuak gold miners, who counter-attacked. EPRDF forces were defeated, with scores of soldiers believed killed. The Anuak gold miners also killed highlander civilians in Dimma town. On January 30, 2004, a convoy of EPRDF reinforcements was attacked on route to Dimma, with more soldiers killed. After the January 29 - 30 battles, non-combatant Anuak women and children fled Dimma in fear of further military retaliation and atrocities by EPRDF soldiers. As of January 26, some 5,297 refugees had fled southwestern Ethiopia to Pochalla, Sudan from the Gambella region, including the districts of Gambella, Abobo, Gok and Itang. On February 3, 2004, EPRDF reinforcements in Dimma massacred 17 Anuaks, including Dimma District government officials. EPRDF troops also massacred non-combatant Dinka and Nuer Sudanese refugees from a nearby camp and wounded other Sudanese refugees. Mass rape continues in the region, perpetrated by both EPRDF soldiers and “highlander” militias. These same groups were responsible for the December massacres. On January 28, for example, EPRDF soldiers summarily executed an Anuak father for persevering in his attempt to bring to justice the men who that day had gang-raped his 10 year-old daughter. In the absence of Anuak men—who have been either executed or driven from southwestern Ethiopia—Anuak women and girls have been subject to sexual atrocities from which there is neither protection nor recourse. SRI and Genocide Watch have received reports that the Anuak Gambella People’s Liberation Force (GPLF) is planning armed responses to the ongoing repression, rape and murder of Anuak people, and to the impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators. Additional reports indicate that the federal government of Ethiopia may have dispatched intelligence operatives to neighboring countries to assassinate exiled Anuak leaders, including Mr. Okello Akuai, the President of Gambella, and Mr. Abulla Obang Agwa, the founder of the Gambella People’s Democratic Congress. The violence is thus already a threat to international peace and security in the region. According to Genocide Watch sources, the massacres on 13 -16 December 2003 were ordered by the commander of the Ethiopian army in Gambella, Nagu Beyene, with the authorization of Dr. Gebrhab Barnabas, an official of the Ethiopian government. The accusation has also been made that lists of targeted individuals were drawn up with the assistance of Omot Obang Olom, who is himself Anuak, but holds an official position. On 8 January 2004 Genocide Watch faxed Prime Minister Meles Zenawi a letter calling for the arrest of these officials, as well as other perpetrators of the December massacres. He has not replied. None of the perpetrators of the massacres have been arrested. Instead, the Ethiopian government has portrayed the December massacres as ethnic conflict between Nuer and Anuak, which they were not. It has also tried to minimize the number killed. Genocide Watch and SRI have eyewitness testimony that Ethiopian soldiers have dug up mass graves and burned the bodies. The government portrays conflict at the Dimma gold mines as instigated by the Anuak, though the fighting began with an EPRDF atrocity against a miner, and an attempt to disarm the miners, for whom their weapons are their only self-defense. The Ethiopian government has moved over 20,000 EPRDF troops into the Gambella region, ostensibly to “calm down” the area, when actually EPRDF troops continue to commit murders and rapes. Genocide Watch and Survivor’s Rights International call upon the Ethiopian government to remove EPRDF troops from the Gambella region, leaving regular police. We also call upon the Secretary General of the United Nations to place this explosive situation on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council. Contacts: Dr. Gregory H. Stanton < genocidewatch@aol.com > President, Genocide Watch < www.genocidewatch.org > Coordinator, The International Campaign to End Genocide Telephone: 540-654-1391 Keith Harmon Snow < info@sri.org> Researcher, Survivor’s Rights International < www.survivorsrightsinternational.org > Annapolis, MD 21403 (410) 268-6988 For more information on the crisis in southwestern Ethiopia, please visit the website of the International Campaign to End Genocide (ICEG) at . The field report based on research and interviews of refugees in Pochalla, Sudan, is available on that website, and on SRI’s website at < www.surviorsrightsinternational.org>

I RIN 23 Feb 2004 Ethiopia: US Government Wants Gambella Violence Investigated Addis Ababa The US government has called for "transparent, independent" inquiries into clashes in Ethiopia's troubled western border region where hundreds have been killed. In a statement from Washington on 20 February, the US said the government must investigate allegations that its troops were involved in the killings. Adam Ereli, the US government deputy spokesman, also told journalists in Washington that the crisis in Gambella region was "deteriorating" following fighting between ethnic groups and the Ethiopian armed forces. "Fully transparent and independent investigations by the government would encourage restoration of peace in the troubled region," Ereli said in a statement. The government, however, rejected the allegations that its troops were involved in the fighting, and told IRIN that they were restoring order. The US call came as two human rights organisations condemned the international community for its silence over the "atrocities" being perpetrated in Gambella, which is about 800 km west of the capital, Addis Ababa. The US-based Genocide Watch (GW) and Survivors' Rights International (SRI) alleged that the Anyuak ethnic group was being subjected to rape, executions and torture. Clashes first erupted in Gambella in early December after eight government officials were attacked and murdered while travelling in a United Nations vehicle. The Anyuak, who make up around one-third of the 228,000 people who live in the remote region, were blamed for the attack and targeted for brutal reprisals, in which hundreds of people were killed. Gambella is a fertile, but swampy, malaria-infested area, which borders war-torn Sudan. It is however also rich in natural resources like gold and oil, which, GW and SRI say, may be serving to fuel the three-month orgy of violence, inasmuch as the Anyuaks believe that much of the land in the area belongs to them. "The Ethiopian government continues to deny, downplay and mis-characterise the massacres as justifiable responses to the Anyuak attack," said their 23-page report. "The fact is that most of the victims have been unarmed Anyuak civilians who were hunted down and murdered," Keith Harmon Snow, the report's author, asserted. "Numerous assailants have been identified, including government officials, soldiers and civilians," he added, while also calling for an independent inquiry into the killings. "Numerous reports indicate that summary executions, mass rape and disappearances continue to occur in contravention of international legal standards," he said. Snow's report was compiled after conducting interviews in January and February with Anyuaks who had fled across the porous border into neighbouring Sudan. In a statement released last week, the government said 200 people had been killed in one attack led by Anyuak at a gold mine, and 10,000 people had fled the region. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme say they have evacuated all their international staff from parts of western Ethiopia. The killings mark some of the worst violence for years in Ethiopia, a landlocked country of 70 million people divided into numerous linguistic and ethnic groups. The Ethiopian Human Rights Council said earlier this month that ethnic violence was increasing in the country as a result of government policies forming local administrations along tribal lines. But the government, a four-party ethnic coalition which has been in power since 1991, accused the group of being politically motivated and dismissed its accusations. "These statements from the human rights groups are not correct. The government troops are not there to kill Anyuaks, they are there to make peace. We have stated this time and again," Zemedkun Tekle, the information ministry spokesman, told IRIN The federal affairs ministry, which is investigating the violence, was unavailable for comment on the latest claims surrounding the fighting in Gambella.

News 24 Sa 23 Feb 2004 'No justice' for Red Terror Red Terror suspect cleared Addis Ababa - Ethiopia's top human rights campaigner said here Monday that the government could not "deliver justice" in the genocide trial of former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam and dozens of officers from his regime. "That regime cannot deliver justice" because it is not "democratic", Mesfine Woldemariam, chair of the Ethiopian Human Rishts Council, told AFP as the trial was set to resume on Tuesday before the federal high court. Mengistu and 65 other officials are charged with genocide and other crimes, including the murder of Emperor Haile Selasie and Orthodox Patriarch Abuna Tefelows, during the 1977-78 so-called "Red Terror" period which followed the ouster of emperor Haile Selassie by a marxist junta. The defendants are also charged with ordering the killing of 1 823 people and a forced resettlement that led to the death of 100 000 others under the Marxist regime. "At the beginnning, we have stated that if you have a trial for genocide, establish in Ethiopia a democratic system, and a genuine judiciary system," Woldemariam said. "You can't do that when you have former terrorists in power, when they have incriminate people selectively," he said, referring to the government of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, the former rebel leader who ended Mengistu's bloody rule. Tens of thousands of Ethiopians were killed or disappeared during the two-year "Red Terror". Mengistu himself was convicted in absentia after fleeing to Zimbabwe in 1991, where he has lived in exile ever since. Nearly 5 200 former soldiers and communist activists are due to be tried by the courts. Around 2 l200 are currently in prison in Ethiopia, but several of the key accused are to be or have been tried in absentia. Last August, 33 former officials of the Mengistu regime, who are behind bars, wrote a letter to Zenawi begging for mercy from the Ethiopian people. More than 500 people have been acquitted, and 600 are to be tried between January and September of this year. The Red Terror trials are due to be concluded in 2004, according to the Ethiopian judiciary. Edited by Tisha Steyn

Daily Nation, Kenya 2 Feb 2004 www.nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation Special Report ONE YEAR OF PEACE Peace returns to 'valley of death' Hostilities between Pokots and Marakwets, fanned by reckless utterances by politicians and provincial administration officials, are now dying down and they'll even inter-marry