Africa

Chad (see Sudan)

BBC 18 June 2004 Chad fears spread of Darfur war The Janjaweed are accused of chasing black Africans from their homes Chad's government is worried that Sudan's Arab militia is trying to export ethnic violence from Darfur. Chad says that it killed 69 Sudanese "Janjaweed" fighters on its territory. The pro-Sudanese government Janjaweed have been accused of carrying out ethnic cleansing against Darfur's black African population. Some 10,000 people have been killed and more than a million have fled their homes. Chad's border region has the same ethnic make-up as Darfur. 'Hidden force' The BBC's Abakar Saleh in the Chad capital, Ndjamena, says the authorities there are "very worried" that the Janjaweed are trying to stir up trouble amongst Chad's Arab population. "There is a hidden force trying to export the conflict between the Sudanese into Chad," said Allami Ahmat, diplomatic advisor to Chadian President Idriss Deby. How to help Big country, big problems The Janjaweed were killed after attacking the village of Birak, some 6km inside Chad's territory, said Communications Minister Mouckhtar Wawa Dahab. He said that two militiamen were captured but had no information on Chad casualties. Our correspondent says that President Deby is himself from the Zagawa group which straddles the border and which is being targeted in Darfur. The Arabs are one of Chad's biggest groups but do not control the government as in Sudan, he says. 'Not genocide' Aid workers describe Darfur as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. But United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan says it is not the "genocide", which some human rights groups have called it. President Deby has ethnic ties to those being targeted in Chad They say they are in a "race against time" to get aid to those who have fled their homes in Darfur before the rainy season makes the areas impassable. The first rains have already started to fall and the BBC's Hilary Andersson says that some children in camps for the displaced are starving to death because there is not enough food aid. Chad has been trying to mediate between the Darfur rebels and the government. A ceasefire was signed in Ndjamena but both sides accuse the other of breaking it.

Côte d’Ivoire

BBC 8 June, 2004 Ivorian air strike on rebel zone New Forces rebels denied attacking the army The Ivory Coast army has attacked rebel forces for the first time in almost a year, casting new doubts on the fragile peace process. A rebel commander said that 12 people had been lightly wounded. The army said the strike was in retaliation for an earlier attack on its positions by a "renegade group". Ivory Coast has been split in two since September 2002 and a power-sharing government appears shaky after Mr Gbagbo sacked rebel ministers. 'Manipulation' Military spokesman Colonel Jules Yao Yao said that five vehicles had been destroyed in the helicopter air-strike. The New Forces, who control northern Ivory Coast, have denied responsibility for the attack on the central town of Gohitafla. They said their convoy was returning from the town to their stronghold in Bouake to restore order after the fighting, and denounced the air-strike as a breach of the ceasefire. It said the attack was an act of "manipulation" to allow Mr Gbagbo to justify renewed fighting against them. Gohitafla is at the south of the "confidence zone", or no-man's land, between the rebels and government forces, monitored by 4,000 French and 2,500 United Nations peacekeepers. According to a French military spokesman, two French and several Ivory Coast soldiers were lightly injured, while the attackers suffered heavy losses. The French say they have captured prisoners. The BBC's James Copnall in the commercial capital, Abidjan, says that tensions have been rising in Ivory Coast since New Forces leader Guillaume Soro was sacked from his position as minister of communication last month. Newspapers close to the former rebels have carried many recent articles alleging the government is massing forces near the confidence zone. French targeted Following Monday's attack on Gohitafla, about 200 supporters of Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo attacked the French embassy in Abidjan. They threw stones before being driven back by riot police using tear gas. Further protests have continued on Tuesday. Ivory Coast has been split since rebels seized control of the northern half of the country in September 2002. Rebels hold the mainly Muslim north, while forces loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo control the south. The conflict was declared over in January 2003, but the power-sharing "government of unity" outlined in the peace pact has never lived up to its name.

DR Congo

AP 1 June 2004 Cease-Fire in Eastern Congo Fails By RODRIQUE NGOWI Associated Press Writer Article Tools Print E-Mail Article Bookmark Discuss A Congolese soldier stand soutside a shop, Monday, May 31, 2004 in Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Congolese fighters loyal to a renegade commander clashed with government troops near a strategic airport in eastern Congo, escalating tension in the unstable region.The rival forces fought for four hours with heavy weapons and small arms north of Kavumu airport on Sunday, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of Bukavu, before the Congolese army withdrew to the south.( AP Photo/Riccardo Gangale) Congolese soldiers battled troops loyal to a renegade commander in eastern Congo on Tuesday, breaking a shaky cease-fire and spurring U.N. peacekeepers to try to negotiate an end to the violence, a United Nations spokesman said. Brig. Gen. Laurent Nkunda, a former rebel commander whose troops marched on the airport in the town of Bukavu on Monday, had earlier declared an end to the conflict after the government set up arrangements in Congo's troubled South Kivu province to prevent the persecution of the minority Tutsi community. Nkunda said he ordered his troops to halt their advance early Tuesday near the airport 15 miles north of Bukavu to allow a Congolese vice president to visit the city to investigate grievances of the Tutsi community, known as the Banyamulenge. U.N. spokesman Sebastien Lapierre, though, said fighting broke out again Tuesday morning near the airport, which is controlled by U.N. forces. He said there were no immediate reports of casualties, but that U.N. peacekeepers were trying to negotiate a new cease-fire. Troops loyal to Nkunda, a commander in the former rebel Congolese Rally for Democracy, advanced on Bukavu after fighting broke out last week between rival factions of the Congolese army. That violence erupted on Wednesday and pitted troops loyal to Brig. Gen. Mbuza Mabe, the commander of the army in South Kivu, against Banyamulenge fighters loyal to Col. Jules Mutebutsi. At least 27 people were killed and another 81 wounded in three days of clashes. Banyamulenge residents fled Bukavu and others took shelter at U.N. compounds during the fighting after several were killed and detained by government troops. "We were fighting because no one wanted to stop the genocide" of the Banyamulenge, Nkunda said. Nkunda said he ordered the earlier cease-fire after talks with Vice President Azarias Ruberwa, a former rebel leader and a Banyamulenge, who "pleaded with us to observe a cease-fire and let him come to Bukavu to assess the situation." But the cease-fire was conditional and Mabe decided to attack instead, security officials said on condition of anonymity. The conditions included the recovery of Banyamulenge killed during the clashes, the return of those forced to flee their homes and the release of those detained by the government, Nkunda told The Associated Press. "There should also be new security arrangements in Bukavu that would ensure that every one can live in the city in peace," Nkunda said. Mutebutsi's gunmen were staying in buildings belonging to their commanders in Bukavu on Tuesday, U.N. officials said. Bukavu itself was calm and hundreds of Mayi-Mayi tribal fighters walked into the city from neighboring towns to reinforce government troops, said Didas Namujimbo, spokesman for the provincial governor. The war in Congo ended last June when the rebels and the government set up a transitional government in Kinshasa, Congo's capital. But eastern and northeastern Congo have remained volatile. "What happens after this will determine whether we continue fighting or not," Nkunda said. "If they fail to solve this problem, I will solve it myself."

www.baltimoresun.com 30 May 2004 For Iraq, lessons of another June 30 Congo: Forty-four years ago, a nation on the brink of civil war was granted sovereignty before it was ready. By Bruce Oudes Special To The Sun May 30, 2004 It happened amid a hotly contested presidential election campaign during an era of global turmoil - an occupying power granted sovereign independence to a distant and highly unstable colonial territory on June 30. Chaos ensued. One region declared itself independent. Civil war broke out. Less than a month after independence, the president of the United States turned to the U.N. Security Council for help. For years, troops under U.N. command struggled to sort things out amid seemingly endless violence and confusion about whether the United Nations or the newly independent government was in charge. Meanwhile, the president of the United States, operating largely out of public view, guided the actions of the United Nations as well as the new government. Does that sound familiar? But it's not the future of Iraq under discussion, it is the history of the Belgian Congo, which became independent June 30, 1960. But there are lessons from that transfer of power that could apply June 30, 2004 when Iraq is due a measure of sovereignty. Namely, why did Belgium, the occupying power in the Congo, convey sovereign authority to an unstable Congolese government rather than entrusting that power to the United Nations? Years ago I put that question to Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster, who was President Dwight D. Eisenhower's senior White House aide in 1960 when the Congo became independent. Copper-rich Katanga province seceded a few days later. U.N. forces were sent, and these troops brought down the secession in early 1962, thus preserving the territorial integrity of the Congo. Would Eisenhower have persuaded Belgium to turn sovereign responsibility for the Congo over to the U.N. Security Council rather than granting independence directly to the vast territory? Yes, Goodpaster replied without hesitation. Eisenhower "loved" the U.N. mechanism for handling such problems, he added. So, why hadn't that happened? No one thought of it, Goodpaster said with a wistful smile. Eisenhower's strong confidence in the Security Council mechanism amid the Cold War stands in sharp contrast to another Republican president 44 years later. Had President Bush not been so reluctant to take advantage of the Security Council option, U.S. troops - operating under a U.N. flag - might have suffered far fewer casualties in the past 12 months. The prisoner abuse may well never have happened. The relationship of the Security Council to U.S. national security is simple. Because the permanent members have absolute veto power over Security Council decisions and actions, the council can't take any action or alter it without at least the tacit approval of the United States. In Eisenhower's time, U.S. policy was that it was vital that the Security Council succeed in a visible way. In the past four decades, millions of Republicans have come to despise the United Nations. In that, they find themselves in agreement with Osama Bin Laden, who promised a bag of gold to anyone who assassinates U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. If President Bush had let the Security Council assume sovereignty for Iraq a year ago, we might not be facing Congo-like chaos in that country. It is not too late to correct that mistake. The critical choice that Bush and the United Nations face is between two very different alternatives: One is the wobbly Anglo-American draft resolution presented May 24 that gives Iraq its odd form of sovereignty and continues current U.S. policy, which views the United Nations as "them." Or, the Bush administration could present a strong "us" resolution that makes it clear the United States regards itself as an integral part of the United Nations and places all international forces, including those of the United States, under the U.N. flag, as is the case in Korea. The procedure involved is simple. On June 30 the U.S. flag over Iraq is replaced by the U.N. flag at the top of the pole with the Iraqi flag right below. Then, after the interim Iraqi authority produces a constitution and holds a fair election in about 18 months, the U.N. flag is lowered and replaced at the top by the Iraqi flag. The country is again fully sovereign. This would reassure a skeptical world - including plenty of nervous Americans and Iraqis - that the Congo syndrome will not be repeated. In this scenario, any issues between the interim Iraqi government and the U.N. representatives in Iraq would be publicly aired in the U.N. Security Council, subject to U. S. veto. The fact that the Security Council was not given interim "title" to the Congo by Belgium before June 30, 1960, meant years of political intrigue and jockeying for influence there by France, the Soviet Union and the United States. In 1960, the Congo chaos strengthened the impact of John F. Kennedy's national security message throughout the presidential debates and made a major contribution to the defeat of Richard M. Nixon. In early 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson made the fateful decision to allow U.N. troops to be withdrawn from the Congo, by, once again, June 30. A few days later, a Congolese rebel force emerged in the northeast and captured Stanleyville - the provincial capital since renamed Kisangani - and took scores of foreigners hostage, including the staff of the U.S. consulate there. On August 7, 1964, the U.S. Senate passed the historic Tonkin Gulf Resolution on Vietnam. Shortly after Johnson's landslide election in November, a U.S.-Belgian coalition force operating outside the U.N. framework freed the hostages and ended the Stanleyville rebellion. This swift success reinforced Johnson's confidence and created the climate in which he sent American ground units into Vietnam in February 1965. Now, with this year's June 30 deadline ahead, and with France, Russia, and China squabbling with the United States and Britain over the new U.N. resolution, the Big Four meeting at Normandy next Sunday - the 60th anniversary of D-Day - offers solemn occasion to remember why we created the United Nations in the first place. There - and at the G-8 Summit at Sea Island, Ga. - starting June 8, Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin have an historic window of opportunity to save Iraq from itself while sending an equally historic message about the future of the U.N. Security Council. If the Big Four remember the vital lessons of the Congo experience of the 1960s, they also will give the world - and Iraqis - confidence that Iraq's territorial integrity will be preserved. That will be especially reassuring to Turkey, which is anxious that the Kurds of Iraq not follow the course Katanga chose. Turkey will host President Bush and the NATO Summit just before June 30. But if the Big Four - and China - persist in refusing to put the U.N. flag atop the flag poles of Iraq, then hope for some sort of peaceful resolution - there will be that much dimmer. If Nixon could go to China, then why can't the president celebrate the United Nations as Dwight David Eisenhower did? Bruce Oudes, a former Sun staff writer, was press attache at the U.S. consulate in Congo's Katanga province during the Stanleyville hostage crisis in 1964."

www.mg.co.za 2 June 2004 Heavy fighting in Bukavu Rodrique Ngowi | Cyangugu, Rwanda Heavy fighting broke out early on Wednesday as Congolese troops and fighters loyal to a renegade commander battled for control of the centre of the troubled Congolese city of Bukavu, residents said. The crack of assault rifles and explosion of mortar shells began at 5.30am (3.30am GMT) after soldiers loyal to Brigadier General Mbuza Mabe, the Congolese army commander in South Kivu province began fighting troops loyal a former rebel commander who had sneaked into the town, residents said. However, Brigadier General Laurent Nkunda, the commander of renegade troops who marched on Bukavu's airport on Monday, denied reports that his fighters were involved in the latest clashes that began hours after Mabe agreed to observe a shaky ceasefire late on Tuesday. United Nations peacekeepers were blocking the advance into Bukavu of the bulk of troops loyal to Nkunda, UN spokesperson Sebastien Lapierre said. A UN helicopter gunship began patrolling the skies of Bukavu after troops under the command of another renegade commander opened fire inside the city, Lapierre said. Congolese troops battled at the center of Bukavu, capital South Kivu, as soldiers who deserted Mabe and elements of fighters loyal to Nkunda fought for control of the city, Jean-Baptiste Baderwa said by telephone from Bukavu. The sound of gunfire and explosion of ordinances carried over the river separating Bukavu from this Rwandan border town. Nkunda declared on Tuesday that he would end the conflict once the government set up security arrangements in the Democratic Republic of Congo's troubled South Kivu province to prevent the persecution of the minority Tutsi community. Mabe sent troops to attack Nkunda's positions on Tuesday, but the offensive was beaten back and Congolese President Joseph Kabila later ordered his commander to accept the ceasefire. The violence in Bukavu erupted on Wednesday and pitted Mabe's troops against Congolese Tutsi, or Banyamulenge, fighters loyal to Colonel Jules Mutebutsi. At least 39 people were killed and another 81 wounded in three days of clashes, Red Cross officials said. Banyamulenge residents fled Bukavu and others took shelter at UN compounds during the fighting after several people were killed and detained by government troops. Nkunda said he marched on Bukavu to "stop the genocide" of the Banyamulenge. Nkunda said he ordered the earlier ceasefire after talks with Vice-President Azarias Ruberwa, a former rebel leader and a Banyamulenge, who wanted to visit the city to find a political solution to the conflict. Ruberwa was expected to visit Bukavu on Wednesday after the lack of security foiled his plans to go there Tuesday. The war in the DRC ended last June when the rebels and the government set up a transitional government in the capital Kinshasa. But eastern and northeastern DRC have remained volatile. - Sapa-AP

Reuters 3 June 2004 Rwanda Warns Congo Against 'Genocide' in Bukavu Thu Jun 3, 2004 04:57 AM ET By Robert Walker BUKAVU, Congo (Reuters) - Rwanda said on Thursday any attempt by the Democratic Republic of Congo to target Tutsis in their effort to regain control of the eastern town of Bukavu would amount to "ethnic cleansing or genocide." Congolese President Joseph Kabila accused Rwanda of helping renegade soldiers seize Bukavu and said Congo's army was being mobilized to retake control. Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Muligande told Reuters in Kigali that Kabila had a right to retake the town but he said the international community should intervene if that military effort was seen as targeting one tribal group. "Such an action would amount to ethnic cleansing or genocide, Rwanda is part of the international community and would definitely play its role in opposing genocide," he said. For the first time in nearly a week there was calm on Thursday in the eastern Congo town at the center of a battle that has sparked fears of a resumption of war between the two countries. There were reports of looting, but no shooting. Civilians looted two barges loaded with 300 tonnes of food aid on Wednesday, said Ndeley Agbaw, head of the World Food Program office in Bukavu. Former rebel fighters from the Rwandan-backed RCD-Goma, the biggest rebel faction during the Democratic Republic of Congo's five-year war which was officially declared over last year, remained in control of the town one day after seizing it. There were no signs of Congolese army troops on the streets, still littered with broken glass from a week of fighting. Bukavu was largely deserted except for fortified vehicles speeding through town filled with renegade soldiers, kitted out with brand new uniforms and guns. Local residents remained indoors and aid workers were confined to their compounds. But in the capital Kinshasa, about 2,000 students were heading to the headquarters of the U.N. peacekeepers armed with stones and tires, after attacking the U.N. mission there on Wednesday, furious that the United Nations let Bukavu fall. Even before Kabila's comments, analysts said the insurgency threatened to derail the peace process in Congo, where a transitional government is struggling to restore central administration after the devastating war. Under a 2003 agreement, former rebel fighters are supposed to be incorporated into a new national army, but some RCD-Goma commanders have refused to take up their posts or fallen out with rival government army chiefs. After taking control of Bukavu, the commander of the renegade troops said his troops were fighting to protect their fellow Banyamulenge tribesmen -- Congolese ethnic Tutsis who have long complained of attacks and killings by security forces. Some 2,500 have fled to Rwanda since fighting started. At least 65 people have been killed since then. "We must make sure that the Banyamulenge are safe in Bukavu," the commander, Laurent Nkunda, told reporters. But a statement issued after a government meeting in Kinshasa, Kabila called the protection of the Banyamulenge "a ploy by Rwanda to enter Congo." He blamed the crisis on Kigali. "It's an aggression against our country by Rwandans who control the town of Bukavu. We have decided to mobilize our resources and men and finances to defend ourselves," he said on state television. Muligande said Kabila's allegations were a face-saving effort occasioned by the shame of losing Bukavu to "rebel soldiers within the Congolese army." He said U.N. peacekeepers were in Bukavu "and they can attest that there is no single Rwandan soldier in there. There is no single Rwandan soldier anywhere in (Congo)." Sebastien Lapierre, a spokesman for the United Nations mission (MONUC) in Bukavu, said he could not confirm the presence of Rwandan troops in the town. About 1,060 U.N. peacekeepers are deployed in and around Bukavu, while the regular Congolese army is thought to have some 1,000 soldiers on the ground. Colonel Clive Mantell, MONUC's chief of staff, said Nkunda may have up to 4,000 soldiers. (Additional reporting by Finbarr O'Reilly in Kinshasa and Mary Kimani in Kigali)

IRIN 4 Jun 2004 DRC: Now rebels withdraw from Bukavu, MONUC takes over KIGALI, 4 June (IRIN) - The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), known as MONUC, has taken control of security in the volatile eastern Congolese city of Bukavu after leaders of dissident army troops agreed to withdraw their men, a senior UN official said on Friday. "UN forces are going to increase patrolling, right now we have redeployed inside the town," Brig-Gen Jan Isberg, the UN commander in charge of the provinces of North and South Kivu, said. He said the UN redeployment would defuse a crisis that had threatened to plunge the Congo back into civil war. "MONUC has verified that withdrawal has begun and there's still movement of troops out of town," Isberg said. Gen Laurent Nkunda, one of the renegade commanders, told IRIN that he had already ordered 300 of his soldiers out of Bukavu and was in talks with UN peacekeepers to have them take control of the town. "Our forces are pulling out as we speak," Nkunda said. "We want to show loyalty to the transitional government." Nkunda and Col Jules Mutebutsi, formerly with the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Goma and who were briefly commanders in the new Congolese army, seized Bukavu on Wednesday. They had complained that the regional military commander assigned by the government, Brig-Gen Mbuza Mabe, was persecuting one of the ethnic communities in the region, the Banyamulenge. Meanwhile, in Rwanda's western province of Cyangugu, Congolese refugees continued to arrive on Friday, fleeing the fighting in Bukavu. A field officer with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Fabien Nsengiyumva, told IRIN that 2,200 Congolese refugees had so far registered with agency, but only 905 of them were staying in a designated camp. He added that the rest were staying with friends and relatives in Cyangugu. "We are now working on expanding the camp to accommodate more refugees crossing over," he said.

telegraph.co.uk 5 June 2004 Congo on the brink of new civil war amid genocide accusations By Adrian Blomfield in Bukavu (Filed: 05/06/2004) The rebel commander who could re-ignite Africa's bloodiest war relaxed in his deckchair yesterday, admiring the view across Lake Kivu. As United Nations peacekeepers spent a third day trying to end fighting in the Congolese town of Bukavu, Brig Gen Laurent Nkunda, who made cheese before he took up arms, insisted he is not trying to topple President Laurent Kabila. Renegade troops prepare to leave the Congolese town of Bakavu He marched into the eastern city at the head of 4,000 renegade soldiers on Wednesday, sending troops loyal to the government fleeing into the hills. But he invaded, he said, to prevent alleged attempts by the army's commander in Bukavu to carry out genocide against Congolese Tutsis, known as Banyamulenge. "I cannot break peace but I cannot accept a peace where the Banyamulenge are being killed," said Gen Nkunda. After a year of shaky peace, Congo faces renewed civil conflict and possible war with neighbouring Rwanda, which is accused of backing the mutineers. For all that, Gen Nkunda seemed remarkably nonchalant, chatting with officers in the garden of the governor's colonial mansion while his troops supposedly withdrew to positions outside the town under a UN-backed deal. Few, in fact, appeared to have left. Soldiers loyal to Gen Nkunda still swaggered through the streets, although in smaller numbers than a day before. Under the deal, the government will investigate Gen Nkunda's claims. That there were attacks on the Banyamulenge is not in doubt. Congolese Tutsis who fled to Rwanda tell of soldiers searching for them from house to house. Three-year-old Felice Mukongo bears a terrible face wound inflicted by soldiers loyal to Bukavu's government commander, Mbuza Mabe. Gen Nkunda says such incidents prompted his invasion. But many say the mutiny preceded the attacks and government soldiers and civilians took advantage of the mayhem to turn on the Banyamulenge.

AFP 6 Jun 2004 Rwanda closes border with DR Congo KIGALI, June 6 (AFP) - Rwanda closed its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) overnight as a "precautionary measure", the Rwandan interior ministry said Sunday. "The border has been closed since last (Saturday) night," the interior ministry's Secretary General Joseph Mutaboba told AFP. The border was still closed midday Sunday, he added, without saying how long it would remain so. The border lies next to DRC's Kivu provinces, where dissident troops last week captured the key town of Bukavu, prompting DRC President Joseph Kabila to accuse Rwanda, whose troops backed rebels during DRC's 1998-2003 war, of being behind the takeover. The leader of the dissidents, General Laurent Nkunda, said Sunday he was pulling out of Bukavu. Both he and Rwanda have denied Kigali's involvement in his actions. On Friday, Kabila said in a broadcast address that Rwanda was trying to prevent "the effective reunification of the country (DRC) and the re-establishment of state authority across the national territory." The same day, Rwandan Defence Minister Marcel Gatsinzi insisted his government had "absolutely no involvement in the crisis in eastern Congo. It's an internal affair." Rwanda has twice deployed troops in the DRC, first in 1996 to back rebels who ousted dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and again in 1998 to support the Congolese Rally for Democracy, a former rebel group of which Nkunda is a member.

UN News Centre 16 June 2004 www.un.org/News/ No genocide took place in eastern DR of Congo, UN mission says – A human rights team from the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) sent to investigate allegations of rights violations in the eastern part of the country said today, contrary to claims by a dissident general from the national army, that no genocide took place there. Preliminary results indicate that every community in Bukavu, especially civilians, suffered in the insurgency that started on 26 May and climaxed with the brief seizure of the town in the beginning of June, said Roberto Ricci, chief of the humanitarian section of the UN Organization Mission in the DRC (MONUC). In the extortion and the fighting 66 people died, 77 were injured and 31 raped, while 147 houses were plundered, he said, adding “Anyone who opposed the pillaging was killed.” Certain members of the DRC’s Armed Forces (FARDC) attacked civilians, killing 4 and injuring 12, but there was no evidence that the military command ordered these attacks. On the contrary, Gen. Mbuza Mabe turned over 51 Banyamulenge – or Congolese Tutsi – families to MONUC for their protection. The inquiry would continue with interviews of Congolese refugees in Cyangungu, in neighbouring Rwanda, MONUC said. The recent crises had only one clear objective, which was to destabilize the transition, put it in danger and make it end in failure, said the Mission’s Director of the Department of Public Information, Patricia Tome. The opponents of the transition, which is designed to lead to elections, have been using every means at their disposal – ethnicity, force, lying and rumour-mongering, welcoming fear and hate – because any method would seem good to them, she said.

MONOC 17 June 2004 www.monuc.org MONUC's preliminary report rules out the possibility of genocide in Bukavu Yulu Kabamba The MONUC Human Rights team dispatched to Bukavu to investigate the allegations of human rights abuses in the region has come to the conclusion that there was no genocide in Bukavu as alleged by Laurent Nkunda, the dissident general of the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC). Mr. Roberto Ricci, the head of MONUC's Human Rights section, reports that the preliminary information gathered by the investigative team suggests that the recent fighting affected all the communities in Bukavu without distinction, more particularly the civilians. All the belligerent factions committed exactions in the town, he further said, indicating that from 26 May to 1 June, when the town was under control of the troops of the 10th military region, some FARDC troops conducted targeted attacks on civilians. MONUC counted 4 dead and 12 injured as a result of the exactions. Mr. Ricci said there was no indication that the DRC Armed Forces (FARDC) masterminded the attacks. He however underscored the goodwill of the commander of the military region, general Mbuza Mabe, to keep order and protect all civilians indiscriminately. He likewise transferred 51 Banyamulenge's families to MONUC on May 29 for protection. MONUC however registered cases of looting and rape committed by the FARDC troops. From 2 to 10 June, the town of Bukavu was under both the control of General Nkunda and colonel Jules Mutebutsi. During that period, Mr. Ricci indicated, the dissident military troops of the FARDC committed targeted killings and systematic lootings along with rape and humiliation. "Those who were opposed to the lootings were killed", Mr. Ricci said, adding that about 147 houses were looted. Altogether, the fights in Bukavu left 143 victims including 66 dead, 31 cases of rapes. MONUC's preliminary report says. Investigations will proceed in Cyangungu after securing a clearance from Rwandan Government to access its territory. While briefing on the military situation in eastern DRC, MONUC's military spokesman, commander Abou Thiam declared that the situation was calm, more particularly in Kamanyola where fighting was reported between the loyalist forces and the dissidents. He underscored that MONUC has contributed to the protection of communities and helped limit the lootings. As a result 1,300 people were accommodated in MONUC compound. The Mission also provided transportation assistance to FARDC to allow them to visit troops. That is part of the coordinating measures reached by General Iliya Samailia of MONUC and admiral Mata Liwanga, FARDC chief of staff, commandant Thiam disclosed. The three weeks of violence in Bukavu had serious repercussions on the vulnerable people who were assisted by humanitarian agencies in eastern DRC, according to Ms. Patricia Tome, head of MONUC Public Information Division. The weakening of the peace process will affect the future of the Congolese child, Mr. Tome said, recalling that the Day of the African Child will be celebrated on 16 June. Ms. Tome used the opportunity to call on the Congolese people to reflect on the future of the transition in the Democratic Republic of Congo, wondering, in light of the recent events, whether the transition's key players would be able to carry through the process. This transition, she indicated, has no alternative. She condemns the attitude of those who want "the transition's boat to sink along with everything on board: the people and the properties; this would enable them to pick up, fraudulently, all the debris. Those people are unfortunately among "those participating in the transition, those not participating, those manipulating directly or indirectly the situation, all those who do not believe in the DRC and have no faith in the Congolese people and in their capacity to mobilise for a noble cause, such as peace". For Ms. Tome, the renewed fighting in the East has one clear objective: to destabilise, jeopardize and undermine the transition. "Therefore, the perpetrators are using every mean available: ethnicity, putsch, lies, rumour; they fuel fear and hatred, in a nutshell, all the means are good." Responding to the criticisms against MONUC, that the Mission does not meet the populations' expectations, Ms. Tome said that MONUC was not free from blame. "Indeed, no one is free from criticisms, we do assume ours, when they are justified but not when they aim to destabilise a whole process, such as the transition, which has yet to demonstrate all its credibility, through the performance of its actors in the parliament, government, army and police. Ms. Tome warned that "if MONUC leaves, all the rest will also leave, the international assistance first and then the elections".

Ethiopia

Reuters 31 May 2004 Ethiopia urges Zimbabwe to hand over Mengistu Zimbabwe should hand over ousted Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam to stand trial for genocide and human rights violations in the Horn of Africa country, a top Ethiopian diplomat has told a newspaper. Mengistu is being tried in absentia with 37 former top soldiers accused of genocide during his 17-year rule, which ended in 1991 when he was toppled and fled to Zimbabwe. "It is in the interest of the Ethiopian people that this criminal be returned to be tried in Ethiopia," Duna Mufti, Ethiopia's ambassador to Zimbabwe, said in an interview with weekly newspaper Capital, which hit newsstands this morning. "For sure the government of Zimbabwe is aware of the fact that the Ethiopian people are looking forward to the day Mengistu will be handed over to Ethiopia," he added. Suspects could face the death penalty if convicted in the trial which began in December 1994. Since then more than 5 000 people have been tried or await trial in Ethiopia on charges of murdering thousands of people during the Marxist dictator's iron-fisted rule. In a separate report, the newspaper accused Mengistu of unleashing a reign of terror, mass murder, torture and killings. It said between 100 and 150 people were being killed every night in the capital Addis Ababa during the "Red Terror" purges of the late 1970s. "Victims bodies were left lying on the streets and relatives were forced to pay for the bullets that caused the death of their loved ones," the paper said. "Mengistu's security forces tortured political prisoners, dipping bodies in hot oil, raping and inserting bottles and heated metals in bodies of female prisoners," the paper said. The charges against former officials languishing in prison for the last 13 years include the killing of more than 1 000 people including Emperor Haile Selassie, who was dethroned in 1974 by Mengistu's junta known as the Dergue. Human rights groups have expressed alarm at the time the trial is taking. The prosecution says the complex nature of the evidence has prolonged the case.

Kenya

BBC 17 June, 2004 Kenyan army 'abusing human rights' The Kenyan army has been accused of committing human rights abuses in recent operations near Ethiopia. The army had imposed an "undeclared state of emergency" around the border town of Moyale, the Kenyan Human Rights Commission said. The army had rounded up suspected Ethiopian rebels and held suspects without trial, the commission said. The Ethiopian rebel Oromo Liberation Front, based across the border, denies operating in Kenya. "We have never had a camp in Kenya all our camps and military operations are inside Ethiopia," OLF spokesman Lencho Bati told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme. Immunisation identity Ethnic Oromos live on both sides of the border, but Mr Bati insisted his organisation was solely fighting for the self-determination of Oromos in Ethiopia. The district commissioner for Moyale, Joshua Chepchien, told the BBC that some foreigners were among those arrested last week in the operation which had recovered some weapons. But the deputy director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission, Steve Ouma said that the army was acting illegally and had imposed a curfew around the town, beaten up locals, killed their cattle, and held suspects for up to two weeks without trial. Soldiers and policeman arresting suspected OLF sympathisers did not determine nationality from identification documents, the commission claims. "Our monitors are telling us the army say: 'Let us see your immunisation.' If you don't have an injection in your arm, 'Oh you're definitely an Ethiopian and you're arrested by the army or police,'" Mr Ouma told the BBC's Network Africa. In April, hundreds of Ethiopian students fled to Kenya, complaining of persecution at home. .

Liberia

AP 1 June 2004 Ousted leader faces war crimes prosecution U.N. court nullifies head-of-state claim FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — A U.N.-backed court for Sierra Leone ruled Monday that ousted Liberian leader Charles Taylor is not immune from prosecution for war crimes. Taylor, in exile in Nigeria, is the most prominent figure indicted by the war crimes court. He is accused of backing Sierra Leone's rebels in a brutal civil war while he was president of neighboring Liberia. The court's three judges, in a brief ruling, said that Taylor's claim of immunity as a former head of state did not apply, because the U.N.-Sierra Leone court is international, not national. The court is scheduled Thursday to begin trying indicted figures from Sierra Leone's 10-year war, in which rebels waged an escalating terror campaign for control of the country's diamond fields. Armed intervention by neighboring Guinea, Britain and the United Nations finally broke the rebels, who signed a peace deal in 2002. Taylor, a former warlord blamed for much of West Africa's bloodshed, fled rebels in his own country in August. He entered exile in Nigeria, which has agreed not to extradite him to the U.N.-Sierra Leone court.

BBC 1 June 2004 Child recruitment 'was war crime' By Elizabeth Blunt BBC Africa analyst Child soldiers have been used in conflicts across West Africa The appeals panel of the Special Court for Sierra Leone has ruled that recruiting child soldiers was established as a war crime at the time of the civil war in that country. This opens the way for what will be the first ever prosecution for child recruitment at an international war crimes tribunal. The picture of a child soldier, clutching a gun almost as big as himself, has become the enduring image of West Africa's civil conflicts. Both sides in Sierra Leone used very young fighters, in defiance of international conventions on the rights of the child, and leaders from both sides now face prosecution. But former Defence Minister Hinga Norman, who recruited and armed pro-government militias, argued that despite these international conventions, and despite general disapproval of under-age recruitment, it actually was not a war crime under international law at the time the acts were committed. Individual responsibilities One of the appeal judges agreed with him. But in the end the panel ruled, by a majority of 3-1, that it was indeed internationally recognised as a war crime in 1996, and the prosecution can go ahead. The decision turned on the exact point at which something accepted as being against an international convention crystallises into a crime for which an individual can be prosecuted. By the time the statute of the International Criminal Court was drawn up in 1998, child recruitment was there in black and white as a serious violation of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict. The appeal judges ruled that the ICC Statute merely codified the existing accepted situation, so Hinga Norman and other defendants can be prosecuted for underage recruitment, even two years previously.

SAPA-DPA 5 June 2004 Bones of Liberian massacre victims dug up June 05 2004 at 03:39PM Monrovia - The skeletons of 75 people massacred by former Liberian president Charles Taylor's militia have been found in a football field in north-west Liberia, Catholic-run Radio Veritas reported on Saturday. The skeletons were found in Suehn-Mecca in Bomi county, about 40km from Monrovia, the report said. A radio Veritas reporter, who accompanied politician Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to the site Friday, quoted residents saying government militia had massacred the people shortly after rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd) forces retreated in 2003. "It is disheartening that former government militia could perpetrate such atrocity merely on suspicion that residents were rebel collaborators," Johnson, the only female presidential candidate in the 1997 elections, told Radio Veritas. Government forces are reported to have rounded up the residents, including children and shot or hacked them to death on suspicion of supporting the rebel Lurd. Only residents who fled into the bushes are believed to have escaped the massacre. Militia loyal to exiled, former president Taylor are reported to have turned their anger on innocent civilians when they sustained casualties on the battlefield. According to the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, the most credible rights group in Liberia, Taylor's militia are also believed to have rounded up hundreds of civilians shortly after Lurd rebels retreated from the provincial town of Tubmanburg and massacred them on the banks of the Maher River on the Monrovia Tubmanburg highway in 2003. - Sapa-DPA

Nigeria

www.dailytimesofnigeria.com 31 May 2004 Towards a lasting peace in the endanger Plateau HAMMED SALAWU DEMOCRACY is seriously on trial in Plateau State. The trial, a symptomatic bye-product of the state of emergency slammed on it by President Olusegun Obasanjo on Tuesday, May 18, is not in a conventional court. The trail is a court marshal, in which only God and President Obasanjo could acquit Plateau. Since the first salvo was fired at the peace of the state on September 7, 2001, the state had been grappling with crises from all fronts. First, it was political leaders that ganged up against the then state governor, Joshua Dariye, in an effort to ensure he was removed from saddle of leadership, even before the 2003 general elections. Dariye survived their onslaught only to face the unending crises that led to his eventual suspension, his deputy, Chief Michael Botmang and the state House of Assembly, which also went with the political whirlwind unleashed on Plateau people by Aso Villa. Before the declaration of the state of emergency by Mr. President, there had been serious preparation towards making the fifth anniversary of rebirth of civil rule in the state after the military had dominated its landscape for years a huge success. The occasion would have been used to also mark the first year of the second tenure of the suspended Governor Dariye in the state. But all those were not to be as the angels of death, who went about the state killing and maiming of innocent citizens without regard to the norms of nature that, “thou shall not kill”, have stopped that. The recent massacre, or, even genocide against the people of Yelwa-Shendam in Shendam Local Government Area of the state was the straw that truncated democracy in the state and the appointment of undemocratic administrator, Major-General Chris Alli (rtd) into the state. Although, the third tier government, that is, the local government administration that gave a semblance of psuedo- democracy in the state is still in place, observers believed that such could not be held as a weapon to defend the democratic institutions that suffered tremendously in the wake of the state of emergency. They argued that even during the full-blown military rule in the country, there was local government system in place. And be that as it may, Plateau people are craving for a return of their hard earned democracy like other Nigerians. But the high wired maneuverings against the suspended governor might not make the interests of the people feasible after the first six months of the state of emergency. A new dimension of economic crime, has been handed down to Dariye, who was said to have engaged in money laundering to the tune of about N300 million, leading to his detention in London. In fact, some people believed that the detention was what delayed him when the Yelwa-Shendam crises broke out. While some interest groups are saying that the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) led by retired Justice Mustapha Akanbi would come in at the end of the day to handle the matter, another faction noted that the suspended governor would be tried by Nuhu Ribadu’s Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EECC) thereby compounding the woes of Dariye. Lamenting this new tend, a stakeholder stressed that the web against Dariye has been woven, at least, three steps ahead of the imbroglio and uncertainty in the political realm of the state at the moment. The stakeholder, who craved anonymity believed that only miracle could bring the suspended governor back to saddle the leadership in the state. Though, he exonerated the governor of any blame in the whole episode, he bemoaned that the high level of propaganda against Dariye has succeeded in nailing him without being able to fight back. However, he prayed that God would acquit the troubled Dariye in the unjust court of President Obasanjo. Also, the state chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Reverend Yakubu Pam, while commenting on the state of emergency declared in the state by the President was of the belief that the travail of Dariye was a systematic manipulation of the views and opinions of Mr. President against Plateau State by those suspected to be Hausa/Fulani, with their agenda to annihilate the state completely from the map of the Nigeria. Pam stressed that the outburst against his person and the body he represents, CAN, at a parley before the declaration of state of emergency was enough testimony that the President had a hidden agenda against Plateau. But John Shagaya, a retired Brigadier-General and former Internal Affairs Minister, would not want to blame the President for his proclamation on the state. He believed that the state was drifting towards anarchy and only such step could save the state from impending calamity. Moreso, retired Air Commodore Jonah David Jang, former governor of Benue and old Gongola states, who contested against the suspended governor in 2003 governorship election on the platform of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) believed that President Obasanjo must have had access to some indicting security report against Dariye before his proclamation of state of emergency. He believed that if what Obasanjo did was in the best interest of the Plateau people, so be it. On her part, former Minister of State for Science and Technology, Mrs. Pauline Tallen, who has had a running battle against Dariye over the control of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) machinery in the state, hailed Obasanjo’s broadcast, insisting that such was what God wanted for the Plateau people and prayed that the elusive peace would return to the state. Meanwhile, many Plateau youths have been calling for the head of Deputy Senate President, Alhaji Ibrahim Nasiru Mantu, who was believed to be the arrowhead of Dariye’s travails. In fact, a constitutional process of recalling him from the Senate has been set in motion by leadership of PDP in central Plateau and only God could help Mantu scale through the constitutional process. In fact, as at the time of filling this report, security operatives have been deployed to all his houses and interest in the state for fear of their destruction by desperate and restive youths, who wanted to take their pound of flesh from him for stopping their man, Dariye from performing his mandate as the state governor. And as all the interests engage in accusation and counter-accusation, the state administrator, Chris Alli, has been going round the troubled spots, meeting and speaking with the people to bury the hatchet and embrace peace. He also visited the internally displaced people and assured them of hope of returning to their ancestral home. Anywhere he went, he was received with enthusiasm by mammoth crowd, who prayed for him to succeed in his effort to return peace to the endangered Plateau.

Reuters 2 Jun 2004 Nigerians question unity after religious bloodshed By Tom Ashby KANO, Nigeria, June 2 (Reuters) - Until last month, Maureen Agu, a 28-year-old factory worker, was a model of Nigerian integration. A Christian from the east, she moved north to the predominantly Muslim city of Kano to find a job. Chased from her house by rioting Muslims last month, she has fled to a police barracks for protection where she sleeps on a mat under a tree. "If the Muslims do not want us here, we will go home. But is this not one Nigeria?" Agu said. Many Nigerians have been asking themselves this since religious and tribal fighting that killed more than 1,000 people in a month. The scale of the latest violence, described by some as genocide and ethnic cleansing, is shocking even by the standards of Nigeria, where at least 2,000 have died every year in ethnic, political and religious fighting since the return of democracy to the oil exporting country five years ago. The latest cycle of killing started with a simmering tribal conflict in central Plateau state, where majority Christians are trying to drive out Muslim tribes. In early May, Christian militia massacred hundreds of Muslims in the remote farming town of Yelwa, sparking revenge riots in Kano, where hundreds of Christians were hacked and burned to death in two days of mayhem. Both conflicts have created tens of thousands of displaced people who, like Agu, are fired with bitterness and eager for revenge, carrying messages of ethnic and religious hatred across the vast country of more than 300 ethnic groups, split about equally between Muslims and Christians. Nigeria's second largest city was an obvious focus for reprisals because it is a bastion of Islamic activism and the Muslim majority has already clashed repeatedly with Christians over Islamic sharia law. The city has seen half a dozen anti-Christian riots in the last 13 years. SHARIA Sharia law was introduced in 12 northern states soon after the return of democracy in 1999 and Kano's Muslim elders are pressing for wider implementation of the laws to stop alcohol sales in the state, including in Christian enclaves. Muhammed ibn Usman, a Kano preacher, says the bid to enforce sharia is an attempt to reclaim the city's history as an Islamic capital before the British colonisers took over in the late 19th century. A member of the influential Sharia Implementation Committee, Usman ultimately wants a religious state in Nigeria. "We want to go back to our origin because Nigeria was not meant to be a secular geopolitical entity," he said in an interview on a prayer mat outside the Sahaba mosque. Christians say sharia challenges the basic tenets of the nation and is forcing strangers from northern Nigeria. "Sharia is a threat to the corporate existence of this country," said Boniface Ebekwe, head of the predominantly Christian Ibo minority in Kano. GRIEVANCES The conflicts in Plateau and Kano both pit Muslims against Christians, and they also pit locals against outsiders, creating a tribal ghetto mentality that would wreak havoc if translated to other big cities across the country of 130 million people. "They want a Muslim religious state in Kano," said the Reverend Andrew Ubah, head of Kano's Christian Association of Nigeria. "That means if you are not Muslim, don't stay in Kano. Let's be clear. Let's forget about one Nigeria. And by the time I go home, any Muslim in my place should go also," said Ubah in his church in the main Christian enclave of Sabon Gari. President Olusegun Obasanjo was alive to these dangers when he assumed emergency powers to govern Plateau state last month, saying that the "near genocide" between Muslims and Christians there could engulf the whole country in crisis. There is a precedent. The last time a state of emergency was declared in Nigeria was 1962. It was a first link in a chain of events that led to the collapse of democracy and a three-year civil war that killed more than a million people. The Nigerian constitution recognises only "citizens". Ethnic leaders increasingly discriminate against those they consider settlers in their tribal lands. These divisions can be exploited by unscrupulous local politicians who maintain power through violence and corruption. Ubah showed Reuters a letter purporting to come from a group called the Islamic Revolutionary Committee, celebrating the Kano riots and promising more. "We have taught the Kafiris (infidels) a big lesson in Kano," the letter reads, promising to slay 20 Christians for every Muslim killed. "We are appealing to all faithful to prepare for the great show-down in Kaduna and Zaria," it said, apparently in reference to planned anti-Christian riots in two other northern cities. .

Rwanda

BBC 29 May 2004The language of diplomacy By Barnaby Mason BBC diplomatic correspondent 800,000 people were killed in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 In May 1994 I found myself in New York covering the United Nations Security Council for a few weeks. It was the height of the genocide in Rwanda; unspeakable massacres were taking place every day. "It's so awful, we must do something," an aide to the UN Secretary General, Boutros Boutros Ghali, said to me. Instead, the members of the security council argued about something called the concept of operations for an expanded UN mission. A senior American official said it had to be a do-able operation; expectations of what the UN could achieve should not be exaggerated. Using the word itself would have mattered because, if it was genocide, how could you not act? Scarred by the painful experience of Somalia the previous year, the Clinton administration delayed a vote on a resolution to send 5,500 troops, even though there was no question of American soldiers taking part. "Everyone is very conscious of the urgency of the matter," said a British representative, but the dry as dust haggling went on. Strikingly, the big powers, especially the United States, resisted the use of the word "genocide" to describe what was going on in Rwanda. So the resolution eventually passed talked instead of mindless violence and carnage, the death of many thousands of innocent civilians. Plain language There was only one oblique reference recalling that the killing of members of an ethnic group with the intention of destroying it was a crime under international law. Using the word itself - calling a spade a spade - would have mattered because, if it was genocide, how could you not act, however difficult it was? In a similar way, British officials in the early 1990s tended to describe the fighting in Bosnia as civil war rather than Serb aggression - the phrase implied that all the parties were as bad as each other and weakened the demand for intervention. In the end, the pretence over Rwanda at the UN was swept aside. Mr Boutros Ghali appeared before the media to declare: "Genocide has been committed - and we're still discussing what is to be done. I've begged them to send troops; I failed. It's a scandal." It was a rare instance of emotion bursting its diplomatic bonds - the kind of moment that diplomatic correspondents relish, as compensation for the amount of time they spend studying ambiguous phrases to find out what lurks beneath them. Boris Yeltsin defied the 1991 Soviet coup attempt I can remember others - Boris Yeltsin, for example, ailing but still larger than life, at a summit of more than 50 leaders in Istanbul in 1999, angrily rejecting western criticism of the behaviour of Russian forces in Chechnya as interference in an internal matter. Bill Clinton publicly turned the tables on him by recalling Mr Yeltsin's stand for freedom on a tank in Moscow. "If they'd put you in jail," he said, "I hope every leader round this table would have stood up for you and not dismissed it as an internal Russian affair." Then there was British Foreign Secretary (as he then was), Robin Cook, the previous year visiting a Jewish settlement site at Har Homa in torrential rain. The Israeli Government accused him of breaking an agreement not to meet Palestinians there. Demonstrators called him an anti-Semite and the then Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, cancelled a dinner with him. Mr Cook proclaimed: "I did not submit to Israeli pressure." Instruments of policy His officials, for once, were just as undiplomatic, accusing the Israelis of a fantastic over-reaction, of being in an ugly and defensive mood. Those were moments of plain speaking. Usually, words are carefully chosen as instruments of policy. The leaders of the big powers try by constant repetition to get their terms adopted by everyone, because they carry with them value judgements and a particular view of the world. The most obvious example is the word "terrorist". When President George W Bush calls someone a terrorist, he thinks that is all that needs to be said. The word is intended to close off argument, ignoring the disagreement across the world about who is a terrorist and who is not. It has become just a term of abuse. There are similar objections to the label "war on terrorism" but it still flourishes. Can you have a war on a technique, since that is what terrorism is? Can the war ever end? Words do matter The attraction for Mr Bush is that Iraq can be verbally neutralised as the central front in the war on terror. Diplomatic correspondents worry about this sort of thing. Who has "sovereignty" over Iraq? American and British politicians - and the media - now talk of transferring sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government at the end of June. Pedants object that they cannot do that because they do not possess the sovereignty in the first place. All right, then, they are going to hand over power. Are they? Really? Perhaps a transfer of "limited administrative authority" would be more accurate. But that does not have the right ring to it. It certainly does not sound like a clear end to the occupation. So you see, words do matter, even if facts on the ground matter more.

BBC 8 June, 2004 Rwandan trial 'bad for democracy' Pasteur Bizimungu was on trial with six others Former Rwandan Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu has criticised the jailing of the country's first post-genocide president as politically motivated. Pasteur Bizimungu was sent to prison for 15 years on charges of inciting civil disobedience, associating with criminals and embezzling public funds. Mr Bizimungu was arrested in 2002 after trying to form a political party. Mr Twagiramungu said the case showed current Rwandan President Paul Kagame, did not want any opposition. Critic "Frankly this is a shame on our justice in Rwanda," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme. "This is a negative sign of the future of Rwanda. We have to react," he said. Human rights group Amnesty International said some of the evidence during the trial had been obtained under torture. "It's very rare for a head of state to be imprisoned and any time that happens you have to have really solid evidence - that doesn't appear to have been the case here," said Stephanie Brancaforte, of Amnesty International. Critics accuse Kagame of suppressing dissent Profile: Pasteur Bizimungu Correspondents say Mr Bizimungu's trial raises questions about the independence of Rwanda's judiciary. Mr Bizimungu, his former minister of transport and six others were cleared on charges of threatening state security. He was jailed for five years on each guilty count. Prosecutors had called for him to be sentenced to life in prison. He denied the charges. His seven co-accused were also jailed for associating with criminals. Mr Bizimungu's defence lawyer said they had not decided yet whether to appeal. Past Mr Bizimungu was one of only a handful of Hutus to join the Rwandan Patriotic Front - the RPF - the rebel movement formed among Tutsi exiles in Uganda. The verdict against Mr Bizimungu has been largely orchestrated by his political opponents Benson Moono, USA Your reaction: A threat to democracy? The RPF took control of Rwanda in July 1994, putting an end to the genocide organised by extremist Hutu leaders. But after his resignation, the former president became a vocal critic of the RPF-led government. The BBC's Rob Walker in Rwanda says that the trial was seen as particularly sensitive for the authorities as Mr Bizimungu is one of the few moderate Hutu politicians to publicly oppose the government and remain in the country. While the RPF says it has introduced stability and multi-party democracy, its critics claim it has centralised power within a Tutsi elite and crushed potential opponents - by accusing them of promoting ethnic divisions. The trial saw moments of drama in the courtroom. One prosecution witness withdrew his testimony, claiming it had been made under police duress. Mr Bizimungu's lawyer was also briefly jailed by the judge for contempt of court.

Sierra Leone

www.telegraph.co.uk 4 June 2004 Three charged at landmark atrocity trial By Tim Butcher, Africa Correspondent (Filed: 04/06/2004) The first three suspects in a landmark war crimes trial in Sierra Leone appeared in court yesterday charged with cannibalism, human sacrifice and rape. All were senior militiamen in a conflict that cost 200,000 lives and shocked the world with its images of mutilated civilians and drugged child soldiers. Sam Hinga Norman: former interior minister The trial is backed by the United Nations. In a packed courtroom in the capital Freetown it was described as a seminal event in international justice. "The ghosts of thousands of murdered dead stand among us," said David Crane, a former American paratrooper and the chief prosecutor. "They cry out for a fair and transparent trial to let the world know what took place in Sierra Leone." But for many victims, including those who had limbs hacked off by drug-crazed rebels, there is little hope that their tormentors will be brought to justice. The court has focused on only the strategists and leaders of the warring factions - the big fish, or kakatua, in the local Krio language - not the foot soldiers who committed the atrocities. Kadiatu Fofanah, 44, a woman whose legs were chopped off at the thigh, said: "The guns have been taken from the children and you don't hear gunshots now. But the commanders are still out there. They continue to survive." The three defendants - Sam Hinga Norman, Moinina Fofana and Allieu Kondewa - were members of the civil defence forces known as the Kamajors. But while the prosecution argues that they are war criminals, many people in Sierra Leone support them, as they fought for the government to defeat the rebels from the Revolutionary United Front. President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah was so pleased with the Kamajors that he rewarded Norman with the cabinet post of interior minister two years ago. Norman was arrested at his ministerial office last year. While insiders praise the setting up of the court, many will harbour doubts about its effectiveness until Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, appears in custody. Taylor, blamed for arming, supporting and encouraging the RUF, is living comfortably in a villa in southern Nigeria, part of a peace deal agreed last August to remove him from power. Only 13 people have so far been indicted by the court and three of them are either dead or believed to be dead. They include Foday Sankoh, the RUF leader, who died in custody from natural causes last year. The court, which is smaller and less expensive than the UN tribunals for the Balkans and Rwanda, is seen by many as the template for the tribunal that will try Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Its workings will be scrutinised closely to ensure that it proves to be fair and efficient as a testing ground for international justice. Britain, which sent 800 soldiers to Sierra Leone to defeat the rebels in 2000, has a key interest in seeing the country return to normality. While almost all British troops have left, a large United Nations peacekeeping force remains.

IRIN 4 Jun 2004 - First war crimes trial starts at UN-backed court FREETOWN, 4 June (IRIN) - A Special Court that includes five judges appointed by the United Nations has begun the trial of those deemed primarily responsible for war crimes and human rights abuse committed during Sierra Leone's 10-year civil war. The first three individuals to stand trial for commiting atrocities during the 1991-2001 conflict were led into the dock of a specially built court house in the capital Freetown on Thursday. Controversially, they were not leaders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel movement which sought to overthrow the elected government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. They were members of the Civil Defence Force (CDF), a civilian militia group, based on traditional societies of hunters known as Kamajors, which fought alongside the Tejan Kabbah's army against the rebels. Special Court Prosecutor David Crane, a former lawyer with US Department of Defence, said in his opening statement that the CDF had brutally killed and raped and terrorised thousands of people, recruited child soldiers and commited acts of cannibalism during the decade-long conflict. "The just cause of a civil defence force in Sierra Leone, set up to defend a nation, became distorted and twisted beyond measure," Crane told a packed court room. "The ghosts of thousands of the murdered and dead stand among us. They cry out for a fair and transparent trial to let the world know what took place here in Sierra Leone," he added. Before him in the dock stood the three top leaders of the CDF: Sam Hinga Norman, the National Coordinator of the militia movement, who went on to become Interior Minister, Moinina Fofana, the National Director of War of the militia force, and Alieu Kondewa, the High Priest of the CDF, who supervised the traditional initiation rites that its members were obliged to go through. Crane said he would produce evidence of several atrocities for which these men were directly responsible. He cited one incident in which CDF gunmen arrested 65 people who had been forced to work in a diamond mine by the RUF and shot them dead in groups of three or four. When the executioners realised they were running low on ammunition, they resorted to beheading the last 10 one at a time, he added. Deputy prosecutor Joseph Kamara meanwhile explained that witnesses would testify how Kondewa, the High Priest of the CDF, repeatedly raped a woman over the course of a week and how some CDF militia men cleaned out the intestines of some of their victims and roasted and ate them with cassava. While these allegations of brutal murders and cannibalism were being recounted to the spellbound court, Hinga Norman smiled and began writing a note to the judge, dismissing his defence team. Kondewa looked shocked as rape allegations against him were recounted. Fofana, the third accused, listened to a translation of the proceedings through headphones with a smile crossing his face now and then. Presiding judge Benjamin Itoe of Cameroon adjourned the proceedings after the prosecution's 100-minute opening statement upon receiving the hand-written note from Hinga Norman stating that he would conduct his own defence before the court. "It is a fundamental issue which the chamber would like to address and deliver a reasoned decision on," he said. The trial was due to resume on Tuesday 8 June. A second separate trial of three RUF leaders, Issa Hassan Sesay, Morris Kallon and Augustine Gbao, is due to begin on 5 July. The Special Court is an international war crimes tribunal set up under the terms of an agreement between the Sierra Leone government and the United Nations signed in January 2002. It has so far indicted 13 people of whom two have since died. The remaining nine accused are currently in custody, but court officials have hinted that other indictments may follow. This is the second international war crimes tribunal to be set up in Africa after the international court established in Arusha, Tanzania, to try those responsible for the genocide in Rwanda. Itoe, the presiding judge, said in his opening remarks at the CDF trial that the proceedings would be fair and the accused would be presumed innocent unless proven guilty "beyond all reasonable doubts" by the prosecution. "We, as a court....are not bound by the findings or conclusions of these investigations or the contents of the indictments, which so far are mere allegations," Itoe said. "Our decisions will be entirely based on the best oral, documentary and other evidence that is advanced by the parties before us." But Itoe also stressed the role of the court in combatting impunity and contributing to the process of national reconciliation in Sierra Leone following the brutal decade-long conflict. In recent months, the relevance of the tribunal, where five UN-appointed foreign judges sit alongside three Sierra Leonean judges, has been questioned by many Sierra Leoneans. Critics have pointed out that the four men widely seen as those most responsible for the atrocities of the civil war are beyond the Special Court's reach. The two top leaders of the RUF, Foday Sankoh and Sam Bockarie are now dead, while two other key indictees; former Charles Taylor of Liberia, who armed and backed the RUF rebels, and Johnny Paul Koroma, the leader of a military junta which tried to join forces with the rebels in 1997 and 1998, have escaped its clutches. Koroma went into hiding in January 2003 following an abortive attack on an army barracks in Freetown, in which his followers were implicated. Taylor, who was forced out of power in August last year, has been granted political asylum in Nigeria. Some supporters of Tejan Kabbah, who was re-elected for a second term as president in 2002, have also questioned why the leaders of the CDF, which was supporting a constitutionally elected government, should be put on trial at all. All the same, the court, financed by foreign donors, is being keenly watched as a potential model for war crimes tribunals in other conflicts. Reuters news agency quoted Robin Vincent, the Special Court's UN-appointed Registrar, as saying he had been invited by the US State Department to take part in a planning mission to Iraq "because they felt quite strongly there were similarities."

Somalia

AFP 1 Jun 2004 At least 31 killed in Somali clashes MOGADISHU, June 1 (AFP) - At least 31 people were killed and around 40 wounded Tuesday amid clashes in the southern Somali town of Bulohawo, near the Kenyan border, militia sources and witnesses said. The bodies of the dead, 25 gunmen and six civilians hit by stray bullets as they were going to morning prayers, littered the streets of the town, eyewitnesses said. An earlier toll put the number of dead at five. Around 18 people who sustained serious gunshot wounds were rushed to nearby hospitals while a dozen others were seen seeking treatment in local phamarcies. The clashes erupted after about 200 fighters from a breakaway group of the Somali National Front (SNF) faction attempted to retake the town from a rival SNF faction. "Fifteen of the dead were attacking militia, 10 were the ones who were defending the town and six are ordinary civilians caught by stray bullets," said an eyewitness, who did not want to be named. Residents began burying their dead in line with the Muslim practice of doing so on the day death occurs. A source in the defending SNF faction said they had killed on of the attackers' commanders and captured two pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns. He added that he thought the attackers had fled across the Kenyan border. Bulohawo businessman Ahmed Yassin told AFP: "The fighting, early today (Tuesday), is a continuation of earlier clashes between two rival groups in SNF," which is dominated by the Marehan clan. Another Bulohawo resident, who did not want to be named, said the fighting had subsided after the attackers were repelled. The SNF, which controls Gedo region and parts of central Somalia, has been divided, mainly by a struggle for its leadership, since 1996. Somalia descended into anarchic bloodletting in 1991 when dictator Mohamed Sia Barre was toppled. Since then the country in the Horn of Africa has been divided into fiefdoms governed by unruly warlords. .

Sudan

www.npr.org 26 May 2004 Reports Suggest Acts of Genocide in Sudan Morning Edition audio May 26, 2004 Stories from Sudanese refugees in neighboring Chad describe attacks on villages, rapes and murders by a government-backed Arab militia in western Sudan. The Holocaust Museum's Committee on Conscience warns the ethnically based violence represents a grave threat of genocide. Hear NPR's Steve Inskeep and Jerry Fowler of the Holocaust Museum.

AFP 27 May 2004 Rights group: Genocide in Sudan Conflict in the west has displaced more than a million people The Sudanese government is continuing a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the western region of Darfur, an international rights group has claimed. Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned on Thursday that Khartoum was "taking a terrible step backward" despite having signed a peace accord with rebels to end 21 years of civil war in the south. "The government's campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur raises real questions about whether Khartoum is really willing to comply with Wednesday's peace accord in the south," their statement said. The rights watchdog added that pro-government militias had attacked five villages 15km south of Nyala in Darfur as recently as last Tuesday. The raids killed 46 civilians and wounded at least nine others, the statement said, citing local sources. The group has documented how the Janjawid have been armed, trained, and uniformed by the Sudanese government. Agreement in south Meanwhile, Khartoum and the southern-based rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) signed agreements on the last outstanding issues barring the way to a definitive end to the civil war on Wednesday. "The government's campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur raises real questions about whether Khartoum is really willing to comply with Wednesday's peace accord in the south" Human Rights Watch statement The agreement came after marathon talks between Vice President Ali Usman Taha and SPLA leader John Garang that started in September 2002. But HRW said: "Darfur remains a cloud over Sudan and it would be inappropriate for the United States to hold a high-level celebration of the peace accord while the ethnic cleansing continues in western Sudan." Late Wednesday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell also tempered his praise for the peace accord by saying: "Sudan will not be at peace until the problem of Darfur is resolved." Terrible toll Khartoum has faced mounting international anger over the humanitarian crisis in the western region. The government has been accused of operating a scorched earth policy in the face of the rebellion launched by members of the Fur, Massalit and Zaghawa minorities in February 2003. At least 10,000 people have been killed and more than a million driven from their homes.

NYT May 29, 2004 OP-ED COLUMNIST Bush Points the Way By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF I doff my hat, briefly, to President Bush. Sudanese peasants will be naming their sons "George Bush" because he scored a humanitarian victory this week that could be a momentous event around the globe — although almost nobody noticed. It was Bush administration diplomacy that led to an accord to end a 20-year civil war between Sudan's north and south after two million deaths. If the peace holds, hundreds of thousands of lives will be saved, millions of refugees will return home, and a region of Africa may be revived. But there's a larger lesson here as well: messy African wars are not insoluble, and Western pressure can help save the day. So it's all the more shameful that the world is failing to exert pressure on Sudan to halt genocide in its Darfur region. Darfur is unaffected by the new peace accords. I'm still haunted by what I saw when I visited the region in March: a desert speckled with fresh graves of humans and the corpses of donkeys, the empty eyes of children who saw their fathers killed, the guilt of parents fumbling to explain how they had survived while their children did not. The refugees tell of sudden attacks by the camel-riding Janjaweed Arab militia, which is financed by the Sudanese government, then a panic of shooting and fire. Girls and women are routinely branded after they are raped, to increase the humiliation. One million Darfur people are displaced within Sudan, and 200,000 have fled to Chad. Many of those in Sudan are stuck in settlements like concentration camps. I've obtained a report by a U.N. interagency team documenting conditions at a concentration camp in the town of Kailek: Eighty percent of the children are malnourished, there are no toilets, and girls are taken away each night by the guards to be raped. As inmates starve, food aid is diverted by guards to feed their camels. The standard threshold for an "emergency" is one death per 10,000 people per day, but people in Kailek are dying at a staggering 41 per 10,000 per day — and for children under 5, the rate is 147 per 10,000 per day. "Children suffering from malnutrition, diarrhea, dehydration and other symptoms of the conditions under which they are being held live in filth, directly exposed to the sun," the report says. "The team members, all of whom are experienced experts in humanitarian affairs, were visibly shaken," the report declares. It describes "a strategy of systematic and deliberate starvation being enforced by the GoS [government of Sudan] and its security forces on the ground." (Read the 11-page report here.) Demographers at the U.S. Agency for International Development estimate that at best, "only" 100,000 people will die in Darfur this year of malnutrition and disease. If things go badly, half a million will die. This is not a natural famine, but a deliberate effort to eliminate three African tribes in Darfur so Arabs can take their land. The Genocide Convention defines such behavior as genocide, and it obliges nations to act to stop it. That is why nobody in the West wants to talk about Darfur — because of a fear that focusing on the horror will lead to a deployment in Sudan. But it's not a question of sending troops, but of applying pressure — the same kind that succeeded in getting Sudan to the north-south peace agreement. If Mr. Bush would step up to the cameras and denounce this genocide, if he would send Colin Powell to the Chad-Sudan border, if he would telephone Sudan's president again to demand humanitarian access to the concentration camps, he might save hundreds of thousands of lives. Yet while Mr. Bush has done far too little, he has at least issued a written statement, sent aides to speak forcefully at the U.N. and raised the matter with Sudan's leaders. That's more than the Europeans or the U.N. has done. Where are Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac? Where are African leaders, like Nelson Mandela? Why isn't John Kerry speaking out forcefully? And why are ordinary Americans silent? Islamic leaders abroad have been particularly shameful in standing with the Sudanese government oppressors rather than with the Muslim victims in Darfur. Do they care about dead Muslims only when the killers are Israelis or Americans? As for America, we have repeatedly failed to stand up to genocide, whether of Armenians, Jews, Cambodians or Rwandans. Now we're letting it happen again.

WP 30 May 2004 The Darfur Catastrophe By Susan E. Rice and Gayle E. Smith Sunday, May 30, 2004; Page B07 Ten years ago CNN ran footage of bloated corpses floating down Rwanda's rivers, while Washington debated whether to call it "genocide." As U.S. officials who later were responsible for U.S. policy toward Africa, we helped plan several subsequent military interventions in Africa. But, like many others, we remain haunted by the Rwandan genocide. So it is with some humility and a full appreciation of the complexity of decisions to deploy U.S. forces that we hazard to recommend how to deal with a new Rwanda now unfolding in the Darfur region of western Sudan. There, the government of Sudan and its proxy, the Janjaweed Arab militia, are attempting to crush a rebellion by Muslim Africans with the same vicious tactics they have used for years against Christian and animist opponents in southern Sudan. While negotiating a peace agreement with southern rebel forces, the government and its militia have killed, raped, kidnapped, bombed, enslaved, displaced, starved and burned countless innocent civilians in Darfur. U.N. officials have called this ethnic cleansing the "world's greatest humanitarian catastrophe." Some 10,000 civilians have been killed. At least 130,000 refugees have fled to neighboring Chad. Over a million more have been internally displaced and are trapped by the militia in disease-ridden camps without adequate food or water. They face the imminent threat of starvation. The U.S. Agency for International Development estimates another 300,000 or more could die. Though the parties agreed to a cease-fire in Darfur last month, insecurity still reigns. The Sudanese government persists in denying its responsibility for the growing crisis, refuses to restrain its militia and impedes humanitarian access. President Bush, members of Congress and U.N. officials, including Kofi Annan, have condemned the atrocities and urged Khartoum to stop them. But the United States and European and African governments have been loath to take action for fear of undermining the substantial progress being made toward a final peace agreement between Khartoum and its southern opponents. Inaction sends a dangerous signal to Khartoum that if necessary the United States will overlook war crimes in Darfur to achieve north-south peace. Much more must be done, and soon. First, the United States, acting through the U.N. Security Council, must pressure the government of Sudan to halt the killing, disarm the militia and allow full, unimpeded access for humanitarian workers and supplies. This pressure should include travel and financial sanctions, as well as a ban on the purchase of Sudanese oil, effective automatically within 14 days unless the government takes immediate and effective action. Many foreign governments will resist such sanctions. Some might accuse the United States of hypocrisy in light of the Abu Ghraib scandal. We should have none of it. Instead, we should challenge fellow Security Council governments to live with their consciences if they choose to acquiesce in another genocide. Simultaneously, the United States should tell Khartoum no current U.S. sanctions will be lifted unless and until the government relents in Darfur. Second, the United States should press the Security Council to grant member states the authority to intervene militarily to protect innocent civilians and ensure the security of humanitarian workers and assistance. Such mili- tary action might entail airdrops, a no-fly zone to protect civilians from government bombing, the establishment of humanitarian safe zones and security for critical deliveries by rail and road. Third, the United States should press European and capable African countries to lead this humanitarian intervention with U.S. support. Given the demands on U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti, it is reasonable to ask Europe and Africa to play a key role. Finally, the United States should begin urgent military planning and preparation for the contingency that no other country will act to stop the dying in Darfur. The administration has worked hard to end Sudan's long-running civil conflict. But this effort will have been wasted if we allow the Sudanese government to continue committing crimes against humanity. Not only will the international community have blood on its hands for failure to halt another genocide, but we will have demonstrated to Khartoum that it can continue to act with impunity against its own people. In that case, any hard-won peace agreement will not be worth the paper it's signed on. It is too late to change the historical record on Rwanda. But it is not too late to set a better precedent for the future. Susan E. Rice, assistant secretary of state from 1997 to 2001, is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Gayle E. Smith, special assistant to the president and senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council from 1998 to 2001, is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

www.islam-online.net 31 May 2004 Weeping Darfur: The Tragic Saga of Skin and Bones By Lamya Tawfik 31/05/2004 The Darfur region is inhabited by the African tribes of Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa communities As Arab leaders mulled over the mere idea of holding a face-saving summit in Tunis , a gargantuan humanitarian crisis was rapidly unfolding under their noses in the Darfur region in western Sudan . Twenty-two deaf ears were turned towards the catastrophe, which includes malnutrition, rape, genocide, famine and destruction of an ecological system to name a few. The summit also coincided with the International Day of Biological Diversity, on May 22, and as far as Darfur is concerned “diversity” is the last thing on the minds of those committing the ethnic cleansing in the region. What IS going on in Darfur ? A crisis that started over a fight over pastures and resources in the late 1980s metamorphosed into one of the worst cases of ethnic cleansing and man-made famine. Known locally as the “zurga” (or blacks), the Darfur region is inhabited by the African tribes of Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa communities. They have been the victims of “indiscriminate aerial bombardment, militia and army raiding and denial of humanitarian assistance” by the Janjaweed, an Arab militia closely linked to the Sudanese government, said the Human Rights Report issued in April 2004 under the title Darfur In Flames: Atrocities in Western Sudan.[1] According to the report, around a million Darfurians have been “forced to flee their homes in the past 14 months”. The region under conflict has three main ecological bands: “desert in the north, which is part of the Sahara and the least densely populated and most ecologically fragile zone; a central, fertile belt which includes the Jebel Marra mountains and is the richest agriculturally; and the southern zone, which, although more stable than the north, is also prone to drought and sensitive to fluctuations in rainfall.”[2] The conflict is between the agriculturalists who belong to non-Arab ethnic groups (the “Zurga” or blacks) and the pastoralists who are mainly from Arab descent who live in the northern area. The Zurga tribes include groups such as the Fur, Masaalit, Tama, Tunjur, Bergid, and Berti, who live and farm in the central zone. The pastoralists include nomadic and semi-nomadic camel herding tribes.[3] “Pastoralists from the north, including the northern Rizeigat, Mahariya, Zaghawa, and others, typically migrate south in search of water sources and grazing in the dry season (typically November through April). Beginning in the mid-1980s, when much of the Sahel region was hit by recurrent episodes of drought and increasing desertification, the southern migration of the Arab pastoralists provoked land disputes with agricultural communities.”[4] During these disputes, clashes would get bloodier and the Sudanese government would favor the Arabs (the pastoralists). The Sadiq El Mahdi Government (1986-89) developed the policy of arming Arab militias from Darfur and Kordofan known as “muraheleen.” These were used as a counterinsurgency force against the rebels of the area.[5] Water sources have been destroyed or buried and wells have been bulldozed. Today forces called the “Janjaweed” (Arab militias allied to the Sudanese Government) are given complete backup and impunity by the Government, that pays its arms and uniforms to commit the atrocities and to quell two insurgency groups in Darfur that are perceived as a threat to the regime in Sudan: the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).[6] “While many of the abuses are committed by the Janjaweed, the Sudanese Government is complicit in these abuses and holds the highest degree of responsibility for pursuing a military policy that has resulted in the commission of crimes against humanity,” said the report. The situation in Darfur “is beyond description”, according to Gamal Adam, a PhD candidate in the Anthropology Department of York University in Canada and an expert in Sudanese affairs. “Elderly people and children under 5 years of age are dying in large numbers everyday of famine and famine-related diseases. Water sources were destroyed or buried,” said Adam in an interview with IslamOnline.net, adding that wells were sometimes bulldozed. As a result, more than 110,000 Darfurians have fled across the border to Chad and nearly 750,000 people are internally displaced within the region. Chad itself has inhabitants of the Zaghawa, Masaalit and Arab ethnic groups involved in the conflict. Speaking to IslamOnline.net, Awatef Mustafa, lecturer at the Ahdaf University in Sudan said that while it may be “too early to predict the long-term implications of the conflict on either the internally displaced persons (IDPs), the refugees or the host populations in the areas they have fled to” there will always be the problem of food shortages and “dependency on food aid will be an ongoing problem.” Because of the fact that the farming community is fleeing for their lives, it is highly likely that this year’s harvest will be severely affected. “There are increasing signs that Darfur could face a man-made famine if no intervention takes place, adding thousands of lives of men, women and children to the unknown number of victims the Government of Sudan has already destroyed.”[7] Mustafa added that the farming conditions are so bad in Darfur that even if “the displaced were able to return to their farms immediately to benefit from the current planting season, they would still be dependent on food aid until the end of 2004 as reported by the World Food Programme (WFP). If, on the other hand, this year’s April to June planting season is missed, the next harvest of staples like millet and sorghum will not be available until the end of 2005,” she added. Among the organizations that have been active in providing relief in the crisis-struck region, is Medicins Sans Frontiers (Doctors without Borders). According to recent releases issued by the organization, MSF currently has 22 international volunteers and 46 national staff in Darfur . “In Birak, MSF is running a Health Center and a mobile clinic, which carries out consultations at Koulongo refugee camp. The team performs 500 new consultations each week. The main health problems are diarrhea, severe respiratory infections, conjunctivitis, intestinal parasites, gastritis and urinary infections,” the organization said, adding that in Iriba some cases of meningitis have been found early March and that the epidemic threshold has been reached. [8] More than 1000 people a day are being vaccinated by MSF in conjunction with the local health authorities and the Red Cross. In addition to the famine, civilians are being raped, assaulted and abducted by the Janjaweed. Attempts to make the villages uninhabitable include destroying “key village assets, such as water points and mills,” said the Human Rights Watch report, adding that even underground granaries were dug up and destroyed. [9] “For obvious reasons, cutting off all sources of food and water to civilians in their homes will inevitably lead to their displacement - or starvation.”[10] The report included accounts of destroyed mango trees, and camels that were allowed by the Janjaweed in the fields in order for the crops to be consumed quickly. The Janjaweed also threw bodies in the wells in order to contaminate them and make it impossible for them to be used by the villagers. As they flee their homes, the residents of the villages are looted and abused at Janjaweed checkpoints by Janjaweed militias themselves and are even attacked after they reach larger towns in Darfur . [11] Hair-raising accounts of sexual assault and rape have been reported despite the social stigma of women not wanting to identify themselves as rape victims in Sudanese and Chadian cultures. “Incidents of rape appear to have increased over the past six months, part of the ever-increasing brutality of attacks.” [12] Denying Humanitarian Access The Sudanese government, for four months, from October 2003 to January 2004, obstructed international assistance to displaced civilians in Darfur and provided no assistance of its own. [13] Despite the government’s promises to open access to humanitarian organizations by February 16, the UN says - according to a report published by the International Crisis Group in March 2004 - that it only has access to 25-30 percent of the persons in need. [14] Could we be witnessing another Rwanda : genocide with the silent blessings of the international community? Mustafa disagrees. “I do not think it is the case, as the international community, mainly the UN Humanitarian Committee and the Sudan Government are aware of the situation and are trying their best to work urgently to alleviate the crisis,” she said. However, Adam seems to think otherwise. “Indeed the silence of the international community on what is happening in Darfur reminds us of what happened in Rwanda ten years ago. It is a pity that it has been stated in several occasions that the world will never experience again what had happened in Rwanda .” Media Blackout Yet, it is not sufficient that the humanitarian committee in the UN knows about the situation. There seems to be a media blackout that is overshadowed by other, no less shocking news items such as the prisoners’ abuse in Iraq and the escalating crisis in the Palestinian territories. The Sudanese Government too has done its share to hide the conflict from the world. On November 24, 2003 , the independent (arguably) Khartoum Monitor and on December 3, 2003 Al Ayam newspapers were banned for criticizing the situation. On December 17, the Al Jazeera Khartoum office was shut down. “Travel restrictions have kept foreigners, including relief workers, away from the fighting. Activists who tried to alert the international community have been subjected to preventive detention.”[15] Arab Silence Despite the government’s promises to open access to humanitarian organizations by February 16, the UN says that it only has access to 25-30 percent of the persons in need In an open letter directed to Arab leaders published on May 19 on Sudaneseonline.com, intellectuals from Darfur questioned Arab silence, drawing resemblance to situations in Iraq, Palestine, Somalia, Bosnia and the Gujarat in India adding: “Muslims in all these places are being killed and no one in any Arab or Islamic country does anything positive until Allah makes the non-Muslims move to their rescue.” [16] “The Arab World is always silent, as in the case of what is happening in Palestine and Iraq ! The Arab relief organizations have started to move (e.g. United Arab Emirates and Kuwait) after the UN Humanitarian Committee sent an appeal to those organizations to provide help,” said Mustafa. The reason behind the Arab world’s silence, according to Adam, is that people in those countries “know very little about Sudan let alone about Darfur and consequently they believe in the misleading information which the Sudanese Government agencies present. Moreover, the culture of NGOs and civil society is not fully-grown in the Arab world and therefore the absence of Arab relief organizations from Darfur is based on the lack of such culture.” Yet to remain silent is to become an accomplice in the catastrophe. The Sudanese president, Omar Al Bashir, said he could not attend the Arab summit citing “internal reasons”.[17] Would the catastrophe in Darfur qualify to be one of those? Perhaps. 1 Darfur in Flames: Atrocities in western Sudan. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, APRIL 2004, VOL. 16, NO. 5 (A), pg. 1 2 Ibid, pg. 8 3 Ibid, pg. 8 4 Ibid, pg. 9 5 Ibid, pg. 9 6 Ibid, pg. 10 7 Ibid, pg. 3 8 Catastrophic Conditions for Sudanese Refugees in Chad, MSF, May 11 9 Darfur in Flames, pg. 14 10 Ibid, pg. 16 11 Ibid, pg. 14 12 Ibid, pg. 29 13 Ibid, pg. 35 14 Darfur rising: Sudan’s new crisis. International Crisis Group, March 25, 2004 , pg. 3 15 Ibid, pg. 20 16 http://www.sudaneseonline.com/anews/may19-93616.html 17 Al Bashir Apologizes for not attending Arab (Arabic) - * Lamya Tawfik has a master’s degree in Journalism & Mass Communication with a specialization in Children’s Media Education from the American University in Cairo (AUC). She also works as a reporter for AUC’s publications, and as a part-time lecturer at the Faculty of Mass Communication in the Modern Sciences and Arts University in Cairo . She has previously worked as a news editor at Islam Online. You can reach her at lamyatawfik@islam-online.net

www.guardian.co.uk 1 June 2004 'They came at dawn and killed the men' Sudan refugees tell of world's worst humanitarian disaster Ewen Macaskill in Darfur Tuesday June 8, 2004 The Guardian For hundreds of thousands of refugees like Souad Omar Mousa the rain that fell yesterday in the Darfur region of Sudan is something to dread. "If I was in my village, I would welcome it," she said. "But here we are exposed." Home for Mrs Mousa is now the Kalma camp, near Nyala, one of hundreds scattered throughout Darfur. Refugees live under straw matting or in the open. In what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian disaster, the arrival of the rains means that life for the refugees will become even more grim and the death toll will almost certainly rise. About 30,000 are estimated to have been killed in the last year, victims of a government-armed militia that has terrorised and destroyed villages throughout Darfur, where 1.2 million have been displaced, with a further 100,000 taking refuge in neighbouring Chad. A UN official who has travelled extensively throughout the region said yesterday: "If you go 1,000km from here to Chad you will not see a single village intact." During a three-hour flight over Darfur, hundreds of blackened and scorched villages were starkly visible against the red desert. Mrs Mousa walked for three days to reach Kalma after the Janjaweed militia attacked her village, Shatee, west of the Mara mountains, two months ago. "They came at dawn, at 4am. They came on horses, donkeys, camels and Land Cruisers. They burnt the houses and killed the men and many of the male children. I don't know if my husband is alive or dead." She fled with her four sons and three daughters, but one of her children, Omar Abdul Rahin, seven, died on the way. The refugees claim the government is engaged in ethnic cleansing, using the Arab Janjaweed to force out black Africans. The Sudanese government denies the charge and blames rebel forces rather than the militia. The government has allowed few journalists into Darfur to see what is happening. Kalma is one of the better camps because of the presence of Médecins sans Frontières, the international medical relief charity. But the death toll is still very high, way above what aid agencies regard as crisis point. There are about 10 deaths a day, most of them children. Tom Quinn, the MSF medical team leader in the camp, said he went to five graveyards ringing the camp last week and counted 131 mounds of earth, gauging the size of the body by the length of the mound. "Of the 131, only 13 were adults," he said. There was a desperate need for aid, especially plastic sheeting to provide some protection from the rain. He complained of obstruction by the government, saying that 30 tonnes of medicine has been lying at Port Sudan since early May. The rain, he added, was another concern: "This whole area will be flooded." Even if the camp survived there would be pollution, malnutrition and disease. A British delegation led by the international development secretary, Hilary Benn, yesterday had a confrontation with the governor of South Darfur, General Hamid Mussa, who insisted that the instability in the region should be blamed mainly on rebel forces. Mr Benn questioned him about allegations that the government had provided the militia with weapons. One of Gen Mussa's ministers replied that weapons were readily available throughout Sudan because of wars in neighbouring countries. The camps throughout Darfur range from places like Kalma, which at least has medical facilities, to Meshtel in the north of the country in which refugees are living in the open and are forcibly removed at frequent intervals by the government. Meshtel is beside a river which will almost certainly flood when the rains arrive. The refugees arriving at all the camps tell of fresh attacks. Aisha Yunis Suleiman, 35, reached the Kalma camp five days ago from Mugdi. She said her village had suffered an aerial bombardment in which her husband had been killed and that the militia had gone into the village immediately afterwards. Asked who had been responsible she said: "The government." She would only return to the village "when it is secure". Mrs Mousa too will not go back until she is sure there is peace. She was prepared to risk the devastation and possible death from the rains because, she said: "There is a bigger risk of dying in the village." .

IRIN 1 Jun 2004 Access to Darfur for aid workers improves despite persistent problems NAIROBI, 1 June (IRIN) - Just over a week after the government of Sudan said it would allow aid workers into the western region of Darfur within 48 hours, humanitarian access was "fairly smooth," according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Khartoum. OCHA had managed to deploy seven field staff members since 20 May, several of whom had been waiting for up to two months for a travel permit, said Ramesh Rajasingham, the head of OCHA Sudan. In one or two cases, visas were still being delayed, but these were being followed up, he said, noting that in Southern Darfur it appeared that the message had not filtered down to local authorities by last Saturday. At the same time, however, some relief assistance, equipment and vehicles essential to the delivery of aid were still being delayed, said Rajasingham. Khartoum recently announced that with effect from 24 May it would issue visas within 48 hours and waive the requirement for travel permits to Darfur, which had been causing huge delays in delivering aid. Staff already in Darfur still had to give the local humanitarian aid commissioners 24-hour notice when they were travelling outside the three main towns of Nyala, Al-Junaynah and Al-Fashir, but the procedures seemed to be working in general and travel was being undertaken "fairly freely", Rajasingham added. A more serious impediment to the delivery of aid was the reported "requirement" by Khartoum that agencies only use local NGOs to deliver aid, he told IRIN. The new policy had "hampered effective distribution of assistance, including food", the UN reported last week, stating that the existing local NGOs were limited in number and lacked the necessary capacity. Rajasingham confirmed that capacity building of local NGOs was a priority but, but added: "This is an emergency and we have to use the best and most reliable capacity on the ground. We have to rely on partners who can deliver rapidly and reliably, whoever they are," he said. The advocacy group Refugees International (RI) said last week that Khartoum was continuing to place "obstacles" in the way of agencies seeking to respond to the Darfur crisis by requiring relief supplies to be transported on Sudanese trucks and distributed by Sudanese agencies. The World Food Programme (WFP) confirmed that it had only been able to deliver three quarters of the food it planned to distribute in May, due to a combination of insecurity, bureaucratic and logistical problems. "We are not reaching as many people as we ought to and we don't have much time left," commented WFP spokeswoman, Laura Melo. MSF warned last month that the entire population of Darfur, numbering several million, was "teetering on the verge of mass starvation" as a direct result of the conflict. A further problem was Khartoum's insistence that all medical supplies being shipped into Sudan needed to be tested before they were used, RI added. "The only plausible explanation of these regulations is that the government of Sudan, despite its repeated pledges to the contrary, simply does not want a large-scale presence of international agencies in Darfur," said RI. A 20 May statement from the Sudanese foreign and humanitarian affairs ministries said Khartoum had an "open-ended vision to guarantee and facilitate humanitarian efforts" in Darfur. "In fulfillment of its responsibilities and obligations toward its citizens and to ensure their wellbeing", Khartoum "recognises the crucial need for immediate humanitarian assistance in the region and is determined to alleviate the suffering that has resulted as a by-product of the war". But the US Agency for International Development (USAID) reported last week that Khartoum was "interfering" in humanitarian aid efforts. Government officials had questioned relief workers on their reporting of human rights abuses, told agencies not to carry out protection activities, and threatened to expel organisations failing to comply with restrictions, it said. In May an OCHA official was expelled and NGOs were accused of supporting the rebellion in Darfur. Khartoum also required 72-hour advance notification for passengers travelling on UN flights to Darfur, which was "an impediment to the rapid deployment of emergency staff and equipment," USAID added. Meanwhile, no UN agencies were delivering aid to rebel-held areas because of a mixture of insecurity and a lack of permission from Khartoum to access the areas, according to OCHA. USAID said that armed Janjawid militia were continuing to attack civilians in all three states of Darfur and that killings, rapes, beatings, looting and burning of homes were still being reported. In Northern Darfur State, attacks on villages had only decreased because "a significant number" of villages had already been destroyed, while attacks on camps for internally displaced persons were continuing, it said. On 28 May, the parties to the conflict agreed to the deployment of African Union (AU) ceasefire monitors in Darfur. Desmond Orjiako, an AU spokesman, told IRIN that the first 10 monitors, comprising seven military observers and three support staff, would be deployed on Wednesday. A further 90, including 60 soldiers, would be deployed as soon as conditions were ready and vehicles and accommodation had been organised. The ceasefire monitors would be based in al-Fashir, northern Darfur, but would travel within the three states, he told IRIN. The status of the 45-day renewable ceasefire, which has been broken numerous times, has remained unclear since it expired on 26 May. The UN said it had received no information regarding a renewal or further peace talks. On Friday, the political director of the Darfur rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army, Abu al-Qasim told IRIN the SLA was continuing to respect it, "so as to let the organisations provide aid for people in the region", but that nothing formal had been arranged.

IPS 3 June 2004 Darfur 'World's Worst Humanitarian Crisis' Gustavo Capdevila GENEVA, Jun 3 (IPS) - Everyone seems to agree on the severity of the crisis that threatens some two million people in the Sudanese region of Darfur, but governments are focussing on a response based on humanitarian aid, while human rights groups are calling for urgent protection for the civilian population. Even in the best-case scenario, humanitarian experts estimate that more than 300,000 people will die as a result of violence and starvation. Amnesty International, based in London, holds the Janjaweed -- militias backed by Sudan's armed forces -- responsible for the massive human rights violations suffered by hundreds of thousands of civilians in Darfur, a region in the country's northwest. Human Rights Watch, another powerful non-governmental organisation, headquartered in the United States, maintains that Darfur is carrying out a campaign of ”ethnic cleansing” promoted by the government of Sudan against three communities located in the Darfur area. This persecution has left some two million people, or a third of the Darfur population, in a situation of grave danger, according to the European Humanitarian Aid Office. (Sudan has a population of more than 32 million.) As a result, between 750,000 and one million internally displaced peoples are spread throughout Sudan, and another 110,000 have crossed the border into Chad as refugees, European aid director Constanza Adinolfi told reporters here Thursday. Officials and activists gathered in Geneva Thursday for a donors meeting on Darfur sponsored by the United Nations, United States and European Union. Amnesty International research ”confirmed again the systematic and well-organised pillaging and destruction of villages which led to the forced displacement of the rural population of Darfur,” said Liz Hodgkin, a spokeswoman for the organisation. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), stressed that Darfur is not seeing a mere problem of spontaneous ethnic conflict. On the contrary, the Khartoum government is ”sponsoring ethnic atrocities against African ethnic populations... in order to clean the region of the three targeted African ethnic groups.” HRW says the non-Arab African communities of the Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa, mostly settled farmers, are the target of attacks by some 20,000 Janjaweed, militias emerging from Arab nomadic tribes whose arms and uniforms are provided by the Sudan government.. The ethnic makeup of Sudan is complex, with more than 500 groups, some of Arab descent, particularly in the north and central regions of the country. The national government is controlled by Arab Muslim sectors. The humanitarian angle was taken up Thursday in a meeting of representatives from donor countries with international officials. They all agreed that Darfur today is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Jan Egeland, coordinator of U.N. emergency aid, estimated that 236 million dollars are needed for the rest of the year to attend to the urgent needs of the communities of Darfur and the refugees in neighbouring Chad. Those funds would be earmarked for food, medicine, housing, agriculture, potable water and sanitation, as well as for education and protection of human rights. Egeland said there are an estimated one million internally displaced people and 150,000 who have sought refuge in Chad. An additional 700,000 to 800,000 will be severely affected by the conflict by the end of the year, predicted the U.N. official. A more sombre outlook came from the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Andrew Natsios: ” Even in a best-case scenario, under optimal conditions, we could see as many as 3