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From: [log in to unmask]
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 07:14:53 EST
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: AF Digest 2/26
Africa moves towards single defence policy
By Lamine Ghanmi
SIRTE, Libya, Feb 26 (Reuters) - African leaders gather on Friday for a
summit to adopt a common defence policy and give the 53-nation African Union
(AU) the right to intervene in armed conflicts across the continent, AU
officials said.
But they said the two-day meeting in Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's
hometown of Sirte would reject a Libyan proposal to disband all national
armies in favour of one continental force.
With fragile peace efforts in the continent's many troublespots, there is
international pressure on the AU to take an active lead in peacekeeping.
African defence ministers who met this week in Sirte to prepare for the
extraordinary summit finalised a document on African Common Defence and
Security policy and Non-Aggression which heads of state and prime ministers
will adopt with minor changes, diplomats and AU sources said.
The document says wars and civil strifes -- as currently in Burundi, the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan -- are the main obstacles to
development, damage economies, turn would-be consumers and producers into
millions of uprooted refugees and scare off foreign investors, the sources
said.
The draft empowers the Ethiopia-based AU to order military intervention or
impose sanctions on a member state that goes against African consensus in
the case of civil war or genocide.
It calls for the creation of a body modelled onto the U.N. Security Council
to decide on military intervention.
FUNDING, AN OBSTACLE
Funding for the planned rapid reaction military force will be a test for
African leaders and the international commmunity, the sources said.
Africans want to provide men and equipment while international donors would
donate cash. But donors argue that Africans cannot expect to be given a free
hand and independence if the money comes from abroad.
On Libya's proposal for a single army, the sources said Gaddafi's plan
appeared too ambitious.
Libya, which pledged in December to scrap plans to develop weapons of mass
destruction in a bid to normalise its relations with the West, argues that
the mere existence of separate armies in Africa feeds a chain of suspicions
and rivalries that hinder stabilisation and development.
"The Libyan proposal derives from Gaddafi's view of a defence and security
umbrella for the whole continent and a single army to get rid of the
separate armies that cost Africa $13 billion each year," a senior African
diplomat said.
Libyan government sources said African leaders would also discuss prospects
of economic and social development in Africa, including the issues of water
and agriculture.
02/26/04 06:51 ET
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Morocco quake relief row as toll mounts further
By Souhail Karam
AL HOCEIMA, Morocco, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Morocco's government set up tent
villages on Thursday for thousands of people made homeless by a massive
earthquake, as anger rose over a rescue effort that has left international
aid teams standing idle.
Interior Minister Mustapha Sahel said the official death toll from Tuesday's
quake, the worst in over 40 years, had risen to 571, and that the government
was doing all in its power to offer psychological help to traumatised
survivors.
Moroccan newspapers said the remote terrain and poor weather were hampering
the rescue operation. But foreign aid workers said they had been sent away
by officials "too busy" to help them locate possible survivors still trapped
under the rubble.
"The senior official in (Ait Kamara) told us 200 people died in the village
and that two or three were still alive under the rubble, but that he was too
busy to show us where they were," said Wolfgang Wedan, a member of the
Austrian search and rescue team.
In another village, Tazagin, his team were told they were 24 hours too late:
"We have come here for nothing. We wanted to help but we can't. They send us
away wherever we go," he said.
Eliane Provo Kluit, of the U.N. Disaster Assessment and Coordination Team at
Al Hoceima airport, said teams needed the government to tell them where to
operate, but added: "There has been no identification of sites where rescue
is needed."
TENT VILLAGES
As early as Wednesday, villagers made homeless by the tremor measuring 6.5
on the Richter scale staged a sit-down protest on the main road linking this
Mediterranean port to the interior, complaining promised aid had failed to
materialise.
"On TV, they say food, blankets are being delivered. We've seen nothing of
this relief aid. Grocery shops are closed (for fear of looting), so we can't
even buy food," said one protester, Mohamed Benhaddou.
In one devastated village, exasperated residents helped themselves to a
truck load of 300 tents as government officials held a meeting to decide how
to distribute the equipment.
At Al Hoceima airport, dozens of people clambered onto trucks containing
mattresses and blankets shouting: "It's our stuff!." Soldiers tried to
prevent them from helping themselves.
Sahel defended the government's handling of the crisis, saying it was
distributing 1,300 tents and creating two temporary camps in the village of
Ait-Kamara and in Al Hoceima.
The armed forces would set up three other camps of 300-400 tents equipped
with electricity and drinking water, MAP quoted the interior minister as
saying.
With the remote region hit by plunging temperatures, the U.N. Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said tents, blankets and medical
assistance were urgently needed.
As foreign rescue teams disenchanted with the official relief operation
handed their aid supplies over to local villagers, hopes dimmed of finding
any survivors in the rubble of mud-brick homes in villages surrounding Al
Hoceima.
There was particular concern over three villages in the Rif Mountains -- Ait
Kamara, Tamassint and Im-Zouren -- where 30,000 people live mainly in mud
houses.
Officials expect the toll to climb further and special prayers will be said
in the country's mosques on Friday, which has been declared a national day
of mourning.
The quake was North Africa's worst since 2,300 people were killed last May
in neighbouring Algeria. Morocco's worst recorded quake killed 12,000 in the
city of Agadir in 1960.
02/26/04 06:47 ET
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U.N. Calls for Cease-Fire in Somalia
.c The Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security Council called for a cease-fire
throughout Somalia Wednesday and demanded that all parties fully abide by
last month's truce and an agreement to form a new government.
The council statement follows an outbreak of fighting by rival Somali clans
despite the truce and an agreement signed by the country's traditional
leaders and warlords to form a transitional government.
``The Security Council stresses the urgent need for a comprehensive
ceasefire throughout Somalia , and that the Somali parties themselves bear
the responsibility of achieving it,'' the statement said.
Somalia has not had a national government since rival clan-based factions
ousted longtime dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in January 1991. The factions
then turned on each other, plunging the Horn of Africa nation into a
maelstrom of anarchy and destruction.
02/25/04 21:43 EST
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U.S. to Furnish $114M in Aid to Liberia
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush said Wednesday that the United States was
providing $114 million in assistance to Liberia - the first installment in
$200 million pledged for reconstructing the African nation.
The White House said the money will help ease the humanitarian crisis in
Liberia, contribute to regional stability and eliminate conditions that
could be exploited by international terrorists.
``These monies will help ensure a lasting peace,'' a senior administration
official said. ``The assistance demonstrates the United States' strong
commitment to support African efforts to bring peace and prosperity to the
continent.''
The World Bank and the United Nations estimate that Liberia will need
roughly $488 million during the next two years to meet its most pressing
reconstruction needs as the country begins to rebuild from 14 years of civil
war. The fighting killed more than 150,000.
Liberia was established by freed American slaves before the United States'
own civil war. It began to rebuild after President Charles Taylor went into
exile in Nigeria last August. Taylor's departure cleared the way for a
power-sharing deal between his government and rebels.
02/25/04 20:31 EST
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48 Dead in Nigeria Religious Clash
By DULUE MBACHU
.c The Associated Press
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - Suspected Muslim militants armed with guns and bows
and arrows killed at least 48 people in an attack on a farming village in
central Nigeria. Most of the victims died as they sought refuge in a church,
police said Wednesday.
The latest bout of Muslim-Christian violence in the region occurred Tuesday
night in Yelwa, a mainly Christian town in Nigeria's Plateau State, police
commissioner Innocent Ilozuoke said.
Army and police reinforcements helped restore calm, Ilozuoke told a news
conference in Jos, the state capital.
The killings appeared to be the latest retaliatory attack in a sporadic
conflict that has rocked the central region since an outburst of sectarian
violence in 2001, pitting Christians against Muslims in once-peaceful Jos.
In the initial outburst in Jos more than 1,000 people died in one week.
Since then, several hundreds more have died as rival Muslim-Christian
militias attacked isolated villages and towns.
On Feb. 19, gunmen suspected by the police to belong to a Muslim militia
ambushed a patrol car, killing four police officers. The ambush followed an
earlier attack by a Christian militia upon a Muslim village that killed 10.
For decades, the majority Christian inhabitants of Plateau and the minority
Muslim population - mostly Hausa and Fulani tribespeople with origins
farther north - had lived in harmony.
But tensions between the two communities heightened in the past four years
as 12 majority Muslim states in the north adopted the strict Sharia, or
Islamic, legal codes, perceived by Christians as an expansionist threat.
Since 1999, ethnic and religious violence has killed more than 10,000 people
in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country.
02/25/04 15:32 EST
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Eight Dead in Uganda Rebel Protest
By KAREL PRINSLOO
.c The Associated Press
LIRA, Uganda (AP) - Massive street protests after a massacre by rebels in
northern Uganda turned violent Wednesday, with mobs beating rival tribesmen
and burning houses and police shooting into the crowd. At least nine people
were killed.
The protests came shortly after the Ugandan army announced it had killed 21
rebels who massacred dozens of civilians over the weekend at a refugee camp
a few miles north of this war-weary town.
Thousands of people took to Lira's streets to protest the government's
failure to protect civilians. Smaller groups broke away from the protest and
began burning and looting about 50 homes belonging to the Acholi, the
northern tribe from which the rebels draw most of their fighters.
An Associated Press photographer saw police officers fire into the crowd of
protesters, killing two people and wounding another five. It was not clear
if the police were responding to fire from the crowd.
Mobs beat to death at least two people, police said. A witness, Jane Acan,
said two men and a woman were stoned to death. Acan said she managed to
escape before protesters burned her house.
Automatic gunfire crackled in central Lira and soldiers patrolled the
streets in armored vehicles. A lawmaker from the region, Charles Angiro,
said angry protesters smashed the windows of his car.
A doctor at the town's hospital, Jane Aceng, said five bodies had been
brought to the morgue, one beaten to the death and the others shot. It was
not clear if some of the bodies were people witnesses saw killed.
The protest highlighted widespread anger among people in northern Uganda
that the government is not doing enough to end an 18-year insurgency by the
Lord's Resistance Army, a quasi-religious rebel group blamed for Saturday's
bloodshed at the Barlonyo refugee camp.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who visited the area Tuesday, put the
death toll from the weekend raid at 84, but local officials and witnesses
said more than 200 people were killed.
``The government has shown a lack of concern for the people of Lira and
northern Uganda as a whole,'' said John Bosco Ochieng, 32, a university
student. ``It's always been giving empty promises. If there is mass murder,
they say it is the kick of the dying horse. How long will they keep giving
empty promises?''
Some of the protesters held up banners that said, ``The United Nations must
intervene.'' Others demanded that the government do more to protect
civilians. Businesses in Lira were shuttered and local authorities declared
a week of mourning.
The army launched attacks on two groups of the Lord's Resistance Army on
Tuesday in two villages near the Barlonyo Camp. An army spokesman said 16
rebels were killed in one attack and five were killed in the other.
``They (the rebels) were pinned down by helicopters and ground forces ...
These rebels were part of the group that attacked Barlonyo camp,'' Lt. Chris
Magezi said Wednesday.
The Barlonyo massacre cast serious doubt on the government's assertion that
it is crushing the Lord's Resistance Army, which says it wants Uganda to be
governed by the Ten Commandments. It's led by Joseph Kony, who claims to
have spiritual powers.
The rebellion has claimed thousands of lives, displaced a million people,
and spread fear throughout the region.
Museveni blamed the army for failing to prevent the Barlonyo attack and
apologized to the region's people.
``It's very sad, on behalf of the government, or the army, I apologize to
the people because the mistake is on the side of the army,'' Museveni said
after visiting a hospital packed with survivors. ``They (the army) did not
coordinate well but we have got a long struggle, we shall overcome.''
Uganda's current government is dominated by southerners like Museveni, a
fact that causes resentment in the north. Even though the Lord's Resistance
Army has its roots in a 1980s rebellion by the northern Acholi people, the
group's current goals remain murky.
02/25/04 14:47 EST
----------------------
Rwanda genocide tribunal makes rare acquital
By Daniel Wallis
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (Reuters) - A U.N. tribunal acquitted Wednesday two
men charged with involvement in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, only the second time
the court has handed down "not guilty" verdicts in its 10-year history, a
court spokesman said.
The court said the prosecutor had not proved beyond reasonable doubt the
guilt of former Transport and Communications Minister Andre Ntagerura, 54,
and a former senior government official, Emmanuel Bagambiki, 55.
Former Lt. Samuel Imanishimwe, 43, who was tried alongside the two men, was
found guilty of ordering security forces and militiamen to kill ethnic
Tutsis and sentenced to 27 years in prison.
"Imanishimwe was found guilty, the other two were acquitted," tribunal
spokesman Bocar Sy said by telephone from the tribunal in the northern
Tanzanian town of Arusha.
Tribunal officials said the court had ordered the immediate release of the
pair but that prosecutors said they would appeal against the acquittals.
Ntagerura was arrested in 1996 in Cameroon. Bagambiki was arrested in 1998
in Togo.
All three suspects had pleaded not guilty to charges of organizing mass
killings in and around the Cyangugu region, where the prosecution says about
100,000 people were killed during the genocide in the Central African
country.
The U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was set up to try those
accused of being the top organizers of the genocide, in which 800,000
minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.
DEATH LISTS
The court has convicted 18 suspects since it was set up in November 1994,
including Imanishimwe. It had previously acquitted only one suspect --
Ignace Bagilishema, a former mayor who was found not guilty in June 2001.
Prosecutors told the court how Imanishimwe, who was arrested in Kenya in
1997, prepared lists of people to be killed, and that soldiers and militias
then carried out his orders.
The court heard how, in early April 1994, many Tutsis sought refuge at
Cyangugu cathedral. Imanishimwe subsequently ordered the execution of
several people there and ordered that others be moved to Cyangugu stadium.
Prosecutors said he selected names from lists of refugees inside the
stadium, and that these individuals were tortured and executed.
In Amsterdam, a man suspected of being involved in Rwanda's genocide was
arrested by Dutch police Wednesday, the public prosecutor said.
"The 54-year-old man is suspected of having played a leading role in the
massacre of civilians in April 1994 during Rwanda's genocide," the
prosecutor's office said in a statement.
Police arrested the suspect, a former lieutenant colonel, in an
asylum-seekers center at the request of the U.N. International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda.
The man, who was not identified and will be handed over to the tribunal, had
requested asylum in the Netherlands several years ago, a spokesman for the
prosecutor said.
(Additional reporting by Wendel Broere in Amsterdam)
02/25/04 12:18 ET
------------------
West Sudan rebels say moving towards Khartoum
KHARTOUM, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Rebels from western Sudan said on Wednesday
they had opened a new front to show the government the remote area was not
alone in its demands for equal treatment and a share in the oil exporter's
resources.
Two rebel groups launched a revolt in the western Darfur region a year ago,
accusing Khartoum of neglecting the arid area and arming Arab militias to
loot and burn African villages.
The United Nations warns of a humanitarian crisis with about a million
Sudanese fleeing the fighting.
"This means we are fighting a guerrilla war against the government and we
can strike them in many places," said rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA)
leader Abdel Wahed Mohamed Ahmed al-Nur, adding the SLA also had troops in
northern Sudan.
"Two days ago we attacked government forces in their camp about 100 kms (60
miles) north of El-Obeid," he said, referring to the capital of Northern
Kordofan state, which borders Darfur.
El-Obeid is less than 400 kms (250 miles) southeast of the capital,
Khartoum.
"If there's no peace in Darfur there'll not be peace in any part of Sudan,"
Nur told Reuters from the Darfur region.
He added the SLA had signed an agreement to launch joint operations with an
eastern rebel group called the Beja Congress.
Sudan's armed forces spokesman was unavailable for comment. Army sources
have previously said they would not comment on the Darfur conflict to dampen
media coverage of the troubles.
Khalil Ibrahim, leader of the other rebel group, the Justice and Equality
Movement (JEM), said his movement had launched a failed offensive to take
Southern Kordofan state 45 days ago.
"The government defeated us and arrested 161 of our men," he told Reuters
from his Paris base. "We kept this secret to protect the men in prison, but
they killed four of them until now so we are announcing it."
02/25/04 10:59 ET
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Even a lie is a psychic fact. -Carl Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)
----------------------
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