Darfur: Letters to Bush and UN

Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group sent letters to President Bush and the UN Security Council

Here is the press release

The United States should use its Security Council presidency in February to urgently seek a transition of the African Union force in Darfur to a United Nations mission with a strong mandate to protect civilians, said Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group yesterday in letters to U.S. President George W. Bush and members of the U.N. Security Council.

Here is the letter to President Bush

We write to urge you to make the situation in Darfur, Sudan a top priority when the United States assumes the presidency of the U.N. Security Council in February. As Secretary General Kofi Annan has recently said, “a major new international effort” is needed to save lives in Darfur. Such an effort will require the Security Council to act, and the Security Council will only act on Sudan if the United States leads.

We greatly appreciate the steps your administration has taken on Sudan, from the negotiation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, to the support the United States has provided to the African Union forces in Darfur.

But the killing of civilians and destruction of homes and villages in Darfur continue. More than two million people – half the population of Darfur – remain vulnerable in displaced person camps, unable to go home for fear of being raped or murdered by Sudanese government forces and its Janjaweed militias. While the ultimate solution may be negotiations leading to a political settlement, the vulnerable people of Darfur should not be asked to wait for that uncertain process to achieve results. They need protection now just to stay alive until peace comes to Darfur. And while the African Union forces have done much to provide security and have acted with great courage and resolve, they have been unable to protect civilians throughout Darfur – because they have lacked the manpower and resources and because the Sudanese government has not cooperated with their mission.

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We therefore ask that the United States use its Security Council presidency to seek, on an urgent basis, a transition of the African Union force in Darfur to a U.N. mission under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter. Such a mission should have a strong and clear mandate that will allow it to protect itself and civilians by force if necessary, and to disarm and disband the government-sponsored Janjaweed forces that have confiscated land or pose a threat to the civilian population. The mission should also be specifically empowered to provide appropriate assistance to the International Criminal Court's investigations in Darfur including the arrest of individuals indicted for crimes against humanity and war crimes. As Jan Pronk, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sudan has recommended, it should be a force large enough to provide security throughout Darfur – some 20,000 strong – with capabilities that, realistically, only countries with significant military assets and mobility will be able to provide. If the government of Sudan resists the introduction of such a force, the Security Council should impose additional targeted sanctions until Khartoum assents – above those sanctions the Security Council has already agreed to impose, which it should in any case promptly enforce.

In the meantime, we urge you to work with other concerned governments to bolster the existing African Union force in Darfur, through the deployment of additional personnel, equipment, logistical support, funding and other resources from national and multilateral forces (including NATO and the European Union), including attack helicopters to enhance its capacity to protect civilians.

These measures should be part of a larger strategy that includes support for the International Criminal Court investigation in Darfur (as the Security Council has already agreed), assistance to help displaced people in Darfur rebuild their communities (perhaps through a compensation fund funded by a set percentage of the Sudanese government’s revenues), and increased diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict. But the urgent, immediate task must be protecting the lives of vulnerable civilians.

We recognize that it will take time to transition fully to a strong U.N. force in Darfur and that political obstacles exist. But that is all the more reason to mobilize support now, so that planning and deployment can begin as soon as possible, and to make the issue a high and visible priority, so that the obstacles can be overcome. The U.S. presidency of the Security Council offers an opportunity to do both. We urge you to seize it.

They sent basically the same letter to the Security Council.

Congo/Uganda: LRA Press Release

This is so laughable, I am almost inclined to think it is a joke - the idea that the LRA would condemn the UN and others for supposed violations of the Geneva Conventions is beyond absurd - via the Sudan Tribune

The LRA/M [Lord’s Resistance Army/Movement] would like to confirm that on Monday 23rd January 2006, a contingent of about 200 UN troops backed up by UK SAS, US Marines and UPDF attacked one of its tactical bases in the Garama National Park in the DR Congo. The said base was predominantly occupied by unarmed and innocent civilians - displaced women and children waiting for assistance from the local UN High Commission for Refugees office. The few LRA men who were guarding the camp put up a fierce resistance and initially repulsed the attackers outright. However, our forces made a tactical withdrawal when aerial bombardments started and more reinforcement arrived.

Following this attack, the LRA/M would like to report for the first time that more than 30 of these unarmed civilians were massacred and a dozen more were injured by the UN, SAS and US Marines in contravention of its obligation under the Geneva Conventions -“ Not to intentionally attack innocent civilians; civilian objects or facilities such as internally displaced peoples’ camps, and food distribution centers or relief operations or objects or facilities which are indispensable to the survival and sustenance of the civilian population and of civilian nature’. The LRA lost about a dozen of its patriotic and real men of honour and several more sustained serious injuries.

The LRA/M condemns in the strongest terms this most shocking and cowardly act of brutality and bombings of innocent civilians and their settlement by the UN peacekeeping troops in Eastern DR Congo. We would like further to call on the international community, especially the regional leaders of the East and Central African countries not just to condemn this massacre, but also to force the UN to call not just for an immediate and a thorough investigation into this covert operation, but also insist that those responsible to be severely reprimanded.

In the light of this revelation of the UN deliberate and most shocking and graphic massacre of unarmed civilians, we would like to appeal to all nations whose citizens are contributing to peacekeeping missions in the DRC to seriously reconsider future engagements with the UN. The LRA/M believes that the UN has already been hijacked by other interest groups and governments to carry out major covert interventionist and subversive operations with or without United States combat forces and logistical and intelligence support instead of the mandated peacekeeping missions in Africa. Since its inception, the LRA/M however, has neither deliberately targeted UN troops and many of its agencies nor considered them legitimate targets.

Uganda: Court Rules Against Trial of Top Opposition Leader

From VOA

Uganda's constitutional court has ruled that the military can not try opposition leader Kizza Besigye on terror charges.

Authorities have charged Besigye, who is running in Uganda's February 23 presidential election, with treason, terrorism, illegal weapons possession and rape. Twenty-two of his supporters also are facing treason charges.

Besigye was arrested in November after returning to Uganda to challenge President Yoweri Museveni in next month's election.

Besigye is the leader of the Forum for Democratic Change. Critics say the charges against him are politically motivated and designed to derail his challenge for the presidency.

DRC: Arrest Laurent Nkunda For War Crimes

From Human Rights Watch

The transitional government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and U.N. peacekeeping troops must immediately arrest Laurent Nkunda, a former officer in the Congolese army who has been charged with war crimes and whose rebel forces have renewed military operations in eastern DRC, Human Rights Watch said today. Nkunda’s whereabouts have been well-known to the Congolese authorities and U.N. peacekeepers since the warrant for his arrest was issued in September 2005.

“An arrest warrant was issued against Nkunda for war crimes, crimes against humanity and insurrection months ago but the police and army have done nothing about arresting him,” said Alison Des Forges, senior advisor to the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. “So long as Nkunda is at large, the civilian population remains at grave risk.”

Darfur: Event

An upcoming event at the Committee on Conscience on Feb. 6th

[Juan] Mendez will discuss the mandate of the Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, the role of the Convention and the responsibility to protect vulnerable civilians. He will also address his activities concerning Darfur, including his findings and recommendations following his two trips to the area.

Juan E. Méndez was appointed Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in July 2004. He also serves as the President of the International Centre for Transitional Justice, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that helps countries emerging from conflict or misrule to make human rights violators accountable for their crimes. Mr. Méndez served as a lawyer for political prisoners in the 1970s before Argentina's military junta jailed him twice for his activities. During this period Amnesty International adopted him as a "Prisoner of Conscience." After moving to the United States following his release from detention, Mr. Méndez worked for Human Rights Watch for 15 years, specializing in Western Hemisphere issues. In addition, he worked for other NGOs and as an academic, most recently teaching law at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, United States, where he also headed the campus Center for Civil and Human Rights.

The COC will also have an podcast with Mr. Mendez on Feb. 16th, as well as a podcast with Gayle Smith, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, discussing on the recent African Union summit in Khartoum on Feb. 2nd.

Darfur: A No-Flight Zone is Key

From the International Herald Tribune

The current AU force is vulnerable to retaliatory strikes by the Sudanese air force. Having air superiority would deter further attacks on civilians on the ground, as well as prevent them from the air. In addition, such a no-flight zone would assist both the protection force and humanitarian assistance by providing real-time aerial surveillance of Darfur, an area the size of France. A no-flight zone is also essential to bridging a transition from the underpowered AU mission to a stronger UN force.

Control over Darfur's skies can be established quickly from France's air bases in Chad, which are already equipped for operations by tactical fighters. There is also a wealth of tactical air power available from NATO air forces. A former U.S. Air Force chief of staff, General Merrill McPeak, told the Washington Post a year ago that the assets needed to conduct such a mission are a mere 12 to 18 fighter aircraft, 4 AWACS/AEW control aircraft, and some additional support planes and personnel. This option has yet to be embraced by NATO, but the need has now been articulated by Annan.

If NATO is serious about its assistance effort in Darfur, it should offer air cover to the currently mandated AU force immediately. By so doing, it would preclude the requirement to get UN Security Council approval, bypassing likely resistance from Russia and China, which are both deeply economically engaged with the Khartoum regime.

A no-flight zone would limit Khartoum's ability to prevent an effective UN follow-on force. In fact, establishing a NATO no-flight zone to serve the ongoing African Union mission would make more likely the fielding of a UN-mandated ground force capable of protecting Darfur's population.

There remains an appalling policy vacuum on the part of the United States and Europe toward Darfur. Assistance by NATO and the EU to the AU force has never included the air power that could so rapidly change the situation on the ground.

If the West is serious about stopping the mayhem in Darfur and offering real protection to the uprooted civilian population, it needs to summon the fortitude to cease treating Darfur as collateral damage of the Iraq war and other policies that create friction with the Muslim world, and offer the sort of assistance that only it can provide - both in the air, and on the ground.

Darfur: Sen. Durbin Calls on Bush to Expand U.S. Efforts to End Genocide

From Sen. Richard Durbin - no link yet available Link

The office of Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., issued the following press release:

In a bipartisan letter to President Bush, more than 30 Senators called on the Administration to expand its efforts to help end the "continuing genocidal violence in Darfur, Sudan." The letter was spearheaded by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL).

"The situation," the Senators wrote, "remains disastrous and the lives and well-being of millions hang in the balance. We write to strongly urge that you take immediate steps to develop options for deploying additional international peacekeepers, sustain pressure on the Government of Sudan, and ensure adequate funding of the peacekeeping mission in Darfur."

The Senators added that the African Union (AU) "has made a strong effort, but needs immediate and sustained assistance and support from the international community, including the U.S., European Union, and NATO countries." They noted, however, that troubles facing the AU, including budgetary shortfalls and equipment shortages, "undermine the effectiveness of the mission."

The Senators urged the President to work with the international community to create "a plan for deploying a transitional support force for the AU," as "additional peacekeeping options are being explored." The letter also urged the President to "maintain sanctions on the government and to extend individual sanctions to those members of the Sudanese government, Janjaweed, and rebel groups who are responsible for the atrocities."

President Bush is expected to raise the situation in Darfur, Sudan during his state of the Union address tomorrow.

The full text of the letter appears below:

January 30, 2006

The President The White House Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing to you about the continuing genocidal violence in Darfur, Sudan. Over two million people have been driven away from their homes and remain displaced, many in camps that offer little refuge from routine and targeted violence. Systematic gender-based violence against women and girls continues unabated, and basic safety and security continue to be denied to Darfurians. Humanitarian organizations trying to work in the region face increasing difficulties in fulfilling their mission. The situation, in short, remains disastrous and the lives and well-being of millions hang in the balance. We write to strongly urge that you take immediate steps to develop options for deploying additional international peacekeepers, sustain pressure on the Government of Sudan, and ensure adequate funding of the peacekeeping mission in Darfur.

While it has made some progress on the ground, the African Union has struggled to field the personnel, equipment, and command and control functions needed to fulfill its mission. The AU's effectiveness remains handicapped by a range of problems which were highlighted by the Joint Assessment Team of the European Union, the United Nations, the United States, and the AU. In addition, equipment shortages hamper its mobility and limit communications and thus undermine the effectiveness of the mission. A projected budget shortfall for the AU at the end of March of this year also poses a significant risk to the effectiveness of the mission, and could potentially hamper any further progress in establishing peace.

The AU has made a strong effort, but needs immediate and sustained assistance and support from the international community, including the U.S., European Union, and NATO countries. We urge you to work with these countries to develop a plan for deploying a transitional support force for the AU. We also urge you to take advantage of the chairmanship of the United Nations Security Council to develop plans for transitioning the AU force to a UN peacekeeping mission, as well as work toward complete implementation of current Security Council Resolutions, including the ban of all offensive military flights over Darfur. Current discussions are already taking place in New York and Brussels, and in light of the drastic nature of events on the ground, urgent and concerted action is required.

Stopping violence in Darfur is critical to advancing a comprehensive peace in Sudan. Peace and stability in Sudan is very much in our own strategic interest, and ending the genocide in that country represents a humanitarian and moral imperative. We can no longer wait for existing efforts to improve. We urge you to develop a comprehensive strategy for introducing new peacekeeping forces in to Darfur and to develop options for dealing with deteriorating security conditions in light of continued AU shortcomings.

We commend you for your Administration's commitment to the North-South peace process and recognize that its success is highly precarious. The multiple crises of Sudan, especially the ongoing violence in Darfur, demand a sustained commitment from the United States government. Unfortunately, the Government of Sudan continues to engage in and support violence against its own people. It is clear that no progress can be made in Darfur, and elsewhere in Sudan, unless the Government of Sudan cooperates fully in ending its support of violence. We strongly urge you, therefore, both to maintain sanctions on the government and to extend individual sanctions to those members of the Sudanese government, Janjaweed, and rebel groups who are responsible for the atrocities. It must be clear that the U.S. and the international community will accept nothing less than a complete cessation of support for violence.

We also strongly urge you in both the budget for fiscal year 2007 and the upcoming supplemental appropriations request to seek specifically designated and robust funding to meet the emergency needs in Darfur. The African Union will continue to need assistance after it depletes its operational funds in March, 2006, even as additional peacekeeping options are being explored: they are the only forces on the ground now and will serve an essential bridging role if additional international forces join the mission.

We look forward to continuing to work with you to make our mutual hopes for peace a reality.

Sincerely,

Richard J. Durbin United States Senate

Uganda/Congo: Guatemalan Deaths Stir Debate

From Reuters

Eight Guatemalan U.N. troops killed in Congo last week were casualties of a botched hunt for a top Ugandan rebel which has sparked a debate about the U.N.'s peacekeeping tactics, diplomats and U.N. sources said on Tuesday.

The Guatemalan "Kaibil" Special Forces soldiers were killed on Jan. 23 during what the U.N. mission in Democratic Republic of Congo officially says was a "reconnaissance patrol" in the eastern Garamba National Park near the border with Sudan.

It was the second deadliest loss in the history of the U.N. mission in Congo, the world's biggest peacekeeping force.

Guatemala has demanded an inquiry into the deaths, which occurred in a four-hour gunbattle with fighters of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), one of a number of Ugandan rebel groups still operating in northeastern Congo after the end of a five-year war. At least 15 rebels were also killed in the clash.

While the U.N. declines to give further details about the Guatemalans' mission, U.N. sources and diplomats in Kinshasa said their operation raised questions about how far the world body should go in enforcing peace in Congo.

One senior U.N. official, who asked not to be named, said the contingent of 80 Guatemalan special forces troops were trying to capture or kill the LRA's deputy commander, Vincent Otti, after locating his suspected camp.

"It was an operation that went wrong," he told Reuters.

"This was clearly an attack -- special forces do not carry out recces (reconnaissance) in groups that large," said a Kinshasa-based diplomat. "They attacked but the LRA were dug in and more organised than people thought.

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Diplomats say the Guatemalan deaths could make countries contributing troops to the U.N. more reluctant to allow their soldiers to take part in high-risk operations in Congo, where the peacekeepers have been regularly battling Congolese and foreign rebels ahead of elections due this year.

"Capitals may tell their commanders in the mission that they don't want to see body bags coming home so they shouldn't take part in similar operations," the diplomat said.

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Sergio Morales, Guatemala's human rights ombudsman, said last week the Guatemalan troops were "doing the dirty work" of the United Nations. And U.N. officials concede they are pushing the limits of their mandate with covert operations.

"Yes, there will be lots of questions asked about what they (the Guatemalans) were doing. And yes, very few people knew about it," the U.N. official said. "But any mission like this needs to be secret for operational security."

Diplomats say there are divisions over the incident in the local U.N. peacekeeping mission, which has been chastised in the past for doing too little to keep the peace. Some members are now concerned it could be seen as being too aggressive.

28 Days to Save Darfur

An op-ed by Kenneth Bacon, president of Refugees International, in the New York Times

HOW can the United States best use its monthlong turn as president of the United Nations Security Council, which it assumes tomorrow? It could start by devoting itself to ending the violence in the Darfur region of western Sudan — violence that President Bush has characterized as genocide.

There is precedent for such action. The last time the United States assumed the rotating presidency of the 15-member Security Council, it made a real contribution to peace in the region. John C. Danforth, then the ambassador to the United Nations, brought the entire Security Council to Kenya to pressure the government in Khartoum and the insurgents in the south to end their 21-year civil war. The tactic worked. Shortly afterward, Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement signed a comprehensive peace agreement.

Unfortunately, that agreement did nothing to end a separate conflict in Darfur, where government-backed Arab militias, in response to insurgent attacks, have driven more than 2.2 million people, primarily African farmers, from their land and bombed, burned and pillaged hundreds of villages. By some estimates, more than 200,000 people have died in the last three years.

John Bolton, the current American ambassador to the United Nations, has called for bold action in Darfur but has provided no real leadership for more effective moves to stop the violence. This month, Mr. Bolton should follow Mr. Danforth's example and schedule a meeting of the Council in Darfur. This would focus the world's attention on a war in which civilians are the primary targets and directly involve the Council in the push toward peace.

Even if Mr. Bolton can't pull off the trip, he can still focus the Council on Sudan. His first priority should be strengthening the woefully inadequate peacekeeping forces there.

Right now, there are 7,000 African Union peacekeepers in the region. But this force is simply insufficient to do the job. Only by sending United Nations troops can we possibly bring some measure of peace and stability to Darfur.

This won't be easy. Details about the size, mandate and cost of a new United Nations force in Darfur need to be worked out; opposition from Khartoum's allies, Russia and China, which can veto any Security Council action, may need to be overcome. But as Security Council president, Mr. Bolton should push for enough peacekeepers — possibly backed by Western airpower — to prevent attacks against civilians.

Mr. Bolton, who has called for stronger enforcement of arms embargoes against Sudan, should demand the release of an unpublished United Nations study listing those countries that ship weapons to rebels and Khartoum-backed militias. Then the Council should use this information to punish sanctions scofflaws.

The United States has a vexing and inconsistent record on Sudan. Periods of engagement have been followed by longer, and troubling, periods of inaction. Now, with a month to lead the Security Council, the United States has a chance to show the world that we can do more than just talk about genocide.

Darfur: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

An op-ed by Charles Brown, president and CEO of Citizens for Global Solutions, in the Washington Examiner

Seventeen months after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the government of Sudan was responsible for committing genocide in Darfur, his words appear to have lacked meaning. The genocide continues unabated and none of those with the capacity to respond - a list that includes not only the U.S., but also the United Nations, the European Union and the African Union - have done so.

Although President Bush clearly cannot be held responsible for the inaction of the rest of the world, he can be held to account for failing to lead. But the president's State of the Union address tomorrow evening provides him the perfect forum to demonstrate America's commitment to ending the genocide in Darfur.

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During the State of the Union, President Bush should outline a four-step plan to end the genocide.

First, Bush must call the killings "genocide." Bush's use of the "G-word" would reverberate in the halls of governments around the world and in Sudan itself. It will leave no doubt in the minds of those carrying out the atrocities that the United States stands against them. More importantly, it will send a signal to the innocent people of Darfur that our country stands with them.

Second, Bush should use his speech to call for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, at which he should propose a plan of action for Darfur. He should make it clear that he will marshal his administration to engage with leaders of those countries able to help bring an end to crisis, including the AU, EU, Russia, China and the Muslim world.

Third, the president should describe to the American people the key components of his U.N. Security Council plan, which should include strengthening the existing African Union force and creating a U.N. peacekeeping mission with a robust mandate. The president should stress that a U.N. force with an African core, supplemented by NATO contributions, would be the most meaningful deterrent to atrocities in Sudan. He should also pledge significant U.S. support for the AU force and ensure Congress funds it.

Fourth, Bush should commit to work with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to appoint a special U.N. envoy who will be charged with coordinating a global effort to end the violence. This individual should be empowered to meet with all parties, from tribal leaders in Darfur to the heads of important governments.

Darfur: Thousands Displaced as Violence and Tension Mount

From ACT-Caritas

Armed militias have driven more than 55,000 people from their homes in South Darfur.

Gunmen on camels and horses prompted the mass exodus after shooting and looting in the camps and the town of Mershing, local people said.

Now tens of thousands of families huddle on exposed ground in the nearby town of Manawashi – with dwindling stocks of food and little shelter.

Community leaders say people want to return, but are calling for an international peacekeeping force to restore security and keep the area safe.

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The mass exodus from Mershing began last Wednesday (25 January) when, according to local Sheiks, gunmen on camels and horses attacked and looted one of the camps for displaced people called Kele.

The Sheiks alleged police complicity in the attack, saying they helped to carry out the looted goods in their vehicles and led the attackers out of town.

On the following days, there were reports of attacks in other camps - Silo, Tege, and Um Gozein camps - including one in which a man who had some gold was allegedly shot and killed after refusing to hand it over.

On Thursday (26 January) evening, the militia struck Ton Kittir camp, driving their camels and horses into the camp, firing their Kalashnikovs, and looting shops, said local Sheiks.

They are also reported to have attacked the market in Mershing town using hammers to open shops.

People fled in panic as the attacks and looting continued and when neither the local police nor the African Union peacekeeping force - based 80 kilometres away in Nyala - was able to halt the deterioration in security.

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The AU sent a patrol on Tuesday and Wednesday and promised local people to return with reinforcements, but did not do so.

An AU spokesperson later told ACT-Caritas that they did not return because the Government of Sudan police were not ready to patrol the area with them, which is a requirement.

Local people said that relations between police and people in Mershing were good until about a fortnight ago, when six Government of Sudan police were killed in an ambush on the Mershing to Manawashi road.

The following Sunday, armed gunmen on horseback and camels entered the market in Mershing town, shooting and looting animals, they said. Then the number of attacks escalated.

The local governor of South Darfur has visited the area and the Sudanese authorities have said they want the people to go back.

They have agreed to withdraw the existing police force and say there could be joint patrols between the police and African Union forces within a week. But observers believe this timescale is highly optimistic.

Local people say the want to go home, but they say they need to feel secure and they want joint patrols between a new police force and an international organisation.

“Protection is the responsibility of government, but people don’t want protection here to be done by government alone,” said one Sheik.

“The government must be assisted by another organisation: the United Nations or the African Union.”

Darfur: AU Condemns Ceasefire Violations

From VOA

The African Union has condemned on-going violence in Sudan’s Darfur region. This -- as the AU mediates peace negotiations in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, between the Sudanese government and rebels. The seventh – and latest – round of talks began on november 28th and resumed after a holiday break on January 15th.

On Saturday, Sudan accused Chad of attacking a military position in West Darfur 40 kilometers north of Geneina. Chad denies the charges and says any such attack was likely carried out by darfur rebels – not by Ndjamena.

Chad and Sudan each accuse the other of supporting the other’s insurgents. Last month, Chad declared a “state of belligerence” between itself and its neighbor.

Nourredine Mezni is the AU spokesman for the Abuja peace talks. He told Voice of America reporter William Eagle that “the African Union Special Envoy for Darfur and Special Mediator, together with the entire AU Mediation Team, remain deeply concerned over the recent escalation of violence in the Jebel Marra area, particularly in the Golo and Shearia localities of Darfur, as well as in the Arminkol area of the Kulbus locality of Western Darfur. “

He said the AU Mediation team is “utterly outraged by the violations of the ceasefire, the worst this year, especially as they occurred at a critical juncture in the Abuja Peace Process when the Sudanese parties and all concerned stakeholders are striving so hard…to ensure that a peace agreement is concluded…in the coming weeks.” He says the AU is also concerned about the escalation of violence between Chad and Darfur could delay a settlement of the conflict in Western Sudan.

The AU spokesman says the AU Special Envoy emphasizes that there is no viable military solution to the conflict in Darfur, and warns that those responsible for recent ceasefire violations must be made to realize that it is unacceptable to talk and fight at the same time. He says the Special Envoy calls upon the Peace and Security Council of the AU and the Security Council of UN to consider all appropriate measures to get the parties to comply with the letter and spirit of the ceasefire agreement. The Special Envoy also calls for all parties to refrain from all hostile and offensive actions.

Sudan: GI-Net Calls for Firing of Lobbyist

A press release from the Genocide Intervention Network

GENOCIDE INTERVENTION NETWORK CALLS FOR FIRING OF SUDAN LOBBYIST

U.S. State Department Allows Exemption to Sanctions for Genocidal Regime

Advocacy Group’s Members Urge U.S. State Department to Revoke Exemption

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2006 — The Genocide Intervention Network today announces its opposition to the presence of an official lobbyist for the genocidal government of Sudan in the United States, and urges U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to revoke the sanctions exemption that allows the lobbying work to continue.

On Aug. 12, 2005, Rice exempted Sudan from long-standing sanctions to permit the hiring of a Washington lobbyist and former State Department official. The State Department claims that the lobbyist is helping the United States and Sudan communicate. Yet throughout September of last year, the government of Sudan systematically attacked civilians in Darfur, as reported by the African Union and in numerous U.S. and foreign news outlets. The genocide on civilians in Darfur continues to this day.

Clearly, GI-Net argues, the lobbyist is not getting the right message to the government of Sudan.

“The State Department should not reward the government of Sudan until the Janjaweed militias are disarmed and the Darfurians can return home,” says GI-Net Director of Advocacy Sam Bell. “A government that is unwilling or unable to protect its own people should not be given the privileges enjoyed by responsible governments.”

On Friday, The New York Times reported that Sudanese President Omar el-Beshir “denied that the government-financed Janjaweed militias existed.” By making an exception for the government of Sudan, the United States is sending the wrong signal. Sudan must be held accountable for its active role in perpetrating genocide against its own citizens.

The Genocide Intervention Network and its members will continue to urge Sec. Rice to revoke the exemption granted to the government of Sudan until it ceases perpetrating genocide on its own civilians.

Darfur: Rebels Said Attacking Civilian Buses

From BBC Monitoring - Text of report by Sudanese Media Centre website on 30 January

The Sudan Liberation Movement [SLM] has started a new looting operation in northern Darfur. The rebels attacked a bus that was heading towards Umm Ushayrah from Al-Fashir.

Witnesses told SMC [Sudanese Media Centre] that the SLM attackers started looting the passengers belongings before killing the driver. They also removed the petrol from the bus and set it ablaze, the witness added.

In the same vein, witnesses told SMC that there was also another incident in which the SLM attacked a bus that was carrying 45 passengers who were travelling to Al-Fashir from Malut region.

The witness said they were four army officials in the bus who repelled the attack from the five rebels. Four of the rebels were armed with Kalashnikovs and one had an RPG.

The witness added that the ensuing gunfire led to the death of four rebels, while one managed to escape.

The witness also said one passenger was killed and another two injured. The wounded were taken to Al-Fashir Hospital for treatment.

Darfur: Govt, Rebels Agree to Set Up Force to Monitor Cease-Fire

Not sure that this is much of an accomplishment considering that this is exactly what the AU is supposed to be doing.

From BBC Monitoring - Excerpt from report by Sudanese independent Al-Mashahir (Almshaheer) website on 30 January

AU mediators have succeeded in convincing the [Sudanese] government and Darfur rebels (the Justice and Equality Movement and Sudan Liberation Army) to form a combined force to oversee the cease-fire in the troubled region.

The head of the mediators ambassador Sam Ibok said that activating negotiations on security arrangements came following deterioration of security in Darfur and UN and AU concerns of a total collapse of the cease-fire in the region.

Ibok said the two sides agreed on Sunday [29 January] to establish a joint military unit to assist in the flow of humanitarian aid and protect workers in this field in addition to monitoring the cease-fire.

Ibok said that the joint military unit will also include the UN and the AU peacekeeping forces and its HQs will be in Al-Fashir town, Northern Darfur State. Ibok added that the establishment of the force was contained in the Ndjamena agreement, which was signed in November 2004.

Darfur: Fighting Displaces Thousands

From VOA

The United Nations says recent fighting in the volatile Darfur region of western Sudan has displaced tens of thousands of civilians and has caused the evacuation of dozens of humanitarian staff.

The spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, Dawn Blalock, tells VOA that in the South Darfur area of Sharia alone, some 10,000 people have fled the recent fighting.

She says in that area, militiamen on horseback are harassing hundreds of mostly women and children.

Aid agencies withdrew from Sharia as well as Golo and Daya in the Jabal Marra area of West Darfur, where tens of thousands of people are said to have escaped the warfare.

Blalock says there is almost no international presence now in Jabal Marra, which she explains is very worrying for the protection of civilians and the continuation of humanitarian programs.

Clashes between government troops and rebels of the Sudan Liberation Army intensified last week in Darfur.

But a new pattern has recently emerged in the conflict, says Blalock. She says government troops, somtimes abbreviated as GoS, are fighting with each other. Meanwhile, she adds, the rebels, or SLA, are also attacking one another.

"One of the things we saw in late December and early January is that we've even had GoS fighting GoS [and] SLAfighting SLA, and inter-tribal violence with Arab tribes in addition to the usual one party attacks the other and the other retaliates," she said. "That's what we're seeing right now. But overall, in Darfur, it's a prevailing environment of chaos."

Darfur: Chad Denies Accusation of Shelling

From the AP

Chad denied its army had shelled an area in Sudan’s volatile Darfur region, and rebels operating there Monday said 74 people had died in fighting.

Saturday, Sudan’s military spokesman said an area in the western border state of West Darfur came under artillery shelling from Chadian territory that lasted for one and a half hours. He didn’t specify whether the attack was carried out by Chadian soldiers or a rebel group.

The border between the two countries is tense and each country accuses the other of supporting rebel movements against them.

Chadian Information Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor told national radio late Sunday Chadian troops weren’t involved in the attack, and Darfur rebels don’t have rear bases in Chad from which they could attack Sudan.

Sudan’s accusation "aims, in fact, at hiding the aggression against Chad from the forces within Sudanese territory, and trained by Sudanese government," he said.

Sudan: UN Food Agency Makes $40 Million Appeal

From VOA

A United Nations food agency is appealing for $40 million to help Sudanese farmers, fishermen and cattle producers.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says support for Sudan's agricultural sector is crucial for ensuring lasting peace in the war-torn African nation.

It says the country's humanitarian needs "remain immense" despite last year's peace accord that ended more than 20 years of civil war in southern Sudan.

The FAO says conflict in the Darfur region, the risk of a poor harvest and the return of 680,000 displaced Sudanese make international relief a necessity.

The agency plans to use the funds raised to provide seeds and tools, fishing equipment and livestock medicine. It says some 87 percent of the people of Sudan depend on agriculture for their food security and livelihoods.

Sudan: Man Who Harboured bin Laden is Lodestar for Terrorists

From the Telegraph

If Osama bin Laden and the radical Islamist movement embodied by Hamas possess a pantheon of heroes, a Sudanese intellectual with a British education will be among them.

Hassan al-Turabi built Africa's first Islamist state when he dominated Sudan throughout the 1990s.

In 50 years at the forefront of radical Islam he harboured bin Laden in Khartoum and inspired a generation of followers across the Muslim world.

When fundamentalism was the preserve of a handful of intellectuals in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Mr Turabi helped found Sudan's wing of the Brotherhood in the 1950s.

Under his sway, Khartoum became an Islamist hub and he believes what he started back then is now bearing fruit worldwide.

"There is now an awakening all over the Muslim world, from Indonesia to Sudan and even in the northern hemisphere," he said.

"The Muslims in London or Paris, once they were just working to earn a living, now their identity is reawakened."

His period of greatest power came in the decade following the military coup of 1989. As leader of the ruling National Islamic Front and speaker of parliament Mr Turabi was the brains behind President Omar al-Bashir's regime.

His great mission was to model Sudan on 7th century Medina under the Prophet's rule.

Mr Turabi, now 74, ignored the fact that Sudan's one million square miles span the divide between the Arab world and black Africa, embracing 40 million people, at least one quarter of whom are not Muslims.

He stands accused now of inflaming the long-running civil war with the black African south which claimed at least two million lives.

Mr Turabi arguably did more than anyone else to restart that war in 1983. As attorney-general, he drafted the notorious September Laws, imposing Sharia law across the country.

Civil war erupted after 11 years of peace. When an elected Khartoum government decided to repeal the September Laws in 1989, Mr Turabi inspired the military coup and helped install Mr Bashir. Sharia law stayed, although the South was exempted in 1991.

In the 10 years after the coup Mr Turabi turned Sudan into a haven for anti-western radicals. Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the nihilist terrorist often romanticised as Carlos the Jackal, lived in Khartoum for four years until 1994.

After being expelled from Saudi Arabia, bin Laden lived in Sudan from 1991 until 1996. Mr Turabi said he was only a businessman.

"Bin Laden lived very close by here," he said. "He came as a contractor. He built a road and then he became interested in agriculture.

"The British used to come and see me and the Americans. All they talked about was bin Laden."

"I said no-one knows him here in Sudan. There are more dangerous Saudi Arabians who are in England, claiming asylum.

"I told them, 'Let him stay here', but they put pressure on the government to kick him out. The poor man"

[edit]

For years, his regime sponsored terrorism in Africa. Uganda backed the rebels in southern Sudan, so Khartoum retaliated by arming the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a fanatical cult ravaging northern Uganda. It used Sudan's weapons to abduct at least 20,000 children.

Asked whether he had approved of arming them, Mr Turabi said: "It's natural. In all wars people do the same. If there's a state of war between you and the other side, then you arm the other side's opposition don't you?"

Mr Turabi acquitted the LRA of murdering child captives. "They don't kill them by the way, they don't murder," he said.

Darfur: Sudan Slams UN Rights Report

From the Sudan Tribune

The official spokesman for the Sudan’s Foreign Ministry, Jamal Mohamed Ibrahim, has slammed the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report regarding the deterioration of human rights in Darfur and other parts of Sudan.

The UN human rights agency denounced Sudan’s government on Friday 27 January for considerable shortcomings, including allegations of torture, appalling prison conditions and attacks on civilians in Darfur.

He said that the report would give the wrong signal to the negotiating sides in Abuja and would increase their inflexibility towards achieving peace in Darfur.

The Sudanese official affirmed that the ministry had received the 42-page report from the Office of the UNHCHR and that the ministry had begun studying and analysing the report ahead of issuing a clear statement on its position towards it.

Ibrahim said that such reports, under such circumstances, at a time when there was positive and tangible progress in the Abuja negotiations would send wrong signals to the sides negotiating with the government and would increase their inflexibility.

[edit]

Ibrahim further criticized the report for ignoring many important developments which occurred at the end of last year in particular the setting up of courts in Darfur to look into human rights violations.

"The work these courts are now carrying out is completely independent from the executive organs," he added.

He further pointed out that the UN mission admitted that there was positive development in the human right situation in Darfur.

Sudan Says Sanctions Threaten CPA

From the Sudan Tribune

The Sudanese government has stressed that any move to impose sanctions on Sudan would obstruct the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed last year.

The government further warned on the danger of the international community sending wrong messages which would have a negative influence on the ongoing Darfur peace talks in Abuja.

Darfur: Violence Threatens Peace Talks

From Reuters

Worsening violence in Sudan's Darfur region could jeopardise peace talks to end the three-year conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people, the African Union's (AU) special envoy said on Monday.

Salim Ahmed Salim said a recent escalation of fighting in the central Darfur region of Jabel Marra and to the west around Kulbus could undermine a consensus being worked out by delegates and mediators at peace talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

The special envoy urged the United Nations Security Council and the AU Peace and Security Council to consider putting in place appropriate measures to ensure compliance with a ceasefire agreement between the two main rebel groups and Khartoum.

"The AU Mediation is utterly outraged by these violations of the ceasefire, the worst this year," the AU said in a statement.

"The present dangerous turn of events can only overshadow the conducive atmosphere being painstakingly nurtured at the talks, undermine the emerging consensus being worked out and worse still, jeopardise the entire peace process," added the statement.

Displaced Populations in Darfur Increasingly Face Annihilation

The latest from Eric Reeves

For the millions of people suffering and dying in Darfur, international “failure” takes many forms. US willingness to propose, as the only additional international response to massive threats against civilian life, that “the Security Council requests the Secretary General initiate contingency planning,” with a further review of the situation after the AU meets sometime in March, is an egregious form of such failure. The US clearly has no intention of expending real political or diplomatic capital on Darfur; posturing and disingenuous remarks by Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer seem to be as much as the Bush administration is prepared to commit.

Darfur: Plan to End Violence Is Failing

From the New York Times

The broad strategy for ending the carnage in Darfur, Sudan, devised over the last two years by the United States, the United Nations and the European Union, is collapsing as the violence and chaos in the region seem to grow with every passing week, United Nations and Bush administration officials say.

After three years of bloodshed that has already claimed more than 200,000 lives, officials say they are struggling to devise an effective new strategy.

"We're working very closely with our partners to see if we can turn this around," said a senior administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

But the obstacles and complications are multiplying.

Peace talks have nearly halted after government and Darfur-rebel negotiators, in the latest round, showed an unwillingness to seriously discuss anything except sharing Sudan's oil wealth. A growing military conflict on the Sudan-Chad border in Darfur is further endangering hundreds of thousands of refugees living in camps there. One of the Sudanese president's latest positions, articulated in a published interview this month, is that the government-backed militias known to be behind most of the violence are actually a fictitious creation of the media and the United States Congress.

"The looming threat of complete lawlessness and anarchy draws nearer," Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, lamented earlier this month as he urged Western nations to do more.

The international response has been so ineffectual that "people on the ground are just laughing," said Jan Pronk, the chief United Nations envoy in Sudan.

[edit]

The United Nations is considering deploying a larger force of its own peacekeeping troops to replace those of the African Union, but the discussions are at an early, preliminary stage. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed support for the idea this month. But the Sudanese government insists it will not accept United Nations forces on its territory, leaving Darfur and its surviving residents in limbo.

What is more, Mr. Pronk said this week, the United Nations "is not so eager" to take on troop commitments. "The U.N. has already reached its ceiling of commitments."

Neither he nor other officials were willing to predict how this predicament might be resolved. Meanwhile, "Darfur is in a free fall," said John Prendergast, who was director of African affairs for the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. Now he is a senior adviser for the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization.

[edit]

So far, Mr. Prendergast added, Western nations "have used an ostrich strategy, hoping with a wing and a prayer that the African Union forces would actually succeed. But they are finally acknowledging that it is not going to work."

Western leaders have all but given up on a key part of their strategy, trying to persuade Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, to disarm the militias that are responsible for a large part of the violence. The United States says his government continues to finance the militias, even though Sudanese officials claim to be working hard to bring peace to Darfur. A special United Nations committee said this month that the Sudanese government had "abjectly failed to fulfill its commitment to identify, neutralize and disarm militia groups."

Mr. Bashir generally deflects questions on the Darfur violence when meeting with visiting American officials, and instead asks them to lift the economic embargo on Sudan, senior officials said. He also urges them to continue providing aid under the peace agreement that ended a 21-year civil war with the south — the one bright spot in Sudan.
In a speech two weeks ago, Mr. Bashir called on the anti-government Darfur rebels to "repent." Then, in an interview with a German newspaper two days later, he denied that the government-financed janjaweed militias existed.

On Jan. 12, Sudan's government news agency issued a statement about the interview, saying "Field Marshall Bashir" had offered the view that "the U.S. Congress groups, which represent the Christian right and Zionist lobby, have a primarily hostile stance against Sudan and always try to incite this issue."

Iran Says "No" to Foreign Meddling in Darfur

From BBC Monitoring - Text of report by Sudanese newspaper Alwan

The Vice-President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Dr Ahmad al-Musawi, has said he cast doubts on the enemies' intentions towards the Darfur region.

In a press conference held at the Hilton hotel [in Khartoum] yesterday morning, he urged to end foreign interference in Darfur and let the Sudanese government work towards resolving the issue in a suitable way.

He further reiterated Iran's support for a Sudanese solution in this regard, and his trust in the mediation of the AU member states to resolve the crisis.

However, he said "enemies do not want our states to resolve their own problems by themselves and they go fishing in murky water, despite the ability of each state to resolve its own problems without any foreign interference in their internal affairs".

He pointed out that Iran had provided large financial assistance to the Darfur region and that the Iranian Red Crescent had set up a clinic, which provided services to the citizens of Darfur. He said his country would strive to provide constant support to Sudan.

Regarding the letter from the Iranian president to FM Al-Bashir, Al-Musawi said was meant to illustrate Iran's policy following Ahmadinezhad's ascent to power. This policy, he said, aimed at strengthening cooperation between Islamic states, in particular African [Islamic states]states.

Al-Musawi said his meeting [with Al-Bashir] had tackled international developments and reflected the Iranian President's view on these. The two leaders also discussed the strengthening of the bilateral economic relations, so as to raise them to the level of political ties existing between the two countries.

Sudan Accuses Chad of Shelling West Darfur, Says It Retaliated

From the AP

Sudan accused Chad on Saturday of bombarding an area in its western border state of West Darfur and said its army had retaliated. No casualties were reported.

The border between the two is tense and each country accuses the other of supporting rebel movements against them.

"The area of Armankul northwest of the town of Geneina, capital of West Darfur state, came under artillery shelling that continued for an hour and a half from inside the Chadian territories," military spokesman Gen. Abbas Adul Rahaman Khalifa said in a brief statement carried by the official news agency, SUNA.

He did not specify whether the attack was carried out by Chadian soldiers or a rebel group.

"Our armed forces have dealt with this aggression with a retaliation in preservation of the sovereignty of the national territories and safeguarding the lives of Sudanese subjects," Khalifa said.

The statement from did not say whether there were casualties on either side.

Sudan has accused Chad of supporting the rebels in a nearly 3-year-old rebellion in Darfur. Chad's government has also complained of periodic attacks by Sudanese militias, which they believe are linked to the Sudanese government and based in Darfur.

Khalifa said that despite Sudan's good intentions toward Chad, N'djamena was continuing "a series of aggressions on our western borders."

Darfur: News Round-Up

The latest news round-up from the Genocide Intervention Network is available

After pressure from African states and other international observers, the African Union chose to bypass Sudan for the presidency of the AU. While this potential tragedy was averted, new reports of violence between rebels and government troops raised new concerns from international observers. The United Nations continues to discuss the possibility of a multinational force in Darfur while peace talks continue to drag on.

Sudan: Kiir Complains Peace Deal Slow

From Reuters

Sudanese Vice President Salva Kiir said on Saturday implementation of a peace deal to end Sudan's north-south civil war was extremely slow and that monies owed to the south still had not been paid.

Kiir, head of the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), became first vice president under the 2005 deal which ended Africa' longest war and created a coalition government in the capital Khartoum.

Kiir said his northern partners had not given the south half of Sudan's oil revenues as the deal requires.

"We still have not got the real share of the oil revenues," he told reporters in Khartoum, adding there were differences over the amount of oil produced in Sudan.

Sudan's two main oil fields are in south Sudan, but the refinery and oil pipelines are in the north.

The northern oil minister puts oil production at around 330,000 barrels per day (bpd), but the SPLM says it could be as high as 450,000 bpd.

The south, devastated by more than two decades of civil war, desperately needs the monies to build its infrastructure and form a functioning government.

The peace agreement also gives southerners the right to vote on secession within six years.

Kiir said implementation of the deal was "extremely slow" and warned this behaviour would push southerners to vote for separation rather than unity.

"The events that are happening now clearly show that unity will not be made attractive," he said. "The southerners are very sensitive to this."

Darfur: Rebels Attack Sudan Army Base

From Reuters

Darfur rebels said they attacked a Sudanese military base in West Darfur state on Saturday killing 78 soldiers, and accused Chadian insurgents of working alongside Sudan's armed forces.

Khalil Abdallah, political leader of the Darfur rebel National Movement for Reform and Development (NMRD), said 17 soldiers were also taken prisoner in the attack on the town of Arm Yakui, some 30 km (19 miles) northwest of West Darfur's main town el-Geneina.

A Sudanese army source confirmed there was an attack on one of their bases in the area but could not give casualty figures.

[edit]

he Sudanese army source said the attack came from within Chadian territory.

"This attack came suddenly from inside Chadian territory, and we returned fire with the same force using artillery," he said. He said he had no further information from the remote region.

The NMRD operate along the Chad-Sudan border. The long border between Chad and Sudan is porous and many tribes span the frontier. Deby himself took power in 1990 in an uprising he launched from Darfur.

Abdallah said Chadian rebels, led by Mahamat Nour, had fought alongside the Sudanese armed forces in the attack.

"We don't understand why they are doing this. We have no problem with Mahamat Nour," he said.

Nour leads an alliance of Chadian insurgents called the United Front for Democratic Change, known as FUC. His group attacked the Chadian border town of Adre in December and are sworn to depose Deby.

Nour denied involvement in the clashes. "Our forces were nearby but they did not participate in the attack," he told Reuters by telephone from eastern Chad.

Darfur: Power to Protect

A press release from the Genocide Intervention Network

The Genocide Intervention Network and Students Taking Action Now: Darfur today launch the “Power to Protect” campaign, focused on bringing a unified student voice to bear on the United States’ inaction in the face of genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

Power to Protect, accessible online at PowerToProtect.org, is the first broad-based student initiative to help resolve the ongoing crisis in Darfur. The campaign will help unify students within the Darfur advocacy movement, show the United States government that there is a vocal and active anti-genocide constituency, and pressure the government to take action.

The campaign demands that President Bush and the U.S. Congress use all diplomatic means necessary to immediately deploy a larger, stronger multinational force to protect civilians in Darfur.

“Many people who are active on the issue of Darfur have focused on educating about the problem,” says GI-Net Director of Education Rajaa Shakir. “We believe that it is time to start educating our communities about the solution.”

Shakir argues that the United States can exercise its influence on the international community and take concrete steps to end the genocide, without committing any U.S. troops.

“There has been some basic discussion about a United Nations multinational force in Darfur, but the Security Council is stalled and no real action will take place until influential member countries such as the United States make a definite statement in support of this force,” Shakir says.

Africa: Action Needed to Prevent Genocides

From VOA

Juan Mendez is special adviser to the U.N. Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide. He visited Darfur in October 2004 and in September 2005. He says that although the international community has never determined whether genocide actually occurred in Darfur, he has no doubt that war crimes have already been comitted there, and he does not rule out the possibility that Sudanese-backed militia are intent on exterminating a whole race of people in Darfur.

"The situation is very tense and very complicated and all the elements that could lead to genocide are very much in place in Darfur today. So, the task of preventing genocide is by no means complete," he said.

Mendez says early warnings of a genocide include the spread of religious intolerance, racism and xenophobia. He says his job is to monitor countries to see whether these signs are present and to issue warnings to the world community to prevent genocide.

Besides the Darfur region of Sudan, Mendez says another danger area is the Ivory Coast, where there are signs of growing intolerance against immigrants. The intolerance extends even to people who have been born in the country, but are not considered true Ivorians.

"The problem as well is that the tension is so high and there are armed militias and there is extensive hate speech, all of which creates a situation of tension that can quickly derive into mass violence and mass violence in which these so-called non-Ivorians are at risk," he said.

Mendez says he is also keeping close watch on the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country that has a long history of mass slaughter.

"That is the one factor that every expert says is something to look at. When a country has experience with genocide or genocide situations, you look particularly at it to prevent things from happening again. In the DRC, the problems right now are happening in the eastern part and they by in large involve armed militias and guerrillas and armed movements. But, in an important way, it affects the civilian population in that area."

U.N. genocide expert Mendez says other countries of concern include northern Uganda, Myanmar, West Papua in Indonesia, Central Asia and the Caucuses and Colombia, where, he says, indigenous populations are at risk of extinction.

Ivory Coast: U.N. Prepares for Fresh Violence

From Reuters

The U.N. mission in Ivory Coast reinforced walls around its main base on Friday after it was attacked by rioters last week, and France warned citizens in its former colony there could be more unrest in the coming days.

The U.N. Security Council has said it is ready to impose long-delayed sanctions against people seen as obstructing Ivory Coast's peace process.

Diplomats say Charles Ble Goude, leader of the Young Patriots group loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo behind last week's riots, was likely to top the list of sanctions targets.

There are fears his organization, which can put thousands of supporters onto the streets in a few hours, could cause further mayhem. The Young Patriots accuse France and the U.N. of being too soft on rebels holding the north of the country.

Pro-Gbagbo youth leaders have threatened more violence if U.N. sanctions are imposed.

Darfur: Slovene President Urges Libya, France to Join Initiative

From BBC Monitoring - Text of report in English by Slovene news agency STA

President Janez Drnovsek has sent his appeal to solve the humanitarian crisis in Darfur to French President Jacques Chirac and Libyan leader Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi, the president told the press on Friday [27 January].

Drnovsek asked al-Qadhafi to make good on his recent promise to send 3,000 Libyan troops to the Sudanese region. Libya, which maintains good relations with the Darfur rebels and the government in Khartoum, could play a constructive role, he added.

The Slovene president has meanwhile called on Chirac to increase France's military presence at the country's military base in Chad and help the local authorities in guarding the border between the Chad and Sudan.

According to Drnovsek, such intervention could be organized faster than a normal UN-sponsored peace mission.

Moreover, Libya's military could reinforce African Union's (AU) forces already in the region, while France could place its mission within the already existing NATO effort to help the AU forces.

Drnovsek also said that he maintains regular contact with international experts with whom he is to organize next Thursday a conference on possible political solutions to the issue.

The president also announced that he is sending the famous Slovene traveller and philantropist Tomo Kriznar to Darfur as his special envoy. Kriznar will try to assess the situation and establish contact with the rebels, Drnovsek explained.

Darfur: Annan "Seriously Concerned" at Rising Violence

From the UN News Center

Reacting to growing bloodshed in the strife-torn Darfur region of Sudan, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called on all parties to respect international humanitarian law and resolve their differences at the negotiating table.

“The Secretary-General is seriously concerned by the major escalation of violence in the Jebel Marra region of Darfur, particularly the heavy fighting in the Golo and Shearia areas that has forced humanitarian agencies to evacuate,” a spokesman for Mr. Annan said in a statement issued in New York.

Condemning the attack by Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) forces on Golo, he called on all parties “to immediately stop all hostility.”

The statement also reiterated Mr. Annan’s strong call on all parties to the conflict to respect their agreements and the provisions of international humanitarian law. “A lasting solution to this conflict can only be found through a negotiated settlement,” he stressed.

CAR/Chad: New Influx of 1,000 Refugees

From Reuters

Some 1,000 refugees from the increasingly lawless northern Central African Republic (CAR) have fled to neighbouring southern Chad over the past month. The refugees, mostly women and children, said they were fleeing attacks by rebels, bandits and government forces operating in the region.

There have been some 13,000 CAR refugee arrivals in Chad since last June. The latest wave began arriving in late December in the Chadian border town of Bekoninga, 35 kms from the main southern Chad town of Goré. Many of them are from the northern CAR villages of Bémal, Markounda, Bossangoa, Bedam, Bekoto, and Nana-Bakassa. The refugees told UNHCR they fled increasing insecurity in northern CAR, including repeated attacks by various armed groups, summary executions, house burnings, and violent search operations conducted by the CAR military in their villages.

They described a scene of near total anarchy in the north, with various rebel factions and bandit gangs roaming the countryside. Some are affiliated with former president Félix Patasse. Others, former supporters of current President François Bozizé, have created their own armed factions and are now fighting against the government for control of the north. Patassé was overthrown in a coup by then General Bozizé in March 2003.

Refugees said they were targeted in violent attacks by all sides, and that rebels and bandits – or "coupeurs de route" – had been kidnapping children and demanding ransoms.

"There is a lot of suffering today in northern CAR," said Ana Liria-Franch, UNHCR's representative in Chad. "The international community needs to pay much more attention to this region, and find out what's really happening there so further displacement toward Chad can be prevented."

Earlier this month, High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres cited the deteriorating situation in northern CAR as one of the world's most neglected and invisible humanitarian crises.

"Nobody speaks about it or reports on it and it is becoming a huge problem and a major tragedy – right in the center of the African continent," Guterres told reporters at a January 12 press conference in Geneva.

"It is extremely difficult to draw international attention to this very serious problem," he said, adding that unrest in the CAR could also have serious repercussions on neighbouring countries such as Chad and Cameroon.

Darfur: Peace Deal May Be Only Weeks Away

From Reuters

The two main Darfur rebel groups could reach a peace deal with the Sudanese government within weeks now that Khartoum has shown signs of softening its position, the African Union's top mediator said on Friday.

"Unless something very dramatic happens in Darfur, we shall have a peace agreement in the next couple of weeks," AU chief negotiator Sam Ibok told Reuters, adding he hoped to see a deal signed by mid-February. "The implementation is another thing."

The Sudanese government has said the African Union's recent decision to delay its presidency of the organisation over concerns about Darfur had provided added impetus to reach a peace agreement.

"The onus is on the government to be more forthcoming," Ibok said. "The international community is impatient, the African Union is impatient. The people in Darfur are suffering."

[edit]

Six rounds of negotiation have produced a ceasefire and agreements on humanitarian access, with partial effectiveness on the ground, but major issues such as power sharing and wealth distribution are only now being discussed seriously. "We sense that there is a change of attitude on the part of the government and therefore this is also attracting a more positive reaction from the movements," said the Nigerian diplomat. "We have left behind the polemic arguments."

A framework deal agreed in the Nigerian capital Abuja could be embellished and finally signed in March, Ibok said. It would then need to be presented to other Darfur rebels who have not been party to the Abuja talks.

However, a spokesman for one rebel group said a deal would still require further concessions by the Khartoum government.

Ahmed Tugod, chief negotiator for the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said big differences still remained between the sides on power sharing, compensation for war crimes, distribution of taxation and security arrangements.

"If there is commitment from the government, I think we can reach agreement by February," he told Reuters. "We are not yet convinced that ... the government has made a clear determination to solve the problem by peaceful means."

The JEM and the larger Sudan Liberation Army have agreed with the government on 80 percent of the agenda on wealth-sharing, which covers issues such as war crimes compensation and distribution of tax revenues.

The parties put aside contentious issues such as rebel demands to merge the three areas of Darfur into a single autonomous region and appoint a vice-president from the region.

Instead, talks are focusing on who will run the desert region and how it will be represented in the central government's institutions, Ibok said.

Improving security in Darfur should be international community's first task, he said.

"The situation on the ground continues to deteriorate and as long as you have the clashes between the government and the movements ... the level of confidence between the parties will be affected," he said.

Sudan Turns Blind Eye to Rape, Murder

One more article on the new OHCHR report (which can be found here) - from Reuters

Killings, rapes and indiscriminate attacks driving tens of thousands of people from their homes continue in Darfur with perpetrators including soldiers who fired at civilians from helicopter gunships, the United Nations reported on Friday.

A 42-page report from the Geneva office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights chastised the government of Islamist-minded coup leader Omar el-Bashir, saying promises to end centuries of discrimination and marginalization of black African minorities were marked by "token gestures" while murder and torture go unpunished.

There has been growing pressure for stronger sanctions to be imposed by the U.N. Security Council, to be chaired beginning in February by the United States, which accuses Sudan's government of genocide.

The report details numerous cases of rape of African women -- some told "so you will have Arab blood," others because they were "slaves" -- and said victims who tried to get justice were instead abused.

One was beaten by three army officers, others were told they were lying and, in one case, a state doctor said rape was impossible because the woman was not a virgin.

There appeared to be "a lack of political will" to end impunity that encouraged attackers.

The report implied the government was blocking aid, saying aid workers have been ambushed and looted and recommending the government "permit and facilitate" humanitarian and development assistance.

"The human rights situation for Darfurians was made worse by the failure of the government to prevent and protect the internally displaced and villagers from being killed, assaulted, and raped by armed militias," the report says.

Instead, "in some of the attacks there was a clear government involvement," with troops fighting alongside militiamen or targeting civilians in alleged response to attacks by rebels, the report says.

Dafur: Peacekeeping Debate "Immaterial"

From Christian Aid

As the international community debates who should protect displaced people in the Darfur region of Sudan, attacks on the camps where many seek refuge – some run by Christian Aid partners – continue unabated.

Civilians in Darfur continue to face daily assault from bandits and Sudanese government-backed militias. Each day women are raped and families are intimidated and robbed.

According to the UN, fighting is continuing in the region, where rebels are trying to take Golo, a government-held town in western Darfur,

The fighting has forced around 100 aid workers to flee, the BBC has reported.

There are also clashes in south Darfur, near Shearia.

Aid agencies are finding it increasingly difficult to help the more than two million people who have fled their homes in the face of this violence.

The new head of the African Union, Congo's Denis Sassou Nguesso, has insisted that the AU should retain control of the peacekeeping operation in Darfur.

But many commentators believe that African Union (AU) troops are unable to perform their role of protecting the people of Darfur.

Christian Aid argues that there are too few AU troops with insufficient resources, supported by a mandate that leaves the Sudanese government responsible for the security and safety of its population.

Yet the reality is, it is argued, that most of these attacks are taking place with the blessing of the Sudanese government – an accusation denied by Khartoum.

However, there have recently been attacks by the government-backed militia, the Janajaweed in the Mershing camp in south Darfur.

The peacekeeping troops of the African Union had promised to protect these camps last autumn. Armed Sudanese police are also located in the area.

But neither these troops nor the police were able to stop these latest attacks. Around 90% of the people from Mershing’s eight camps, which hold 35,000 people, have fled and are understood to be sleeping in the open without water nor security.

Christian Aid’s partner, the Sudan Social Development Organisation (SUDO), has a clinic in Mershing; all employees have been forced to leave the camp.

As the situation deteriorates, debates are taking place as to whether the operation in Darfur should become a United Nations mission or remain under an AU mandate.

‘This discussion is immaterial’, said Stephanie Brigden, of Christian Aid’s Africa policy team.

‘The question ought not be who will protect the people of Darfur, but how? We need a proper mandate that gives greater emphasis on protecting civilians – not a mandate that concentrates on documenting breeches of a fast-failing ceasefire.

‘The mission must also be better resourced, logistically, financially and with more troops, to implement a proper protection mandate.’

UN Peacekeeping Chief Sees Role for Force in Darfur

From Reuters

The United Nations understands that it will eventually have to take over peacekeeping duty from the African Union in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, the top U.N. peacekeeping official said on Friday.

Under Secretary-General Jean-Marie Guehenno said such a mission would require a robust, rapidly deployable force with sufficient firepower to deter marauding gunmen in an area the size of France where there was no real peace to keep.

[edit]

peaking to reporters after talks with the European Union and NATO, Guehenno said members of the two organisations had most of the military capabilities required and should consider how they could help with tactical transport and firepower.

"We've seen the conclusions that the African Union reached at its latest meeting. So we understand very well that at some point the African Union will pass the baton eventually to the U.N.," he said.

The 7,000-strong AU force was performing a difficult task "because very often there is no real peace in Darfur", Guehenno said, and priority should be given to diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire.

"Even if there is a ceasefire it's clear the situation in Darfur will remain difficult. There are multiple players and there will always be a temptation to get around the ceasefire.

"So that's why we say there will have to be a very robust force in Darfur which will be able to compensate with mobility for what it lacks in numbers," he said.

Guehenno sought to avoid institutional tensions between the European Union and NATO over which organisation should take a role in western Sudan.

He said NATO had provided valuable logistical support to the AU force, notably by transporting troops, but it would be a choice for each member nation as to whether to participate in future peacekeeping operations and in what framework.

The Sudanese government has rejected suggestions U.S. and European troops would be sent to Darfur, arguing the international community should instead focus on providing more equipment and funding to AU troops already in the region.

The United States has not offered any of its troops for a Darfur mission. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Liberia this month she hoped there would be enough African troops to meet the challenge.

Sudan: UN Rights Chief Wants end to "Impunity"

A Retuers article related to the previous AFP article

The United Nations human rights chief on Friday called on Sudan to end a "climate of impunity" and curb the abusive and unchecked powers of its security forces.

In a second report on Sudan, the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said efforts to improve respect for human rights since a January 2005 peace agreement had fallen short of aspirations.

The peace deal with southern rebels ended a 20-year civil war in Africa's largest country.

But fighting continues between rebels, the army and government-backed militias in Sudan's vast western region of Darfur, where more than 2 million people have been driven from their homes and tens of thousands have died.

The UNHCR report said people in Darfur suffered from widespread rights abuse and an ineffectual judicial system, as well as the continuing armed conflict.

Citing the testimony of victims and witnesses, along with government officials, the report noted allegations of torture against the National Security Service, military intelligence and police officials in Khartoum.

"The National Security Service should be stripped of its abusive and unchecked powers of arrest and detention," the report said.

It also urged the government in Khartoum to reform the judicial system by giving it more money and staff and to revoke all immunity laws protecting state officials.

In Darfur, it said attempts to investigate abuse and bring those responsible to account had proven "highly insufficient".

The government had shown "an inability or unwillingness to prosecute perpetrators of human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law," it said.

UN Denounces Sudan for Lack of Progress on Human Rights

From AFP - no link avaliable yet

The UN human rights agency denounced Sudan's government on Friday for considerable shortcomings, including allegations of torture, appalling prison conditions and attacks on civilians in Darfur.

On the basis of a report submitted by investigators who talked to victims of rights violations and witnesses, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) urged the government to "end the culture of impunity throughout Sudan."

The UNCHR team went to Africa's largest country to assess progress since the end in January last year of what had become the continent's longest civil war and the entry since then of southern rebels into the government.

The rapporteurs said that reforms in Sudan, which was politically dominated by Arabic-speaking northerners but geographically extends deep into the heart of black east Africa, would need more time and could bring positive changes in the near future.

Overall, however, the UNHCR considered "efforts to improve the situation on the ground have fallen short of aspirations" since some "initiatives have been superficially and inadequately implemented".

The security service, military intelligence and police routinely tortured suspects in Khartoum, the rapporteurs concluded, while "the absence of fair trial guarantees as well as inhuman detention conditions are of serious concern."

Those responsible are currently covered by legislation granting them immunity from prosecution, said the UNHCR, so the government should revoke these laws and "end the culture of impunity throughout Sudan by, among other things, adequately financing, reforming and staffing the judiciary."

The rights agency noted that a root cause of conflict both in the south, where rebellion lasted for more than 20 years, and in the western region of Darfur wracked by violence since early 2003, was perceived economic and political marginalisation.

The report recommends that resource allocation be fair, transparent, non-discriminatory", the UNHCR said, and the "government should cease its attacks on civilians (and) disarm militias".

In Darfur, an Arabic horseback militia called the Janjaweed has driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes into displacement or across borders as refugees by systematically targetting communities of black African origin and practising a scorched earth policy.

The UN body said the government must "install an active, professional, well-trained law enforcement system in Darfur with adequate resources" and "must allow civil society to function freely, with restrictions on the media, political parties and unions being the exception rather than the rule."

The report coincides with this month's resumption of peace talks between Darfur's rebels and the Khartoum government resumed in the Nigerian capital Abuja, mediated by the African Union.

DRC: Guatemala Seeks Clarificatrion on Deaths of Peacekeepers

From Xinhua

Guatemala wants to know the real cause behind the deaths of its eight soldiers on a peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the government said Thursday.

Guatemalan Foreign Minister Jorge Briz said he had sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, questioning the world body's latest report on the deaths.

The Guatemalan peacekeepers were not supposed to take part in any secret mission, while the French daily Le Monde said the eight soldiers were killed in a secret operation led by British intelligence agents to catch the Ugandan rebel leader from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), according to Briz.

Le Monde contradicted the UN report which made no mention of the secret mission and said that LRA members had ambushed a contingent of peace-keepers on Monday in Congo.

Republic of Congo: MSF Pulls Out of Pool Region

From IRIN

Following several armed hold-ups during the last two months in the Republic of Congo's Pool region, the Dutch branch of Medècines Sans Frontiéres (MSF-Holland) has temporarily suspended its activities in the area.

"MSF has decided to temporarily suspend all its activities in the districts of Kindamba, Mindouli and Vindza. The activities in the districts of Kinkala are continued," MSF announced in a statement on Thursday.

"On 17 January, marked MSF ambulances with patients and medical equipment on board were stopped by armed men. MSF staff and patients were harassed, and the material was stolen," MSF said. After three such incidences, MSF suspended its operations on 20 January.

MSF is the second humanitarian organisation to leave the Pool since the start of 2006. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had suspended its operations a week earlier.

Darfur: Africa's Ghosts

From The Oxford Student

"They came at six o’clock in the morning. We were all still in bed. They came to kill and to burn the village; to kill all the people in the village. “We heard the gunshots from our beds, and then it started. It was like war. If there was someone who was black, like me, then they were going to shoot him. If there was a girl, then they were going to rape her. It didn’t matter if she was a child. “The village was totally destroyed, lots of people had died and there were bodies everywhere.

There were a lot of bodies. We had to bury the bodies. Children and the women, we buried them all.” In 2001, Faisal Omar was in the centre of what Jan Egeland, UN Humanitarian Coordinator, calls “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” in the region of Darfur, Sudan. When we spoke he was sitting in front of me on a stone stair, pushed out of the back of the exam schools, perched amidst the throng of Freshers’ fair, feeling “quite weak”, as he was fasting for Ramadan.

His position is unique amongst any of the people I have had the chance to interview. His achievement has been survival. What he has seen and felt is something that no-one else in that Freshers’ fair has come even close to experiencing. At the age of 28, he has lost his family, witnessed countless murders, suffered torture. You would think that he would bear some visible scars, to mark him out from the freshers wandering past us.

Yet there is an amazing normality about the way he talks about the things he has seen. There’s no noticeable difference between “they killed my village” and “my train is at 4.30” in his tone of voice. Omar has seen the very worst of the world and of humanity. It’s a wonder he can speak about it at all. Darfur has seen ethnic disputes for many years. But now ethnic violence has escalated to genocide.

Darfur: Thousands Displaced by Renewed Fighting

From IRIN

Thousands of civilians have been displaced by renewed fighting between Sudanese government forces and rebels in the western Darfur region, United Nations officials said on Friday.

Most of those newly displaced had fled fighting around Golo and Daya in the Jebel Marra area of West Darfur, said Andy Pendleton, the area coordinator for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The exact number of those displaced could not be immediately established.

The situation in Golo and Daya remained "very tense". Humanitarian agencies have been reducing their staff in West Darfur State in the past month due to rising tensions in the area, Pendleton added.

Other sources said the latest fighting in West Darfur had been going on for about five days and involved Sudanese government troops and rebels of the Sudanese Liberation Army.

Dawn Blalock, spokeswoman for OCHA in Sudan, said some 400 internally displaced persons in Sharia, South Darfur, had been harassed by militiamen on horseback. Most of them were women and children.

"OCHA has been in touch with the appropriate officials asking them to intervene in the area," she said by telephone from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

By Friday, at least 90 humanitarian staff working for several international nongovernmental organisations had been evacuated from Golo and Daya.

Darfur: Aid Workers Flee Renewed Fighting

From Reuters

Troops and rebels battled yesterday in a resurgence of violence in Sudan's war-shattered Darfur province that has forced the evacuation of more than 100 aid workers, the UN said. Meanwhile, pressure built for stronger UN sanctions against the government.

African peacekeepers came under fire and a UN helicopter crash killed a Sudanese humanitarian worker during the evacuations Wednesday, prompted by fighting that erupted two days earlier when rebels attacked the government garrison town of Golo.

Darfur: Fighting Forces UN to Evacuate Seven Staff

From the UN News Center

The United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) today evacuated seven of its staff members to South Darfur’s capital, Nyala, from the Sharia area after fighting broke out there between the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and Sudanese government forces.

The fighting has continued and clashes have also taken place in areas of Jabal Marra in central Darfur, according to UNMIS.

In another development, the mission reported that a person reported mission following yesterday’s helicopter crash in Jabal Marra had been later confirmed dead. None of the injured passengers, who were on a humanitarian mission when the accident occurred, had to be taken to Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, for medical treatment.

Darfur: Envoy Sees UN Peace Force by 2007

From the AP

The United Nations will deploy a peacekeeping force in Sudan’s Darfur region by early 2007, a top U.N. envoy forecast in remarks released Thursday.

Jan Pronk said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper that he expected the force to be on the ground "in this year or at the start of 2007."

"That depends on the (U.N.) Security Council, which has not yet reacted to a decision by the African Union. I expect a decision in February," Pronk was quoted as saying.

Sudan: Podcast With Eric Reeves

The Committee on Conscience has a very interesting podcast interview with Eric Reeves

JERRY FOWLER: Let us turn to what is happening on the ground in Darfur. You were one of the first to begin to call attention to it which, sad to say, was almost two years ago. In recent months, the situation seems to have deteriorated once again after a period of relative, if negative, stability over the summer. What is causing the current deterioration?

ERIC REEVES: There are a number of factors. Probably the chief is that the combatants on the ground in Darfur have tested the African Union, the monitoring force that is the sole international response to human insecurity, the insecurity of humanitarian operations on the ground in Darfur. The African Union force has been tested, found wanting, and that only encourages the combatants, the Janjaweed, Khartoum’s Arab militia proxy, Khartoum’s own forces; and the rebel movements, which are increasingly fragmenting, and there is great danger in that fragmentation, and that is a very large part of the violence we are seeing. There is also increasing opportunistic banditry. We are about to enter a fourth failed planting and harvest season, beginning this spring. There is very little in the way of food reserves, cattle reserves, means of sustaining life in the face of now famine-like conditions in many places, so people are stealing food; people are stealing vehicles; people are stealing not for military purposes, but for survival purposes, for narrowly, self-interested, economic purposes. I think in the absence of a robust, international, humanitarian intervention, what we will see is a continuing attenuation of African Union ability to provide security, and in fact, their mandate is not to provide security; it is to monitor the non-existent ceasefires. Until there is an appropriate mandate, with appropriate personnel and resources, I am afraid what we will see is a continuation of what has become genocide by attrition. It is not so much the violent human destruction that we saw for so much of 2003, 2004—in fact, we can go back to 2002—but people are now dying from the consequences of this antecedent violence. They have no food, they have no water in many rural areas, camp conditions are in many ways appalling, humanitarian access is diminishing, humanitarian evacuations are a terrifying development of the last couple months.

JERRY FOWLER: By humanitarian evacuations you mean, humanitarian personnel who are pulling back from helping the population?

ERIC REEVES: That is right. The humanitarian organizations on the ground in Darfur are all operating in the red zone; at the far end of the acceptable security conditions, and in fact, in many places, those security conditions have deteriorated to the point where roads cannot be used, even helicopters cannot be used for fear of being shot down, and recently for example, the United Nations withdrew all non-essential personnel from West Darfur, the most insecure of the three Darfur states. Whenever humanitarian personnel withdraw, that leaves the people they were serving without humanitarian services.

Ivory Coast: Using the Media to Orchestrate Violence

From IRIN

As the United Nations this week considered slapping sanctions on Cote d’Ivoire leaders undermining peace efforts, one young hothead warned this could be a trigger for war.

Those responsible for last week’s anti-UN protests could bring 10 times more people onto the streets, Eugene Djue, leader of the “Patriots’ Union for the Total Liberation of Cote d’Ivoire”, this week told the daily newspaper “24 Heures” (24 Hours).

His group would “consider sanctions as a declaration of war,” he said. Mobilisation of the Young Patriots movement loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo last week was at “a tenth of its capacity”, he added.

To get their supporters out into the streets last week, youth leaders aired hate messages on radio and state TV, a favoured medium for whipping up political sentiment in Cote d’Ivoire since the country descended into civil war after a failed coup in September 2002.

The battle for control of the airwaves has been at the centre of the struggle for power in Cote d’Ivoire, with factions notably seeking a hold over state radio and television broadcaster Radiodiffusion Television Ivorienne (RTI).

Several people died in last week’s protests, hundreds of UN peacekeepers were forced to beat a retreat, UN offices, compounds and vehicles were torched and ransacked, and there has been severe disruption to humanitarian aid to more than three million people.

[edit]

Interpreting the mediators’ stand as a move to dissolve parliament, protesters accused the UN of meddling and hundreds of members of the Young Patriots militia invaded RTI state television, helping pro-government journalists to take over the main channel's programming.

After broadcasting the national anthem, youth leaders urged viewers to join the demonstrations. Several top television officials later said were told they would be replaced if they did not cooperate.

Darfur: Help Risks Being Too Little, Too Late

From Reuters

Worsening violence in Sudan's Darfur needs an urgent international response, but the fear is that help will again arrive late, a top United Nations human rights envoy said on Thursday.

"The situation is unraveling … and if it comes apart, the danger to civilians will be very great," said Juan Mendez, U.N. special adviser on the prevention of genocide.

Mendez, who presented a report to the U.N. Security Council last October warning of growing bloodshed in the troubled western Sudan region, told Reuters that differences within the 15-member body acted as a brake on action.

"We are always moving slowing and in cumbersome ways, and doing as little as possible," he said. "The main problem is that we have a bottleneck in the Security Council because of the difficulty of getting consensus," he added in an interview.

International Justice: Belgium Wants Habre Extradited

From Reuters

Belgium said on Wednesday it would consider going to the International Court of Justice in The Hague if Senegal refused its request to extradite Chad's former leader to stand trial for torture and mass murder.

Belgium's chances of getting hold of Hissene Habre appeared to diminish on Tuesday after African leaders called on legal experts to review the matter.

Belgium wants to put Habre on trial for atrocities committed during his 1982-1990 rule, under a law which allows its judges to prosecute human rights violations wherever they take place. Habre has been living in exile in Senegal for the past 15 years.

After Senegalese appeals court declined to rule on the extradition request, Senegal sought the advice of the African Union at a summit held this week in Sudan.

Following a meeting with heads of state on Tuesday, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade called for the creation of a panel of experts.

"It must be Africa which tries him ... it is a question of finding an African judiciary to judge the case," he said.

The announcement was hailed by Habre's lawyer as a victory for his client.

A spokesperson for Belgium's justice ministry said it had yet to receive formal notice of Senegal's final decision on its extradition request.

But she said that if it was rejected, the ministry could take further steps.

"There are a number of procedures available," said Annaik de Voghel, elaborating on recent comments made by Belgian justice minister Laurette Onkelinx.

"The matter could be brought to the International Court of Justice (in The Hague) for arbitration," she said.

Darfur: Local AI Chapter Meets With Govt Officials

An op-ed by Hans M. Wuerth in The Allentown Morning Call

On Jan. 19, a small delegation of the Lehigh Valley Chapter of Amnesty International (myself and Karen Berry, Ed Simons, Maria Weick) returned to Washington, D.C., to discuss the U.S. policy on Darfur with State Department officials. During a similar trip in 2005, we held meetings at the offices of our two U.S. senators. Last year we were cautiously optimistic that the international community would force the Sudan government to stop the bloodshed. And yet, in 2006, the genocide continues and, according to The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof, ''has been getting much worse since about September 2005.''

Security at the State Department is very tight. Once inside, four young spokespersons summarized some key U.S. political and military strategies in Sudan. We were told that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Bush administration attach top priority to achieving and enforcing a tentative peace agreement between the Khartoum government in the north and the rebel leaders in the south. ''We are doing everything we can,'' they said, because the entire region, including Darfur, ''is close to everyone's heart.'' Urgently needed are a long-term presence, additional funds approved by Congress, and an expanded role of the African Union troops. (Regrettably, recent reports have documented the ineffectiveness and inability of the A.U. to protect civilians from the savage attacks by the pro-Arab militia, the so-called Janjaweed.)

We share the State Department concerns over the Janjaweed's disruption of food supplies and humanitarian aid, the physical threat to relief workers, and the ongoing brutal abuse of defenseless women. We advised them to send a high-ranking U.S. envoy to Sudan (for example, Colin Powell or James Baker III) and to favor including Darfur in the president's State of the Union address. But we left disillusioned over the non-enforcement of a no-fly zone over Darfur and the absence of constructive steps to support a multinational force. They said ''large-scale violence has dropped off,'' but no reports support this. We also disagreed with them over CARE's credible claim of 10,000-plus innocent people who perish each month. ''This is unrealistic,'' they responded. The U.N. predicts that in the event of Darfur's total collapse, ''the death toll there will reach 100,000 a month.''

At the office of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill, staff member Heather Flynn pleaded for a bipartisan effort to press NATO for a multinational force and for the passage of House Bill 3147, the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, that would provide more funds for a more effective African Union force. Ms. Flynn, Sen. Joseph Biden's assistant, said that the United States, the U.N. and NATO must increase their diplomatic and military efforts, but ''it's got to come from the president.'' Finally, we shared our concerns with a staff member of Rep. Charles W. Dent, R-Lehigh Valley.

Darfur: Activism

From Africa Action

On January 31st President George Bush will address the nation in the annual “State of the Union” speech. This historic speech falls on the eve of the U.S. presidency of the UN Security Council. Violence continues to rise in Darfur, and Sudan is teetering on the edge of open conflict with neighboring Chad. Leaders in the United Nations (UN) and the African Union are discerning the best action to take in Darfur. This is the critical moment when leadership from the U.S. could empower the international community to protect the people of Darfur. Please send a message to President Bush and ask him to use this moment to promise America that he will take the action necessary in the UN to stop genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

From the Georgetown Voice

Students Taking Action Now: Darfur will hold a “die-in” today at 12:40 to raise awareness about the Sudanese genocide.

“It’s basically going to be about 30-40 students lying down in Red Square, hopefully causing a disturbance…that will cause people to stop and read the information that we’re tabling with,” STAND member Trinh Nguyen (NHS ‘09) said.

The Georgetown die-in is part of a nation-wide event with over 50 participating colleges and universities. Tomorrow’s event will kick off a four-month campaign to send postcards and letters to President Bush and Congressional representatives asking for a multinational military force in Sudan.

Uganda: Ready to Attack Rebels in Congo

From Reuters

The Ugandan military is ready to "deal with" rebels in neighbouring Congo who killed eight U.N. soldiers this week, President Yoweri Museveni said on Thursday.

Eight Guatemalan commandos died and five were seriously wounded on Monday in a four-hour gun battle with fighters from northern Uganda's shadowy Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

LRA guerrillas moved into eastern Democratic Republic of Congo last year, and in September Museveni accused the United Nations and the transitional Congolese government of sponsoring terrorism by failing to disarm them and other Ugandan rebels.

"We told the U.N. they should allow us to go and deal with them in Congo, because we know how to fight those criminals," Museveni said during celebrations at an airfield marking two decades since his National Resistance Movement seized power.

"They didn't listen to us," he added.

"The other day I saw (the LRA) had killed some of their people ... We are ready, if the Congolese government and the U.N. want us to deal with that issue, we shall deal with it."

He thanked the Sudanese government and former rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army for letting Ugandan troops operate in southern Sudan, where the LRA has hideouts.

Darfur: Talks Resume

From AFP

Peace talks aimed at ending the bloody war in the Sudanese region of Darfur are once more fully under way after the latest in a series of hold-ups, an African Union spokesman said.

"All the three frameworks -- security arrangements, power sharing and wealth sharing commissions-- established for negotiation during the current round of talks resumed deliberations," spokesman Noureddine Mezni said in a statement.

AU officials have brought representatives of the Khartoum government and Darfur's indigenous rebel movement to the Nigerian capital Abuja in a bid to an end to a conlfict which has been raging for almost two years.

Progress has been slow, but mediators said that by dividing delegates into working groups they had made progress in seeking agreements on strengthening a shaky ceasefire and laying the foundations of a political settlement.

The commission on security arrangements met Wednesday to begin in-depth discussions on "security arrangements for an enhanced humanitarian ceasefire," after it received the written positions of the Sudanese parties, Mezni said.

AU mediators have also asked the United Nations to provide expert technical advisors to enhance their negotiating capacities.

"These advisors are expected to assist the AU and the parties on the practical issues of disarmament, the cantobnment of fighters and demobilisation," Mezni explained to AFP.

During a session on Tuesday, AU special envoy Salim Ahmed Salim, had warned of the "total impatience of the United nations and the international community at the very slow progress" made in the last two months since talks resumed.

Darfur: MPs Demand 'Sanctions' on Sudanese

From Press Association

The United Nations must impose "credible sanctions" on the Sudanese government until it stops blocking peacekeeping operations in Darfur, MPs have said.

And they called for the struggling African Union force to be given a full UN mandate - including massive extra resources to help end the bloodshed.

The international development committee said it backed the "African solution to an African problem" approach but criticised a lack of political will to make it a success.

Darfur: Jewish Organizations Plan a Big Push Against Genocide

From Forward

Jolted by the tepid response to the genocide in Darfur, Jewish communal organizations are mobilizing at an unprecedented level for an issue that might appear tangential to Jewish concerns.

National and local Jewish organizations are gearing up for a rally to be held April 30 in Washington under the aegis of the Save Darfur Coalition, which brings together more than 150 faith-based and human rights groups and in which Jewish organizations figure prominently.

Organizers also intend to deliver a million handwritten and electronic postcards to the White House at the time of the rally, demanding a more effective American response and American support for a stronger multinational force to protect civilians in the war-stricken region.

"Darfur hit a heartstring in the Jewish community," said Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. The council is a body that coordinates 13 national and 122 local Jewish agencies on issues of social justice, among other concerns. "It shows that when we say 'never again,' we mean it.... It is one of those moments when everybody seems to be saying the same thing and we see an extraordinary force coming about."

The Bush administration in 2004 applied the term "genocide" to the repressive actions conducted by the Sudanese government and its henchmen against the population of Darfur. The United Nations passed a series of resolutions, and the African Union introduced troops into the area. Even so, according to diplomats and relief groups, the situation on the ground has worsened.

"This is the first time the United States has determined that a genocide was taking place while it is still happening, but at the same time, the administration has failed to act on it," said Ruth Messinger, president and executive director of the American Jewish World Service. The AJWS, a Peace Corps-like charity, has spearheaded advocacy efforts on Darfur for the past two years. "This is what gets the Jewish community moving. They know the price of silence during the Holocaust and Rwanda," Messinger said.

Darfur: Rebels Battling for Govt Held Town

From the BBC

Fighting is continuing in Sudan's war-torn Darfur province, where rebels are trying to take a government-held town, the UN says.
The clashes have prompted aid agencies to pull out of the area around Golo. The US has condemned the rebel attacks.

One of the Sudanese aid workers being evacuated was killed on Wednesday when a UN helicopter crashed.

More than two million people have been forced from their homes and at least 180,000 have died in the conflict.

"Fighting is still continuing with heavy weapons" in the West Darfur town of Golo, said UN spokeswoman Radhia Achouri.

She urged all sides to cease hostilities.

Some 100 aid workers - including 15 survivors of the crash - have now left the area.

There are also clashes in South Darfur, near Shearia.

Without aid workers in the region, details on casualties are sketchy but almost 30 soldiers and policemen were reportedly killed on Wednesday.

Darfur: The Killing Continues

From The Scotsman

TONY Blair has admitted that the international community is failing Darfur and that more troops are needed to curb the violence, after MPs criticised the lack of political will to stop the bloodshed.

The Prime Minister's acknowledgement of the crisis came ahead of MPs' demands that the Sudanese government face sanctions over its tacit support for the murderous militia.

[edit]

In its report, Darfur: the Killing Continues, the committee called for the British government to pressure the United Nations into imposing "credible sanctions" against the Sudanese government until it complied.

The African Union's "ability to protect civilians and humanitarian operations is hamstrung by limited capacity, insufficient resources and political constraints", the report said.

When questioned by Sir Menzies Campbell, the interim Liberal Democrat leader, over the lack of action, Mr Blair said: "I think the international community is failing people in Darfur."

The report from the House of Commons is available here [PFD].

Darfur: Reminders

1. Kofi Annan, writing in the Washington Post, says the "transition from the A.U. force to a U.N. peace operation in Darfur is now inevitable" and that "those countries that have the required military assets must be ready to deploy them."

2. Eric Reeves has a new piece noting that Khartoum's failure to head the AU won't mean much for the people of Darfur.

3. Tony Blair says the "international community is failing the people in Darfur" and calls for more peacekeepers.

4. The African Union wants any UN force in Darfur to be under the command of the AU.

5. The UNHCR is warning of looming humanitarian catastrophe if instability between Chad and Sudan worsens.

Darfur: What Do You Mean Could?

I was reading over the statement delivered by António Guterres, the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees, to the Security Council yesterday and was struck by this remark

The international community could face a catastrophe in Darfur

Guterres was discussing the growing tension between Chad and Sudan, and while it is undoubtedly worsening an already bad situation, what exactly does he mean by "could face a catastrophe in Darfur"?

The United States has called it genocide and the UN's own Commission of Inquiry found

[T]hat Government forces and militias conducted indiscriminate attacks, including killing of civilians, torture, enforced disappearances, destruction of villages, rape and other forms of sexual violence, pillaging and forced displacement, throughout Darfur. These acts were conducted on a widespread and systematic basis, and therefore may amount to crimes against humanity.

It is not that "the international community could face a catastrophe in Darfur" but rather that the international community has refused to face up to this catastrophe for more than two years.

The only thing the international community is facing now is an even greater catastrophe.

Sudan: Eastern Peace Talks Delayed Again

From AFP - via POTP

he thrice-delayed first-ever round of peace talks between the Sudanese government and eastern rebels due to start this month in Libya has once again been postponed, the rebels said.

Instead of beginning in January, after earlier delays from November and December, the talks are now set to start next month at Libya's request, the Eastern Front rebel group said.

"The talks will now start on February 7th because the Libyans have asked this," said Abdalla Kuna, the head of political affairs for the front from its offices in the Eritrean capital.

The peace talks are to be held in Tripoli but their start has been delayed several times these last few months.

Earlier this month, the rebels accused the Sudanese army of launching an attack on its camps in the eastern Hamesh Koreb region, sparking clashes that left casualties.

Despite this, Kuna said the talks would go ahead "because now there are no more problems in Hamesh Koreb, the UN has deployed some troops there this week."

Like their better-known rebel counterparts in Sudan's troubled western Darfur region, the Eastern Front complains of marginalization by the government in Khartoum, which it accuses of exploiting natural resources such as oil, natural gas, gold and other minerals at the expense of the local population.

Kenya: UN Agency Stocks Run Low as Drought Leaves Millions in Need of Aid

From the UN News Center

With drought devastating parts of Kenya, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is warning of a humanitarian disaster in the country without new donations to help millions of people who will need outside assistance to survive.

If WFP does not obtain fresh contributions, Kenya will run out of food aid within weeks for 2.5 million people in the drought-stricken north and east, the Rome-based agency said today.

“Since our last appeal in December, we have received very little against the growing needs,” said WFP Executive Director James Morris. “We don't have enough for the 1.2 million people we are currently feeding, let alone the expected increase to 2.5 million or more in February.”

Darfur: Britain Calls for More Peacekeepers

From VOA

Prime Minister Blair has faced new questions about the Darfur crisis during his weekly appearance in parliament.

"I think the international community is failing the people in Darfur, which is why it is so important that we take the measures that the development secretary, indeed the government, have been pressing for," he said. "And those measures have got to include not just the immediate humanitarian help, but also to make sure that the African Union peacekeeping force comes up to its full strength."

Mr. Blair says a number of steps need to taken to bring peace to Darfur, but he defends British policy on the issue.

"The only way that the situation in Darfur is going to improve is when there are sufficient numbers of peacekeeping forces on the ground to keep the combatants apart, when the process of dialogue and peace takes place, which we have been calling for, and obviously, where the measures are in place to improve humanitarian help," he added. "So we have to do more, but we are doing more and I would just point out we as the British government have been leading in this area and will continue to do so."

Darfur: Rebels Ready for Talks After AU Decision

From Reuters - via POTP

A main Darfur rebel group said on Tuesday it would continue peace talks with Sudan after Khartoum failed in its bid to become head of the African Union this year, but had reservations about its appointment for 2007.

"Of course we will continue on peace talks. We expect the problem of Darfur to be solved next year," Khalil Ibrahim of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) told Reuters.

A Sudanese government official told Reuters that the Sudan Liberation Army, the other main Darfur rebel group, was continuing talks in Abuja. The group could not immediately be reached for comment.

African Union: Rights Commission Challenges African Leaders

From Reuters

An African human rights commission is challenging the continent's worst rights offenders, including Sudan and Zimbabwe, in a move analysts say is a "coming of age" for the organisation.

The African Union is reluctant to criticise members, but at a summit the alliance showed it would not ignore atrocities as it elected judges for an African human rights court, and fought a diplomatic battle not to allow host Sudan to become its head.

The AU's human rights commission issued rare and critical reviews of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Those countries said they wanted a chance to reply before the report became public, ensuring it remained confidential.

"If the African Union is to have a strong voice it has to foster constructive criticism not bury it," said Reed Brody from the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

The report, obtained by Reuters, expressed concern at "the intimidation of independent judges and the interference of the executive in the judiciary" in Zimbabwe.

It condemned Eritrea for arbitrary arrests and long detentions of ex-ministers, journalists and parliamentarians, and demanded their immediate release.

In Ethiopia it called for the release of political prisoners and said it "deplored the death of civilians during confrontations with security forces". It also urged an inquiry into the clashes over elections last year.

For the summit host Sudan, who was snubbed for the chairmanship because of atrocities in its western Darfur region, the commission called on the government to immediately cease all attacks on civilians and to support aid workers trying to feed 2 million refugees.

It urged Sudan to cooperate fully with the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is probing alleged war crimes. Sudan says it will not allow ICC investigators to enter Darfur.

Darfur/African Union: False Hope

A new piece from Eric Reeves in The New Republic

The African Union made a noteworthy decision yesterday: For the first time in its brief history, the organization denied the AU chairmanship to the government hosting its annual summit--in this case, the genocidal Sudanese regime. The National Islamic Front, which dominates Sudan's nominal "government of national unity," was initially the only announced candidate for the position; but in the end Congo Republic President Denis Sassou Nguessou received the nod.

The United States and Nguessou both praised this development effusively. "I think it is really great because it affirms that the AU has standards and principles," said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer. For his part, Nguessou immodestly declared that his selection represented an "important and relevant decision, and our proceedings bear witness to this. Our summit has been a tremendous success." But such unstinting praise was hard to find elsewhere, and for good reason.

For one thing, the move hardly signals a new commitment to human rights by African leaders. Nguessou isn't exactly a model democrat (like the National Islamic Front, he came to power via a coup). And the fact remains that Sudan should never have been the site of an AU summit: This in itself did far too much to legitimize the Khartoum regime.

DRC: Peacekeepers Retreat

From United Press International

The United Nations says the campaign in Congo's Garamba National Park against the Uganda-based Lord's Resistance Army has been canceled.

It comes the day after eight U.N. peacekeepers from Guatemala were killed and five wounded Monday in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's northeastern region during a firefight with members of the LRA, generally known as a band of adult-led children that roams north from Uganda up into southern Sudan and westward from Uganda into the Congo and back again.

The U.N. Mission in the DRC, known by its French acronym MONUC, said Tuesday the Garamba Park operation was canceled and peacekeepers taken to the city of Kisangani.

Maj. Gen. Patrick Cammaert, division commander for peacekeepers in eastern Congo who was visiting U.N. World Headquarters in New York, told reporters Tuesday the remaining peacekeepers were extracted by helicopter from the scene of the battle.

Asked about reports some of the slain peacekeepers had been decapitated by machete, he declined comment, saying he had heard no such reports and was awaiting debriefings of the combatants and medical examinations of the dead.

However, Cammaert did say the peacekeepers had been following up on reports from civilians and non-governmental organizations in the area saying LRA members armed with AK-47 automatic weapons were harassing civilians in the region, forcing many to flee the area.

African Union: Editorials

From the Los Angeles Times

AS PROGRESS IS MEASURED IN Africa, the selection Tuesday of the president of the Republic of Congo to head the African Union represents an important step forward. At the same time, choosing Denis Sassou-Nguesso over President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir of Sudan is sort of like passing up Idi Amin in favor of Moammar Kadafi.

From the Boston Globe

LEADERS OF the African Union meeting in Khartoum stopped just short of disgracing themselves utterly when they decided yesterday to reject the bid of Sudan's National Islamic Front regime to assume the presidency of their regional organization. Had President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan succeeded in his quest to become president of the African Union for 2006, the other members would have fallen into the trap of legitimizing the perpetrator of a genocide in Darfur that 7,000 African Union peacekeepers are supposed to be halting and that the International Criminal Court is currently investigating.

In a compromise that casts doubt on the AU leaders' grasp of the humiliation they avoided, they promised Bashir, who seized power in a 1989 military coup, that he can be AU president in 2007. This diplomatic balancing act amounted to an obtuse rejection of a recent letter from more than 50 African civil society organizations petitioning the AU leaders not to ''deeply undermine and erode the credibility of the AU" by allowing Bashir to become the icon of the African Union.

African Union: Ex-Chad Dictator's Case Refered to Panel

From the AP

Habre's fate is now in the hands of African leaders, who decided Tuesday at the annual African Union summit in Sudan to form a committee of African jurists to decide within six months what should happen to him. The case is loaded with implications for African presidents, who include coup leaders and others accused of human rights violations.

"For 15 years we have been crying for justice," said Clement Abaifouta, who was detained for four years in the same overcrowded house as Totodet.

"People died from torture in prison, they died from diseases contracted there, they died because there was no medical care, they died of asphyxiation because we were crammed like sardines and there wasn't enough air," he added in an interview.

Like many of those prisoners, he said he does not know why he was detained. In detention, he volunteered for burial duty because it got him out of the cramped conditions every day, he said.

"I buried so many bodies that to this day I remain unmoved by the sight of a corpse," he said.

At the summit, African leaders expressed a preference for an "African solution" to the problem of what to do about Habre. That indicated a distaste for extraditing Habre to Belgium, where a judge in September indicted him for crimes against humanity and torture, a ruling made after four years of investigations. A truth commission in Chad had already estimated that Habre's regime killed 40,000 of its citizens.

Options include trying him in a Chadian court or setting up a court under the African Union.

The African jurists' decision could set a precedent for others living in comfortable exile, such as Liberian Charles Taylor, who started a 10-year civil war and sponsored rebels in Sierra Leone. Taylor has been indicted by a human rights court in Sierra Leone, but host Nigeria has refused to extradite him.

Darfur: UNHCR Warns of Potential "Catastrophe"

More from IRIN

The international community could face a catastrophe in Darfur if instability in the Chad-Sudan border area continues to worsen, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has warned.

In his address to the 15-member UN Security Council on Tuesday, Antonio Guterres described the Chad-Sudan situation as probably the "largest and most complex humanitarian problem on the globe".

"Today, violence and impunity - never completely in check - are again everyday occurrences in Darfur," he said. "Humanitarian workers are regularly cut off from the displaced and those they are trying to help."

Darfur: UN Force Must Be African-Led

From Retuers

The African Union would want to maintain control of peacekeepers in Sudan’s Darfur region even if U.N. soldiers were sent to bolster the mission, the new head of the continental body said.

Congo Republic’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who was appointed by African leaders on Tuesday as chairman of the AU, said he would welcome U.N. support for around 7,000 AU troops in Darfur but that the force had to remain African-led.

"The United Nations can bring forces, but all of that should be to support the AU forces, under the command of the AU and its officers who are there," Sassou told Reuters in a joint interview with French radio late on Tuesday.

"This dossier must be managed by the African Union. I believe that the international community will understand that it is better to operate like that," he said after an AU summit in Sudan’s capital Khartoum.

Africans Union: Congo Republic Leader Picked

From a New York Times piece by Marc Lacey

In some respects, Mr. Sassou is not so different from the man who failed to get the job. Both Mr. Sassou and Mr. Bashir took power in military coups, in 1979 and 1989, respectively. The two soldiers also preside over countries that have spent much of their postcolonial history torn by civil war.

But one major difference is that the Congo Republic has managed to quell its civil war, while Sudan has reached a peace deal in one big conflict, its 20-year-long north-south dispute, only to find itself enmeshed in another one, the crisis in Darfur.

Also, while Sudan is in the early stages of allowing political dissent, Mr. Sassou opened up his country to multiparty elections in 1992. They did not go as he planned, and he found himself voted out of office. But he resurfaced five years later, backed by Angolan troops, and grabbed back the presidency in a brief but bloody civil war.

He fared better in his second attempt at electoral politics, winning by a landslide in March 2002.

Human rights organizations praised African leaders for rebuffing Mr. Bashir's bid for the chairmanship and offered lukewarm praise for Mr. Sassou.

"Sassou's human rights record is nothing to celebrate, but there are not atrocities on the level of Sudan," said Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch.

Mr. Sassou's colleagues described him as serious, eloquent and committed to the betterment of Africa.

Jendayi Frazier, the American assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said Mr. Sassou was a leader the Bush administration could work with to help resolve the crisis in Darfur, indicating that the United States would continue to back the African Union's peacekeeping mission there.

Darfur Descending

An op-ed in the Washington Post by Kofi Annan

When I visited Darfur last May, I felt hopeful. Today I am pessimistic, unless a major new international effort is mustered in the coming weeks.

[edit]

Despite a chronic funding crisis, A.U. troops in Darfur are doing a valiant job. People feel safer when the troops are present. But there are too few of them -- a protection force of only 5,000, with an additional 2,000 police and military observers, to cover a territory the size of Texas. They have neither the equipment nor the broad mandate they would need to protect the people under threat or to enforce a cease-fire routinely broken by the rebels, as well as by the Janjaweed militia and Sudanese government forces.

On Jan. 12, the African Union decided to renew the mission's mandate until March 31, while expressing support, in principle, for a transition to a U.N. operation this year. The timing of this transition is still being discussed, including at this week's A.U. summit in Khartoum. This puts the Security Council on the spot. The U.N. Charter gives the council primary responsibility for international peace and security. And in September, in a historic first, U.N. members unanimously accepted the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity, pledging to take action through the Security Council when national authorities fail.

The transition from the A.U. force to a U.N. peace operation in Darfur is now inevitable. A firm decision by the Security Council is needed, and soon, for an effective transition to take place.

But let no one imagine that this crisis can be solved simply by giving the present A.U. mission a "U.N. hat." Any new mission will need a strong and clear mandate, allowing it to protect those under threat, by force if necessary, as well as the means to do so. That means it will need to be larger, more mobile and much better equipped than the current African Union mission. Those countries that have the required military assets must be ready to deploy them.

Such a force would take the United Nations months to deploy. In the meantime, the A.U. mission must be maintained and strengthened. We cannot afford any gaps or any weakening of the force in place. Last May the African Union and the United Nations organized a donor conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to raise money and logistical support for the A.U. force. A follow-up conference is planned for Feb. 20. At the same time, the massive relief operation must continue, and be fully funded, so that Darfur's people continue to receive clean water, food and other vital supplies.

[edit]

One thing is clear: Whatever external force is sent to Darfur can provide at best only temporary security to the people there. Only a political agreement among their leaders can secure their future and the return of 2 million of them to their homes.

Darfur: U.N. Helicopter Crashes, One Missing

From Reuters

One person was missing after a U.N. helicopter carrying 13 people crashed on Wednesday while evacuating aid workers in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, the United Nations said.

A U.N. statement said none of the other passengers were seriously injured.

The African Union, which is monitoring a shaky ceasefire in the region, said the rebel Sudan Liberation Army attacked the government-held town of Golo earlier this week. About 60 aid workers have since been evacuated.

"A U.N. helicopter crashed today...near Golo in the Jebel Marra area where fighting has been taking place," the U.N. statement said.

One U.N. source said the aircraft made a forced landing because of a problem with its rotor.

Sudan Blames US for Loss of African Union Chairmanship loss

From the AP

Sudan blamed the U.S. for its loss of the chairmanship of the African Union Tuesday, saying Washington brought pressure on poorer countries dependent on its aid and sent a high-ranking official to help foil its bid to lead the organization.

Interior Minister Zubair Bashir Taha told the official Sudan News Agency that U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer "came with specific plans and on the margin of the summit she conducted consultation ..."

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir lost a bid to head the A.U. after some African countries, donor nations and human rights groups said his election would harm Africa’s image because his troops have been accused of committing grave abuses in an effort to stamp out a rebellion in the western Darfur region.

[edit]

Frazer could not be reached for comment after the summit ended late Tuesday night. But State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington: "We believe that the decision that the A.U. leadership arrived at is positive."

The U.S. administration had opposed the Sudanese candidacy because the A.U. has a mission in the country with a mandate in part to protect people in Darfur and stabilize the region.

Taha said Sudan "denounced the continued plotting that is being woven against the Sudan so as to impede it from bringing to light its huge potentials."

Darfur: UN Official Warns Security Council of Looming Humanitarian Catastrophe

An update on the earlier story - from the UN News Center

The situation in Sudan’s western Darfur region has deteriorated severely over the past six months, the top United Nations refugee official told the UN Security Council today, warning of calamity there and in other parts of the country unless bold measures are taken soon.

“Today, violence and impunity – never completely in check – are again everyday occurrences in Darfur. Humanitarian workers are regularly cut off from the displaced and those they are trying to help,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) António Guterres said in his address to the 15-member body.

He said the violence was spilling over the border into Chad, where the UNHCR cares for many of the 200,000 Sudanese refugees, and appealed to the Council to pressure all the parties in Darfur to agree on a peace deal, a necessary precondition for reconciliation there.

Guterres' statement is here and a report on his briefing is available here.

African Union: Leaders Refuse to Extradite Habre to Belgium

From AFP - no link available

African leaders on Tuesday decided against extraditing Chad's former dictator Hissene Habre to Belgium to face trial for crimes against humanity, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Waye said.

"I will not allow Hissene Habre to be tried elsewhere other than Africa," Wade told reporters on the second day of an African Union summit held in Khartoum.

Habre, who ruled Chad from 1982 until he was deposed in a coup in 1990 by current President Idriss Deby, was placed under arrest in Senegal in November.

Senegal had asked the union to decide the ex-president's fate after its courts ruled that they had no jurisdiction in the case.

A commission of legal experts will be established to examine the case and Habre's fate will be discussed again at the next AU summit scheduled to be held in July in Banjul, the capital of the Gambia, said Wade.

African human rights and civil society organizations had appealed to the AU to either extradite Habre to Belgium for trial on human rights abuses or set up a court to try him itself.

Habre, 63, known as "Africa's Pinochet," is wanted for trial in Belgium after three nationals of Chadian origin filed suit in a Belgian court in 2000 for arbitrary arrest, mass murder and torture.

"If this commission can come up with a realistic African solution for him to be tried in Africa, then we support it," said Reed Brody from US-based Human Rights Watch, who is coordinating Habre's victims' international campaign.

In a statement sent to AFP in Dakar, Brody said HRW was "disappointed that the African Union did not recommend Hissene Habre's extradition to Belgium, whose international arrest warrant and extradition requests are still valid."

But Habre's laywer El-Hadji Diouf predicted that the AU panel of legal experts would come up empty-handed.

"The commission will not be able to try or extradite him. The legal experts will realise that there is no further recourse," Diouf said.

United Nations: Peacekeeping and Fraud

From United Press International

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton says revelations of procurement fraud in the United Nations, alleged to have cost tens of millions of dollars, reinforce the need to tighten supervision by the U.N. secretary-general's office.

The renewed call for greater oversight of the U.N. secretariat Monday came after an internal audit uncovered more than 200 cases of potential abuses in procurement.

"Member governments do not adequately fulfill their supervisory and oversight responsibilities," Bolton said on his way into a Security Council meeting on an unrelated matter. "There's a lot of blame to go around. I think part of the lesson for member governments is that greater oversight over the secretariat is obviously needed."

[edit]

Monday's revelations about waste and possible fraud in peacekeeping procurement may sour international support for what could be peacekeeping's 19th active mission in Sudan. The report told of "significant evidence of abuse" in peacekeeping, officials said, though they declined to give specifics.

Bolton said he was "not sure" whether the procurement abuses would affect U.S. support for a peacekeeping mission in Darfur. The Bush Administration has termed the violence there "genocide" but has been criticized as responding inadequately.

[edit]

Further action by the United Nations in Darfur, including a possible peacekeeping mission, was expected to become a major topic over the next few months. Jan Pronk, the U.N.'s representative in Sudan, two weeks ago called for 13,000 more troops to join the African Union monitoring team in the region.

Pronk also urged the Security Council to consider taking over the AU mission. The United Nations last year sent troops to help enforce a peace agreement that ended 21 years of civil war between the northern and southern parts of the country.

But violence in Darfur, a Texas-sized region in the west of Sudan, has worsened in recent months. Attacks by the Janjaweed, a government-sanctioned militia, on villagers' homes and crops have increased. Aid workers have been kidnapped, and members of the African Union force have been killed..

The AU force was deployed in 2004 but has largely been viewed as ineffective. But resources, especially fuel, have been hard to come by for the AU mission, and experts say it could do more with more money.

The size of the AU force in Sudan -- 7,000 troops monitoring the security situation for nearly 200,000 displaced persons in an area the size of France -- has also limited its effectiveness.

Unless donor contributes increase, the AU expects to run out of money by the end of March, its leaders say. The African Union has indicated it is considering letting the United Nations take over its operations, but the government of Sudan has made clear it will not approve a U.N. mission in Darfur.

African Union: No Conditions Placed on Sudan for 2007 Chair

From AFP

Sudan will not be obliged to fulfil certain conditions to take the helm of the African Union in 2007, even though its peace efforts in the western region of Darfur are important, the new chair of the AU said Tuesday.

"The Darfur issue is important but there are no conditions for Sudan to become chair," said Congo President Denis Sassou-Nguessou at the end of a two-day summit in Khartoum dominated by Sudan's bid to head the 53-nation body.

Sudan's candidacy to preside over the continental body had failed to win unanimous support because of the conflict in Darfur, where the AU is mediating peace talks and has deployed a 7,000-strong peacekeeping force.

African leaders picked Congo to lead the AU this year and agreed that Sudan would have its turn in 2007.

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade earlier had said that "Sudan will next year certainly be designated but on condition that the situation improves, that there is a solution for Darfur and a solution for its relations with Chad."

Darfur: US Welcomes Slovene President's Initiative

From the State Department's Washington File

The United States welcomes Slovene President Janez Drnovsek's willingness to marshal additional international resources to provide aid for the estimated 1.8 million internally displaced persons in Sudan’s western Darfur region and 200,000 refugees in Chad, the State Department said January 23.

Drnovsek held a press conference on the initiative January 18 at the United Nations headquarters in New York. "The World for Darfur" initiative, which is sponsored by Slovene humanitarian organizations as well as by the Slovene government, is intended to provide shelter, water, food and schools for 10,000 Sudanese.

Acknowledging the “modest” scale of Slovenia’s aid package given the magnitude of the humanitarian emergency in Darfur, Drnovsek said the initiative also is aimed at generating greater awareness about the crisis, which has resulted in as many as 180,000 deaths and has displaced millions in the past three years.

“While the parties continue to seek a political solution to the crisis in Darfur and the African Union Mission in Sudan strives to monitor the fragile cease-fire agreement, there remains the daunting daily task of caring for the innocent victims of this humanitarian tragedy,” the State Department said in a January 23 statement welcoming the initiative. “It is expressions of generosity as espoused by President Drnovsek and the Slovenian people that stand to benefit the 3.4 million people currently affected by the political and humanitarian crisis in Darfur.”

President Bush was the first head of state to speak out publicly on the unfolding violence and atrocities in Darfur in 2004, and the United States was the first country to call for action in the United Nations Security Council, as well as later providing $160 million to help fund an African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission to Darfur.

The United States, which has facilitated talks on the conflict in Abuja, Nigeria, has held the Khartoum government and Khartoum-backed militias called the Jingaweit responsible for much of the violence in Darfur.

"We continue to make categorically clear the responsibility of the government of Sudan -- now the government of national unity -- to both end support of the Jingaweit and to work actively to stop its actions while ensuring the discipline with the government of national unity's own forces," Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer told a House subcommittee on Africa November 1, 2005.

In fiscal year 2005, the United States provided more than $650 million in humanitarian assistance and support to the AU peacekeeping mission, and more than $450 million in reconstruction and humanitarian assistance to other areas in Sudan.

Darfur: February 1st and 2nd are Days of Action

From Africa Action

February is the Month: Protect Darfur

Join Africa Action in two important days of action. On February 1st we are hosting a National Call-In Day to the United Nations (UN) and on February 2nd we are hosting a rally and direct action at noon at the White House.

Join us at this critical moment to Stop Genocide in Darfur, Sudan. This is the moment of truth. Violence in Darfur is escalating, and for the first time the United Nations (UN), the African Union and the U.S. have called for an urgent multinational peacekeeping intervention with a mandate to protect civilians. Since the genocide began in 2003 over 400,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced, their livelihood and villages destroyed by the Sudanese government and their proxy militias. Without an intervention, the violence will continue to rise and threaten the vulnerable people of Darfur and the humanitarian operations indented to help them.

The U.S. is the only government to have declared that genocide is taking place in Darfur, giving it a unique responsibility to obtain international action on this crisis. For the month of February, the U.S. is the President of the UN Security Council, providing an ideal moment for the U.S. to lead the international community to stop genocide. Join us to tip the balance and push the Bush Administration to take the action necessary to stop genocide in Darfur. To learn more about this critical moment and the need for a multinational intervention please see our fact sheet, statement and escalation campaign strategy.

February 1st – National Call-In Day to the United Nations

February 1st is the first day of the U.S. presidency of the UN Security Council. Let’s call U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, and ask him to take the action necessary to stop genocide in Darfur. By calling the mission we demonstrate how many people across this nation care to see action on Darfur and we send the message that we are watching the U.S. while they are in this leadership position at the UN.

On February 1st, a national call-in day on Darfur, please call the UN with the following message:

“Hello. I am calling with a message for U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton. Mr. Bolton, as you take the presidency of the Security Council, I urge you to introduce a resolution for a multinational intervention in Darfur in support of the African Union with a mandate to protect civilians. As the violence continues to rise in Darfur, there is no more time to waste. Thank you.”

You can reach the U.S. Mission at the United Nations by calling: (212) 415-4050.

We will send an alert with more details about this call-in day on February 1st, so feel free to Sign Up for our alerts today.

February 2nd – February is the Month: Protect Darfur

February 2, 2006
12:00 Noon

Lafayette Park
(16th and H Streets NW)
Washington, DC

The rally on February 2nd will include engaging speakers and creative street theater. The rally will be held in Lafayette Park, in front of the White House. If the U.S. has not complied with our demand for a UN Security Council Resolution, after the rally, a select group of activists will cross over to the White House sidewalk and engage in a dignified act of civil disobedience to draw attention to the urgency of our demands.

You can participate fully in the rally without any risk of arrest. We have a permit for the rally and it will be safe to participate in. The planned civil disobedience will be organized seperately but paralel to the rally.

If you plan to risk arrest, we will ask you to sit with other select leaders on the White House sidewalk with signs about Darfur. You will be given three warnings. If you do not stand up and leave after the second warning you will be arrested and charged with a misdemeanor. You MUST have with you a valid photo identification to risk arrest. Once arrested you will be processed at a local station and fined $75. Please come prepared to pay the fine and expect that it will take between 2-4 hours to be processed. We can provide you with the address of the station so that you can arrange your travel home. Please do not wear or bring anything extra, as it will take you longer to be processed. Avoid wearing jewlery, shoelaces, belts or carrying anything in your pockets. If you would like to take part in the direct action, please contact the office at mobilize@africaaction.org with the subject “arrest” or call 202-546-7961 so that we can brief you on the details of the scenario and ensure your safety.

African Union: Press Releases

From Human Rights Watch

African leaders rightly rejected Sudan’s bid for the African Union’s presidency this year, but should not reward Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with Africa’s leadership next year as long as the human rights disaster continues in Darfur, Human Rights Watch said today.

The African Union announced today that Congo-Brazzaville would assume the A.U. leadership this year, but would be followed by Sudan in 2007.

“The A.U. has taken the right decision to reject Sudan’s candidacy this year, but Darfur remains a disaster,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa Division at Human Rights Watch. “If the atrocities in Darfur make Bashir unsuitable to lead Africa this year, it's hard to see how he’ll be suitable next year unless he takes credible steps to end the crisis in Darfur.”

Human Rights Watch said Sudan should not be given the A.U. presidency unless it disarms the government-backed Janjaweed militias, allows millions of displaced Darfurians to return home in safety, and brings those involved in war crimes to justice.

From Human Rights First

While Human Rights First welcomes the fact that Sudan’s President has not been elected as Chairperson of the African Union in 2006, we are concerned that the government of Sudan’s position as summit host and A.U. chairperson in 2007 is undermining the organization’s ability to contribute effectively to the resolution of Africa’s many human rights problems, especially to ending the crisis in Darfur. “A government that is implicated in the most serious violations of human rights should not hold a leadership position in the African Union, an organization dedicated to promoting human rights and the rule of law in Africa,” said Maureen Byrnes, Executive Director of Human Rights First.

The African Union sponsors the peacekeeping force in the Darfur region and is taking the lead in diplomatic negotiations on Darfur. Over two million people have been displaced from their homes in that area. Hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result of the conflict in which the Sudanese government is one of the main protagonists. “The A.U. cannot effectively sponsor the peacekeeping operations or credibly lead diplomatic negotiations while the government of Sudan plays a leading role within that organization” added Byrnes.

Darfur/Chad: More Refugees Arrive as Guterres Calls for 'Bold Measures' to Avert Catastrophe

From UNHCR

UNHCR reported Tuesday that Sudanese refugees are again fleeing Darfur for camps in neighbouring eastern Chad, while High Commissioner António Guterres warned the UN Security Council in New York of a "much greater calamity" in the region unless bold measures are taken soon.

"Today, violence and impunity – never completely in check – are again everyday occurrences in Darfur," Guterres said in a Tuesday morning address to the 15-member Security Council. "Humanitarian workers are regularly cut off from the displaced and those they are trying to help."

The UN refugee agency chief noted that the insecurity in Darfur has now spread across the border to Chad, where last Friday armed rebels took several government officials hostage and attacked the village of Guéréda, where the UN refugee agency is caring for more than 25,000 Sudanese refugees in two camps.

"The international community could face a catastrophe in Darfur," Guterres warned. "Averting it will require bold measures and the full involvement of the African Union and the United Nations. If we fail – if there is no physical protection for those in need of aid – the risk is a much greater calamity than what we have seen so far."

[edit]

Small groups of 10 to 20 Sudanese refugees continue to arrive daily in Gaga, which currently has 6,600 residents and is the newest of UNHCR's 12 camps in eastern Chad. They say more people are ready to leave Darfur because of continuing insecurity.

As the new arrivals erected tents and built straw fences around them for protection against the cold and the sandstorms, they told UNHCR staff variations of the same sad tale.

"I am from Guelo, a village in Darfur, and with my wife and five children, we crossed the border and walked four days to get to Gaga," said Djidrine, a 74-year-old man who recently reached the camp. "Guelo was our home for the past ten years and I have never seen such horrendous violence. The attack took place at night. They stole all our cattle. They killed and injured many people. Thank God, I have been able to flee with my family and arrive safely in Gaga."

African Union: U.S. Praises Decision Not to Appoint Sudan as Head

From Reuters

The United States on Tuesday praised the African Union's decision not to select Sudan as its next head, saying it sent a message that human rights abuses would not be tolerated by the 53-member body.

Jendayi Frazer, the top U.S. official on Africa, said any decision to appoint Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir as chairman in 2007 should be conditional on an end to violence in the western Darfur region, which Washington has called genocide.

"I think it is really great because it affirms that the AU has standards and principles," Frazer, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, told Reuters.

"It's an outstanding outcome," she said in Khartoum, venue of an AU summit.

After hours of intense talks, African leaders on Tuesday decided not to appoint Bashir, the only official nomination, as its chairman, instead selecting Congo Republic's President Denis Sassou Nguesso to lead the alliance.

Divisions over the candidacy have hijacked the two-day summit giving leaders little time to talk about other issues.

But Frazer said this was a big step forward from the old Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the AU's predecessor, where "any old dictator" could lead the body.

She said choosing Sassou was a good move, as Congo was to take a non-permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council giving a voice to the African body there.

"I think that Nguesso will be a strong leader. Certainly the United States has a good relationship with him," she said.

[edit]

The compromise included a clause that Sudan would assume the chair of the alliance in 2007. But Frazer said if insurgencies continued in Darfur and eastern Sudan, leaders would have the same objections to Bashir taking the helm at the AU next year.

She said it was a good incentive for Sudan to solve the Darfur rebellion, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives, as well as a smaller revolt in the east.

"(But) if the situation has not changed then I do not expect that Sudan would be a viable candidate in 2007 any more so than it was in 2006."

DRC: Deaths are Price of Peacekeeping Offensive

From Reuters

Sending in special forces and helicopter gunships to battle marauding rebels, U.N. troops in the Congo are pushing the limits of their peacekeeping mandate and taking casualties in the process.

The deaths of eight Guatemalan peacekeepers in combat on Monday highlight the U.N.'s determination to take the offensive in Democratic Republic of Congo's east, where rebels continue to roam and government forces repeatedly flee their positions.

"There is a resolve to push the bounds of peacekeeping -- we are in uncharted territory here," a senior U.N. officer told Reuters, a day after the eight Guatemalan blue helmets were killed in an operation to track down Ugandan rebels.

"Despite the tragedy of eight deaths, this underlines the U.N.'s resolve to try and deal with these problems," he added.

African Union: Profile of Denis Sassou-Nguesso

From IRIN

Newly elected African Union (AU) head, President Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of Congo (RoC), has ruled his country twice - from 1979 to 1992 and then again from 1997 to date.

Born in 1943 in a farming family in Edou, a village about 400 km north of the capital, Brazzaville, he received his early education at a teachers' college in Dolisie, in the southwest of the country.

Afterwards, he pursued a military career, receiving training from 1961 to 1963 at the officers' schools of Cherchell in Algeria and at the infantry academy in Saint-Maixent, France.

In December 1969, after he returned to RoC, Sassou-Nguesso co-founded the Congolese Workers Party (PCT). The PCT was then the only political party in the country. He held senior posts in the Congolese security apparatus and at 25 years of age, was nominated defence minister.

On 5 January 1979, Gen Jacques Joachim Yhomby Opango was overthrown and Sassou-Nguesso became the country's president. Seven years later, he became chairman of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU - later renamed AU).

At the OAU, Sassou-Nguesso headed the "Africa Fund" against the apartheid system in South Africa - a role acknowledged during a visit to Brazzaville in 2005 by South African President Thabo Mbeki.

In 1988, Sassou-Nguesso headed the "Protocol of Brazzaville", which dealt with the retreat of Cuban troops from Angola. In 1990, the same protocol helped liberate Namibia from colonial subjugation.

In 1990, under pressure from the Confederation of Congolese Unions, he agreed to open the Congo to a multiparty system. In 1991, the country organised a national conference that created transitional institutions for democracy and Sassou-Nguesso lost much of his powers to a new prime minister.

In 1992, in the first pluralistic presidential elections ever to be held in the Congo, Sassou-Nguesso lost to President Pascal Lissouba. Thereafter, he disappeared from the national political arena, retreating to his fiefdom in Oyo and then going into exile in France.

In 1997, with the support of Angola, Sassou-Nguesso fought a bloody war against Lissouba, took power and organised a government of national unity.

In March 2002, he won an election with 89.41 percent of votes cast.

Darfur: Rebels Launch Attack

From Reuters

Darfur's main rebel group launched an offensive against a government-held town, coinciding with a move to suspend peace talks, aid workers and the African Union said on Tuesday.

The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) attacked Golo, a town in the central Jabel Marra region of Darfur that has changed hands several times in the three-year conflict, the sources and a U.S. official said.

"The SLA launched an offensive on Golo yesterday. The government reacted," a senior African Union official said, without giving details.

The AU has about 7,000 troops in Darfur monitoring a ceasefire that has regularly been violated by both sides.

An aid worker in Darfur in close contact with the region around Golo also said the SLA had launched an offensive on the town and said several people were injured.

U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, said about six soldiers were killed in the attack, in an area controlled by an SLA leader, Abdel Wahid Mohamed el-Nur.

Golo has been a focus for tension as it is now in government hands but overlooked by hills which are a rebel stronghold.

"This is bad and ... it points towards a splintering of the rebel movements," she said. "It suggests we really need to speed up the talks -- it's a very fragile situation," she added.

Congo to Head AU, Not Sudan

From Reuters

The African Union on Tuesday chose Congo Republic as a compromise to chair the organisation after opposition to Sudan because of fears its human rights record could hurt the continent's credibility.

Under the deal, Sudan takes over leadership of the 53-nation body after Congo Republic steps down next year.

Critics had said Sudan should not get the chair while it was under fire for rights abuses in its western region of Darfur, where 7,000 AU peacekeepers are trying to uphold a tentative ceasefire between the government and rebels.

Some delegates and diplomats said the solution was mainly a face-saving measure for Sudan, which had initially been reluctant to withdraw its candidacy. They said Sudan's chairmanship in 2007 could well be challenged later on.

Congo/Uganda: Guatemala Will Not Withdraw Troops After LRA Attack

From Reuters

Guatemala said on Monday it would not withdraw special forces troops serving in Congo as U.N. peacekeepers, after eight of its soldiers stationed there were killed in a battle with Ugandan rebels.

Guatemalan army spokesman Jorge Ortega told Reuters the remaining troops, members of an elite force created to fight insurgents during the Central American nation's own 1960-1996 civil war, would stay in the Democratic Republic of Congo to complete their mission.

"We are not thinking of retreating ... this is the cost of peace," Ortega said.

The eight dead were among about 80 Guatemalan soldiers on a reconnaissance mission in Congo's Garmaba National Park, on the border with Sudan, looking for rebels from neighboring Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army or LRA.

The soldiers, part of the Guatemalan contingent of 105 troops serving in the post-war U.N. mission in Congo, were attacked by the rebels on Monday morning.

Five more Guatemalan soldiers were injured in the attack, the second deadliest in the history of the U.N. force.

Officials said helicopters were deployed to help the soldiers and that at least 15 LRA fighters were killed in the fighting, adding that most of the 50 or 60 rebels were believed dead or wounded.

African Union: Stalemate Over Sudan's Bid to Head AU

From Reuters

African nations were split on Monday about whether Sudan should head the African Union (AU), a move that could sink Darfur peace talks and which critics say would damage Africa’s credibility abroad.

[edit]

But late on the first day of a two-day summit in Khartoum and after some heated exchanges between rival camps behind closed doors, the grouping was still unable to choose and appointed five countries to propose a solution.

“It was a fierce battle, tooth and nail. It would be horrible if it goes to a vote tomorrow,” said one senior delegate, describing the discussion during more than four hours of closed-door talks.

[edit]

The AU appointed a committee comprising Egypt, Gabon, Zimbabwe, Djibouti and Burkina Faso — representing Africa’s five regions — to propose an end to the deadlock, delegates said. Their choice will go before the summit on Tuesday.

“We do not want to make any division in order to achieve an objective, so if that means that Sudan should withdraw, we will withdraw,” Sudan’s presidential adviser on foreign affairs, Mustafa Osman Ismail, told Reuters.

Sudan: US Works to Delete Senior Members of NIF From Sanctions List

From Eric Reeves' latest analysis

With this as political context, Rice’s bland words in Monrovia are hardly encouraging:

"‘I think the Khartoum government should be cooperative,’ said Rice. ‘They have a problem in Darfur. The international community expects them to contribute to solving it and also expects them to allow the international community to contribute to solving.’”

But of course Khartoum has engineered the “problem” in Darfur---they don’t simply “have” a problem. And the “problem” has been given a terribly specific name---by the Bush administration, by the Parliament of the European Union (in a 566 to 6 vote, September 2004), by senior officials of the British and German governments, as well as by numerous human rights groups, including Physicians for Human Rights, and international law scholars---the name of “genocide.”

To date, the Bush administration, despite its own genocide determination, has been content to praise an AU force that has for many months clearly been unable to halt the ethnically targeted human destruction of African tribal populations in Darfur. Thus in an egregious moment of mendacity, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer declared in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “The African Union effort in Darfur has demonstrated why deployment of African troops is a viable option” (November 17, 2005). This was not simply transparent dishonesty: it was dishonesty in expedient service of a desire to forestall meaningful discussion of what is truly required for human security in Darfur.

Devising the political means of walking away from such dishonest assessment is one way of conceiving the difficulties facing Secretary Rice in Monrovia. This would account for her saying misleadingly of Darfur, "‘the circumstances are beginning to change in a way that suggests that the AU mission may not be sufficient’” (AP, January 16, 2006). For of course “circumstances” have made abundantly clear the inadequacy of the AU for over a year.

But the more likely explanation for a tepid US response, despite political “cover” provided by the strong statement from Annan, is that Bush administration policy entails a deliberate accommodation of Khartoum’s ambitions in Darfur. This would comport with a series of other actions and non-actions revealing Washington’s continuing willingness to trade out Darfur, and to ignore the growing threats to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between Khartoum and the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement.

And just what does the Bush administration secure from Khartoum by acquiescing before genocide in Darfur and a withering of the CPA? The answer is all too clearly a claimed, though unverified, “cooperation” from the NIF in the US-led “war on terrorism.” Here we should look carefully at a recent Associated Press report on UN Security Council Resolution 1591 (March 2005), which targets individuals who “defy peace efforts, violate international and human rights law, or are responsible for military overflights in Darfur”:

“The four-member [UN-appointed panel] said it was sending a confidential list of names to the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against Sudan to consider imposing a travel ban and asset freeze [against the named individuals].” (AP [United Nations], January 11, 2006)

But while the news focus of the AP dispatch was on efforts by Qatar and China to block immediate transmission of the panel’s report and list of individuals to the Security Council (according to confidental reporting from a UN diplomat), behind the scenes the US has been working to revise the list of those to be targeted for sanctions. The most significant effort has been to remove the names of senior government ministers and military officials responsible for ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur, including Major General Saleh Abdalla Gosh, head of the National Security and Intelligence Service (the Mukhabarat).

This is particularly significant in light of the decision by the US Central Intelligence Agency to fly Gosh to Washington, DC last April on an executive jet---at Gosh’s insistence (this trip was cleared at very senior levels within the Bush administration White House). Gosh was Osama bin Laden’s “minder” during his time in Sudan (1991-96), the period during which al-Qaeda came to fruition; and the CIA seems convinced that securing terrorist intelligence demands that a key architect of genocide in Darfur be given extraordinary accommodation, not simply in being flown to Washington, but in being spared UN sanctioning for his role in ongoing genocidal destruction in Darfur.

The breathtaking cynicism of these efforts undermines any possible faith in Bush administration efforts to confront Khartoum seriously, and in particular US willingness to exert maximum diplomatic effort to secure deployment of the urgently required peacemaking operation. US officials are authoritatively reported to have been sought deletion of other senior members of the NIF from the sanctions list, including Abdul Rahmin Mohamed Hussein, currently minister for defense and former minister of the interior. Hussein, like Gosh, is certainly among the 51 names referred to the International Criminal Court for its investigation of “crimes against humanity” in Darfur. His role in orchestrating ethnic destruction in Darfur has been authoritatively established by Human Rights Watch.

Darfur: Talks Halted Over Bashir's Bid for AU Chair

From IRIN

Peace talks between parties to the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region ground to a halt on Monday as rebel delegations withdrew to await the result of President Umar al-Bashir's bid to win the chairmanship of the African Union.

The Sudanese leader is a key candidate to take over from Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the exiting president of the pan-African organisation, whose summit opened in Khartoum on Monday.

But both the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the smaller Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which have been fighting al-Bashir's government in the country's western Darfur region, have threatened to quit the talks if he wins the AU presidency. They allege that his chairmanship would diminish the credibility of the peace process in Darfur being mediated by the organisation.

"We are boycotting the talks for Monday and Tuesday" to await the outcome of the summit, said Ahmed Tugod Lissan of JEM, speaking on behalf of the two rebel groups, which last week announced they were forming a political-military alliance.

"If Sudan emerges chairman it will undermine both the AU itself and the peace process," he told reporters on Monday. "It can go to any other country but Sudan."

Congo: Mayi-Mayi Attack New Area of Katanga

From IRIN - via POTP

Relief workers say that fighting between the Congolese army and Mayi-Mayi militias in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Katanga Province has spread to a new area south of the town of Mitwaba in recent days, with militiamen there becoming increasingly dangerous and destructive.

"We never saw them this aggressive before," said Phillip Havet, a Medècines Sans Frontiéres (MSF) logistics expert who was in the area last week.

He said the Mayi-Mayi had "completely wiped out" the town of Kyubo, 160 km south of Mitwaba, on 16 January.

"Previously, it was the army that attacked the Mayi-Mayi, but now the Mayi-Mayi are attacking the army first," he said. "Their old strategy when they took a town or village was to kill the soldiers and leave. This time they destroyed everything."

Uganda: "Arrow Boys" Fight Off LRA

From IWPR

That locals safely walk miles to crowd this market is due to a feared homegrown militia called the Arrow Boys formed less than three years ago.

These local fighters have quickly become the only organised force to defeat the infamous Lords Resistance Army, which for the past 20 years has terrorised northern Uganda, southern Sudan and eastern Congo.

The LRA has kidnapped thousands of boys and girls, converting them into vicious child soldiers and sex slaves. Those who resist are brutally killed or maimed and left to die.

But the Arrow Boys are inflicting serious losses on the LRA.

When the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued indictments this past fall against LRA leader Joseph Kony and four of his top commanders, one was already dead.

“We put him out of action,” said Robert Adiama, one of the militia founders who served as its top intelligence officer. He is now the district’s top government official.

“The LRA faced their first blow in Teso,” he said of the region around Soroti, adding that the Arrow Boys killed or captured more than 40 LRA commanders in the past couple of years.

The key to the Arrow Boys’ success against the LRA has been strong community support and an efficient intelligence network.

“When the LRA is going to move south from Pader,” said Adiama, “we know about it three days ahead of time.” Pader is one of Uganda’s northern districts where the LRA continues to cause havoc despite the presence of the Uganda military.

“We help the people,” he said. “We prepare the community to respond and ask the government for help in doing it.”

The government support comes in weapons distributed throughout villages. And, when an LRA attack occurs, the militia is quickly formed and pursues the rebels.

“The only way to control the situation is rapid response,” explained Adiama.

Because the Arrow Boys have been so successful, they have been incorporated into the ranks of the Ugandan military and have received training, weapons and pay.

Sudan: Islamist Opposition Party Calls on Government to Resign

From BBC Monitoring - Text of report by Sudanese independent newspaper Al-Ayyam

The [opposition Islamist] Popular National Congress [PNC] party has sent ripples through the pond of Sudanese politics by calling on the government to abdicate immediately. The party also called for the formation of a national transitional government representing real national unity similar to the governments established after the October and April revolutions.

It said this [new government] would be set up in order to administer the current issues, reach agreement and take brave decisions to ensure the unity of the country and stop it from disintegrating into mini-states.

This, the party said, would also resolve the continuing problem of injustice in Darfur and the east and prepare for free elections which would hand over power to whoever the people choose.

In a statement, the PNC said this was the only way to stave off the threat of foreign intervention and to maintain the independence of Sudan and the excellent international relations.

It said the policies of the National Congress had led to the prevailing problems in Darfur by spoiling social relationships in the region and by inciting [tribes] against each other.

It said the government had failed to administer the country and to protect its unity and the security of its citizens to the extent that there was no longer any ethical pretext or legal backing for this regime to carry on.

Sudan Says Ready to Drop Bid to Head AU

From Reuters - no link available yet UPDATE: Link

Sudan said on Monday it was ready to withdraw its bid to head the African Union and avoid a division over its appointment that could sink Darfur peace talks and which critics say could damage Africa's credibility.

Sudan's leadership bid sparked criticism from rights groups that say a Sudanese presidency would hurt AU efforts to improve Africa's record on democracy and human rights. Several African regional blocs also oppose it.

"We do not want to make any division in order to achieve an objective, so if that means that Sudan should withdraw, we will withdraw," Sudan's presidential adviser on foreign affairs, Mustafa Osman Ismail, told Reuters.

Ismail's comments followed several hours of talks in a closed session among heads of state.

Sudan nominated itself to chair the 53-member AU, based on a tradition that the host of its summit becomes the organisation's next leader. Sudan, which is under fire for rights abuses, wants to succeed Nigeria at the two-day summit that opened in Khartoum on Monday.

"The general consensus is Nigeria (will stay on). It will be for 12 months," a delegate, who asked not to be named, said as the closed door meeting of heads of state and ministers broke up.

An AU official and delegates earlier said five African states had on Sunday asked Sudan to withdraw.

Chad: Rebels Request Audience at AU Summit

From Reuters

Chadian rebels who launched an attack to oust President Idriss Deby have formally requested to the chance to speak at an African Union (AU) summit which opened in the Sudanese capital on Monday.

But the AU's top diplomat, Alpha Oumar Konare, said he had no knowledge of the request and a senior AU official said there was no way the rebels would be able to participate.

Sudanese state security arrested 20 Chadian rebels in Khartoum last week ahead of the summit, including at least one leader. Chad has declared a "state of belligerence" with Sudan accusing their eastern neighbour of supporting the insurgents.

In a letter obtained by Reuters, the rebels said they wanted to address the summit, being attended by 36 heads of state and government, to draw attention to the "deep and recurrent political crisis" in Chad.

The United Front for Democratic Change (FUC) said Deby was fabricating a conflict with Sudan to avoid his own internal problems. "(FUC wants to) refute the lying, artificial characterisation of a Sudanese-Chadian conflict," the letter said.

African Union: Summit Opens, Row Over Whether Sudan Can Chair

From the AP

Africa’s leaders began their annual summit Monday in disarray, failing to resolve dissent over Sudan’s bid to chair the 53-state body while it stands accused of complicity in the conflict in Western Darfur.

[edit]

The traditional handover to the incoming chairman — usually the leader of the host country - was delayed until after a scheduled Monday afternoon private meeting of leaders.

"The resolution of the Darfur crisis is critical to the peace and stability of the Sudan and the entire region," Obasanjo said in his opening address.

[edit]

Human rights groups have warned giving the African leadership to Sudan — which the U.S. accuses of genocide in Darfur — would damage the image of the continental body formed four years ago to promote human rights, development and democracy.

Some West and Central African nations agree, according to several delegates, and one said they tried Sunday to persuade al-Bashir to withdraw to allow the candidacy of Congo’s Denis Sassou-Nguesso, another coup leader.

Another possibility would be to compromise by extending the tenure of Obasanjo, whose elections ended decades of military dictatorship in Nigeria.

Al-Bashir has cast the controversy as a fight for influence between Western countries and Africans seeking self-determination. Sunday, he told the official Sudan News Agency that Washington was attempting to foil Sudan’s bid.

Sudan has the support of eight East African nations and of Egypt, which wields influence in North Africa. In southern Africa Zimbabwe, facing allegations of its own on human rights abuse, is expected to support Sudan.

Regional powerhouse South Africa could support Sudan simply because of intense rivalry between its President Thabo Mbeki and Obasanjo. South Africa’s biggest opposition party Sunday called for Mbeki to oppose Sudan because of its human rights record.

Congo: U.N. Says 20,000 Flee Fighting

From the AP

About 20,000 people have fled violence in Congo to seek refuge across the border in Uganda over the last four days, the U.N. refugee agency said Sunday.

In eastern Congo, home to many of the refugees, renegade former army soldiers ambushed U.N. peacekeepers with mortars in a hilltop banana plantation in eastern Congo Sunday, sparking a firefight that left four attackers dead, U.N. officials said.

The peacekeepers were trying to flush the former soldiers out of territory they captured during raids this week, U.N. military spokesman Mayank Awasthi said. The raids in eastern Congo's North Kivu province forced the refugees to cross the nearby border with Uganda.

Congo: UN Says 8 Peacekeepers Killed

From Reuters

Eight Guatemalan special forces soldiers deployed as U.N. peacekeepers in eastern Congo were killed and 14 more were injured on Monday during an operation against Ugandan rebels, the United Nations said.

The U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo, known as MONUC, said that for the past 10 days 80 Guatemalan soldiers had been carrying out reconnaissance operations in Congo's Garamba National Park, on the border with Sudan, looking for members of neighboring Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

"This morning, January 23, 2006, eight Guatemalans were killed and 14 others wounded in an engagement which happened in Garamba park," the U.N. said in a statement.

"The unit which was conducting an operation in this area established contact with rebel elements at 6 a.m. There followed an exchange of fire lasting four hours, requiring the intervention of armed helicopters," the statement said.

UNICEF Seeks $805 Million

From Reuters

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) appealed on Monday for $805 million to provide aid to children and mothers in 29 emergencies worldwide.

More than one-third of the total sought from donors for this year, $331 million, is for Sudan, where the survival of 1.4 million children in Darfur alone is threatened, it said.

Sudan: Bashir Again Named World's Worst Dictator

From Parade Magazine

1) Omar al-Bashir, Sudan. Age 62. In power since 1989. Last year’s rank: 1

Since February 2003, Bashir’s campaign of ethnic and religious persecution has killed at least 180,000 civilians in Darfur in western Sudan and driven 2 million people from their homes. The good news is that Bashir’s army and the Janjaweed militia that he supports have all but stopped burning down villages in Darfur. The bad news is why they’ve stopped: There are few villages left to burn. The attacks now are aimed at refugee camps. While the media have called these actions “a humanitarian tragedy,” Bashir himself has escaped major condemnation. In 2005, Bashir signed a peace agreement with the largest rebel group in non-Islamic southern Sudan and allowed its leader, John Garang, to become the nation’s vice president. But Garang died in July in a helicopter crash, and Bashir’s troops still occupy the south.

Sudan Asked to Drop Bid to Lead AU

From Reuters

Five African leaders have asked Sudan to withdraw its bid to head the African Union because the appointment could sink Darfur peace talks and dent the group's credibility, an AU official and delegates said on Monday.

Sudan has nominated itself to chair the 53-member AU, based on a tradition that the host of its summit becomes next head. Sudan, which is under fire for rights abuses, wants to succeed Nigeria at the two-day summit that opened in Khartoum on Monday.

But Khartoum's bid has sparked criticism from rights groups, which say a Sudanese presidency would damage AU efforts to improve the continent's record on democracy and human rights. Several African regional blocs oppose it.

An AU official told Reuters that five heads of state had met Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Sunday and told him "there was a consensus that he should withdraw". Bashir had said he would respond after consulting his neighbours.

The official, who asked not to be identified, said the five nations included Nigeria, whose President Olusegun Obasanjo has led the AU for nearly two years. Other delegates also confirmed that Sudan had been asked to withdraw by five states.

Rights groups praised the decision to ask Sudan to withdraw, saying it showed the AU, set up 2002, was determined not to be deflected from its mission to improve Africa's image by promoting democracy, human rights and development.

"It takes courage to tell al-Bashir that Sudan's atrocities disqualify him from the presidency and that Africans deserve better," said Reed Brody, a lawyer for U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

A group of leaders met before the summit opened to seek a deal on the presidency but officials said no agreement was reached and talks were to resume after the opening session.

"It is looking like the compromise is for Obasanjo to stay because then Bashir will save some face," the AU official said.

Chad: UN Relocates Staff After Town Attacked

From Reuters

The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said on Sunday it was reducing staff numbers in eastern Chad after an unknown armed group attacked a town and abducted five government officials.

The attack on the town of Guereda on Friday follows several assaults by rebels in the last month in the area, which is next to Sudan's troubled western Darfur region.

Chad's government has not confirmed the Guereda raid.

"This measure is temporary," Claire Bourgeois, UNHCR deputy representative in Chad, said in a statement, which added that staff working in Guereda and the town of Iriba were being relocated to the less remote town of Abeche.

The agency has five regional offices in eastern Chad. "The situation is serious enough at this stage, especially when taking into account the number of security incidents in the past days," she said. Two vehicles belonging to non-governmental organisations were stolen and some people had been robbed.

Darfur: News Round-Up

The latest Darfur News Brief is available from the Genocide Intervention Network

With little new information about the security situation in Darfur, many in the international community are concerned about the continued possibility that the African Union will approve Sudan’s chairmanship. The United Nations is still in discussion about blue-hatting the AU mission in Darfur. Although peace talks continue to stall, the recent unity of the SLA and the JEM brings some hope that progress can be achieved in the near future.

Uganda: Childhood's End

A new piece from Vanity Fair by Christopher Hitchens - via POTP

For 19 years, Joseph Kony has been enslaving, torturing, raping, and murdering Ugandan children, many of whom have become soldiers for his "Lord's Resistance Army," going on to torture, rape, and kill other children. The author exposes the vicious insanity—and cynical politics—behind one of Africa's greatest nightmares.

Sen. Obama To Travel to Africa

From the Chicago Sun Times

In August, Obama will travel to African nations, including Kenya, a homecoming for a not-quite native son. He is using his pulpit to draw attention to the genocide in Sudan and is being advised by one of the leading voices on genocide, Samantha Power, a professor at Harvard University's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy in the Kennedy School of Government. She is working out of his Senate office for a year.

Says Power, who won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for her seminal book, A Problem from Hell, "Suddenly I find myself in a position to be listened to."

Darfur: Sudan Seeks More Support for AU Force

From Reuters

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Sunday urged the world to provide more equipment and other support for cash-strapped African forces monitoring a tentative truce in Sudan's violent Darfur region.

The African Union has a 7,000-strong force, mainly funded by Western donors, patrolling a region the size of France. The AU has said it may have to hand control to the United Nations because of a lack of adequate resources, a move Sudan opposes.

"We call upon the international community to offer adequate support to the African forces that have been relentlessly trying to reconstruct peace and supply them with the necessary means of mobility, transport, surveillance and provisions," Bashir told officials gathered in Khartoum before an African summit.

He said finding funds for the force was preferable to the African Union losing its peacekeeping role, which has been a key part of Africa's efforts to address its own problems.

"They constitute but meagre expenses compared with other alternatives that could possibly strip the African Union from its historic role in conflict resolution in Africa and in security and peace installation in Africa," he said.

Sudan: Human Rights Delegates Detained, Released

From Reuters

Sudanese authorities released around 50 delegates from local and international human rights groups after storming their meeting on the sidelines of an African Union summit on Sunday, delegates at the meeting said.

Activists said the security forces' action called into question Sudan's right to host the summit.

"They have now all been released," said Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, a Sudanese human rights activist who has previously been arrested by the government.

Osman Hummaida from the Sudanese Organisation Against Torture (SOAT) was inside the meeting. He said a group of security men entered and demanded to see the agenda and list of delegates.

"Everyone is being detained and we have been asked not to talk on the phone. We have not been told why we are being held," he had told Reuters. The meeting was to discuss closer cooperation with the AU on human rights issues.

Representatives of Amnesty International, Anti-Slavery International and the International Bar Association were among those being held, Hummaida said.

"They cannot be hosting a summit while they have this kind of conflict and they cannot be the chairperson of the African Union," Adam said.

The European Union ambassador in Khartoum, Kent Dagerfeld, told Reuters this was a step backwards for Sudan, where freedom of movement and press had improved recently.

Journalists were told by police and state security officers to leave the building, next door to the Ministry for Humanitarian Affairs, and one had his recording equipment seized, a Reuters witness said.

Sudan Tones Down Bid to Head African Union

From Reuters

Sudan toned down its campaign to head the African Union on Sunday after some member nations appeared reluctant to back a bid that could hurt Africa's image and scupper talks to end fighting in Darfur in west Sudan.

Under fire for rights abuses, Sudan wants to take over the presidency of the 53-member organization from Nigeria at a two-day AU summit in Khartoum that starts on Monday. By tradition, the host is given the chair.

But Khartoum's bid has provoked criticism from rights groups, who say it would make a mockery of AU efforts to promote human rights and democracy, and prompted disquiet among some African nations which want to clean up the continent's image.

"We are not running after anything but the success of this conference," Sudanese Information Minister al-Zawahi Ibrahim Malik told Reuters, indicating that Sudan was easing back on its previously more aggressive campaign for support.

"We think that if there is a chance for Sudan to have the chairmanship of the coming session of the African Union, we think the Sudan has the right to take it. If not, it is okay," he said.

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Sudan had been trumpeting support from East and North African countries, but diplomats said southern, western and central Africa had been working behind the scenes to ask Sudan to withdraw and possibly make way for Nigeria to stay on.

Sudanese officials said point blank on Saturday that Khartoum would not withdraw and had a right to become the next president, but on Sunday Malik said Sudan would withdraw if asked by heads of state.

African and other delegates said it seemed increasingly unlikely that Sudan would now take the chair of the AU, which was set up in 2002 to promote democracy, human rights and development across Africa.

"The only news here is what's not going to happen, and that is that (Sudanese President Omar Hassan) al-Bashir is not going to get the presidency," a Western diplomat said.

UN Humanitarian Intervention in Darfur: Prospect or Posturing?

The latest analysis from Eric Reeves

The radical inadequacy of African Union forces in Darfur has become undeniable, even to the most disingenuous members of the international community. There is no longer a serious debate about whether the present AU mission, even if augmented with all conceivably available AU resources, can undertake the various tasks of civilian and humanitarian protection: providing security for the more than 2 million displaced persons in some 300 camps and concentrations of affected populations; providing security for humanitarian operations and transport corridors; disarming or neutralizing the Janjaweed militia (the key requirement in providing long-term human security for Darfur); protecting vulnerable rural populations that continue to suffer deadly attacks; and providing the security that will enable displaced and bereft persons to return to their villages and lands.

These tasks are and have always been clearly far beyond AU capabilities, even when AU deployment was cynically celebrated by US, European, and UN officials. There is some evidence that at least the language about AU capabilities may be starting to change; but there is even more evidence that self-serving political realities and a lack of real commitment will prevail, and that apparent commitment to an international Darfur intervention is merely verbal.

Despite strong words last week from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and seemingly supportive words from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the movement toward an international force that will succeed the AU force in Darfur has yet to gain any meaningful traction. The AU may have signaled that it is willing in principle to surrender the mission to the UN (chiefly because it is no longer being supported by dismayed donors in Brussels), but there are huge obstacles in Khartoum and within the UN, especially at the Security Council, but also within the UN bureaucracies.

Darfur: AU Force Will Get Tough to Keep Peace

From Reuters

The African Union will tell its troops to take tougher action to keep the peace in Sudan's violent Darfur region, including taking pre-emptive steps against armed groups, an AU official said on Saturday.

Said Djinnit, the head of peace and security in the AU, told Reuters there was no immediate need to add more troops to the roughly 7,000 monitoring a tentative truce in Darfur.

But he said commanders on the ground would be instructed to adopt "a very robust interpretation" of the rules of engagement.

"They should look at the command structure so the commanders do have a very strong interpretation of the rules of engagement, so that they should be able to fight, including ... pre-emptive action," Djinnit said.

Darfur: AU Mediation Team Wants Talks to be "Decisive"/Talks Not Moving

From AFP

The African Union (AU) mediation team Friday urged parties to the talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja on the Darfur conflict to make the current round "decisive", an official AU statement said.

"It is the intention of the AU to assist the Sudanese parties in making the 7th round of the talks the decisive round, in line with the commitment they had earlier made at the end of the 6th round in Abuja," said the statement.

"The AU mediation strongly appeals to the Sudanese parties, the partners, observers and facilitators involved in the talks to engage in serious negotiations and to refrain from all actions and statements" that could be "unnecessary distractions."

Observers note that since the current 7th round resumed late last year, the AU-sponsored talks have been slow in concluding on issues of power and wealth sharing as well as governance in Sudan.

The AU statement, signed by the organisation's spokesman in Abuja, Noureddine Mezni, also denied a report that there were plans to move the venue of the peace talks from the Nigerian capital to Darfur.

Media reports had allegedly quoted the special representative of the UN secretary general to Sudan, Mr Jan Pronk, as saying that a new strategy to bring peace to Darfur would entail relocating the venue of the talks to the Darfur region "to guarantee the participation of tribal communities in the talks," the statement said.

Darfur: Genocide in Slow Motion

Another review of "Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide" by Gerard Prunier and "Darfur: A Short History of a Long War" by Julie Flint and Alex De Waal - from Nick Kristof in the New York Review of Books

During the Holocaust, the world looked the other way. Allied leaders turned down repeated pleas to bomb the Nazi extermination camps or the rail lines leading to them, and the slaughter attracted little attention. My newspaper, The New York Times, provided meticulous coverage of World War II, but of 24,000 front-page stories published in that period only six referred on page one directly to the Nazi assault on the Jewish population of Europe. Only afterward did many people mourn the death of Anne Frank, construct Holocaust museums, and vow: Never Again.

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And now the same tragedy is unfolding in Darfur, but this time we don't even have any sort of excuse. In Darfur genocide is taking place in slow motion, and there is vast documentary proof of the atrocities. Some of the evidence can be seen in the photo reproduced with this essay, which was leaked from an African Union archive containing thousands of other such photos. And now, the latest proof comes in the form of two new books that tell the sorry tale of Darfur: it's appalling that the publishing industry manages to respond more quickly to genocide than the UN and world leaders do.

Darfur: Sudanese Lawyers Call for Expulsion of UN Envoy

From BBC Monitoring - Text of report by Sudanese newspaper Al-Ra'y al-Amm

The General Union of Sudanese Lawyers has called on parties, organizations, unions and citizens to resist and challenge UN General-Secretary Kofi Anan's call for intervention in Darfur.

In a statement it issued, the Union's central committee said that the recommendation made by Anan's representative in Sudan was a "declaration of war" against Sudan and its independence and sovereignty.

The statement said that neo-colonialist forces had continued to use the UN for their own purposes instead of employing it to uphold international peace and security. It further accused Anan of allowing these conspiracies to succeed.

In its statement, the union demanded that the UN secretary-general's representative to Sudan, Jan Pronk, be expelled [from Sudan] and pledged to be at the forefront of popular resistance.

It said that a decision by the government to expel Pronk should not be awaited, pointing out that popular resistance did not occur only by the government's consent.

In this regard, the Arab Socialist Ba'thist Party described the UN secretary-general's proposal to send urgent peacekeeping forces to Darfur as a dangerous step in the internationalization of Sudanese issue.

It said that this would pave the way for increased foreign intervention, in particular American in Sudanese affairs under the cover of the UN.

In a statement issued by deputy secretary of the Sudanese branch, the Ba'th party pointed out that the UN was the most important tool used by America to implement its agenda.

The party reiterated its rejection of the principle of internationalizing the struggle in Darfur under any pretext, and called for a broad-based national front to resist foreign intervention.

Meanwhile, the political secretary of the [opposition] Popular National Congress, Dr Bashir Adam Rahamah, said that his party supported anything that would speed up the achievement of peace in Darfur.

Darfur: Congressman Kolbe Says Money Is Needed For Dire Situation

From Congress Daily - no link avaliable

House Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., said today -- after a 12-day trip to Africa -- that increased funding for the African Union peacekeeping effort in the Darfur region of Sudan was "absolutely crucial" and that he expects the Bush administration to request as much as $100 million in an FY06 supplemental. "There are only about 6,000 [African Union] troops policing an area larger than Texas, and that is clearly inadequate," Kolbe said. During year-end spending negotiations, Secretary of State Rice asked appropriators to include $50 million for Darfur, but the White House did not submit a formal budget amendment to adjust spending caps, meaning appropriators would have had to cut other programs or designate the money as "emergency" funds. The request was denied, although appropriators signed off on a $13 million reprogramming request from State Department peacekeeping accounts.

Kolbe added that he witnessed a "massing of forces on both sides of the border," making a "major conflict very likely to break out in the near future."

Darfur: Violators of Arms Embargo Should Be Revealed, U.N. Envoy Says

From the Washington Post

The top U.N. envoy in Sudan has asked the Security Council to make public a report prepared by a panel of experts that lists countries selling weapons to government-backed militias and rebel forces in the western region of Darfur in violation of an arms embargo.

Jan Pronk , who is from the Netherlands and is in charge of peacekeeping and humanitarian operations in Darfur, said making the report public could expedite sanctions against the countries involved in the arms trade.

There should be an arms embargo on both sides, and pressure should be kept up against the government and the rebel movement" in Darfur, Pronk said.

[edit]

"Promises to abide by a cease-fire by the end of the year while talks continue in Abuja with no real sense of urgency have factions in the two warring camps still betting on both horses," he said during an interview Monday in Washington, referring to negotiations in the Nigerian capital. "Pressure is needed in both directions, otherwise the reaction will be negative since both camps are split between people who want the conflict to go on and those who don't."

"People on the ground are victims, and the 2 million people in the camps in Darfur and across the border are suffering," he said.

Congo: Civilians Displaced by Renewed Fighting in North Kivu

From IRIN

Hundreds of civilians have been displaced in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the latest round of fighting between dissident soldiers and the army's fifth brigade, a humanitarian official has said.

The new wave of the displaced started arriving on Friday in areas of North Kivu Province, near the borders of Uganda and Rwanda.

"The dissident soldiers have captured some villages, including Tongo and Bunagana," Lina Ekomo, a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said.

The villages are about 140 km northeast of the provincial capital, Goma. Ekomo said almost 1,000 civilians were seen fleeing towards Bunagana, while others were heading out of the village.

"Some have crossed the border into Rwanda," she added.

Several battles were reported this week between the army and dissident forces loyal to Laurent Nkunda, a renegade general in the Congolese army.

The fighting on Friday started in the early hours of the morning in the village of Djumbake, near Bunagana. Nkunda's men attacked the army's fifth brigade, forcing them to flee.

CAR: Army Hunts Bandits with French Help

From Reuters

Central African Republic's security forces, backed by the French army, are hunting down armed gangs who have forced thousands of civilians to flee its northern border region, a government official said on Friday.

Groups of unidentified raiders have been storming villages in the country's northwest since June, shooting randomly, looting homes and terrorising civilians in the arid and remote border region with Chad and Cameroon.

"They are bandits. For the moment they are not an organised force, or a political force," Central African Republic's deputy foreign minister, Laurent Ngon-Baba, told Reuters on the sidelines of an African Union meeting in Sudan.

"When the security forces succeed in bringing some of these groups under control, we realise that these are bandits and highway robbers of varying nationalities ... That makes it difficult to identify precisely where they are based," he said.

Insecurity in the north has forced thousands of civilians over the border since early last year into southern Chad, a region itself plagued by food shortages. Aid workers have warned of a humanitarian crisis if the influx continues.

Little is known of the motives of the various armed groups or the extent to which they collaborate, with a joint Central African-Cameroonian commission reportedly failing to reach any conclusions on their identity during a meeting in December.

Darfur: Rebels Reportedly Unite, Reject Sudan as Head of African Union

From the AP

Sudan’s two main rebel groups fighting in the western Darfur region announced Friday that they would unite politically and militarily, establishing a new united group for their negotiations with the government.

Leaders from the Sudanese Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement - who have fought each other in the past - said they would form a new group, the Allied Revolutionary Forces of Western Sudan.

The agreement was signed by Khalil Ibrahim of the Justice and Equality Movement, while Khamis Abdalla Abakar and Mini Arko Minawi represented the Sudanese Liberation Movement. All three men announced the decision in N’djamena, Chad. The two groups pledged to stop fighting each other in July 2005.

The leaders also said they were opposed to the nomination of Sudanese President Omar El-Bashir to the presidency of the African Union. They said they would walk out of AU-sponsored peace talks, currently being held in Abuja, Nigeria, if African leaders elect El-Bashir to the AU presidency.

"We oppose El-Bashir to be the next African Union president because he cannot be both the judge and a party of the conflict," Ibrahim said. "If he becomes president of the AU, he will have the conflict of Darfur to deal with."

Minawi added that since government-backed militias in Darfur had been accused of genocide, El-Bashir should be excluded from becoming the president because he could be charged with war crimes.

Ivory Coast: AU Worried, Urges Trust in Mediators

From Reuters

The African Union said on Friday it was alarmed by events in Ivory Coast after days of riots against U.N. and French peacekeepers, with delegates at a summit meeting saying a fast solution looked unlikely.

Pro-government youths have blocked streets and taken over state television studios in Abidjan in recent days, broadcasting demands for foreign troops to leave the country, split since a 2002 civil war between a rebel north and government-run south.

"The situation in Ivory Coast over the past days has become alarming," Alpha Oumar Konare, head of the AU Commission, told African foreign ministers meeting in Sudan's capital, Khartoum.

"I appeal to all sides to have confidence in their regional economic community, in the African Union, and in the international community, whose role is to accompany them so their country returns to peace and prosperity," he said.

At least four protesters were killed on Wednesday when they stormed a U.N. base in the west, forcing peacekeepers to open fire and later abandon four bases, although shops and businesses began to reopen in Abidjan on Friday.

The violence was triggered by a recommendation from foreign mediators to dissolve parliament, dominated by loyalists of President Laurent Gbagbo, and has threatened to derail a U.N. peace process that foresees elections by the end of October.

Diplomats said heads of state from around Africa would discuss Ivory Coast at the AU summit, which begins in the Sudanese capital on Monday after the foreign ministers' meeting, but were pessimistic about finding any quick solutions.

One senior West African government official said Ivory Coast would not achieve peace while Gbagbo remained in power.

"Unfortunately at the moment there is no solution for Ivory Coast. Deep down everyone knows where the problem is but nobody wants to face up to it," he said, asking not to be named.

Extreme Drought Hits Somalia

From the Scotsman

An agency responsible for monitoring the availability of food in Somalia declared a humanitarian emergency in the Horn of Africa country, reporting that an extreme drought has left 1.75 million people in need of assistance.

The Food Security Analysis Unit Somalia, which works with UN, US and European aid agencies, issued an advisory stating that Somalis are facing an "acute food and livelihood crisis".

"The crisis is particularly severe in the southern regions of Somalia, where an estimated 1.4 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance," the unit said.

"Further stressing their plight, the drought is regional in nature, extending into Ethiopia and Kenya and covering large areas of the greater Somali livelihood system."

The unit said recently collected data showed that more than 50% of Somalia's crops have failed, making it the worst harvest in 10 years. In some areas, harvests were only a quarter of normal levels.

"Depending on humanitarian response and access, the potential for outbreaks of increased conflict, and food/water supplies, FSAU further warns that there is a moderate risk of famine conditions in the coming months for the area around the Gedo region.

Chad Rebel Group Says Leader Arrested in Sudan

From Retuers

Sudanese authorities have arrested a rebel leader fighting the government of Chad amid heightened tension between the two neighbours that has soured the build-up to an African Union summit in Khartoum.

Abdelwahit About was arrested on Thursday after giving a radio interview that revealed he was in the Sudanese capital and said his group had friendly ties with Khartoum, Abdullahi Abdel Karim, part of the same Chadian opposition movement, said on Friday.

Chad President Idriss Deby is boycotting the AU summit to start on Monday instead sending his foreign minister and Chad has opposed the candidacy of Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir as chairman of the African body.

Deby accuses Sudan of supporting the rebels, a charge Khartoum denies, arguing that he is trying to deflect attention away from internal problems. Chad also says it is in a "state of belligerence" with Sudan.

Sudan's Foreign Minister Lam Akol said he had not heard about the arrests and denied there were any Chadian opposition leaders in the capital.

"I think he was arrested because he had given an interview with a journalist and they discovered he was in Khartoum," Abdel Karim said. He declined to say why About was in Khartoum.

Sudan: Bid to Head AU Gathers Pace Despite Critics

From Retuers

Sudan's push to head the African Union gathered pace on Friday with no sign of a rival bid despite concerns that a Sudanese presidency would hurt Africa's reputation and AU-sponsored peace efforts in Darfur.

Sudan is hosting a summit of the 53-nation body next week, and by tradition the host takes over the chairmanship. Critics say this would undermine AU-mediated talks to end the conflict in Sudan's west where AU troops are monitoring a ceasefire.

Sudan, under fire for its human rights record, says it already has the backing of 12 East African states for its bid to take over the chair from Nigeria.

"We are very glad about this decision (by East African states) and we think that the other nations will follow the same path and back us," Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol told Reuters ahead of an African foreign ministers meeting.

Egypt said East Africa backed Sudan to head the organization officially launched in 2002 to help promote democracy, human rights and development across Africa.

Kenyan Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju said East African states would back their region's candidate and said only Sudan had come forward.

Diplomats said few African states were ready to openly oppose Sudan's bid, even if they were not keen on it, because of an African tradition not to meddle in each others' affairs.

"There is no clear alternative, which works in Sudan's favor. Those who are uneasy with Sudan may not turn up and so not be able to vote. Sudan may get it by default," said one Western diplomat.

No country has announced a rival contender for the position. African officials said Central African states could field a candidate, which some said might be Congo Republic, but they said no decision had been taken yet.

Central African state Chad, which accuses neighbouring Sudan of backing rebels seeking to overthrow President Idriss Deby, is the only nation which has openly campaigned against Khartoum.

"There are now three possibilities. Either Central Africa nominate someone, probably Brazzaville, or we get it, or they delay the decision and keep Obasanjo," a senior Sudanese official said.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who has held the post for two years, has not said if he backs a Sudanese presidency. Darfur rebel groups say they will quit peace talks in Nigeria if Sudan takes over.

Darfur: Talks Frustratingly Slow

From Reuters

Too little progress is being made in the current round of Darfur peace talks yet violence against civilians, aid workers and African Union troops continues on the ground, a senior United Nations official has said.

"The seventh round [has] proved to be totally de-linked from what is going on in the field," Gemmo Lodesani, UN Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator for North Sudan, said.

Mediators had hoped that the latest talks between the Sudanese government and the two rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Army/Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement, which began in November, would yield a breakthrough that would end the three-year conflict in west Sudan.

"Out of three areas [under discussion in the Nigerian capital, Abuja] there is only one area that is moving - wealth sharing," he told IRIN in an interview.

"Security is the area that should have been tackled last year because if you have a logical sequence of discussion, there should be security, power sharing and wealth sharing," he added.

Lodesani also noted that the talks had not considered mounting tension between Sudan and neighbouring Chad which are blaming each other for cross-border incursions. Chadian president, Idriss Deby, has announced that he will not participate in the African Union summit in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, next week.

The Abuja talks also ignored the very high level of insecurity in West Darfur State, he said, and the fact that Arab militias largely controlled West Darfur, but were not present at the talks.

"We are becoming very vocal because we have been trying to be conducive and understanding, [but] we cannot afford to continue like this," Lodesani said.

African Union: Choose a Credible President/Protect Civilians in Darfur

From Human Rights Watch

African leaders meeting at the African Union summit next week must act to improve protection of civilians in Darfur and should not elect the Sudanese president as head of the African Union, Human Rights Watch said in two documents published today

Sudan’s Candidacy to Lead the A.U.

Sudanese President Omar El Bashir is a candidate for the presidency of the pan-African organization which is due to rotate to an East African country in 2006. The A.U. head is expected to be elected by the 53 member states at the summit in Khartoum, Sudan, on January 23-24.

“It would be highly inappropriate for the Sudanese government, which is responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, to preside over the African Union,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division at Human Rights Watch. “The A.U.’s credibility, and its ability to promote and protect human rights, would be irreparably damaged.”

The Sudanese government, its militias, and members of the rebel movements are already under investigation by the International Criminal Court for crimes in violation of international law in Darfur.

African Mission in Sudan

In a 57-page report published today, Imperatives for Immediate Change: The African Union in Sudan, Human Rights Watch examines the evolving role in the Darfur conflict of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS), from its inception as a ceasefire monitoring body in June 2004 to its current incarnation as a major operation with a mandate to protect civilians that includes armed troops, unarmed civilian police, unarmed military observers, and support teams.

The report looks at factors that must be taken into account in any transformation of AMIS to a United Nations mission, and makes recommendations in this regard. As A.U. leaders and U.N. planners consider a transfer of the AMIS force to U.N. control, they will need to ensure that the change does not diminish the mission’s ability to protect civilians. The report also identifies ways AMIS can be immediately strengthened to improve civilian protection in Darfur.

“Any transfer to the U.N. could take months,” said Takirambudde. “In the meantime, AMIS can make immediate changes to improve civilian protection and demonstrate that it has the capacity and will to protect civilians in Darfur now.”

African Union: Sudan Says it Has Backing for Chairman

From Reuters

Sudan said on Thursday it had secured the unanimous backing of 12 east African nations for president Omar Hassan al-Bashir to head the African Union, a move which rights groups said could undermine the body's credibility.

Sudan is hosting the AU summit and traditionally the host nation takes over the helm of the 53-member alliance. But critics say that could undermine AU-mediated peace talks to end a bloody revolt in Sudan's western Darfur region, which Washington calls genocide.

"The east African foreign ministers have decided late tonight to unanimously support Sudan's nomination of president Omar al-Bashir as chairman of the African Union," Sudan's foreign ministry spokesman Ibrahim Jamal told Reuters.

An AU official could not immediately confirm the information.

Darfur: Janjaweed a Fabrication, Says Bashir

From the BBC Monitoring Service - excerpt from report by Sudanese independent Al-Mashahir

Sudanese President Umar Hasan al-Bashir has denied the existence of the so-called Janjawid militias in the war-torn Darfur region and said this was a fabrication by the media. He said the armed groups obtained their weapons from outside Sudan and most conflicts in Darfur were over natural resources such as water and pastures.

In an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau, Al-Bashir accused extremist Christian circles in the US Congress and the Zionist lobby of influencing the US Congress against Sudan.

Al-Bashir asked foreign powers not to interfere in the Darfur conflict pointing out that there was no genocide there.

You can get a Google translation of the interview with Bashir in "Frankfurter Rundschau" by going here and putting this URL into the "translate a web page" box - it is obviously flawed, but you can get the gist of it

Washington sends rather contradictory signals in his relations with the Sudan. On the one hand congress of US requires the maintenance of the sanctions against the Sudan, on the other hand one the pentagon with your government in things terror fight co-operates closely.

But the influence of fundamentalist Christian circles and the zionistischen lobby is particularly in congress of US responsible. These circles have a firm position opposite the Sudan, which remains completely unchanged, no matter whether war prevails here or is closed like beginning past yearly peace. And this attitude is hostile and aggressive. On the other hand the US administration notices the realities better. And those show that we terminated a war for many decades and closed peace with the south. The US government knows also that our government would never support the terror.

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In the opinion many western politician, among other things the former US minister of foreign affairs Colin Powell, takes place in the Darfur provinces a genocide. Do you divide this estimate?

When minister of foreign affairs Powell was and visited Darfur here, it said afterwards, it gives there no genocide and no ethnical cleanings, thus to nothing of what was reported in the media. When it left to it the Sudan briefly, it changed its attitude however suddenly and said, what one expected from it.

The international criminal court would like to examine cases of war crimes and crimes against the humanity in Darfur. Why don't you leave the Ermittler of the Court of Justice in the country?

There are neither a genocide nor ethnical cleanings in Darfur. The Darfur conflict in such a way specified is an invention of foreign interests. The population in Darfur very probably is able to solve their problems by dialogue and co-operation with the centre government and the organizations of the civil company. We request all foreign forces to keep out from the Darfur conflict.

One accuses to them to solve this conflict not to even still heat but it up by the support of the Janjawid Milizen.

The Janjawid Milizen does not give it, it is a bare invention. In Darfur many master groupings are armed, them receive their weapons from the foreign country. These weapons are used ever more frequently unfortunately with conflicts around more scarcely becoming water and pasture resources.

Ivory Coast: Anti-UN Protesters Refuse to Budge

From Reuters

Barricades continued to snag Cote d'Ivoire's main city, Abidjan, and many people stayed home from work for the fourth day running on Thursday as anti-UN protesters ignored a plea from President Laurent Gbagbo to remove the roadblocks and end street protests.

After a flying visit and three hours of talks with the head of the African Union, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Ivorian president and new Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny issued a statement late Wednesday urging an end to the protests that have gripped the government controlled south since the weekend.

"Obasanjo, the president of the republic and the prime minister ask the population to get off the streets and go back home," said the statement broadcast on national radio on Wednesday night.

"The president of the republic and the prime minister invite the population across the national territory to resume work as of tomorrow, 19 January 2006."

But on Thursday morning, two thousands protestors remained outside UN headquarters and hundreds more outside the French embassy in Abidjan where workers have been blocked inside for several days.

"The situation is still the same despite the statements issued by the president yesterday," UN military spokesman Gilles Combarieu told IRIN.

"The security forces are still not intervening and not doing anything to keep these youths from attacking our headquarters," he said.

Violent protests demanding the departure of 10,000 UN and French peacekeeping troops have swept southern Cote d'Ivoire since Monday. The country has been split in two since a September 2002 rebellion.

Overnight, besieged UN peacekeepers withdrew from two more bases in the troubled western region. In total some 800-900 UN troops have withdrawn from four bases in Blolequin, Duekoue, Guiglo and Toulepleu, according to French military sources.

Ethiopia/Kenya: Battle for Livestock Leaves 38 Dead

From the AP

A battle for livestock between Ethiopian and Kenyan nomads has left 38 people dead in drought-stricken northern Kenya, officials and aid workers said Thursday.

Dongiro warriors crossed into Kenya from Ethiopia Friday and attacked Turkana herdsmen to steal their animals, said Njenga Miiri, district commissioner for Turkana. The fighting killed 30 of the raiders and eight Kenyan women and children.

The clashes took place in the remote village of Lokamarinyang along the Kenya-Ethiopia border, about 260 miles north of the regional capital of Lodwar, said Lucas Ariong, an aid worker in the area.

[edit]

Cattle rustling by nomadic tribes in the semiarid region is common and tribes in the area frequently do not respect national borders. Aid workers have expressed concern that as water sources dry up and livestock continue to die, such attacks will become more common.

Miiri said the attackers were from the Naita area of southern Ethiopia and were carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles. He said they were apparently trying to raid the Turkana settlement to steal 300 cows and goats.

Congo: Thousands Flee Clashes

From SAPA

An offensive by troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) against militia armies in the volatile east has driven 122 000 people from their homes, the United Nations mission in the DRC (Monuc) said on Wednesday.

"A new wave of 46 000 people has been displaced since November 2005 in districts of Nord-Katanga which are still the theatre of military operations against armed groups roaming the region, bringing the total number of displaced persons to 122 000," Monuc deputy spokesperson Eliana Naaba said.

Much further north, an armed gang loyal to a renegade general on Wednesday attacked an army position at Runyonyi in Nord-Kivu province, according to the local military commander, Colonel Jean-Marie She Kasikila, who accused Rwandan troops of backing the rebels.

Sudan Wants AU Chair

From Reuters

Sudan said on Thursday it would nominate its president as chairman of the African Union, but critics said the move would damage the continent and set back talks aimed at bringing peace to Sudan's Darfur region.

The United States says Khartoum has carried out genocide in Darfur, a charge the government denies, but rights groups say the AU's credibility as mediator would be undermined if President Omar Hassan al-Bashir became AU chairman.

The International Criminal Court is investigating alleged war crimes, including government backing for the Janjaweed militia, which has rampaged through Darfur looting and killing.

Khartoum has already boosted its prestige by hosting the two-day AU summit starting next Monday.

"We are going to nominate His Excellency Omar al-Bashir for the chairmanship of the African Union in the coming session. This is a diplomatic matter which we are to discuss," Sudanese Information Minister al-Zahawi Ibrahim Malik told Reuters.

He said the chairmanship would be decided by African leaders on the first day of the summit in Khartoum, which has been spruced up to prepare for the African visitors.

[edit]

"The credibility of AMIS will be undermined among Darfuris. They will start wondering why the AU is giving this man the chairmanship when, as far as they are concerned, he is an evil man. Our credibility is at stake," said an AU official involved in peacekeeping, who asked not to be named.

Rebels have said they will walk out of AU-sponsored peace talks in Nigeria, which currently holds the rotating AU chair, if Khartoum takes the lead. Khartoum says Nigeria will still host any peace talks if it becomes chairman.

"It (a Sudan chairmanship) would be bad for the people of Darfur. It would be bad for Africa to reward with the presidency someone alleged to have committed crimes," said Reed Brody, a lawyer for U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

"Africa should want someone who can to talk as an equal to the leaders of the world. Obasanjo can do that, Mbeki can do that, but Bashir cannot," he said.

Darfur: A Problem from Hell

A review of "Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide" by Gerard Prunier and "Darfur: A Short History of a Long War" by Julie Flint and Alex De Waal - from Salon

But does the conflict in Darfur, however bloody, qualify as genocide? Or does the application of the word "genocide" to Darfur make it harder to understand this conflict in its awful peculiarity? Is it possible that applying a generic label to Darfurian violence makes the task of stopping it harder? Or is questioning the label simply insensitive, implying that whatever has happened in Darfur isn't horrible enough to justify a claim on the world's conscience, and thus invite inaction or even the dismissal of Darfur altogether?

Chad: Youths Seized, Forced to Fight

Retuers

Young men in Chad are being rounded up, given guns and used as little more than human shields as the army battles a growing rebel threat near its eastern border, rights groups and students say.

Hundreds of youths had been press-ganged and sent to the border with Sudan’s troubled Darfur region to fight in Chad’s army, which has been weakened by mass desertions, the groups said. The government denies forcing youths to fight.

"There’s absolutely no doubt (the young men) are being sent to the war zone," said Jacqueline Moudeina, a prominent lawyer and president of the Chadian Association for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (ATDPH).

"They are being used as human shields ... We have lots of information to back this up, including testimony from witnesses who have managed to escape," she told Reuters.

Sudan: Peace Talks on East Due to Start Next Week

From Reuters

Rebels in eastern Sudan are due to start talks with the government next week on ending conflict in a region that contains the country's only port, main oil pipeline and largest gold mine.

The talks will start in Libya on Jan. 27, said government officials on Thursday and rebels who claim the area is neglected by Khartoum.

The talks were due to start last week but were delayed after government-allied forces entered the rebel-held area of Hamesh Koreb and clashed with rebels in an area that borders Eritrea.

"We have agreed (to talks) on Jan. 27 in Libya if nothing further happens on the ground," Eastern Front spokesman Ali el-Safi told Reuters.

Darfur: Slovenian President Promotes Peace

From the AP

Slovenia's president carried a peace initiative for Sudan's troubled Darfur region to the U.N. Wednesday, calling for an international peace conference and urging individual citizens to pressure their governments to take action.

President Janez Drnovsek called on the U.N. Security Council to step up its involvement in the region, where an estimated 180,000 people have died and about 2 million have been displaced since conflict erupted between ethnic African tribes and government-supported Arab militias in 2003.

While acknowledging his Balkan nation has no special interest in Sudan, Drnovsek said he felt compelled to address the humanitarian crisis because of "the power of connections between all people."

Drnovsek spoke to reporters after meeting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan who has made frequent calls for a "durable political peace" and a permanent ceasefire in Sudan.

"I think there's undoubtedly a larger role the international community can play both in helping us provide security in the Darfur region and in terms of humanitarian assistance," U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said when asked about the potential effectiveness of Drnovsek's proposals.

Drnovsek recently suggested that his country establish a camp in Sudan for 10,000 refugees, and said Slovenia had also offered to set up a field hospital and send demining experts to the region.

Darfur: Peace Talks Too Slow

From Reuters

The African Union has criticised the Sudanese government and rebels for failing to make progress in talks aimed at ending three years of killing, rape and looting in the western region of Darfur.

Talks have stalled over issues of power sharing and how to create a final ceasefire and they need to be revitalised, according to an AU statement quoting its chief mediator Sam Ibok.

"Ibok made clear to the Sudanese Parties the disappointment of the African Union Peace and Security Council, and the United Nations Security Council over the slow progress so far achieved," the statement issued late on Wednesday said.

"The current round of the peace talks had been characterised by inflexibility, suspicions and the absence of a minimum level of confidence," it said.

The AU-mediated talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja made little progress in six previous rounds due to rebel divisions and fighting on the ground.

[edit]

The AU special envoy for Darfur, Salim Ahmed Salim, had described the talks to end the conflict as "disturbingly and agonisingly slow," the statement added.

The mediators urged the parties to resume talks with vigour and reminded them of the millions of Darfuris living in makeshift camps in the region, waiting for an end to the fighting so they could return home.

The rebels want a vice-president from Darfur and an autonomous regional government, both suggestions the government rejects after conceding a high level of autonomy to southern rebels a year ago to end a brutal conflict.

Darfur: Annan Urges More Aid to AU Mission

From UN News Center

With tensions persisting in Sudan’s Darfur province, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today urged more resources for the African Union (AU) mission in the region, while the Security Council considered future plans, including a possible United Nations force there.

“The Security Council is fully seized of this matter, and is looking at ways and means of strengthening the peacekeeping operations on the ground,” Mr. Annan told reporters in New York. “For the immediate we will need to ensure that the African Union forces have all the support – financial, logistical and material that they need.

“So we need to take immediate measures to strengthen the African Union, give them the support necessary whilst we work on the future plans for the Security Council,” he said.

Chad/Sudan: Tension Persists as Troop Build-Up Continues

From the UN News Center

Sudan’s West Darfur province remains tense, with Chadian troops and Sudan Armed Forces on both sides of the border being reinforced amid a recent spate of attacks on commercial and non-governmental organization (NGO) vehicles in the area, the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) said today.

In South Darfur banditry has continued and buses and commercial vehicles contracted to international NGO humanitarian agencies have been attacked, according to a spokesman for the mission.

In Southern Sudan, two anti-tank mines were discovered, one on the Juba-Yei road and one on the Gogrial-Wau road. The UN Mine Action Office declared the usually heavily-travelled Juba-Yei road a no-go area for the UN, limiting the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

Darfur: Call-In Day/US Assumes UN Presidency in Feb.

From Africa Action via POTP

We are approaching the moment of truth. Violence in Darfur continues to rise, and for the first time in recent news reports the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU), and even the U.S. have indicated support for an urgent multinational intervention to stop the genocide in Darfur. In February, the U.S. will be the President of the UN Security Council, providing an ideal moment for the U.S. to lead the international community to stop genocide. We know that they will not take action without hearing strong public support, so we are asking you today to help us tip the balance. Please pick up the phone and call the State Department today!

Darfur: African Union Prepares for Eventual Hand Over of Mission

From VOA

With less than 7,000 troops and observers scattered across Darfur, Sudan, an area about the size of France, the African Union has struggled to keep the peace.

"They are there because the western world in the security council asked them to go there. And we let them do the job with bound hands.... if you do not give them the resources," said Jan Pronk, the United Nation's Special Envoy to Sudan. "The African countries do not have the equipment that is necessary to intervene and to control such a battle... so if you ask the African soldiers to do the dirty work, give them the tools."

And, Pronk says, the international community has not done that, failing to provide key resources to stop the killing, banditry, and cease fire violations that continue in Darfur.

"We failed," he said. "What we have done so far is picking up the pieces and muddling through. So we came too late and we did too little."

[edit]

So Pronk has asked the U.N. Security Council to back a strong U.N. peacekeeping force. He envisions it as a mission that would stabilize the region, secure a lasting truce and pave the way for productive peace talks taking place in Nigeria, which have so far failed. And, he says, the African Union has agreed to the idea.

The U.N. security council has not yet taken that decision and we need that. Otherwise we cannot do anything. Imagine there will be such a decision," added Pronk. "Then the AU will have to stay for awhile to help the U.N. to prepare its coming. It has to be a big force, at least twice as big as the African Union now. It has to be strong with weapons with which they can defend themselves.

"They are being attacked. And with which they can disarm the militia," he continued. "I think you need a force that can stay long because all these more than two million people will have to return home and they are not returning home if it is not safe. They don't think it's safe if they are being so-called protected by their own army because their army did attack them in the past. So they need an international force for a number of years."

But Jean-Christophe Belliard, a top advisor for the European Union, disagrees with Pronk's assessment of the AU's performance in Darfur. Belliard says given the difficulty of the situation and the newness of the African Union, officially inaugurated just over three years ago, it has done as well as can be expected.

Belliard also casts doubt on the idea that the international community is ready to take on the Darfur operation.

"They are doing it because we don't want to do it. We, western countries, we are not ready to send troops there despite the fact that what is going on there is very serious," he said. "But all this taken into account they are doing well, they are doing their best. The situation has stabilized. It has allowed peace negotiations to go on."

[edit]

The AU summit set for January 23 and 24 in Khartoum is expected to be dominated by this issue, as well as another, very sensitive one: whether or not Sudan, as host, can legitimately takeover the chairmanship of the organization as is customary.

"In its own right, this is an issue. If Khartoum chairs the African Union, this would lead to a total loss of credibility of the AU in the sense that the African Union is involved in political mediation to resolve the conflict in Darfur.... and Khartoum cannot be chairing the African Union because it will be a party to that conflict and also a judge of it," said Suliman Baldo.

But U.N. envoy Pronk says he believes that issue has already been discussed privately among African leaders.

"I have indications that there are quite a number of African countries hesitant and that that message has been understood in Khartoum," he said. "I think people want a face saving device now. And I think they will find a solution."

Darfur: BBC Worldwide Monitoring

Two things from BBC Worldwide Monitoring - no links available:

Darfur Rebel Groups Threaten to Quit Abuja peace Talks - from a report by Sudanese independent newspaper Al-Ayyam

A spokesman for the rebel [Darfur] movements has condemned what he described as lowering the level of the government delegation from the high level delegation led by [Presidential] Advisor Majdhub al-Khalifah to [the low level delegation led by] Minister of Youth, Culture and Sports.

This comes at a time when AU mediators at the Abuja talks have intensified discussions with the negotiating sides in order to resume direct negotiations which were delayed since yesterday. [Passage omitted.]

Meanwhile, the spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Movement [SLM], Isam al-Haj said that the low-level government delegation confirms that it [government] is not serious in achieving peace and does not encourage the resumption of direct face-to-face negotiations.

He further announced that the joint leadership of the two Darfur movements [SLM and Justice and Equality] had notified the AU mediator of its insistence on their demands and proposals, adding that they would not compromise on any of the clauses because they represent the least of what the people of Darfur are expecting.

Speaking to Al-Ayyam newspaper regarding the rather slow process in the peace talks, Isam said: "If the talks continue at this pace, we see no point of wasting time on them".

Darfur Residents Protest Against Calls for UN Peacekeeping Troops - Obvious propaganda taken from a report on Sudanese radio

A big crowd today demonstrated in Al-Fashir town [Darfur, western Sudan] denouncing the UN Security Council stand and the statements of the UN secretary-general that called for the sending of an international peacekeeping force to Darfur in place of the AU force.

The crowd, which marched through various parts of the town, submitted a protest note to the AU office, the office of the [AU] Peace and Security Council and the UN office in Al-Fashir.

The protest note stressed the rejection of the Darfur people of all forms of intervention in Sudanese affairs. It pointed out that the only means of resolving the Darfur issue is through the AU.

The protest note described the AU statements as serving the interests of specific countries on top of which is the USA.

The note called on the armed rebels in Darfur to resort to the voice of reason so as to avoid embracing the usurpers.

Uganda: Children are the Real Victims/Situation Worse Than Darfur

From AlertNet

The worst place in the world to be a child today is northern Uganda, the former U.N. representative for children in war said, blaming rebels and government forces for trapping an entire population in a nightmare of terror, disease and death.

Rebels have kidnapped more than 20,000 children for use as soldiers, sex slaves and porters while the government is keeping hundreds of thousands of others in squalid camps where disease and violence are rampant.

“When adults wage war children pay the highest price,” Olara Otunnu said in a speech in London. “Children are the primary victims of armed conflict.”

Almost 2 million people have been “herded like animals” into the camps in northern Uganda where 1,000 people are dying a week due to disease and violence, Otunnu said. He added that rape by government troops, many of them HIV positive, was common.

The government says the camps were set up a decade ago to protect local people from attacks and abductions by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), whose 19-year insurgency has taken a horrific toll on northern Uganda’s Acholi population.

Otunnu, who comes from northern Uganda, accused President Yoweri Museveni, a southerner, of forcing the Acholi people into the camps in a deliberate campaign to wipe them out. The government strongly denied this.

“An entire society is being destroyed in full view of the international community,” Otunnu said, calling on Western leaders to demand the Ugandan government dismantle the camps and send in international monitors.

[edit]

Otunnu, who was U.N. Under Secretary-General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict from 1997 to 2005, said the situation in northern Uganda was far worse than in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region.

In Darfur, tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million forced from their homes since 2003.

“The U.N. said recently that the death rate in northern Uganda is twice that of Darfur,” he said. “Northern Uganda has the worst infant mortality in the world today.

“The situation in northern Uganda is far worse than in Darfur in its duration, its scope, its magnitude and the impact on the society being destroyed.”

Republic of Congo: ICRC Suspends Aid in Pool Region

From IRIN

Worsening insecurity has forced the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) to pull out of Pool, a troubled region in the Republic of the Congo (RoC).

"The suspension will continue until it is believed that security has returned," said the head of the ICRC's delegation in RoC, Christophe Martin, at a press conference in the capital, Brazzaville.

He said the decision was officially made last Saturday.

The ICRC had been assisting medical centres with services for around 60,000 people in Pool. It has also been providing clean water to many local communities.

Chad: Rebels Admit "Friendly" Ties with Sudan but Deny Receiving Support

From IRIN

A Chadian rebel leader on Wednesday said insurgents seeking to oust President Idriss Deby have ‘friendly’ relations with Sudan and have met on Sudanese soil, but are receiving no arms or other assistance from Khartoum, as charged by N’Djamena.

Abdelwahid Aboud Makaye, a leader of the newly formed United Front for Change and Democracy (FUC), said in an interview with Radio France Internationale that some meetings sealing the group’s formation in late December were held in El Geneina in Darfur, western Sudan.

But he noted that this was in line with a political tradition between the two neighbours under which successive Chadian rebellions had seized power with some degree of support from Khartoum.

“FUC’s relations with the Sudanese government are friendly - very close,” he said. “But this is not to say that the rebels are in any way manipulated by Khartoum.”

[edit]

But the FUC’s Makaye told RFI, “This is a Chado-Chadian problem - not a Chado-Sudanese problem.”

He added: “All of Chad’s revolutions since 1966 have passed via Sudan…Deby himself got to power by way of Sudan.”

Former army commander Deby had help from Khartoum when he took power in a coup in 1990. He was elected to office in 1996 and 2001.

The FUC rebels will work through Sudan as well, Makaye said, but insisted that “this does not mean that Khartoum gives us arms or vehicles or anything.”

He said such materials were being provided by way of “other relations.”

Darfur: NPR

Two stories on "Morning Edition:"

Sudan Returnees Carry Horrific Memories

In Southern Sudan, tens of thousands of refugees are returning home after a 21-year civil war. Some were abducted by Arab militiamen and taken north, where they were often subjected to beatings, rape and other forms of torture.

U.N. Envoy Seeks Help on Darfur Violence

Steve Inskeep talks with the U.N. envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, about the western region of Darfur. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Darfur since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing the central government of neglect. Pronk is asking NATO for help in resolving the conflict.

Congo: "Forgotten" Villagers Tackle Rwandan Rebels

From Reuters

Weary of attacks by Rwandan rebels and Kinshasa's soldiers, villagers in eastern Congo have taken up arms and are fighting back, residents said on Wednesday.

Farmers from the jungles and green hills of south Kivu feel abandoned by a government hundreds of kilometres away and an overstretched United Nations peacekeeping mission.

They have been using machetes, spears and sticks to defend themselves and even disarm rebels and soldiers.

'They have risen up against all the military groups who are pillaging and killing,' said Polydore Zakalamo, a priest in Kamituga, a mining town 180km south-west of Bukavu."

From Rwanda to Darfur: Lessons Learned?

A good piece from Gerald Caplan via the Sudan Tribune

What lessons did the international community learn from the Genocide in Rwanda ten years ago, especially in relation to the crisis in Darfur? Gerald Caplan, an expert on the Rwandan genocide, charts the response of the international community in Rwanda and then discusses what the response has been in Darfur. Once again, the international community, with key players only able to serve their various economic and strategic interests, have shown a scandalous disregard for human life and failed to act and prevent genocide.

Sudan: Army Commits Serious Ceasefire Violation

From Reuters

Sudan's army has committed the first serious violation of a final ceasefire signed a year ago to end Africa's longest civil war in its south, a U.N. peacekeeping official said on Wednesday.

The former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) said the army sent around 1,200 troops last week into the rebel-controlled eastern area of Hamesh Koreb and has threatened to expel the SPLM. A joint U.N.-led team is still in the area to defuse tensions between the two sides.

"This is the first serious ceasefire violation," said Parminder Pannu, the military chief of staff of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Sudan.

The Jan 9, 2005 peace deal established a final ceasefire, and outlined a new coalition power-sharing government. Some 10,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops are being deployed throughout the country to monitor implementation of the deal.

During the more than two decades of north-south civil war, the SPLM reached and fought alongside separate eastern rebels in the region of Hamesh Koreb, which border Eritrea. U.N. troops are deployed in the nearest major town, Kassala.

Under the accord, the SPLM should have withdrawn its troops from the east within a year, but failed to do so.

While the SPLM says it informed the government and the U.N. about the delay they say is due to logistical problems, Pannu said they did not specify another withdrawal date despite many requests to do so.

He said the situation in Hamesh Koreb town was still very tense as government forces, SPLM troops and eastern rebels had formed a triangle of positions around the town.

"At the moment the situation is very tense but there is no exchange of fire taking place," he told reporters in Khartoum. "Any movement of forces without discussing this across the table...would amount to a ceasefire violation," he added.

Pannu said the government had insisted the troops were not Sudanese army, but a pro-government militia, known as Popular Defence Forces (PDF). But he said there were clear indications on the ground that the PDF forces were with the government.

The Rape of Darfur

An op-ed from Glenys Kinnock, a MEP for Wales and a member of the European parliament's development and cooperation committee, in the Guardian

In Darfur, where close to 400,000 people have been killed as part of a government-sponsored program of ethnic cleansing, the brutal rape of women and children has become a weapon of war.

Sexual violence is now an integral and devastating part of the conflict aimed at breaking the will of the local people, humiliating them so that they will abandon their lands and weakening tribal ethnic lines.

Every day women in Darfur face the prospect of being raped and beaten when they leave their homes to find food or search for firewood. They face this prospect even though the international community claims that it is protecting them.

Even if they survive this trauma, as I learnt when I visited the region last year, their prospects are bleak. Many of them have had their homes destroyed and their male relatives killed.

Their villages are burned to the ground, they are forced to walk for days, carrying their children through baking heat and dust storms, to insecure refugee camps. Here, instead of finding safety and comfort, they must build their own shelters, and they are still vulnerable to attack.

These are the physical aspects of the disaster. The psychological ones run much deeper. No one can estimate how often the women in Darfur are attacked and raped because their society shames the victims into silence.

[edit]

We haven't heard much about what is happening in Darfur recently. The killing and raping continues, but the Sudanese regime has changed tactics.

It no longer needs to use its air force to bomb its own people because it has achieved its racist aim: 90% of the black African villages have been destroyed.

Now the Sudanese are using their proxies, the Janjaweed militia, to rape women whenever they venture out for firewood.

Khartoum has rightly guessed that the international community is not going to take them to task over the daily suffering of hundreds of thousands of women who cannot bear to talk about their ordeal.

Ivory Coast: Civil War Heating Up

From the AP

U.N. peacekeepers battled attackers Wednesday before withdrawing from a western Ivory Coast town along with military observers and other U.N. staff, officials said.

Capt. Gilles Combarieu, a U.N. military observer, said the Bangladeshi troops exchanged fire with attackers trying to enter their compound in the government-held town of Guiglo before evacuating all U.N. employees from the city.

"They had to defend themselves," he said, adding that 200 to 300 U.N. peacekeepers and staff were headed north toward a more heavily guarded buffer zone separating government and rebel fighters.

Combarieu said he had no details on the number of dead or wounded. A doctor at Guiglo's main hospital said two bodies with bullet wounds lay at the morgue and there were reports of three more corpses in the streets.

[edit]

A third day of street protests roiled civil war-divided Ivory Coast's government-held south as President Laurent Gbagbo's supporters blocked streets across the west African nation's main city.

Businesses shut down across Abidjan amid fears of a return to all-out violence in a country divided between government and rebel control after a 2002 through 2003 civil war.

While Gbagbo has officially banned street demonstrations, his security forces appeared to do little to disperse government supporters erecting burning barricades in streets and besieging U.N. offices across the cocoa-rich south.

[edit]

There were no reports of strife from the rebel-held north, where insurgent leaders accused Gbagbo of orchestrating the protests to undermine a new transitional government.

"It's an insurrection against the transitional government organized by Gbagbo and (his political party) to bring power back into their hands," said Sidiki Konate, a rebel spokesman. Officials at the presidency couldn't be reached for comment.

A U.N.-backed international mediation group recommended on the weekend that the country's parliament's expired mandate not be renewed. Gbagbo is leading a one-year government of national unity that has diminished his executive powers.

The parliament, filled with his supporters, is viewed as his last bastion of power and the mediators' decision angered youth activists and Gbagbo's backers who sent their followers into streets. The United Nations has so far bore the brunt of the protesters' ire.