Albert Tshiambi
Le Potentiel
English Translation.
Elements of the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC) proceeded, on April 12, 2007 to search the district of Uvira in South-Kivu. The objective of the search was to uncover civilians and soldiers who sow desolation among the civil population.
The FARDC proceeded early the morning with a search of civilian homes. The objective was not only to uncover military and civilian suspects, but also to seek out weapons and other military effects held by private individuals.
According to a source, eight weapons and other military items were recovered by the FARDC, at the time of this operation which lasted more than eight hours. People with doubtful identity were also stopped for reasons of investigation.
As is a habit in similar circumstances, many people were unable to leave their homes and go to work. In spite of that, journalists and healthcare workers were seen on certain main streets in the city of Uvira.
Note that this operation follows information collected by the 10th Infantry Brigade from Uvira giving a report “on a possible attack by rebels from the high plateaus of Minembwe." These refractory insurrectionists who have refused the mixing process would have given their opinion, on Tuesday April 11, 2007 in the localities of Moranja and Mutamba, close to Uvira. They advanced within 600 meters toward the positions of the 109th Brigade based in Biziba”, the same source revealed. However, no confrontation was reported. The 109ème brigade remains on the defensive in the locality of Biziba.
Taking into account the resurgency insecurity in South-Kivu, a national deputy of the province was called last Thursday to the French National Assembly, where he decried these acts. He expressed a wish to see the Congolese Government implying itself as soon as possible in this matter in order to restore the authority of the State on the whole province of South-Kivu.
The local authorities of the town of Uvira did not remain indifferent. On the contrary, they denounced the cases of rapes, plunderings, and other annoyances that target the peaceful citizens.
14 April, 2007
More Support for Re-Negotiating DRC Copper Mining Contracts.
Tessa Kruger
MineWeb
13 April 2007
http://www.mineweb.co.za/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page68?oid=19497&sn=Detail
Editor's Note: RAID wrote an excellent report on mineral smuggling during the 2nd Congo War (1998-2003). They were also instumental in bringing the Kilwa massacre to trial, where Australia-based Anvil Mining lend vehicles to soldiers who brutally put down a group of locals in Katanga Province protesting Anvil's mining practices and policies in the Congo. Right now, copper contracts are the hottest commodity because copper is at record-high prices.
RAID (Rights and Accountability in Development), a UK-based organisation, has stepped up its campaign for the re-negotiation of joint venture contracts between private mining companies and the state-owned mining enterprise, Gecamines, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
RAID has said in a report titled Key Mining Contracts in Katanga: the economic argument for re-negotiation, that it welcomed the Congolese government's recent announcement to review all mining contracts as a fair distribution of project benefits had to be established.
RAID recommended that analyses of the distribution of benefits be carried out on the various joint venture projects between private companies and state that were concluded during the period of war and transition in the DRC.
The organisation has performed a study of Katanga Mining's (KML) Kamoto project (copper) in the Katanga province and believes terms of the existing joint venture with Gecamines (25%) should be re-negotiated to more equitably reflect the state company's contribution to the project.
"A similar rigorous model should be run for the other joint venture projects in the region, including with Nikanor and with Tenke/Phelps Dodge. Nothing precludes the private companies, World Bank, Gecamines or the Ministry of Mines to carry out such an analysis," said RAID.
The price of copper and cobalt is one of the most important variables that affects the IRR of companies and the base rate should be set by an independent expert, said the organisation.
The value that Gecamines brought to each joint venture project had to be audited. Other joint venture projects, including those with Nikanor and Tenke Mining, should be reviewed to determine whether the distribution of benefits reflected the contributions of the parties.
RAID contracted an independent mining expert, Pierre Ratcliffe, to examine key economic aspects of the Kamoto project in order to assess if a balance had been struck between benefits accruing to private companies and Gecamines' stake in the assets.
He found that the joint venture underestimated the long-term copper price and the cobalt price when compared to historical data.
"Modelling the worth of the Kamoto project using realistic metals prices produces a net present value (NPV) of $716.5 million to KML and $351.2 million to Gecamines. Not only is the NPV accruing to Gecamines considerably less than the value of assets it contributed, but Gecamines also receives a low percentage of the value created."
The value of the project assets were never properly assessed and comments by KML suggest that these assets are worth in the region of $570 million.
RAID said the imbalance in the distribution of benefits from the Kamoto project could be redressed by either an upfront payment or an increased equity stake in the project.
"An improved deal will not affect any of the wider benefits of investment, including job creation, social expenditure and revenue streams from taxation and royalties."
The organisation added that the purpose of its report was to stimulate debate on the distribution of economic benefits and costs of the joint venture agreements.
RAID says on its website that it has been at the forefront in pressing the World Bank to instigate a review of all mining contracts in the DRC concluded during the war and transitional period.
"In the early 1990s, the DRC's state mining enterprise, Gecamines, was the most lucrative source of revenue.
"Today Gecamines has been stripped of virtually all its assets and ore bodies through a number of disadvantageous contracts."
MineWeb
13 April 2007
http://www.mineweb.co.za/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page68?oid=19497&sn=Detail
Editor's Note: RAID wrote an excellent report on mineral smuggling during the 2nd Congo War (1998-2003). They were also instumental in bringing the Kilwa massacre to trial, where Australia-based Anvil Mining lend vehicles to soldiers who brutally put down a group of locals in Katanga Province protesting Anvil's mining practices and policies in the Congo. Right now, copper contracts are the hottest commodity because copper is at record-high prices.
RAID (Rights and Accountability in Development), a UK-based organisation, has stepped up its campaign for the re-negotiation of joint venture contracts between private mining companies and the state-owned mining enterprise, Gecamines, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
RAID has said in a report titled Key Mining Contracts in Katanga: the economic argument for re-negotiation, that it welcomed the Congolese government's recent announcement to review all mining contracts as a fair distribution of project benefits had to be established.
RAID recommended that analyses of the distribution of benefits be carried out on the various joint venture projects between private companies and state that were concluded during the period of war and transition in the DRC.
The organisation has performed a study of Katanga Mining's (KML) Kamoto project (copper) in the Katanga province and believes terms of the existing joint venture with Gecamines (25%) should be re-negotiated to more equitably reflect the state company's contribution to the project.
"A similar rigorous model should be run for the other joint venture projects in the region, including with Nikanor and with Tenke/Phelps Dodge. Nothing precludes the private companies, World Bank, Gecamines or the Ministry of Mines to carry out such an analysis," said RAID.
The price of copper and cobalt is one of the most important variables that affects the IRR of companies and the base rate should be set by an independent expert, said the organisation.
The value that Gecamines brought to each joint venture project had to be audited. Other joint venture projects, including those with Nikanor and Tenke Mining, should be reviewed to determine whether the distribution of benefits reflected the contributions of the parties.
RAID contracted an independent mining expert, Pierre Ratcliffe, to examine key economic aspects of the Kamoto project in order to assess if a balance had been struck between benefits accruing to private companies and Gecamines' stake in the assets.
He found that the joint venture underestimated the long-term copper price and the cobalt price when compared to historical data.
"Modelling the worth of the Kamoto project using realistic metals prices produces a net present value (NPV) of $716.5 million to KML and $351.2 million to Gecamines. Not only is the NPV accruing to Gecamines considerably less than the value of assets it contributed, but Gecamines also receives a low percentage of the value created."
The value of the project assets were never properly assessed and comments by KML suggest that these assets are worth in the region of $570 million.
RAID said the imbalance in the distribution of benefits from the Kamoto project could be redressed by either an upfront payment or an increased equity stake in the project.
"An improved deal will not affect any of the wider benefits of investment, including job creation, social expenditure and revenue streams from taxation and royalties."
The organisation added that the purpose of its report was to stimulate debate on the distribution of economic benefits and costs of the joint venture agreements.
RAID says on its website that it has been at the forefront in pressing the World Bank to instigate a review of all mining contracts in the DRC concluded during the war and transitional period.
"In the early 1990s, the DRC's state mining enterprise, Gecamines, was the most lucrative source of revenue.
"Today Gecamines has been stripped of virtually all its assets and ore bodies through a number of disadvantageous contracts."
Al Gore Drops Barrick Gold Sponsorship For His Visit to Chile.
Former Democratic U.S. Vice President Albert (Al) Gore Jr.
He was Vice President under Bill Clinton during the Rwandan Genocide and the Congo wars.
The Santiago Times.
Beatrice Karol Burks
Posted: Friday, 13 April 2007
http://www.mineweb.co.za/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page68?oid=19494&sn=Detail
Editor's Note: Mr. Gore would have been figuratively slapping every environmentalist and human rights activist in the face if he had accepted this sponsorship.
Al Gore has dumped financial backing from Canadian mining company Barrick Gold for his upcoming Santiago event "Global Warming and Climate Change: The Time Has Come to Act." The Academy Award-winning environmentalist distanced himself from any association with the mining company, which owns the controversial Pascua Lama gold mine.
"Unfortunately, we were never asked to approve Barrick Gold as a cosponsor and as soon as we became aware that they were co sponsors, we asked that they be removed," Gore's press spokesperson Kalee Kreider told The Santiago Times. "I was informed that they were removed yesterday (Tuesday)."
A Barrick Gold spokesperson confirmed to The Santiago Times that they had withdrawn their funding for the event. The US$50,000 that they contributed will be directed towards "other environmental projects." It is still not known how event organizers will cover the cash shortfall presumed to exist now that Barrick has been banned from the event.
Other sponsor's for Gore's visit include the Chilevision television station, the El Mercurio newspaper and the Banco Del Estado.
National political leaders and Chile's environmental community warned earlier this week that the mining sponsorship risked "contaminating" and making a mockery of Gore's campaign.
Barrick Gold has come under fire for dubious environmental and human rights practices on four continents. Its most controversial recent project in South America, the Pascua Lama gold mine, straddles the border between Chile and Argentina in the Andes Mountains in Chile's Region III. The project been harshly criticized by environmentalists worldwide who oppose the company's determination to destroy the glaciers sitting above the metal deposits.
"When it comes to the environment, you have to take sides," Sen. Alejandro Navarro told The Santiago Times. "In this case, it means that Gore has to choose whether he wants his message to retain its credibility, or whether he's happy to go along with whomever facilitates the event. You can't be sincerely worried about environmental phenomena affecting the planet and at the same time be ‘mates' with a company like Barrick Gold."
Obviously, Gore has chosen.
Glaciers are one of the world's precious fresh water reserves - as Gore pointed out in his documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth," - and are one of the ecosystems most at risk from climate change.
With 1,751 glaciers within its borders, Chile is home to 3 percent of the world's small glaciers. Global warming, however, is taking its toll. Chile's melting glaciers contribute to over 8 percent of the world's rising sea levels. In the last two years Chile's Marinelli glacier appears to have shrunk by more than four kilometers, despite the area receiving substantial rain (ST, May 4 2006).
Barrick's quest for gold in Chile may prove similarly devastating. The company initially drafted a plan to build an open-pit mine and to remove or "relocate" three glaciers impeding Pascua Lama's development. The company eventually received the environmental go-ahead from Chile's National Environment Commission (Conama) in early 2006, but on the condition that the ice mass not be touched. A tunneled mine, rather than an open pit mine, would have to be used, said Chile's Conama.
Environmental watchdog, the Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts (OLCA) has already reported partial destruction of three glaciers: Toro 1, Toro 2 and Esperanza, which all sit astride Barrick Gold's Pascua Lama mine.
Still, Chile's lax environmental controls and dismally poor environmental track record suggest Barrick will be allowed to continue developing the mine without any significant penalty or oversight.
Residents in the Huasco Valley below the Pascua Lama mine site - many of whom are from the Diaguita Huasco Altina indigenous community - fear residue from the mining process will contaminate the Estrecho River which flows out of the valley. The community also claims it has lost 50,000 hectares of land which Barrick Gold acquired illegally.
"It does not make sense that one of the principal leaders of world public opinion on the threat global warming presents to our planet would come to Chile financed by the same mining company responsible for the destruction of glaciers and water contamination in so many parts of the world," read a statement from OLCA. The organization referred to the sponsorship as an "image-laundering operation" on the part of Barrick Gold.
The news of Gore's visit kicked up a controversy earlier this year when it was revealed that the event would cost over US$200,000 (ST, March 19), and that access by the public and media would be strictly limited. Gore was invited to Chile by businessman Sebastian Piñera, owner of LAN airlines and the Chilevision TV station. Chilevision is apparently the only Chilean news media that will be allowed to question the environmental leader.
Gore will deliver his seminar as part of the event "Global Warming and Climate Change: The Time to Act Has Come" at 6 p.m. on May 11th in the CasaPiedra convention center, Santiago.
At press time, Barrick Gold was still listed on the event's website as a sponsor, though Gore's spokesperson assured they had requested the company's removal.
World Bank Arm to Invest $1 Billion in Africa.
Gulf Daily News
Vol XXX No. 24
13 April 2007
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=178884&Sn=BUSI&IssueID=30024
Editor's Note: Well, once again, they will give out lots of money if the nations privatize. How many nations have been run into the ground by this scheme? Rwanda itself in the early 1990s was destroyed economically in large part by the World Bank's programs of privatization and currency devaluation. The Rwandan France was devalued twice during wartime in Rwanda and was eventually worth less than a Zaire. This coincided with the crash in the world coffee market. This caused mass unemployment in Rwanda during this time period, which was augmented by the war. The unemployed men were left to mill around in a dangerous political and physical environment. This climate of unemployment, uncertainty, and fear generated many people willing to join the militias that formed in Rwanda. Now, the World Bank is willing to give money to a government who's President is under an international arrest warrant for an act of terrorism, while another World Bank branch won't properly fund the Congo's DDR program that they originally funded. What is wrong with this picture?
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) said yesterday it plans to invest $1 billion in Africa this year compared with $140 million in 2003, the business atmosphere in many countries having greatly improved.
Most of the money invested by the private sector arm of the World Bank has gone into projects in areas like health, power, infrastructure, financial markets, education and agribusiness.
"The environment has been more conducive to business. That explains the renewed level of confidence in Africa," said senior IFC manager for Eastern Africa Jean Philippe Prosper.
"In the majority of countries unfortunately, we need to do some substantial changes...but we feel there's hope at the end of the tunnel," Prosper said.
Most pressure for the reforms was from residents but the IFC had helped institute them, he said.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) had risen greatly in most African nations, he added.
"If you take the case of Kenya, from 2005 to 2006 (FDI) increased ten-fold from $90m to $1.1bn," he said adding that corruption had been an impediment to greater investment there but that the country was fighting it.
"Yes, there are issues but we have to be honest and recognise there has been some improvement."
Rwanda had great ambitions and clear leadership and was "one of the best kept secrets in Africa", he said.
Prosper said IFC was helping in the privatisation of Kenya's state-run telecoms firm Telkom Kenya and Rwandan carrier Rwandair.
Financing needs on the continent were great and other investors and finance institutions would have enough business, he said, adding that IFC's portfolio had grown over the last three years and now held more quality investments.
A new financing institution modelled on the IFC, the Africa Finance Corporation, is scheduled to start operations in April with about $1bn capital.
The organisation will be based in Nigeria and has been piloted by the central bank there.
Vol XXX No. 24
13 April 2007
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=178884&Sn=BUSI&IssueID=30024
Editor's Note: Well, once again, they will give out lots of money if the nations privatize. How many nations have been run into the ground by this scheme? Rwanda itself in the early 1990s was destroyed economically in large part by the World Bank's programs of privatization and currency devaluation. The Rwandan France was devalued twice during wartime in Rwanda and was eventually worth less than a Zaire. This coincided with the crash in the world coffee market. This caused mass unemployment in Rwanda during this time period, which was augmented by the war. The unemployed men were left to mill around in a dangerous political and physical environment. This climate of unemployment, uncertainty, and fear generated many people willing to join the militias that formed in Rwanda. Now, the World Bank is willing to give money to a government who's President is under an international arrest warrant for an act of terrorism, while another World Bank branch won't properly fund the Congo's DDR program that they originally funded. What is wrong with this picture?
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) said yesterday it plans to invest $1 billion in Africa this year compared with $140 million in 2003, the business atmosphere in many countries having greatly improved.
Most of the money invested by the private sector arm of the World Bank has gone into projects in areas like health, power, infrastructure, financial markets, education and agribusiness.
"The environment has been more conducive to business. That explains the renewed level of confidence in Africa," said senior IFC manager for Eastern Africa Jean Philippe Prosper.
"In the majority of countries unfortunately, we need to do some substantial changes...but we feel there's hope at the end of the tunnel," Prosper said.
Most pressure for the reforms was from residents but the IFC had helped institute them, he said.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) had risen greatly in most African nations, he added.
"If you take the case of Kenya, from 2005 to 2006 (FDI) increased ten-fold from $90m to $1.1bn," he said adding that corruption had been an impediment to greater investment there but that the country was fighting it.
"Yes, there are issues but we have to be honest and recognise there has been some improvement."
Rwanda had great ambitions and clear leadership and was "one of the best kept secrets in Africa", he said.
Prosper said IFC was helping in the privatisation of Kenya's state-run telecoms firm Telkom Kenya and Rwandan carrier Rwandair.
Financing needs on the continent were great and other investors and finance institutions would have enough business, he said, adding that IFC's portfolio had grown over the last three years and now held more quality investments.
A new financing institution modelled on the IFC, the Africa Finance Corporation, is scheduled to start operations in April with about $1bn capital.
The organisation will be based in Nigeria and has been piloted by the central bank there.
Kenyan Politician Arrested Over Alleged Links With Militia.
David Odoki
SomaliNet
14 April 2007
A Kenyan politician alleged to have links with militiamen believed to be behind the violence in Mount Elgon has been arrested. Mr Fred Kapondi Chesebe, who contested the Mt Elgon seat on a Ford People ticket in 2002, was yesterday moved from the Bungoma police cells, where he spent the night, to the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) offices for a two-hour interrogation.
The arrest came as another man was shot dead in Mt Elgon on Thursday night. Mr Bera Chemorion, 24, was shot in the head by gunmen who invaded Chepkaikai. Mr Chesebe is being held on suspicion of having links with the Sabaot Land Defence Force, the ragtag outfit behind the killing of more than 145 people and the displacement of more than 45,000 others in Cheptais and Kopsiro divisions in Mt Elgon.
The Kenyan politician had travelled to Bungoma in the company of two police officers from CID headquarters in Nairobi together with a Saboti constituency parliamentary aspirant, Mr Lawrence Mokosu, after he reportedly offered to attend a leaders meeting in Mt Elgon slated for yesterday. The meeting was put off at the last minute.
Kenyan Bungoma police commander Thomas Matano declined to comment on the whereabouts of Mr Chesebe who was arrested on Thursday. Mr Chesebe and Mr Nathan Wasama, a political activist and self proclaimed second in command of the SLDF are on the police list of wanted suspects believed to be behind the killings in Mt Elgon.
Kenyan Politician Arrested over links with militiamen
David Odoki
SomaliNet
14 April 2007
A Kenyan politician alleged to have links with militiamen believed to be behind the violence in Mount Elgon has been arrested. Mr Fred Kapondi Chesebe, who contested the Mt Elgon seat on a Ford People ticket in 2002, was yesterday moved from the Bungoma police cells, where he spent the night, to the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) offices for a two-hour interrogation.
The arrest came as another man was shot dead in Mt Elgon on Thursday night. Mr Bera Chemorion, 24, was shot in the head by gunmen who invaded Chepkaikai. Mr Chesebe is being held on suspicion of having links with the Sabaot Land Defence Force, the ragtag outfit behind the killing of more than 145 people and the displacement of more than 45,000 others in Cheptais and Kopsiro divisions in Mt Elgon.
The Kenyan politician had travelled to Bungoma in the company of two police officers from CID headquarters in Nairobi together with a Saboti constituency parliamentary aspirant, Mr Lawrence Mokosu, after he reportedly offered to attend a leaders meeting in Mt Elgon slated for yesterday. The meeting was put off at the last minute.
Kenyan Bungoma police commander Thomas Matano declined to comment on the whereabouts of Mr Chesebe who was arrested on Thursday. Mr Chesebe and Mr Nathan Wasama, a political activist and self proclaimed second in command of the SLDF are on the police list of wanted suspects believed to be behind the killings in Mt Elgon.
SomaliNet
14 April 2007
A Kenyan politician alleged to have links with militiamen believed to be behind the violence in Mount Elgon has been arrested. Mr Fred Kapondi Chesebe, who contested the Mt Elgon seat on a Ford People ticket in 2002, was yesterday moved from the Bungoma police cells, where he spent the night, to the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) offices for a two-hour interrogation.
The arrest came as another man was shot dead in Mt Elgon on Thursday night. Mr Bera Chemorion, 24, was shot in the head by gunmen who invaded Chepkaikai. Mr Chesebe is being held on suspicion of having links with the Sabaot Land Defence Force, the ragtag outfit behind the killing of more than 145 people and the displacement of more than 45,000 others in Cheptais and Kopsiro divisions in Mt Elgon.
The Kenyan politician had travelled to Bungoma in the company of two police officers from CID headquarters in Nairobi together with a Saboti constituency parliamentary aspirant, Mr Lawrence Mokosu, after he reportedly offered to attend a leaders meeting in Mt Elgon slated for yesterday. The meeting was put off at the last minute.
Kenyan Bungoma police commander Thomas Matano declined to comment on the whereabouts of Mr Chesebe who was arrested on Thursday. Mr Chesebe and Mr Nathan Wasama, a political activist and self proclaimed second in command of the SLDF are on the police list of wanted suspects believed to be behind the killings in Mt Elgon.
Kenya to Mediate Between Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki.
Xinhua News Agency
14 April 2007
http://www.shabelle.net/news/ne2734.htm
(Shabelle.M.Network)-Kenya will mediate on a new crisis between Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia following Friday's open exchange of animosities between Eritrea and Somalia over the escalating conflict in the Horn of Africa.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, who chairs the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), has designated his Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju to hold meetings between the two countries in a bid to reach a solution to the growing crisis.
Eritrean authorities Friday denied accusations by Somalia and United States that it was supporting insurgents in Somalia to fight a proxy war against its archrival, Ethiopia.
Speaking during an IGAD Council of ministers meeting in Nairobi, Andeab Gebremeskel, the director of Africa, Asia and Pacific affairs in Eritrea's foreign ministry said his country has no interest in fuelling crisis in Somalia where Ethiopian troops is fighting pitched battles against insurgents in Mogadishu.
"Eritrea does not wish to engage in fruitless discourse of acrimony, but it should be emphasized that Eritrea firmly rejects all groundless accusations peddled against it in the past few months," Gebremeskel told the ministers from the seven-member regional bloc, IGAD.
"I would like to reassure you ..that Eritrea has never seen Somalia as a proxy battlefield to settle scores with Ethiopia. Grave as it may be, the border conflict with Ethiopia is a problem between the two countries that cannot be played out in Somalia," he added.
Earlier, Somali Foreign Minister Ismael Hurreh accused Eritrea of fueling the fighting in Somalia. "It is public information that Eritrea is calling for the inclusion of these extremist elements in the political process in Somalia," he charged.
"It is mainly these elements and their sympathizers who are responsible for the current tragedy in the city," Hurreh told foreign ministers.
Eritrea, which rejected the proposals endorsed here Friday to urgently deploy an African Union Peace Support Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), said it had other methods of resolving the crisis in Somalia. The Eritrean official said the constant statements issued by the U.S. government have worsened the crisis in Somalia.
Tuju said he has been mandated to travel to Eritrea soon to hold a meeting with the officials regarding their rejection of the AMISOM, noting that their objection had been noted and could slow down the efforts to pacify Somalia.
"President Kibaki has asked me to engage in shuttle diplomacy on the issue of Somalia and Eritrea," Tuju told journalists in Nairobi after the IGAD ministers ended their meeting late Friday.
He said the exchanges between the three countries were results of a long winding border dispute, which both Eritrea and Ethiopia were passionate about.
"We have no more appetite for such exchanges. Our hands are already too full at the moment with the crisis in Somalia and the implementation of Sudan peace agreement, we really do not want this to continue," Tuju added.
Eritrea is demanding the urgent withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from Somalia, but the other six members of IGAD have unanimously agreed on the need to urgently deploy the troops from the other African nations before the Ethiopian pullout.
"We have discussed this issue previously and Ethiopia has been willing to withdraw from Somalia but we all agree that it has to be a tactful pullout otherwise it would plunge the region into a security vacuum," Tuju explained.
The foreign ministers attending the meeting also agreed that the situation in Mogadishu was very volatile and requires careful handling as the Somali transitional government moves to asserts its authority on the ground.
Committee Demarcates 700 km Border Between Cameroon and Nigeria.
African Press Agency.
14 April 2007
http://www.apanews.net/article_eng.php3?id_article=25603
Editor's Note: This area falls within Southern Cameroon, an area that has sought independence from Cameroon. It was colonized by the British and is an English-speaking area of the country. Instead of giving them autonomy, the British signed the territory over to the Republic of Cameroon. The Southern Cameroonian people have testified to the political oppression of francophone President Paul Biya. In 2004, President Biya hired his own international elections monitors, including former U.S. congressmen, to certify his rigged elections. Consequently, Parade magazine voted President Biya as one of the "World's Worst Dictators" of 2007, though the criteria and objectivity (relative to leaders of U.S. client states) of the poll are unknown. (http://www.parade.com/articles/web_exclusives/2007/02-11-2007/dictators19.html). The people of this region are majority anti-French, and as a result, support the RPF Government of Rwanda.
APA-Douala (Cameroon) Some 700 kilometres of land border has been demarcated between Cameroon and Nigeria within the framework of the normalization of the relations between the two countries, Cameroon’s minister of state for Justice, Maurice Kamto, said Friday.
Kamto led a Cameroonian delegation to the 18th Joint Committee session last weekend to Abuja on the implementation of the judgement of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on 10 October 2002, which gave Cameroon the Bakassi peninsula that the two countries disputed.
Another border segment will be demarcated from 14 May to 24 June, ahead of the 19th Joint Committee session billed for 5 and 6 July 2007 in Yaounde.
The motive is to jointly carry out development projects to facilitate the easy movement of people and goods between the two countries which share a 1500 km border.
The construction of the roads connecting Cameroon and Nigeria is among the paramount objectives.
"A Memorandum of Understanding on the rehabilitation project of the cross-border road between Abakaliki(Nigeria)and Mutengune(Cameroon)was signed," Maurice Kamto said, adding that the infrastructure "will improve trade between our two countries".
Cameroon took the dispute on the Bakassi peninsula to the ICJ which made a judgement "without appeal" on 10 October, 2002 giving the sovereignty of this small territory of 500 hectares, supposedly rich in oil, to Cameroon.
Nigeria withdrew its troops since 14 August, 2006, and gave its place to the Cameroonian administration which however will have to wait for a transition period of seven years before a total autonomy on Bakassi, in accordance with the Greentree agreement (Washington - United States), signed in June between Presidents Paul Biya and Olusegun Obasanjo under the leadership of the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
The agreement was also signed by "witness-states" including Germany, the United States, France and Great Britain.
14 April 2007
http://www.apanews.net/article_eng.php3?id_article=25603
Editor's Note: This area falls within Southern Cameroon, an area that has sought independence from Cameroon. It was colonized by the British and is an English-speaking area of the country. Instead of giving them autonomy, the British signed the territory over to the Republic of Cameroon. The Southern Cameroonian people have testified to the political oppression of francophone President Paul Biya. In 2004, President Biya hired his own international elections monitors, including former U.S. congressmen, to certify his rigged elections. Consequently, Parade magazine voted President Biya as one of the "World's Worst Dictators" of 2007, though the criteria and objectivity (relative to leaders of U.S. client states) of the poll are unknown. (http://www.parade.com/articles/web_exclusives/2007/02-11-2007/dictators19.html). The people of this region are majority anti-French, and as a result, support the RPF Government of Rwanda.
APA-Douala (Cameroon) Some 700 kilometres of land border has been demarcated between Cameroon and Nigeria within the framework of the normalization of the relations between the two countries, Cameroon’s minister of state for Justice, Maurice Kamto, said Friday.
Kamto led a Cameroonian delegation to the 18th Joint Committee session last weekend to Abuja on the implementation of the judgement of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on 10 October 2002, which gave Cameroon the Bakassi peninsula that the two countries disputed.
Another border segment will be demarcated from 14 May to 24 June, ahead of the 19th Joint Committee session billed for 5 and 6 July 2007 in Yaounde.
The motive is to jointly carry out development projects to facilitate the easy movement of people and goods between the two countries which share a 1500 km border.
The construction of the roads connecting Cameroon and Nigeria is among the paramount objectives.
"A Memorandum of Understanding on the rehabilitation project of the cross-border road between Abakaliki(Nigeria)and Mutengune(Cameroon)was signed," Maurice Kamto said, adding that the infrastructure "will improve trade between our two countries".
Cameroon took the dispute on the Bakassi peninsula to the ICJ which made a judgement "without appeal" on 10 October, 2002 giving the sovereignty of this small territory of 500 hectares, supposedly rich in oil, to Cameroon.
Nigeria withdrew its troops since 14 August, 2006, and gave its place to the Cameroonian administration which however will have to wait for a transition period of seven years before a total autonomy on Bakassi, in accordance with the Greentree agreement (Washington - United States), signed in June between Presidents Paul Biya and Olusegun Obasanjo under the leadership of the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
The agreement was also signed by "witness-states" including Germany, the United States, France and Great Britain.
Ethiopia Denies North Korea Weapons Purchase.
News24
14 April 2007
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_2098568,00.html
Editor's Note: A follow-up to an earlier posting. (Check the archives) This denial is laughable considering the U.S. has already admitted to approving the sales.
Addis Ababa - The Ethiopian government has denied buying weapons from North Korea, while admitting having received a cargo of spare parts and raw material from Pyongyang for its arms industry.
"There was indeed a cargo shipment from North Korea to Ethiopia on January 22, 2007," the foreign ministry said in a statement late on Friday.
"This shipment contained spare parts for machinery and engineering equipment and raw material for the making of assorted ammunition for small arms."
The statement stressed: "Ethiopia acted in full compliance with (United Nations) Security Council Resolution 1718 (2006)."
Purchases of weapons and military materiel from North Korea were banned in line with UN sanctions adopted after Pyongyang carried out a nuclear test in October 2006.
Addis Ababa said the contracts for the purchase of the spare parts and raw materials were signed between June 12 and June 22 last year and a down payment was made before "irrevocable letters of credit were issued between June 30 and September 30, 2006?.
"This means that all payments for the cargo were effected before the adoption of Resolution 1718," it said.
The United States admitted implicitly on Monday that it did not interdict a shipment of North Korean weapons to Ethiopia despite the UN sanctions on Pyongyang.
State department spokesperson Sean McCormack refused to comment directly on a New York Times report that the US allowed Ethiopia to purchase the arms from North Korea in January, when Addis Ababa was supporting Somali government troops in a battle against the Council of Islamic Courts, and three months after the UN sanctions were adopted.
14 April 2007
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_2098568,00.html
Editor's Note: A follow-up to an earlier posting. (Check the archives) This denial is laughable considering the U.S. has already admitted to approving the sales.
Addis Ababa - The Ethiopian government has denied buying weapons from North Korea, while admitting having received a cargo of spare parts and raw material from Pyongyang for its arms industry.
"There was indeed a cargo shipment from North Korea to Ethiopia on January 22, 2007," the foreign ministry said in a statement late on Friday.
"This shipment contained spare parts for machinery and engineering equipment and raw material for the making of assorted ammunition for small arms."
The statement stressed: "Ethiopia acted in full compliance with (United Nations) Security Council Resolution 1718 (2006)."
Purchases of weapons and military materiel from North Korea were banned in line with UN sanctions adopted after Pyongyang carried out a nuclear test in October 2006.
Addis Ababa said the contracts for the purchase of the spare parts and raw materials were signed between June 12 and June 22 last year and a down payment was made before "irrevocable letters of credit were issued between June 30 and September 30, 2006?.
"This means that all payments for the cargo were effected before the adoption of Resolution 1718," it said.
The United States admitted implicitly on Monday that it did not interdict a shipment of North Korean weapons to Ethiopia despite the UN sanctions on Pyongyang.
State department spokesperson Sean McCormack refused to comment directly on a New York Times report that the US allowed Ethiopia to purchase the arms from North Korea in January, when Addis Ababa was supporting Somali government troops in a battle against the Council of Islamic Courts, and three months after the UN sanctions were adopted.
UFDR Signs Peace Deal With CAR Government.
MISNA
14 April 2007
The rebels of the Union of Democratic Forces for the Coalition (UFDR) have signed a peace accord in Birao with the president, François Bozizé accepting to put down their weapons. The deal provides for the integration of former rebel fighters in the regular armed forces (FACA) and a general amnesty for the UFDR leaders Michel Am Non Droko Djotodia and Abakar Sabone, arrested last November in Cotonou and currently jailed in Benin.
The accord provides for, among other things, an immediate ‘cessation of hostilities’ and the rebels’ renunciation of armed combat. Special UN secretary general envoy Lamine Cissé, and French officers, along with Central African officials were present at the signing ceremony.
In early April, Bozizé reiterated his appeal for the groups fighting the government to surrender: the executive had already signed a deal last February in Libya with Abdoulaye Miskine, head of the ‘Democrtaic Fronte for the Liberation of the Central African People’ (FDPC), to start, on paper at least, a future political dialogue with the opposition, armed groups and civil society; the UFDR, who launched an attack in Birao last March 3, only to be repelled by the regular army, has refused to sign the agreement.
Birao and other northeastern areas fell last November in the hands of the rebels, pushed put a month after the FACA offensive backed by French forces. The northern half of the Central African Republic has been subjected for over two years to attacks from bandits, and more recently, from groups opposed to Bozizé, who took power with a coup on March 15, 2003.
14 April 2007
The rebels of the Union of Democratic Forces for the Coalition (UFDR) have signed a peace accord in Birao with the president, François Bozizé accepting to put down their weapons. The deal provides for the integration of former rebel fighters in the regular armed forces (FACA) and a general amnesty for the UFDR leaders Michel Am Non Droko Djotodia and Abakar Sabone, arrested last November in Cotonou and currently jailed in Benin.
The accord provides for, among other things, an immediate ‘cessation of hostilities’ and the rebels’ renunciation of armed combat. Special UN secretary general envoy Lamine Cissé, and French officers, along with Central African officials were present at the signing ceremony.
In early April, Bozizé reiterated his appeal for the groups fighting the government to surrender: the executive had already signed a deal last February in Libya with Abdoulaye Miskine, head of the ‘Democrtaic Fronte for the Liberation of the Central African People’ (FDPC), to start, on paper at least, a future political dialogue with the opposition, armed groups and civil society; the UFDR, who launched an attack in Birao last March 3, only to be repelled by the regular army, has refused to sign the agreement.
Birao and other northeastern areas fell last November in the hands of the rebels, pushed put a month after the FACA offensive backed by French forces. The northern half of the Central African Republic has been subjected for over two years to attacks from bandits, and more recently, from groups opposed to Bozizé, who took power with a coup on March 15, 2003.
Amnesty for Cote d'Ivoire Rebels.
BBC News
14 April 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6553547.stm
Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has signed a law giving amnesty for crimes committed during the civil war.
The amnesty, part of a recent peace deal, applies to both the New Forces rebels and the armed forces loyal to President Gbagbo.
Last month human rights group Amnesty International condemned Ivory Coast's "climate of impunity" and said both sides were guilty of large-scale rape.
A BBC correspondent says there will be no local prosecutions for such crimes.
Any on-going prosecutions are to be dropped immediately, and prisoners convicted of crimes covered by the amnesty will be released.
Economic crimes are a notable exception, as they are not covered by the amnesty.
Fears
The BBC's James Copnall in Ivory Coast says the new law will go some way to reassuring both sides that they can move forward in the peace process without fear.
Significantly, the amnesty is backdated to September 2000.
That means that crimes committed by loyalist soldiers before the war broke out will also be wiped off the slate.
The amnesty law is one of a number of measures aimed at bringing the country to free and fair elections within 10 months.
Two weeks ago, rebel leader Guillaume Soro was named prime minister, and next Monday the removal of a buffer zone between the belligerent parties is due to begin.
But our correspondent says the man Mr Soro replaced - Charles Konan Banny - voiced the fears of many Ivorians when he told the BBC he thought both Mr Soro and President Gbagbo had hidden agendas behind their apparent drive to peace.
Ivory Coast, previously the richest state in West Africa, has been split in two since rebels seized the north in 2002.
14 April 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6553547.stm
Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has signed a law giving amnesty for crimes committed during the civil war.
The amnesty, part of a recent peace deal, applies to both the New Forces rebels and the armed forces loyal to President Gbagbo.
Last month human rights group Amnesty International condemned Ivory Coast's "climate of impunity" and said both sides were guilty of large-scale rape.
A BBC correspondent says there will be no local prosecutions for such crimes.
Any on-going prosecutions are to be dropped immediately, and prisoners convicted of crimes covered by the amnesty will be released.
Economic crimes are a notable exception, as they are not covered by the amnesty.
Fears
The BBC's James Copnall in Ivory Coast says the new law will go some way to reassuring both sides that they can move forward in the peace process without fear.
Significantly, the amnesty is backdated to September 2000.
That means that crimes committed by loyalist soldiers before the war broke out will also be wiped off the slate.
The amnesty law is one of a number of measures aimed at bringing the country to free and fair elections within 10 months.
Two weeks ago, rebel leader Guillaume Soro was named prime minister, and next Monday the removal of a buffer zone between the belligerent parties is due to begin.
But our correspondent says the man Mr Soro replaced - Charles Konan Banny - voiced the fears of many Ivorians when he told the BBC he thought both Mr Soro and President Gbagbo had hidden agendas behind their apparent drive to peace.
Ivory Coast, previously the richest state in West Africa, has been split in two since rebels seized the north in 2002.
Congo's Main Opposition Suspends Role in Parliament.
By Joe Bavier
Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14469344.htm
KINSHASA, April 14 (Reuters) - Congo's main opposition party, whose leader left the country this week after fighting in the capital, has suspended participation in the lower house of parliament, citing security concerns.
Members of the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) of defeated presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba have complained of harassment and intimidation by security forces since government troops routed his soldiers on March 22-23.
The former rebel chief went to Portugal on Wednesday for medical treatment and the public prosecutor has asked the Senate upper house to lift the immunity he enjoys as a member so he can face charges over the violence, in which hundreds were killed.
"We, the elected representatives of the opposition, consider the current climate of permanent insecurity does not permit us to work in the serenity that the mandate of a member of parliament requires," MLC National Executive Secretary Thomas Luhaka said in a statement seen by Reuters on Saturday.
"This is why ... we feel obliged to suspend, effective now and until further notice, our participation in the work of this (National) Assembly, until proper security conditions are established." An MLC spokesman said the statement had been read to a joint session of parliament late on Friday.
Luhaka said the decision followed the looting by a dozen members of the Republican Guard of the home of an MLC parliamentarian on Thursday night which he said was part of a "targeted and programmed operation" against MLC members.
Congo's U.N. peacekeeping mission last week denounced acts of aggression and intimidation against opposition figures.
"AUTHOR OF VIOLENCE"
Bemba lost a run-off vote to President Joseph Kabila last year in the nation's first free elections in over 40 years, meant to crown a years-long peace process after a 1998-2003 war.
Last month's fighting started when Bemba's bodyguards, numbering several hundred fighters, defied a government order to disarm under a plan to cut his security detail to 12 policemen.
On Tuesday, public prosecutor Tshimanga Mukeba requested permission from the head of the country's new Senate to prosecute Bemba as the 'intellectual author' of the violence in the capital, which is believed to have left up to 600 dead.
The charges against him include threatening internal state security, murder, armed robbery and destruction of property.
An MLC spokesman said the party's suspension of National Assembly activities did not affect senators, who are expected to vote on whether to lift Bemba's immunity once the Supreme Court approves bylaws for the Senate, which could take another week.
The provisional Senate head agreed on Monday for Bemba, who had been holed up in the South African embassy in Kinshasa since last month, to go abroad on the condition he returns in 60 days.
Bemba won more than 40 percent of the vote in an October run-off vote, but his Union of the Nation coalition, which includes the MLC, took only 18 of 108 Senate seats and around 100 seats in the 500-member lower house.
Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14469344.htm
KINSHASA, April 14 (Reuters) - Congo's main opposition party, whose leader left the country this week after fighting in the capital, has suspended participation in the lower house of parliament, citing security concerns.
Members of the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) of defeated presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba have complained of harassment and intimidation by security forces since government troops routed his soldiers on March 22-23.
The former rebel chief went to Portugal on Wednesday for medical treatment and the public prosecutor has asked the Senate upper house to lift the immunity he enjoys as a member so he can face charges over the violence, in which hundreds were killed.
"We, the elected representatives of the opposition, consider the current climate of permanent insecurity does not permit us to work in the serenity that the mandate of a member of parliament requires," MLC National Executive Secretary Thomas Luhaka said in a statement seen by Reuters on Saturday.
"This is why ... we feel obliged to suspend, effective now and until further notice, our participation in the work of this (National) Assembly, until proper security conditions are established." An MLC spokesman said the statement had been read to a joint session of parliament late on Friday.
Luhaka said the decision followed the looting by a dozen members of the Republican Guard of the home of an MLC parliamentarian on Thursday night which he said was part of a "targeted and programmed operation" against MLC members.
Congo's U.N. peacekeeping mission last week denounced acts of aggression and intimidation against opposition figures.
"AUTHOR OF VIOLENCE"
Bemba lost a run-off vote to President Joseph Kabila last year in the nation's first free elections in over 40 years, meant to crown a years-long peace process after a 1998-2003 war.
Last month's fighting started when Bemba's bodyguards, numbering several hundred fighters, defied a government order to disarm under a plan to cut his security detail to 12 policemen.
On Tuesday, public prosecutor Tshimanga Mukeba requested permission from the head of the country's new Senate to prosecute Bemba as the 'intellectual author' of the violence in the capital, which is believed to have left up to 600 dead.
The charges against him include threatening internal state security, murder, armed robbery and destruction of property.
An MLC spokesman said the party's suspension of National Assembly activities did not affect senators, who are expected to vote on whether to lift Bemba's immunity once the Supreme Court approves bylaws for the Senate, which could take another week.
The provisional Senate head agreed on Monday for Bemba, who had been holed up in the South African embassy in Kinshasa since last month, to go abroad on the condition he returns in 60 days.
Bemba won more than 40 percent of the vote in an October run-off vote, but his Union of the Nation coalition, which includes the MLC, took only 18 of 108 Senate seats and around 100 seats in the 500-member lower house.
Congo: 40 Belgian Soldiers Leave to Evaluate Brigades of the Army.
Congo Forum
14 April 2007
English Translation.
Forty Belgian soldiers will leave the military airport of Melsbroek Sunday morning in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to evaluate the first fifteen integrated brigades of the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC).
They will be aided in their task by Congolese officers, but also
by the Slovakians, Spaniards or of the South-Africans for example.
This evaluation will concentrate on the fields of the operations and
command, personnel, logistic and medical support, infrastructure as well as formation.
The conclusion of the evaluation will be transmitted to the European Union
in order to effectively coordinate taking measurements. Belgian soldiers, divided into four teams of ten men, will remain approximately for approximately one month.
They are placed under the command of the general of Koumans Brigade, and
Major-General Olenga.
A C-130, with its crew of 18 officers, should also take part in the mission.
The Belgian soldiers will be assisted by six Congolese officers.
Spain, Slovakia, South Africa, Hungary and Portugal each sent one or two soldiers.
© BELGA
BRUSSELS 13/04 (BELGA)
14 April 2007
English Translation.
Forty Belgian soldiers will leave the military airport of Melsbroek Sunday morning in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to evaluate the first fifteen integrated brigades of the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC).
They will be aided in their task by Congolese officers, but also
by the Slovakians, Spaniards or of the South-Africans for example.
This evaluation will concentrate on the fields of the operations and
command, personnel, logistic and medical support, infrastructure as well as formation.
The conclusion of the evaluation will be transmitted to the European Union
in order to effectively coordinate taking measurements. Belgian soldiers, divided into four teams of ten men, will remain approximately for approximately one month.
They are placed under the command of the general of Koumans Brigade, and
Major-General Olenga.
A C-130, with its crew of 18 officers, should also take part in the mission.
The Belgian soldiers will be assisted by six Congolese officers.
Spain, Slovakia, South Africa, Hungary and Portugal each sent one or two soldiers.
© BELGA
BRUSSELS 13/04 (BELGA)
Ugandan Rebels and Government Sign New Truce.
By Lucy Hannan
Reuters.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14496742.htm
RI-KWANGBA, Sudan, April 14 (Reuters) - Shaking hands and embracing, Uganda's government and Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels signed a new two-month truce on Saturday, boosting efforts to end one of Africa's longest and most brutal wars.
The two sides also agreed to resume talks on April 26 in the south Sudan capital, Juba, to try to end the two-decade-old conflict that has killed tens of thousands.
The LRA is notorious for massacring civilians, mutilating victims and abducting thousands of children to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves in a conflict that has forced nearly 2 million people into squalid camps.
"The people of Uganda should rest assured that this agreement sends a clear message ... about the serious resumption of peace talks," said LRA representative Christus Ayena Odongo.
The deal gave the LRA guerrillas a six-week deadline to assemble in Ri-Kwangba, near the border with Democratic Republic of Congo, while guaranteeing the rebels' security.
Elusive LRA leader Joseph Kony, who swapped his fatigues for a beige safari suit, was present along with Kampala's top negotiator, Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda.
Mozambique's former president Joaquim Chissano, the U.N. envoy in the peace efforts, witnessed the signing and promised to attend talks planned later this month.
"I believe sincerely that this is a no-return trip towards peace in Uganda," Chissano said.
Despite the optimism, both sides acknowledged progress towards a final peace deal was complicated by International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments for war crimes against Kony and four other LRA commanders.
The LRA has long argued for the indictments and arrest warrants to be scrapped in favour of traditional justice, but Kampala has said it wants to reach a peace accord before it considers asking the ICC to drop the case.
The ICC has repeatedly refused to withdraw the charges against the LRA leadership in what is seen as a test case for the fledgling human rights court.
Peace talks began last July in Juba, but effectively broke down in January amid mutual distrust and accusations of violations of an earlier ceasefire.
Hopes for peace were rekindled this week when a Catholic group helping mediate the Juba talks said both sides had made significant progress in a week of secret, informal negotiations on the Kenyan coast.
Reuters.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14496742.htm
RI-KWANGBA, Sudan, April 14 (Reuters) - Shaking hands and embracing, Uganda's government and Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels signed a new two-month truce on Saturday, boosting efforts to end one of Africa's longest and most brutal wars.
The two sides also agreed to resume talks on April 26 in the south Sudan capital, Juba, to try to end the two-decade-old conflict that has killed tens of thousands.
The LRA is notorious for massacring civilians, mutilating victims and abducting thousands of children to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves in a conflict that has forced nearly 2 million people into squalid camps.
"The people of Uganda should rest assured that this agreement sends a clear message ... about the serious resumption of peace talks," said LRA representative Christus Ayena Odongo.
The deal gave the LRA guerrillas a six-week deadline to assemble in Ri-Kwangba, near the border with Democratic Republic of Congo, while guaranteeing the rebels' security.
Elusive LRA leader Joseph Kony, who swapped his fatigues for a beige safari suit, was present along with Kampala's top negotiator, Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda.
Mozambique's former president Joaquim Chissano, the U.N. envoy in the peace efforts, witnessed the signing and promised to attend talks planned later this month.
"I believe sincerely that this is a no-return trip towards peace in Uganda," Chissano said.
Despite the optimism, both sides acknowledged progress towards a final peace deal was complicated by International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments for war crimes against Kony and four other LRA commanders.
The LRA has long argued for the indictments and arrest warrants to be scrapped in favour of traditional justice, but Kampala has said it wants to reach a peace accord before it considers asking the ICC to drop the case.
The ICC has repeatedly refused to withdraw the charges against the LRA leadership in what is seen as a test case for the fledgling human rights court.
Peace talks began last July in Juba, but effectively broke down in January amid mutual distrust and accusations of violations of an earlier ceasefire.
Hopes for peace were rekindled this week when a Catholic group helping mediate the Juba talks said both sides had made significant progress in a week of secret, informal negotiations on the Kenyan coast.
Hourigan Evidence Admitted in Military I trial.
Hirondelle News Agency.
Arusha, 13 April 2007 (FH) – Less than two months before the presentation of the closing arguments in the trial called “Military I”, one of the most important cases for the History of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the Chamber just admitted, in a decision issued Thursday, a declaration relative to the assassination of the President Juvénal Habyarimana on 6 April 1994 as evidence. Signed by the Australian Michael Hourigan, a former ICTR investigator, the declaration identifies the former rebel movement of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR, currently in power) as the main responsible for the attack. The assassination of Habyarimana is considered as the element which triggered the genocide that Rwanda is currently commemorating for the 13th consecutive year.
The admission of the exhibit was requested by one of the 4 accused, Makor Aloys Ntabakuze, former commander of the paratrooper. The request of Ntabakuze was supported by the most famous ICTR accused, the former Cabinet director of the Ministry of Defence, Colonel Théoneste Bagorosa, presented by Prosecution a s the “brain” of the genocide. The accused in this trial have always affirmed that the absence of a debate on the assassination of Habyarimana would violate their fundamental right to a fair trial.
Underlining that the Accused are not prosecuted for this attack, the Chamber allowed a debate on this subject but only in order to understand the context. The admission of the declaration of Hourigan occurred although hearings in this trial ended last January. In a previous decision, the same Chamber refused to issue a writ of summons for the former investigator. In addition to Bagorosa and Ntabakuze, the “Military I” case implies the former chief of the military operations at the Army Staff, Brigadier-General Gratien Kabiligi and the former Commander of the military district of Gisenyi (north), Lieutenant-Colonel Anatole Nsengiyumva.
Prosecuted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, the four accused have pled not guilty. On its substance, the trial started in April 2002. The Prosecutor closed its case on 14 October 2004 and the Defence last 19 January. In total, 242 witnesses (Prosecution and defence) were heard. The judgement must be rendered next year.
Editor's note: And the last point is key. They will be rushing to finish these trials on time. How much of a factor will this play in rendering verdicts and going over the evidence with the proper scrutiny (though they have been accused of failing to do so in other cases already without the deadline looming).
South Sudanese Resent Northern Government Troops on Oil Concessions.
Reuters.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?page=imprimable&id_article=21344
Editor's Note: The equation here is simple for the South Sudanese, companies are hesitant to work their concessions with the presence of government troops on the land.
April 13, 2007 (BENTIU) — Troops from northern Sudan have outstayed their welcome in oil-producing Unity State in the semi-autonomous south and are violating a north-south peace agreement, the spokesman for the state said on Friday.
Under the agreement signed in January 2005, ending 21 years of war between north and south, the northern troops should redeploy from the south by July 9.
But James Lily Kuol, spokesman and minister of information in the local state government, told Reuters he saw no sign this would happen and that their presence was frightening off 50,000 people who want to return to their homes in the state.
"SAF (central government) forces have increased since the signing of the (agreement). They are threatening people in this area because of the oil," he said.
"The Khartoum government does not want the state government to have responsibility for the oil. ... We don’t think they (the northern troops) will go and there are more than there are allowed to be," the official added.
There was no immediate comment from the government in Khartoum.
Oil was one of the factors behind the long war, which divided the Muslim and Arabised north from the black African south, where most people are either animist or Christian and do not speak Arabic as their first language.
Unity State lies close to the north-south border and is a potential powder keg because of its oil wealth. Kuol said the presence of the northern troops at their current strength was already "a complete violation" of the agreement.
Under the agreement at this stage in the transitional phase, the Khartoum government should have withdrawn 72 percent of the northern forces from the south as a whole.
Another worry, Kuol said, is that northern troops and troops from the former southern rebel group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, have not integrated their units in the area, as they were meant to do under the peace deal.
The two armies are living in separate barracks and taking separate orders. "There is fear from the people. What would you feel if there were two armies staying together but taking separate instructions? Something can occur," he said.
Kuol said the southern government should try to persuade the Khartoum government of national unity to redeploy the northern troops and renegotiate control over the oil fields.
"They should let the people of Unity State have their own responsibility for the oil areas and let citizens return to the places they were before the war," he added.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?page=imprimable&id_article=21344
Editor's Note: The equation here is simple for the South Sudanese, companies are hesitant to work their concessions with the presence of government troops on the land.
April 13, 2007 (BENTIU) — Troops from northern Sudan have outstayed their welcome in oil-producing Unity State in the semi-autonomous south and are violating a north-south peace agreement, the spokesman for the state said on Friday.
Under the agreement signed in January 2005, ending 21 years of war between north and south, the northern troops should redeploy from the south by July 9.
But James Lily Kuol, spokesman and minister of information in the local state government, told Reuters he saw no sign this would happen and that their presence was frightening off 50,000 people who want to return to their homes in the state.
"SAF (central government) forces have increased since the signing of the (agreement). They are threatening people in this area because of the oil," he said.
"The Khartoum government does not want the state government to have responsibility for the oil. ... We don’t think they (the northern troops) will go and there are more than there are allowed to be," the official added.
There was no immediate comment from the government in Khartoum.
Oil was one of the factors behind the long war, which divided the Muslim and Arabised north from the black African south, where most people are either animist or Christian and do not speak Arabic as their first language.
Unity State lies close to the north-south border and is a potential powder keg because of its oil wealth. Kuol said the presence of the northern troops at their current strength was already "a complete violation" of the agreement.
Under the agreement at this stage in the transitional phase, the Khartoum government should have withdrawn 72 percent of the northern forces from the south as a whole.
Another worry, Kuol said, is that northern troops and troops from the former southern rebel group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, have not integrated their units in the area, as they were meant to do under the peace deal.
The two armies are living in separate barracks and taking separate orders. "There is fear from the people. What would you feel if there were two armies staying together but taking separate instructions? Something can occur," he said.
Kuol said the southern government should try to persuade the Khartoum government of national unity to redeploy the northern troops and renegotiate control over the oil fields.
"They should let the people of Unity State have their own responsibility for the oil areas and let citizens return to the places they were before the war," he added.
Libya Puts Troops on Chad-Sudan Border.
The Guardian.
14 April 2007
The Libyan President, Muammar Gadaffi, has sent troops to the volatile border between Chad and Sudan as a regional alternative to United Nations peacekeepers, but their presence has failed to prevent clashes.
The troops slipped into Chad a month ago and are policing the border, while Eritrea has established a token army presence on the Sudanese side, diplomatic sources in Chad said. The move appears to have been orchestrated by Colonel Gadafy to weaken the argument for a UN mission.
Despite the deployment up to 400 villagers were killed on the Chad side of the border a fortnight ago, and Chadian and Sudanese troops clashed on Monday when Chad's troops pursued a group accused of the massacre across the border.
The region around Abeche city in Chad is braced for Sudanese reprisals amid signs the four-year crisis in Darfur, western Sudan, could become a regional conflagration. More than 200 000 people have been killed and more than 2,5-million driven from their homes, including upwards of 120 000 Chadians in the past year.
The deployment of observers was part of the Tripoli accord agreed by Libya, Chad and Sudan in February 2006. It is only being implemented now, as Chad and Sudan come under intense pressure to accept UN forces. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has proposed a no-fly zone over Darfur, enforced by air strikes on Sudan if necessary, if Khartoum does not agree to let in the UN.
John Negroponte, the US Deputy Secretary of State, is on a week-long visit to the region to put pressure on both Chad and Sudan. Khartoum is reportedly close to agreement on a United Nations force but President Omar al-Bashir made an agreement last year, only to renege on it within months.
Foreign observers in the region believe Gadafi has been encouraging Chadian and Sudanese resistance. "Gadaffi doesn't want a Western footprint in the region, because he thinks he'll be the next Saddam Hussein," said one Western observer, adding that the Libyan-Eritrean observers seemed intended as a "spoiler" to proposals for a UN force. "They are here to drink tea and do nothing much more."
The Libyans and Eritreans have joined a substantial Chadian government force in the region that concentrates on fighting rebel factions, and a garrison of 1 200 French soldiers who rarely venture beyond their fortifications in Abeche. None of these national forces have seen protection of civilians as their role.
The brutal raids on the two Chadian border villages, Tiero and Marena -- carried out on March 31 by Arab Janjaweed militia, possibly with the help of a Chadian rebel faction -- killed between 200 and 400, and added 10 000 to the ranks of homeless. They are sheltering under trees in daytime temperatures of 45C, with meagre supplies of food and water trucked in each day by humanitarian agencies.
Matthew Conway, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Abeche, who visited the villages a few days after the attack, said: "We've never seen an attack on this scale with this number of dead. The goal here was to kill. The victims were pursued far outside the village and shot down."
Survivors said one group of attackers were Arab herdsmen on horse and camel. Some seemed to be from Sudan but others were recognised as locals. It confirms suspicions that the Janjaweed pattern of herdsmen pillaging villages, backed by Khartoum, has spread across the border. - Guardian Unlimited
14 April 2007
The Libyan President, Muammar Gadaffi, has sent troops to the volatile border between Chad and Sudan as a regional alternative to United Nations peacekeepers, but their presence has failed to prevent clashes.
The troops slipped into Chad a month ago and are policing the border, while Eritrea has established a token army presence on the Sudanese side, diplomatic sources in Chad said. The move appears to have been orchestrated by Colonel Gadafy to weaken the argument for a UN mission.
Despite the deployment up to 400 villagers were killed on the Chad side of the border a fortnight ago, and Chadian and Sudanese troops clashed on Monday when Chad's troops pursued a group accused of the massacre across the border.
The region around Abeche city in Chad is braced for Sudanese reprisals amid signs the four-year crisis in Darfur, western Sudan, could become a regional conflagration. More than 200 000 people have been killed and more than 2,5-million driven from their homes, including upwards of 120 000 Chadians in the past year.
The deployment of observers was part of the Tripoli accord agreed by Libya, Chad and Sudan in February 2006. It is only being implemented now, as Chad and Sudan come under intense pressure to accept UN forces. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has proposed a no-fly zone over Darfur, enforced by air strikes on Sudan if necessary, if Khartoum does not agree to let in the UN.
John Negroponte, the US Deputy Secretary of State, is on a week-long visit to the region to put pressure on both Chad and Sudan. Khartoum is reportedly close to agreement on a United Nations force but President Omar al-Bashir made an agreement last year, only to renege on it within months.
Foreign observers in the region believe Gadafi has been encouraging Chadian and Sudanese resistance. "Gadaffi doesn't want a Western footprint in the region, because he thinks he'll be the next Saddam Hussein," said one Western observer, adding that the Libyan-Eritrean observers seemed intended as a "spoiler" to proposals for a UN force. "They are here to drink tea and do nothing much more."
The Libyans and Eritreans have joined a substantial Chadian government force in the region that concentrates on fighting rebel factions, and a garrison of 1 200 French soldiers who rarely venture beyond their fortifications in Abeche. None of these national forces have seen protection of civilians as their role.
The brutal raids on the two Chadian border villages, Tiero and Marena -- carried out on March 31 by Arab Janjaweed militia, possibly with the help of a Chadian rebel faction -- killed between 200 and 400, and added 10 000 to the ranks of homeless. They are sheltering under trees in daytime temperatures of 45C, with meagre supplies of food and water trucked in each day by humanitarian agencies.
Matthew Conway, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Abeche, who visited the villages a few days after the attack, said: "We've never seen an attack on this scale with this number of dead. The goal here was to kill. The victims were pursued far outside the village and shot down."
Survivors said one group of attackers were Arab herdsmen on horse and camel. Some seemed to be from Sudan but others were recognised as locals. It confirms suspicions that the Janjaweed pattern of herdsmen pillaging villages, backed by Khartoum, has spread across the border. - Guardian Unlimited
Two RDF Generals Sue Brugiere in Belgium.
General Charles Kayonga.
Photo by ORINFOR.
Hirondelle News Agency
Brussels, 13 April 2007 (FH) – Two Rwandan Generals, close to President Paul Kagame and accused by Jean-Louis Brugière of having participated in the attack against the plane of President Habyarimana, sued the French investigating magistrate in Brussels and Belgium, we learn on Friday by his lawyer.
An introductory hearing, during which the substance is not to be discussed, will take place before the first Chamber of the Court of first instance of Brussels on 19 April.
Generals Charles Kayonga, Chief of the Staff of the Army and Jackson Nkurunziza (known under the name of Jack Nziza), charged with the civic instruction within the Rwandan army, are among the nine figures close to power which are searched for by international warrants of arrest issued following the order of the investigating judge and published on 27 November 2006.
This order reasoned that the FPR and General Paul Kagame were responsible for the attack on the plane of President Juvénal Habyarimana on 6 April 1994, on the eve of the genocide. Charles Kayonga and Jackson Nkurunziza participated in the attack, according to the French Judge.
According to Mr. Serge Moureaux, their lawyer, the proceedings, engaged in March, concern the implementation of the warrants issued by the investigating judge by Belgium.
“It’s about the right of free movement”, he explained to Hirondelle agency. “Brussels is the seat of several international organizations”, he recalls, and moreover, there is an agreement of military cooperation between Belgium and Rwanda and according to it, these Generals must be allowed to work in the frame of commissions between States. These warrants prevent them to do so”. The Ministers of Interior and Justice will be cited for Belgium.
This action also concerns the investigating judge, “personally and as an organ of the French state”. According to Mr. Moureaux, Jean-Louis Bruguière, in writing this order “which considers facts as established although he can only establish presumptions” and “in issuing his order all over the azimuth”, breached two of his obligations as an investigating judge: the presumption of innocence and the secrecy of the investigatory phase. That constitutes a “violation of international conventions, notably the European Convention on Human Rights”. And, “the Belgian law relative to the European warrant of arrest [law of 19th December 2003] prohibits these violations, Serge Moureaux added. Due to that, we demand Belgium not to implement the warrants issued by Judge Bruguière”.
According to the lawyer of the Rwandan Militaries, “we are brought to consider that he acted for political reasons and that he turned his functions from their proper object. I add that he publicly sides with the revisionist thesis of the genocide insofar as he charges the responsibility of the genocide to the FPR and to Paul Kagame, contrary to all the case law of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)”.
Eldoret-Kampala Oil Pipeline Deal Concluded.
Daily Monitor.
31-01-07 The construction of the 358-km oil pipeline from Eldoret in Kenya to Kampala is set to begin by August at a cost of $ 78 (Shs 138 bn), following the signing of the agreement.
Officials of Uganda, Kenya and Tamoil -- the company that landed the contract to construct the pipeline -- signed the agreement. Tamoil will provide 51 % of the total cost while Kenya and Uganda will both contribute 24.5 % of the cost.
The Permanent Secretary of Uganda's energy ministry Kabagambe Kaliisa, his Kenyan counterpart Patrick Nyoike, Tamoil East Africa Managing Director Kamel Jarnaz and the Chairman Mr Habib Kagimu are the signatories to the agreement. Mr Kaliisa, the Chairman of the joint coordinating commission of the pipeline project said Tamoil beat 23 firms to the deal.
"Tamoil Africa emerged the most responsive bidder with very strong financial and technical competency," Mr Kaliisa said.
The deal was hit by allegations of corruption but Mr Kaliisa said although there were some "complaints" from the losing bidders, his commission dismissed the complaints "and we do not expect them again."
Uganda's energy minister Daudi Migereko described the project as a major breakthrough, saying the current tariff on every 1,000 litres of oil is $35 but the pipeline would reduce the tariff to $ 20 per cm. He said when completed, the pipeline could eventually serve neighbouring countries such as Rwanda, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Southern Sudan.
31-01-07 The construction of the 358-km oil pipeline from Eldoret in Kenya to Kampala is set to begin by August at a cost of $ 78 (Shs 138 bn), following the signing of the agreement.
Officials of Uganda, Kenya and Tamoil -- the company that landed the contract to construct the pipeline -- signed the agreement. Tamoil will provide 51 % of the total cost while Kenya and Uganda will both contribute 24.5 % of the cost.
The Permanent Secretary of Uganda's energy ministry Kabagambe Kaliisa, his Kenyan counterpart Patrick Nyoike, Tamoil East Africa Managing Director Kamel Jarnaz and the Chairman Mr Habib Kagimu are the signatories to the agreement. Mr Kaliisa, the Chairman of the joint coordinating commission of the pipeline project said Tamoil beat 23 firms to the deal.
"Tamoil Africa emerged the most responsive bidder with very strong financial and technical competency," Mr Kaliisa said.
The deal was hit by allegations of corruption but Mr Kaliisa said although there were some "complaints" from the losing bidders, his commission dismissed the complaints "and we do not expect them again."
Uganda's energy minister Daudi Migereko described the project as a major breakthrough, saying the current tariff on every 1,000 litres of oil is $35 but the pipeline would reduce the tariff to $ 20 per cm. He said when completed, the pipeline could eventually serve neighbouring countries such as Rwanda, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Southern Sudan.
Chevron Unit to Build New Headquarters in Luanda.
Angola Press Agency
07-02-07 The multinational Chevron, Cabinda Gulf Oil Company (Cabgoc), announced in Luanda the construction of a new headquarters in the Angolan capital, as a result of the investments made in the country in the fields of exploration, prospecting and production of oil and natural gas.
The company affirms that it has lately observed a substantial increase of its operations in Angola, pointed out as a positive result the recruiting of new national employees and thereby the need for an extra space.
The launching of the first stone for the construction of the building will be attended by prominent entities of the Oil Ministry, of National Fuel Society of Angola (Sonangol) and of associates of Block 0.
The headquarters will be built in the Chicala zone, in Ingombota district (Luanda).
07-02-07 The multinational Chevron, Cabinda Gulf Oil Company (Cabgoc), announced in Luanda the construction of a new headquarters in the Angolan capital, as a result of the investments made in the country in the fields of exploration, prospecting and production of oil and natural gas.
The company affirms that it has lately observed a substantial increase of its operations in Angola, pointed out as a positive result the recruiting of new national employees and thereby the need for an extra space.
The launching of the first stone for the construction of the building will be attended by prominent entities of the Oil Ministry, of National Fuel Society of Angola (Sonangol) and of associates of Block 0.
The headquarters will be built in the Chicala zone, in Ingombota district (Luanda).
13 April, 2007
U.N. Envoy Concerned At Rising Tensions Between Puntland And Somaliland.
UN News Service (New York)
April 13, 2007
Reacting to rising tensions between Somalia's autonomous Puntland region and self-declared Somaliland, the senior United Nations envoy to the country today called on all sides to allow humanitarian activities to continue unimpeded.
"These tensions threaten not only to undermine the political stability and economic progress that both sides have so painstakingly achieved, but also international support for their efforts," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Special Representative for Somalia, François Lonseny Fall, said in a statement released in Nairobi.
"I would like to appeal to the authorities in both Puntland and Somaliland to immediately cease all hostile actions, refrain from any provocative acts and take all necessary steps to reduce tensions in the Sool and Sanaag regions," Mr. Fall said.
He appealed to both sides to ensure unrestricted access to all humanitarian efforts and not to impede United Nations humanitarian activities.
Recent fighting in Somalia between the Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces and insurgents has left hundreds dead and wounded, while tens of thousands of civilians have fled Mogadishu as a result of the conflict, Mr. Fall today told a meeting in Nairobi of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional organization that has been involved in efforts to stabilize Somalia.
"All the hospitals in the city and its environs have been overwhelmed with the rising number of casualties," he added.
The envoy called for a political solution, and encouraged the TFG to ensure that a planned National Reconciliation Congress be "as inclusive as possible."
On Thursday, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, John Holmes, voiced deep concern over the dire situation facing the displaced, who have been harassed, threatened, raped and robbed.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that aid workers are being thwarted in their efforts to assist internally displaced persons (IDPs) and other vulnerable groups by the deteriorating security situation, harassment, intimidation and even detention.
The UN refugee agency has been begun delivery of 28 tons of relief supplies to help up to 20,000 people who fled recent fighting in Mogadishu, spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva today.
"Thousands of displaced Somalis have spent nearly two weeks without proper food, water or shelter," he said. "Families with no relatives or clan links in the area continue to live in the open, or under trees. The need for shelter material is now more pressing because of the rainy season which normally begins this month."
UNHCR has additional stocks for up to 5,000 families in Mogadishu and smaller quantities in the town of Marka. But Mr. Redmond warned that obstacles remain. "We are still facing difficulties in bringing items out of the warehouses for distribution to thousands of families who fled from the capital," he said, adding that "insecurity in parts of Mogadishu has continued to jeopardize humanitarian access to the Somali capital and surrounding regions, making the plight of civilians all the more desperate."
About 128,000 Somalis are believed to have fled from Mogadishu since the beginning of February. Nearly 90,000 of them have sought safety in the adjacent provinces of Middle and Lower Shabelle, according to UNHCR, which estimate that 18,000 people have settled in the district of Afgooye. And up to 4,000 people may be recently displaced in Baidoa.
These figures "may still rise as people continue to flee Mogadishu," Mr. Redmond warned.
April 13, 2007
Reacting to rising tensions between Somalia's autonomous Puntland region and self-declared Somaliland, the senior United Nations envoy to the country today called on all sides to allow humanitarian activities to continue unimpeded.
"These tensions threaten not only to undermine the political stability and economic progress that both sides have so painstakingly achieved, but also international support for their efforts," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Special Representative for Somalia, François Lonseny Fall, said in a statement released in Nairobi.
"I would like to appeal to the authorities in both Puntland and Somaliland to immediately cease all hostile actions, refrain from any provocative acts and take all necessary steps to reduce tensions in the Sool and Sanaag regions," Mr. Fall said.
He appealed to both sides to ensure unrestricted access to all humanitarian efforts and not to impede United Nations humanitarian activities.
Recent fighting in Somalia between the Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces and insurgents has left hundreds dead and wounded, while tens of thousands of civilians have fled Mogadishu as a result of the conflict, Mr. Fall today told a meeting in Nairobi of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional organization that has been involved in efforts to stabilize Somalia.
"All the hospitals in the city and its environs have been overwhelmed with the rising number of casualties," he added.
The envoy called for a political solution, and encouraged the TFG to ensure that a planned National Reconciliation Congress be "as inclusive as possible."
On Thursday, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, John Holmes, voiced deep concern over the dire situation facing the displaced, who have been harassed, threatened, raped and robbed.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that aid workers are being thwarted in their efforts to assist internally displaced persons (IDPs) and other vulnerable groups by the deteriorating security situation, harassment, intimidation and even detention.
The UN refugee agency has been begun delivery of 28 tons of relief supplies to help up to 20,000 people who fled recent fighting in Mogadishu, spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva today.
"Thousands of displaced Somalis have spent nearly two weeks without proper food, water or shelter," he said. "Families with no relatives or clan links in the area continue to live in the open, or under trees. The need for shelter material is now more pressing because of the rainy season which normally begins this month."
UNHCR has additional stocks for up to 5,000 families in Mogadishu and smaller quantities in the town of Marka. But Mr. Redmond warned that obstacles remain. "We are still facing difficulties in bringing items out of the warehouses for distribution to thousands of families who fled from the capital," he said, adding that "insecurity in parts of Mogadishu has continued to jeopardize humanitarian access to the Somali capital and surrounding regions, making the plight of civilians all the more desperate."
About 128,000 Somalis are believed to have fled from Mogadishu since the beginning of February. Nearly 90,000 of them have sought safety in the adjacent provinces of Middle and Lower Shabelle, according to UNHCR, which estimate that 18,000 people have settled in the district of Afgooye. And up to 4,000 people may be recently displaced in Baidoa.
These figures "may still rise as people continue to flee Mogadishu," Mr. Redmond warned.
Security Council Extends UN Peacekeeping Force for Another Month.
UN News Service (New York)
April 13, 2007
Stressing its commitment to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) during the country's post-war transition period, the Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations peacekeeping mission there for another month.
In a resolution adopted unanimously, the Council's 15 members agreed to extend the current mandate and personnel strength of the UN Organization Mission in the DRC (known as MONUC) until 15 May.
The resolution reaffirmed the Council's support for "the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence" of the DRC, which is trying to rebuild after decades of civil war and misrule.
Last month hundreds of people were killed in the capital, Kinshasa, during fighting between Government forces and the guards of the former vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba, who lost the run-off round of landmark presidential elections to Joseph Kabila last year.
In the wake of those deadly clashes, the Council called on the DRC's authorities and political parties to pursue national reconciliation and resolve their differences through dialogue.
In a separate development, the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Leandro Despouy, will begin a six-day visit to the African country on Sunday.
Mr. Despouy, who has been invited by the Congolese Government, will make recommendations on how to strengthen the independence of the justice system after meeting with the Prime Minister, Government officials, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, UN staff, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and others.
He will also look at the level of professional training for judges, prosecutors and lawyers, and the public access to the justice system.
April 13, 2007
Stressing its commitment to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) during the country's post-war transition period, the Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations peacekeeping mission there for another month.
In a resolution adopted unanimously, the Council's 15 members agreed to extend the current mandate and personnel strength of the UN Organization Mission in the DRC (known as MONUC) until 15 May.
The resolution reaffirmed the Council's support for "the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence" of the DRC, which is trying to rebuild after decades of civil war and misrule.
Last month hundreds of people were killed in the capital, Kinshasa, during fighting between Government forces and the guards of the former vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba, who lost the run-off round of landmark presidential elections to Joseph Kabila last year.
In the wake of those deadly clashes, the Council called on the DRC's authorities and political parties to pursue national reconciliation and resolve their differences through dialogue.
In a separate development, the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Leandro Despouy, will begin a six-day visit to the African country on Sunday.
Mr. Despouy, who has been invited by the Congolese Government, will make recommendations on how to strengthen the independence of the justice system after meeting with the Prime Minister, Government officials, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, UN staff, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and others.
He will also look at the level of professional training for judges, prosecutors and lawyers, and the public access to the justice system.
A Child's Life in North Kivu.
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
13 April, 2007
Nairobi
"When we returned to our village after being demobilised, we had nothing to do, the situation was the same and our families were poor, so I decided to join the militias in the bush with my friends again," said Germain, 19.
Half the population of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is aged less than 18-years-old, with 20 percent aged between 15- and 24- years, according to the United Nations Population Fund UNFPA. DRC youth have been at the forefront of the hostilities and young people still bear the brunt of the ongoing fighting. They often enlisted "en masse" in the various armed factions fighting in the war.
The reintegration of young ex-combatants into civilian life is one of the biggest challenges facing DRC. This poses a serious threat to achieving sustainable peace - a process which began in 2002 with the signing of the Global and All-Inclusive Peace Agreement, and which was launched in 2003 by the transitional government. On 27 November 2006,DRC got its first democratically elected government in 40 years, headed by President Joseph Kabila.
According to estimates from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), DRC has gone through one of the most deadly conflicts since World War II. An estimated 3.9 million civilians have died since the beginning of the conflict in 1998. However, peace is still fragile and insecurity with sporadic fighting continues, especially in the eastern part of the country where rebels continue to loot, rape and murder.
In North Kivu, a major effort is currently underway to demobilise combatants of all ages, especially the young fighters. The chief-coordinator of the Commission for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (CONADER) in Goma, the provincial capital, estimates that between 60 and 70 percent of the rebel forces in the province are aged 15- to 24-years.
Poverty: a crucial factor for youth militarisation
The massive enlistment of youth in militias during the five-year war was largely due to the existence of a generation of dispossessed young people, suffering the effects of educational collapse and social exclusion at the end of the 1990s in DRC.
In many ways, the situation is unchanged, said the head of the North Kivu Division for Youth, Dunia Bakuluea: "There is still fighting going on here and approximately 95 percent of young people in the province are unemployed, which makes militia life attractive for them." He added that: "Young men particularly suffer from this alienation and constitute a reserve of fighters readily mobilised by local warlords who provide them with easy explanations of the crisis, based on ethnical exclusion."
At the military centre in Rumangabo, 50 km from Goma, in the territory of Rutshuru, IRIN met Moise, 26, who recently fled Laurent Nkunda's rebel forces, which are still active in North Kivu. He had spent most of his youth in the armed forces, joining AFDL (Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Zaire) at 16. He then joined the RCD (Rally for Congolese Democracy) in 1998 to 'continue the fight against anti-Tutsi people in the region' until the movement's formal integration into the transitional government and the "brassage" or integration of its armed wing into the Congolese national army (FARDC).
Moise reasons that his actions were ethnically motivated, but in fact the underlying reason is poverty:
"My family was poor and when the armed men came to my village, I signed up immediately with my friends. We wanted to make our lives better," he told IRIN. He also explained that it was for financial reasons that he recently fled Nkunda's 83rd brigade although he had served there for 3 years: "After having joined FARDC, I was sub-lieutenant and received US $30 a month, but when Nkunda 'took' our unit, I only received $10."
Youth disillusioned by reintegration
Like his peers in Rumangabo, Moise chose to join the newly integrated FARDC again rather than be demobilised and reintegrated into civilian life. This is a recent trend among ex-militiamen, explained Lieutenant-Colonel Katanga, who told IRIN: "Before, approximately 70 percent of the men would choose reintegration into civil life whereas the majority now chooses to enter the Congolese army."
The prospect of civilian reintegration does not appeal to Moise and his friends, most of whom are unable to read or write, and feel they would not be able to adapt and find a job. Also, returning to the village after ten years in the military poses serious problems, as young people fear stigmatisation, being a burden to their families, and most importantly being "treated as children" when they go back.
The challenges are particularly great for child protection partners working with children separated from armed forces or groups, as there is no possibility for them to remain in the military so long as they are less than 18 years old, despite their desire to remain in some cases.
Martin Muhindi, Child Protection Programme Manager for Save the Children UK, in North Kivu, told IRIN that in some reported cases, adolescent minors who actually chose reintegration showed bitter frustration at not being included in the adult demobilization and reinsertion programmes.
This is because the reintegration kits provided to adults include a monthly monetary allowance of $25 per month over 12 months with a one-time payment of $110, whereas reinsertion programs for children focus on equipping children with knowledge and skills through opportunities either to go back to school or to receive vocational training followed by start-up kits supporting the opening of a small business. Children are never provided with direct cash assistance given the likelihood that such funds will be taken from them by adults or spent on things that do not forward the child's future.
In many cases, adolescents are angry because they have not yet benefited from a reinsertion programme, at times rioting against humanitarian workers. Among the 7000 children separated by child protection partners in North Kivu since the beginning of the DDR process, only approximately half have received full reinsertion support. In 2006, UNICEF supported 1,188 children in various reinsertion activities in North Kivu, including 479 in socio-professional training programmes (e.g. mechanics, carpentry, sewing) and 706 in economic reinsertion programmes (e.g. small businesses, raising of small animals) amongst 12,000 in total in DRC. Save the Children UK has supported another 2000 children in the province.
UNICEF's Project Officer responsible for the Protection programme in Eastern DRC, Pernille Ironside, told IRIN that two principal reasons hindering the establishment of reinsertion programmes for children reunified with their families are: the ongoing insecurity in certain areas caused by the presence of militia groups who harass and threaten to re-enroll children; and the lack of local capacity to implement projects in areas where there has been no prior presence of NGOs.
Even for those who have received some limited vocational training, the difficulties in finding a job are considerable, and very dependent on the sector they choose. At the Don Bosco Centre for vulnerable youth in Goma, which like most towns in the Kivu provinces has been devastated by the war, there are two different stories. Those working in construction said they had no problem after their training to find a position in town, whereas metalworking apprentices were far more pessimistic:
"It is really difficult for us; most of the work experience we find in the region is unpaid. The Centre provides us with good training and small things like soap, but we are uncertain about our future."
The Division for Social Affairs (DIVAS) in North Kivu manages 30 social programmes in the Province, which provide vocational training and literacy classes for vulnerable children and adults. The head of DIVAS, Domitille Rusimbuka told IRIN that their work was severely constrained by the lack of means to reintegrate vulnerable people, in particular ex-combatants:
"We virtually receive nothing from the national budget; not only are reintegration activities very costly and require equipment such as sewing machines we can hardly afford, but most of our staff has not been paid for years. For those of us who have the courage to stay, it's a real vocation."
She added that the social workers are not aware of what happens to the ex-combatants after they have received training and return to their families, as follow-up activities are not implemented due to lack of funding.
DDR progressing too slowly
CONADER's DDR process has been severely criticised by international aid agencies for not reaching its initial target - social and professional reintegration of adult ex-combatants who have chosen to demobilize and children who have been separated from armed forces or groups; and neglecting its final objective - the creation of opportunities for ex-combatants to prevent re-recruitment.
Although it is difficult to obtain statistics for the 15- to 24-years-old age group, the DDR programme, launched in 2004, was supposed to support an estimated 150,000 fighters, of whom 33,000 were estimated to be under 18 years.
The actual number of youths still in the different rebel groups is unknown, especially since many young people are known to have 'self-demobilised' without formally going through the DDR process and some groups remain almost completely isolated in the bush.
In North Kivu, international and local organisations agree that the reintegration part of the DDR programme has been inadequate due to shortcomings within CONADER, and that it poses a serious threat for the durable and peaceful reintegration of scores of young people in the region.
In July 2006, CONADER announced that due to insufficient funds, disarmament and demobilization activities would to be suspended and the remaining budget (provided by the World Bank and a multi-Country Demobilisation and Reintegration Program, MDRP) to be used for reintegration projects of ex-combatants, which it admits has been mostly neglected.
As a result, child protection agencies such as UNICEF and Save the Children UK are performing the bulk of the work in supporting children in their transition back to civilian life.
Violence in society: a crisis of youth?
Bakuluea told IRIN that young people in the town are frustrated by ongoing insecurity in the region and feel vulnerable to abuses perpetrated by militias. While sympathising with their frustrations, Bakuluea said he deplored the systematic resort to violence by the younger generation:
"The successive wars we endured have made violence and death trite in the eyes of the young generation. This new behaviour has emerged over the last 10 years, and is a risk to the fabric of our society. Before I was 20-years-old I had never seen a dead body, but nowadays, young people are regularly exposed and play with death like in the films they see on TV."
Muhindi also underlined that life in the army can destroy the culture of respect and age. Ex-combatants, including minors, who are regularly exposed to violence, including sexual violence, can be difficult to reintegrate.
Recently, one boy firmly refused to be placed in a host family "if there were no girls, and beautiful ones", Muhindi told IRIN.
But Bakuluea stresses that, "The erosion of traditional values among the youth is strongly related to the collapse of the economy. As a result, many young people can't afford to settle and are still not married even though they have reached their thirties. Many boys hang out in bands and organise themselves in armed clandestine networks, making a living out of illegal trading and as "coupeurs de route" (road bandits). Some come from the militias where they acquired the knowledge of warfare and a susceptibility to violence."
Dieudonné, 23, from Beni territory, lives on the streets of Goma making a living from informal trade. He told IRIN that he first entered the Mayi-Mayi militia group to "defend his country against foreign invaders" in 1998. As his unit refused integration into the national army, they had to fight against the FARDC: "One day I was wounded and tired of fighting. The FARDC were heavily armed and I could see death coming. I managed to escape in town. I don't want to go back to my village because the militiamen can find me."
For Dieudonné, and many others like him who lost years of their childhood to being part of a militia group, life continues to be a day to day struggle to carve out a meager existence in an environment where security and acceptance cannot be taken for granted.
[This article is part of a special IRIN series that looks at how conflict, poverty and social alienation are affecting the lives of children and teenagers. Read more: Youth in crisis: coming of age in the 21st century]
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]
Exxaro, First Quantum Poised to Sue Gecamines.
Allan Seccombe
Mining MX
http://www.miningmx.com/mining_fin/770331.htm
Fri, 13 April 2007
Mining MX
http://www.miningmx.com/mining_fin/770331.htm
Fri, 13 April 2007
-- Canada’s First Quantum and South Africa’s Exxaro Resources will decide in the next few weeks whether to sue Democratic Republic of Congo’s Gecamines for at least $4m over losing the Kipushi zinc project, the companies’ lawyer said on Friday.
Gecamines pulled the project away from the two companies last year and offered it on international tender to other investors. The tender was awarded to United Resources in February.
“Exxaro and First Quantum are still investigating what their next step against Gecamines will be. It is more than likely they are going to sue for damages,” Yves Baratte, a lawyer at Simmons & Simmons told Miningmx in a telephonic interview. “The decision will definitely be made in the next few days or weeks. It will then take a few more weeks to finalise the submission against Gecamines,” he said, adding the case could be before the courts by the end of May.
The companies, if they do sue, will most certainly want to be reimbursed for the $4m they have spent on feasibility studies on the Kipushi project as well as lost earnings, he said.
The lawsuit will be filed in a Belgian court which has jurisdiction over Gecamines. The DRC is a former Belgian colony.
Kipushi was shut in 1993 because of a lack of finance when it was in the Gecamines stable. It is estimated to have a measured and indicated resource of 16.9 million tons with an average grade of 16.7% zinc and 2.2% copper.
The two companies won one court process, which prevented Gecamines from releasing any data they amassed during their studies of the zinc project.
A more recent legal case to prevent Gecamines from embarking on the tender process failed.
“From a Belgian law point of view this was quite a difficult request and the court decided it could not prohibit Gecamines from moving forward and entering new agreements for Kipushi with third parties,” Baratte said.
One of the options open to Exxaro and First Quantum is to ask the court to render any new contract invalid because it is in breach of the agreement they had with Gecamines.
“The problem is that the new agreement will have been in force for some months and the court might be reluctant to grant such an order,” Baratte said.
In March, the DRC government ordered a review of all mining contracts signed in that country. Deputy mines minister Victor Kasongo told Miningmx earlier this month that up to half of the contracts appeared to be unfair to the state and would have to be renegotiated. The review will affect about 70 companies.
Paul Fortin, Gecamines managing director, has said there was no evidence that Exxaro, then Kumba Resources, or its joint venture partner First Quantum Minerals had an agreement with Gecamines.
“There was a letter of understanding with Adastra Minerals (which First Quantum Minerals subsequently bought) and Kumba Resources (the forerunner to Exxaro Resources). But in five years they did nothing.” Fortin said.
"I asked them to present every piece of paper they had. They did that which we sent to our advisors. Legal advice was that there was no agreement. Then they sent us another box of papers and our legal advice was there was still no agreement they could develop the mine."
Exxaro was keen to bring zinc from the project to its 110,000 tonnes/year Zincor refining operation in South Africa, which is currently fed by concentrate from Exxaro’s Rosh Pinah mine in Namibia. Concentrate also comes from Anglo American’s Gamsberg mine in South Africa, which is high in manganese.
Zincor is South Africa’s only zinc refinery and supplies most of the country’s needs.
Mediators Meet LRA rebel Kony on Congo Border.
By Lucy Hannan
Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L13197410.htm
RI-KWANGBA, Sudan, April 13 (Reuters) - Mozambique's former President Joaquim Chissano met Uganda's elusive guerrilla chief Joseph Kony on Friday to push forward stalled peace talks.
Flanked by mediators and Ugandan officials, the U.N. envoy for Uganda's two-decade civil war said he wanted the government and Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels to extend a landmark truce that was agreed last August but has since expired.
"It is my hope we will not leave this place without signing the documents which suspend hostilities," Chissano said after watching Kony shake hands with Uganda's top negotiator, Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda.
Two days of informal talks are planned in Ri-Kwangba, on the border between Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Peace talks began in July in Juba, capital of south Sudan, but effectively broke down in January amid mutual mistrust.
The LRA commanders are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes, and have so far stayed away from the Juba talks, hidden at camps deep in the Congolese jungle.
Joking with Kony as he arrived at tents in the forest clearing accompanied by young rebel fighters in dreadlocks and rubber boots, Chissano said: "I can see your dressed for peace!"
The LRA is notorious for massacring civilians, cutting off the lips and ears of survivors and abducting thousands of children to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves.
Nearly 2 million people have been uprooted by the fighting.
Hopes for peace were rekindled this week when a Catholic group helping mediate the Juba talks said both sides had made significant progress in a week of secret, informal talks with LRA representatives on the Kenyan coast, mediators said.
Pax Christi said broad agreement had been reached on extending the truce, as well as on a number of other areas.
MISNA
13 April 2007
Hoping to revive the pace talks, international and Ugandan mediators are meeting with the leaders of the rebel LRA movement in Ri-Kuwangba, the latter’s gathering camp near the border with RDC Congo. The UN envoy to Uganda, Joaquim Chissano, along with the Ugandan head negotiator, interior minister Ruhakana Rugunda, shall hold talks today and tomorrow with LRA leader Joseph Kony to determine the conditions needed to resume talks in Juba, South Sudan, after the rebels walked out last January, citing alleged threats from the Sudanese government.
Political and religious leaders from the Acholi District of northern Uganda, where the LRA has been most active, are also attending the meeting in Ri-Kuwangba.
“My hope is not to leave this place without a signature on the documents that suspend the hostilities” said Chissano, referring to the ceasefire achieved in August 2006, which expired without having being formally renewed.
Security conditions for the LRA troops remain the main obstacles to the talks, especially as far as the ones at the Owiny-ki-Bul camp are concerned, which has been deemed too insecure because of the nearby presence of the Ugandan regular army while there are still pending arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for the LRA leaders. In the past days, members of the rebels’ negotiating delegation, currently based in Nairobi, and representatives from the Ugandan government met in Mombasa, Kenya, at a conference organized by the Dutch Christi Olanda, the Catholic organization that has already mediated in talks between the Ugandan government and the LRA. Pax Christi issued a communiqué at the end of the session that lasted from March 30 to April 6, suggesting that “great progress” was made and that “significant agreements” were reached.
Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L13197410.htm
RI-KWANGBA, Sudan, April 13 (Reuters) - Mozambique's former President Joaquim Chissano met Uganda's elusive guerrilla chief Joseph Kony on Friday to push forward stalled peace talks.
Flanked by mediators and Ugandan officials, the U.N. envoy for Uganda's two-decade civil war said he wanted the government and Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels to extend a landmark truce that was agreed last August but has since expired.
"It is my hope we will not leave this place without signing the documents which suspend hostilities," Chissano said after watching Kony shake hands with Uganda's top negotiator, Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda.
Two days of informal talks are planned in Ri-Kwangba, on the border between Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Peace talks began in July in Juba, capital of south Sudan, but effectively broke down in January amid mutual mistrust.
The LRA commanders are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes, and have so far stayed away from the Juba talks, hidden at camps deep in the Congolese jungle.
Joking with Kony as he arrived at tents in the forest clearing accompanied by young rebel fighters in dreadlocks and rubber boots, Chissano said: "I can see your dressed for peace!"
The LRA is notorious for massacring civilians, cutting off the lips and ears of survivors and abducting thousands of children to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves.
Nearly 2 million people have been uprooted by the fighting.
Hopes for peace were rekindled this week when a Catholic group helping mediate the Juba talks said both sides had made significant progress in a week of secret, informal talks with LRA representatives on the Kenyan coast, mediators said.
Pax Christi said broad agreement had been reached on extending the truce, as well as on a number of other areas.
MISNA
13 April 2007
Hoping to revive the pace talks, international and Ugandan mediators are meeting with the leaders of the rebel LRA movement in Ri-Kuwangba, the latter’s gathering camp near the border with RDC Congo. The UN envoy to Uganda, Joaquim Chissano, along with the Ugandan head negotiator, interior minister Ruhakana Rugunda, shall hold talks today and tomorrow with LRA leader Joseph Kony to determine the conditions needed to resume talks in Juba, South Sudan, after the rebels walked out last January, citing alleged threats from the Sudanese government.
Political and religious leaders from the Acholi District of northern Uganda, where the LRA has been most active, are also attending the meeting in Ri-Kuwangba.
“My hope is not to leave this place without a signature on the documents that suspend the hostilities” said Chissano, referring to the ceasefire achieved in August 2006, which expired without having being formally renewed.
Security conditions for the LRA troops remain the main obstacles to the talks, especially as far as the ones at the Owiny-ki-Bul camp are concerned, which has been deemed too insecure because of the nearby presence of the Ugandan regular army while there are still pending arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for the LRA leaders. In the past days, members of the rebels’ negotiating delegation, currently based in Nairobi, and representatives from the Ugandan government met in Mombasa, Kenya, at a conference organized by the Dutch Christi Olanda, the Catholic organization that has already mediated in talks between the Ugandan government and the LRA. Pax Christi issued a communiqué at the end of the session that lasted from March 30 to April 6, suggesting that “great progress” was made and that “significant agreements” were reached.
Oil Exploitation on Lake Albert, Soon an International Invitation for Offers.
Radio Okapi
English Translation.
13 April 2007
The Congolese Government will soon launch an international invitation for offers to the rights of the exploitation of oil on Lake Albert, The Minister of Hydrocarbons announced Thursday exclusively on radiookapi.net. A group of experts in his ministry already prepared the terms of this invitation to tender to be subjected to the government, he specified.
Minister Lambert Mende Omalanga already affirms to have addressed this subject with the deputies of the Orientale Province and his/her colleagues in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since there is oil on both sides of the border between Uganda and the DRC. Uganda, said the minister, has already started drilling and extracting the oil on its side. “For us, it is a question of making in the same way. We think that there is technically more oil on the Congolese side of the border than on the Ugandan side”, he added. Thus the Ministry of Hydrocarbons, in the name of the Congolese Government, will soon launch an international invitation for offers, concluded Mr. Mende.
English Translation.
13 April 2007
The Congolese Government will soon launch an international invitation for offers to the rights of the exploitation of oil on Lake Albert, The Minister of Hydrocarbons announced Thursday exclusively on radiookapi.net. A group of experts in his ministry already prepared the terms of this invitation to tender to be subjected to the government, he specified.
Minister Lambert Mende Omalanga already affirms to have addressed this subject with the deputies of the Orientale Province and his/her colleagues in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since there is oil on both sides of the border between Uganda and the DRC. Uganda, said the minister, has already started drilling and extracting the oil on its side. “For us, it is a question of making in the same way. We think that there is technically more oil on the Congolese side of the border than on the Ugandan side”, he added. Thus the Ministry of Hydrocarbons, in the name of the Congolese Government, will soon launch an international invitation for offers, concluded Mr. Mende.
British Mercenaries Find a New Ferocity in Ivory Coast.
James Astill in Abidjan
Saturday 22 February, 2003
The Guardian
A British former SAS man is flying a helicopter gunship for the Ivory Coast government, one of six foreign mercenaries from a group of at least 50 recruited by Saudi Arabian diamond speculator in September, according to mercenary sources.
The rest are said to have left recently under pressure from France, the former colonial power, which has a force in Ivory Coast trying to keep the government and rebel forces apart.
The six helicopter gunship pilots remaining are the British former member of B-squadron SAS, a Frenchman and four South Africans. They are flying sorties against the three rebel groups which control 60% of the country.
Almost all the mercenaries were former employees of Executive Outcomes, a South African company disbanded in 1999 after the government introduced a law banning mercenary activity by its nationals.
Executive Outcomes drew international attention to the industry, worth an estimated £30bn a year in the late 90s, by fighting for the besieged governments of Angola and Sierra Leone. In Sierra Leone the British mercenary company Sandline International broke a UN arms embargo, allegedly with British government approval.
"Executive Outcomes has officially run its course, because the South African government didn't like having a formal mercenary headquarters around," said Roy Kaulback, an analyst for Jane's Intelligence Review in Abidjan. "But we're seeing exactly the same people on the ground here.
"There appears to be an informalising of the industry. We can expect to see a lot more wars in Africa, and that means work for soldiers. To get these guys together only takes a couple of phone calls."
Jim Maguire, 46, a former Royal Marine from London who went on to serve in the Rhodesian and South African special forces, was a mercenary in Ivory Coast for three months, until he left the country three weeks ago. He now lives in Johannesburg.
He received a call in early October and was fighting 24-hour gun battles against well-trained Liberian insurgents by the month's end.
"It's normally done by word of mouth," he said. "The guys know each other, and if you know the people you get the jobs."
"Some French guys put this one together - the French have always been deeply involved in this game - but no companies, you understand."
The three-month contract was worth €6,000 (£4,000) a month, he said Mr Maguire. There was no offer of compensation for death or injury.
The mercenaries met in Abidjan on October 22 and were immediately deployed. The mission was described as a "72-hour policing operation" to support the Ivoirean army in the west, Mr Maguire said.
But it went disastrously wrong.
"It's like any team," he said. "If you've not played a game together before, it doesn't go too well. But this was a big shock."
Contrary to their briefing, the mercenaries found not a drug-crazed rabble of rebels fleeing disciplined government troops, but the reverse: battle-hardened fighters from Liberia and Sierra Leone terrorising raw Ivoirean recruits.
He said: "They were a very well-organised, well-equipped enemy, very determined to win. The attacks were ferocious - it's not the 1960s any more, when a bunch of white guys can take a country with four rifles. This is real war."
In the first battle, at Belloa, at least six Ivoireans died and two French mercenaries were blinded by a grenade.
Three months later Mr Maguire was still in the west, half-dead with malaria, and cut off behind rebel lines alongside his 14 remaining comrades.
"In the end we were being attacked permanently, day and night. We were the only front to hold up," he said. "We got totally cut off. We had no radio and not enough ammunition. It wasn't good."
Mr Maguire and the other mercenary infantrymen were asked to leave Ivory Coast after France pushed through a peace accord in Paris last month.
But with the Ivorian government having since broken the agreement and the rebels promising to redouble the attack, Mr Kaulbak and other military analysts in Abidjan believe that this was a wrongheaded decision.
"You have two sides sufficiently infuriated with each other to go to war, and the west comes in and says, 'you must start talking to each other,' when they probably consider the time for talking is past," he said. "It's rather insulting really."
"If you want peace, you have to impose it - which you can't do by imposing peace talks.
"Here the mercenaries can be pivotal. With a few high-quality soldiers, assisting one side or another, you could actually finish the thing."
A South African gunship pilot in Abidjan, who goes by the nom de guerre of "Lieutenant-Colonel Fred", agreed.
"A military solution's the only solution," said Fred, a veteran of wars in Angola - on both sides - Sierra Leone, and Papua New Guinea.
"As a mercenary you can go and fight for the rebels, and I say that's bad; or you can assist a legitimate government which has no experience of fighting a war, and I say that's good."
Fred cited Executive Outcomes' Sierra Leone intervention, where it held a vicious rebel movement at bay for two years with only 120 men. After international pressure, they were replaced by 15,000 UN peacekeepers, many of whom the rebels promptly kidnapped or killed, causing their mission to be aborted.
But Fabien Hara of the International Crisis Group, a thinktank focusing on conflict resolution, quoted Machiavelli: "You don't win wars with mercenaries."
In her view the mercenaries in Ivory Coast have become a proxy army, representing a tiny slice of the population. "It's not a question of practicality, but principle - of whether mercenaries should be there at all," she said.
Principle is not an alien concept to Mr Maguire. He turned down an offer to fight the rebels in Angola with Executive Outcomes - having already fought on the other side - and $10,000 (£7,000) a month from Liberia to oppose British troops in Sierra Leone.
But he conceded that mercenaries might not be best-placed to judge the rights and wrongs of a cause.
"I don't get too interested in the politics of a situation. I just do my job, try not to get killed, and I leave," he said.
"I don't even like it as much as I used to. I've got two young kids now and they're always on my mind. I suppose there might be a bit of enjoyment still, but it's really just about the money."
Saturday 22 February, 2003
The Guardian
A British former SAS man is flying a helicopter gunship for the Ivory Coast government, one of six foreign mercenaries from a group of at least 50 recruited by Saudi Arabian diamond speculator in September, according to mercenary sources.
The rest are said to have left recently under pressure from France, the former colonial power, which has a force in Ivory Coast trying to keep the government and rebel forces apart.
The six helicopter gunship pilots remaining are the British former member of B-squadron SAS, a Frenchman and four South Africans. They are flying sorties against the three rebel groups which control 60% of the country.
Almost all the mercenaries were former employees of Executive Outcomes, a South African company disbanded in 1999 after the government introduced a law banning mercenary activity by its nationals.
Executive Outcomes drew international attention to the industry, worth an estimated £30bn a year in the late 90s, by fighting for the besieged governments of Angola and Sierra Leone. In Sierra Leone the British mercenary company Sandline International broke a UN arms embargo, allegedly with British government approval.
"Executive Outcomes has officially run its course, because the South African government didn't like having a formal mercenary headquarters around," said Roy Kaulback, an analyst for Jane's Intelligence Review in Abidjan. "But we're seeing exactly the same people on the ground here.
"There appears to be an informalising of the industry. We can expect to see a lot more wars in Africa, and that means work for soldiers. To get these guys together only takes a couple of phone calls."
Jim Maguire, 46, a former Royal Marine from London who went on to serve in the Rhodesian and South African special forces, was a mercenary in Ivory Coast for three months, until he left the country three weeks ago. He now lives in Johannesburg.
He received a call in early October and was fighting 24-hour gun battles against well-trained Liberian insurgents by the month's end.
"It's normally done by word of mouth," he said. "The guys know each other, and if you know the people you get the jobs."
"Some French guys put this one together - the French have always been deeply involved in this game - but no companies, you understand."
The three-month contract was worth €6,000 (£4,000) a month, he said Mr Maguire. There was no offer of compensation for death or injury.
The mercenaries met in Abidjan on October 22 and were immediately deployed. The mission was described as a "72-hour policing operation" to support the Ivoirean army in the west, Mr Maguire said.
But it went disastrously wrong.
"It's like any team," he said. "If you've not played a game together before, it doesn't go too well. But this was a big shock."
Contrary to their briefing, the mercenaries found not a drug-crazed rabble of rebels fleeing disciplined government troops, but the reverse: battle-hardened fighters from Liberia and Sierra Leone terrorising raw Ivoirean recruits.
He said: "They were a very well-organised, well-equipped enemy, very determined to win. The attacks were ferocious - it's not the 1960s any more, when a bunch of white guys can take a country with four rifles. This is real war."
In the first battle, at Belloa, at least six Ivoireans died and two French mercenaries were blinded by a grenade.
Three months later Mr Maguire was still in the west, half-dead with malaria, and cut off behind rebel lines alongside his 14 remaining comrades.
"In the end we were being attacked permanently, day and night. We were the only front to hold up," he said. "We got totally cut off. We had no radio and not enough ammunition. It wasn't good."
Mr Maguire and the other mercenary infantrymen were asked to leave Ivory Coast after France pushed through a peace accord in Paris last month.
But with the Ivorian government having since broken the agreement and the rebels promising to redouble the attack, Mr Kaulbak and other military analysts in Abidjan believe that this was a wrongheaded decision.
"You have two sides sufficiently infuriated with each other to go to war, and the west comes in and says, 'you must start talking to each other,' when they probably consider the time for talking is past," he said. "It's rather insulting really."
"If you want peace, you have to impose it - which you can't do by imposing peace talks.
"Here the mercenaries can be pivotal. With a few high-quality soldiers, assisting one side or another, you could actually finish the thing."
A South African gunship pilot in Abidjan, who goes by the nom de guerre of "Lieutenant-Colonel Fred", agreed.
"A military solution's the only solution," said Fred, a veteran of wars in Angola - on both sides - Sierra Leone, and Papua New Guinea.
"As a mercenary you can go and fight for the rebels, and I say that's bad; or you can assist a legitimate government which has no experience of fighting a war, and I say that's good."
Fred cited Executive Outcomes' Sierra Leone intervention, where it held a vicious rebel movement at bay for two years with only 120 men. After international pressure, they were replaced by 15,000 UN peacekeepers, many of whom the rebels promptly kidnapped or killed, causing their mission to be aborted.
But Fabien Hara of the International Crisis Group, a thinktank focusing on conflict resolution, quoted Machiavelli: "You don't win wars with mercenaries."
In her view the mercenaries in Ivory Coast have become a proxy army, representing a tiny slice of the population. "It's not a question of practicality, but principle - of whether mercenaries should be there at all," she said.
Principle is not an alien concept to Mr Maguire. He turned down an offer to fight the rebels in Angola with Executive Outcomes - having already fought on the other side - and $10,000 (£7,000) a month from Liberia to oppose British troops in Sierra Leone.
But he conceded that mercenaries might not be best-placed to judge the rights and wrongs of a cause.
"I don't get too interested in the politics of a situation. I just do my job, try not to get killed, and I leave," he said.
"I don't even like it as much as I used to. I've got two young kids now and they're always on my mind. I suppose there might be a bit of enjoyment still, but it's really just about the money."
Portugal Refutes ’Asylum’ Speculation to DR Congo Politicians.
African Press Agency
11 April 2007.
APA - London (UK) Portuguese diplomats in London Wednesday denied ever granting asylum to the embattled leader of Democratic Republic of Congo’s opposition politician, Jean-Pierre Bemba who arrived Wednesday in Portugal for medical treatment, APA learned.
Bemba, 44, along with his family, was escorted by 17 heavily armed U.N. armoured vehicles from the South African embassy where he sought refuge in Kinshasa, to the capital’s airport.
Portuguese officials in London said they have been bombarded by phone calls from different angles, especially from DR Congo nationals in London asking questions on the status of Bemba in "our country".
"We have to clarify that Mr. Bemba will return to DR Congo after two months when the treatment on his leg will be finished".
However, political pundits suggest his exit might go a long way in easing the post-elections tensions and intense fighting which have left about 600 people dead, according to EU statistics.
Bemba’s followers resorted to the aggressive path following what they denounced as humiliation against their leader, marked by threats and the illegal arrests of "our members".
President Joseph Kabila defeated Bemba in a presidential election last October widely hailed as the first democratic poll in the country for more than 40 years.
Hundreds of his armed guards refused to lay down their weapons and join the national army. It took government troops and their heavy artillery to subdue them.
This prompted an arrest warrant and treason charges subsequently instituted against Bemba, who denied plotting a coup against President Joseph Kabila.
The charges were dropped since, as an elected member of the Senate, he still enjoys diplomatic immunity.
11 April 2007.
APA - London (UK) Portuguese diplomats in London Wednesday denied ever granting asylum to the embattled leader of Democratic Republic of Congo’s opposition politician, Jean-Pierre Bemba who arrived Wednesday in Portugal for medical treatment, APA learned.
Bemba, 44, along with his family, was escorted by 17 heavily armed U.N. armoured vehicles from the South African embassy where he sought refuge in Kinshasa, to the capital’s airport.
Portuguese officials in London said they have been bombarded by phone calls from different angles, especially from DR Congo nationals in London asking questions on the status of Bemba in "our country".
"We have to clarify that Mr. Bemba will return to DR Congo after two months when the treatment on his leg will be finished".
However, political pundits suggest his exit might go a long way in easing the post-elections tensions and intense fighting which have left about 600 people dead, according to EU statistics.
Bemba’s followers resorted to the aggressive path following what they denounced as humiliation against their leader, marked by threats and the illegal arrests of "our members".
President Joseph Kabila defeated Bemba in a presidential election last October widely hailed as the first democratic poll in the country for more than 40 years.
Hundreds of his armed guards refused to lay down their weapons and join the national army. It took government troops and their heavy artillery to subdue them.
This prompted an arrest warrant and treason charges subsequently instituted against Bemba, who denied plotting a coup against President Joseph Kabila.
The charges were dropped since, as an elected member of the Senate, he still enjoys diplomatic immunity.
Eritrea Says US Responsible for Border Row Stalemate With Ethiopia.
Agence France Presse
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article21331
April 13, 2007 (ASMARA) — Eritrea on Thursday accused Washington of blocking implementation of a ruling on its border dispute with Ethiopia, and warned that failure to enforce it could lead to a crisis as serious as that in Somalia.
Yemane Gebremeskel, director of Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki’s office, said Washington had stopped the United Nations Security Council from enforcing the 2002 border ruling by an independent panel.
"It boils down to the policy of the US government, for reasons that are not easy for us to understand," Yemane told reporters on Thursday, on the eve of the fifth anniversary since the independent commission’s border ruling.
"The US administration has preferred not to allow the decision to be implemented in accordance with the provisions of the agreement."
Yemane warned that failure to enforce the decision by the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission, which is due to disband in November, could result in as serious a crisis as that in the war-torn nation of Somalia.
"If conflict erupts it is going to be equally grave and involve the loss of life," Yemane warned.
Washington has dismissed such accusations in the past.
A State Department report last month blamed Asmara for using the border dispute to justify restrictions on civil liberties despite international efforts to resolve the situation.
The panel’s decision awarded the flashpoint border town of Badme to Eritrea. Ethiopia says the ruling must be altered since it will split families and villages between the two countries.
The result has been that the 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) border remains undemarcated and a source of constant tension in the region.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article21331
April 13, 2007 (ASMARA) — Eritrea on Thursday accused Washington of blocking implementation of a ruling on its border dispute with Ethiopia, and warned that failure to enforce it could lead to a crisis as serious as that in Somalia.
Yemane Gebremeskel, director of Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki’s office, said Washington had stopped the United Nations Security Council from enforcing the 2002 border ruling by an independent panel.
"It boils down to the policy of the US government, for reasons that are not easy for us to understand," Yemane told reporters on Thursday, on the eve of the fifth anniversary since the independent commission’s border ruling.
"The US administration has preferred not to allow the decision to be implemented in accordance with the provisions of the agreement."
Yemane warned that failure to enforce the decision by the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission, which is due to disband in November, could result in as serious a crisis as that in the war-torn nation of Somalia.
"If conflict erupts it is going to be equally grave and involve the loss of life," Yemane warned.
Washington has dismissed such accusations in the past.
A State Department report last month blamed Asmara for using the border dispute to justify restrictions on civil liberties despite international efforts to resolve the situation.
The panel’s decision awarded the flashpoint border town of Badme to Eritrea. Ethiopia says the ruling must be altered since it will split families and villages between the two countries.
The result has been that the 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) border remains undemarcated and a source of constant tension in the region.
Top US Diplomat in Sudan for Darfur Talks.
Agence France Presse
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?page=imprimable&id_article=21336
April 13, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte arrived in Sudan on Thursday at the start of an African tour that will be dominated by the situation in war-torn Darfur, an official said.
John Negroponte Negroponte is expected to press Khartoum to accept a hybrid peacekeeping force of UN and African Union forces to stem violence that has steadily escalated since the Darfur conflict erupted in 2003 and which has increased tension between Sudan and neighbouring Chad.
"The tragic situation of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur is something that peoccupies all Americans. It is an issue to which the administration is devoting considerable time and resources," Negroponte said in Washington ahead of his mission.
On Friday he will go to Juba, capital of semi-autonomous south Sudan over which a peace accord was signed in January 2005 after more than 20 years of conflict with the north.
The US embassy said Negroponte will travel to Durfur on Saturday ahead of talks on Sunday with officials in Khartoum. The State Department said he will then visit Chad, Libya and Mauritania.
Negroponte’s visit comes after the United States held off on a decision to impose unilateral sanctions against Sudan to give UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon a last chance to convince Khartoum to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur.
Ban on April 2 asked for an additional two to four weeks to pressure Sudan’s government to lift its opposition to deployment of the UN force of some 20,000 troops to Darfur before turning to sanctions.
Sudan, the United Nations and the African Union have agreed in Addis Ababa on phase two of UN support for the AU force, with 7,000 men. But Khartoum is refusing to accept a further 3,000 men and assault helicopters, according to Sudanese press reports.
Phase three — the hybrid UN-AU force itself, has yet to be negotiated.
The African Union peacekeepers have been unable to contain the violence in Darfur where 200,000 people have been killed and more than two million driven from their homes, according to the United Nations, which has reported widespread human rights abuses.
The Khartoum government disputes those figures.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?page=imprimable&id_article=21336
April 13, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte arrived in Sudan on Thursday at the start of an African tour that will be dominated by the situation in war-torn Darfur, an official said.
John Negroponte Negroponte is expected to press Khartoum to accept a hybrid peacekeeping force of UN and African Union forces to stem violence that has steadily escalated since the Darfur conflict erupted in 2003 and which has increased tension between Sudan and neighbouring Chad.
"The tragic situation of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur is something that peoccupies all Americans. It is an issue to which the administration is devoting considerable time and resources," Negroponte said in Washington ahead of his mission.
On Friday he will go to Juba, capital of semi-autonomous south Sudan over which a peace accord was signed in January 2005 after more than 20 years of conflict with the north.
The US embassy said Negroponte will travel to Durfur on Saturday ahead of talks on Sunday with officials in Khartoum. The State Department said he will then visit Chad, Libya and Mauritania.
Negroponte’s visit comes after the United States held off on a decision to impose unilateral sanctions against Sudan to give UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon a last chance to convince Khartoum to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur.
Ban on April 2 asked for an additional two to four weeks to pressure Sudan’s government to lift its opposition to deployment of the UN force of some 20,000 troops to Darfur before turning to sanctions.
Sudan, the United Nations and the African Union have agreed in Addis Ababa on phase two of UN support for the AU force, with 7,000 men. But Khartoum is refusing to accept a further 3,000 men and assault helicopters, according to Sudanese press reports.
Phase three — the hybrid UN-AU force itself, has yet to be negotiated.
The African Union peacekeepers have been unable to contain the violence in Darfur where 200,000 people have been killed and more than two million driven from their homes, according to the United Nations, which has reported widespread human rights abuses.
The Khartoum government disputes those figures.
Swedish Held in Ethiopia Says Detained in US-led Operation.
Associated Press.
April 12, 2007 (STOCKHOLM, Sweden) — A Swedish teenager who was imprisoned for weeks with alleged terror suspects in Ethiopia said in an interview published Thursday that Americans in military uniform directed the Kenyan soldiers who took her into custody on the Somali-Kenyan border.
Benaouda said three men in U.S. uniforms led the Kenyan troops who detained her and other women and children fleeing Somalia on Jan. 18.
Benaouda did not answer calls from The Associated Press on Thursday. But her mother, Helena Benaouda, told the AP her daughter believed they were U.S. soldiers because of insignia on their uniforms.
Ethiopian officials initially denied any suspects were in custody, but the government later confirmed an AP report that dozens of foreigners were detained as part of an effort to stem terrorism.
U.S. officials, who agreed to discuss the detentions only if not quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the issue, have said Ethiopia had allowed access to U.S. agencies, including the CIA and FBI , but the agencies played no role in arrests, transport or deportation. Ethiopian and Somali officials acknowledge cooperating.
American, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces have long been allies in a U.S. counterterrorism effort in the region, whose lawlessness security experts fear al-Qaida and other groups could exploit to create a base. The cooperation appears to have been stepped up in the wake of the collapse of an Islamist regime in Somalia, amid fears al-Qaida suspects linked to the group would flee into Kenya.
Benaouda said she had traveled to Somalia with her fiance, Munir Awad, a Swedish citizen of Lebanese descent. The couple was separated when they tried to leave the country after the Ethiopian military intervention in December.
They were brought to Nairobi and then returned to Somalia, blindfolded and handcuffed, before being transferred to a prison in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, she said. There, she said, she saw her fiance for the first time in weeks.
But Benaouda said she saw her fiance and two other Swedish citizens confined in what looked like "poultry cages with metal roofs" in Ethiopia, and that she was beaten by a prison guard with a stick at one point during her detention. In March, the guards started treating her better and on March 23, she said, she met an official from the Swedish Embassy. Four days later, Benaouda, who is pregnant, was put on a plane home.
Human rights groups say the detentions are illegal; Ethiopia has denied that.
April 12, 2007 (STOCKHOLM, Sweden) — A Swedish teenager who was imprisoned for weeks with alleged terror suspects in Ethiopia said in an interview published Thursday that Americans in military uniform directed the Kenyan soldiers who took her into custody on the Somali-Kenyan border.
Benaouda said three men in U.S. uniforms led the Kenyan troops who detained her and other women and children fleeing Somalia on Jan. 18.
Benaouda did not answer calls from The Associated Press on Thursday. But her mother, Helena Benaouda, told the AP her daughter believed they were U.S. soldiers because of insignia on their uniforms.
Ethiopian officials initially denied any suspects were in custody, but the government later confirmed an AP report that dozens of foreigners were detained as part of an effort to stem terrorism.
U.S. officials, who agreed to discuss the detentions only if not quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the issue, have said Ethiopia had allowed access to U.S. agencies, including the CIA and FBI , but the agencies played no role in arrests, transport or deportation. Ethiopian and Somali officials acknowledge cooperating.
American, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces have long been allies in a U.S. counterterrorism effort in the region, whose lawlessness security experts fear al-Qaida and other groups could exploit to create a base. The cooperation appears to have been stepped up in the wake of the collapse of an Islamist regime in Somalia, amid fears al-Qaida suspects linked to the group would flee into Kenya.
Benaouda said she had traveled to Somalia with her fiance, Munir Awad, a Swedish citizen of Lebanese descent. The couple was separated when they tried to leave the country after the Ethiopian military intervention in December.
They were brought to Nairobi and then returned to Somalia, blindfolded and handcuffed, before being transferred to a prison in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, she said. There, she said, she saw her fiance for the first time in weeks.
But Benaouda said she saw her fiance and two other Swedish citizens confined in what looked like "poultry cages with metal roofs" in Ethiopia, and that she was beaten by a prison guard with a stick at one point during her detention. In March, the guards started treating her better and on March 23, she said, she met an official from the Swedish Embassy. Four days later, Benaouda, who is pregnant, was put on a plane home.
Human rights groups say the detentions are illegal; Ethiopia has denied that.
12 April, 2007
Congo Prosecutor Asks Senate to lift Bemba's Immunity.
Reuters.
By Joe Bavier
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L12574886.htm
KINSHASA, April 12 (Reuters) - Congo's public prosecutor has asked the Senate to lift Senator Jean-Pierre Bemba's immunity so he can be charged over bloody clashes between his forces and army troops last month, according to documents seen by Reuters.
Public Prosecutor Tshimanga Mukeba said in a letter to the provisional head of the Senate that Bemba, who flew to Portugal on Wednesday for medical treatment, was the "intellectual author" of the fighting in which up to 600 people died.
"I request the authorisation to prosecute Senator Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo to allow legal authorities to deepen their investigations and the individual to present his defence," read a copy of Mukeba's letter obtained by Reuters.
The three-page letter was dated April 10 and stamped as received by the office of the Senate president on April 11.
A second letter from Mukeba requesting permission to prosecute Bemba, sent on Thursday, was also seen by Reuters.
The charges pending against Bemba, who lost a presidential runoff in October against incumbent Joseph Kabila, included threatening internal state security, murder, armed robbery and destruction of property, the first letter said.
Bemba was liable for prosecution "on the basis that he was the intellectual author of the acts committed by his troops," it said.
Before leaving for Portugal, Bemba had spent most of the previous three weeks holed up in the South African embassy with his family. Portuguese officials have said his stay will not be a long-term exile.
By Joe Bavier
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L12574886.htm
KINSHASA, April 12 (Reuters) - Congo's public prosecutor has asked the Senate to lift Senator Jean-Pierre Bemba's immunity so he can be charged over bloody clashes between his forces and army troops last month, according to documents seen by Reuters.
Public Prosecutor Tshimanga Mukeba said in a letter to the provisional head of the Senate that Bemba, who flew to Portugal on Wednesday for medical treatment, was the "intellectual author" of the fighting in which up to 600 people died.
"I request the authorisation to prosecute Senator Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo to allow legal authorities to deepen their investigations and the individual to present his defence," read a copy of Mukeba's letter obtained by Reuters.
The three-page letter was dated April 10 and stamped as received by the office of the Senate president on April 11.
A second letter from Mukeba requesting permission to prosecute Bemba, sent on Thursday, was also seen by Reuters.
The charges pending against Bemba, who lost a presidential runoff in October against incumbent Joseph Kabila, included threatening internal state security, murder, armed robbery and destruction of property, the first letter said.
Bemba was liable for prosecution "on the basis that he was the intellectual author of the acts committed by his troops," it said.
Before leaving for Portugal, Bemba had spent most of the previous three weeks holed up in the South African embassy with his family. Portuguese officials have said his stay will not be a long-term exile.
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