Hirondelle News Agency
10 July 2008
The United Nations released Sunday 1.3 million US dollars to facilitate the national consultations intended to set up transitional justice in Burundi, reports Hirondelle Agency.
Speaking during a justice training session of about 20 local journalists, a senior Burundian official, Procès Bigirimana, representing the first Burundian vice-president, said the money would help to speed up the already delayed consultations.
According to Bigirimana, three steps remain to be overcome before the installation of the mechanisms of transitional justice.
“Firstly, the negotiations should continue on the question of the relationship between the Commission and the Special Tribunal and the principle of independence of the Prosecutor", he explained.
He continued: "if the two parties arrive to a consensus on this question, a general outline agreement on the installation of the double mechanism of transitional justice will have to be concluded after these steps and on a
basis of the results of the national consultations.’’
Finall, he added, the two parties will have to write the main documents of the two mechanisms of transitional justice.
The two preliminary steps to the preparation of the critical documents of the mechanisms of transitional justice should be completed before the end of the consultations, which, if the schedule remains unchanged, is in nine months.
12 July, 2008
Kenya's president lost disputed election, poll shows.
By Shashank Bengali
McClatchy Newspapers
July 8 2008
Six months after a deeply flawed election triggered a wave of ethnic killings in Kenya, a U.S. government-funded exit poll finds that the wrong candidate was declared the winner.
President Mwai Kibaki, whom official results credited with a 2-point margin of victory in the December vote, finished nearly 6 points behind in the exit poll, which was released Tuesday by researchers from the University of California, San Diego.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga scored "a clear win outside the margin of error" according to surveys of voters as they left polling places on Election Day, the poll's author said.
The incumbent Kibaki was sworn in for a second term despite major irregularities in vote-counting, sparking tribal attacks that killed more than 1,000 people, the worst violence in this East African nation in nearly two decades.
The exit poll, whose existence McClatchy first reported in January, was financed by the Washington-based International Republican Institute, a nonpartisan democracy-building organization, with a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the foreign-aid arm of the State Department.
Amid a worldwide furor over the election results, the institute decided not to release the poll, citing concerns about its validity. But the poll's authors and the former head of the institute's program in Kenya stand by the research, which the authors presented Tuesday in Washington at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an independent research center.
In the exit poll, Odinga had 46.07 percent of the vote to 40.17 percent for Kibaki, a difference well outside the poll's margin of error of 1.32 percentage points. The official results gave Kibaki 46.42 percent of the vote to 44.07 percent for Odinga.
"The results of the exit poll do show a clear win for Raila," said the poll's author, James D. Long, a Ph.D. candidate in political science at UCSD. His co-author is Clark C. Gibson, the chair of the university's political science department.
Their research offers more evidence of serious fraud in Kenya's government election commission. Independent observers have alleged that partisans of both candidates altered or invented results in the vote-counting center and that top officials in Kibaki's government pressured election officials to announce incomplete or disputed tallies.
The pollsters contracted Strategic Research, a veteran Kenyan public-opinion firm, which surveyed voters in each of Kenya's eight provinces and in 179 out of 210 electoral constituencies. According to their projections, Odinga, who also led Kibaki in pre-election polls, should have received about 58,000 more votes than he was credited with. Kibaki should have received about 356,000 fewer votes.
In four provinces where Odinga had strong support in the exit poll — the northeastern, western and coastal areas of the country as well as the capital, Nairobi — he received substantially fewer votes in the official tally. Kibaki's vote totals in those areas were surprisingly high.
Kibaki's official margin of victory was a slim 231,728 votes out of nearly 10 million cast.
"Our results cannot definitively prove fraud," Long said. "However, they do highlight important discrepancies in the official vote count that suggest both candidates may have engaged in the artificial production or subtraction of votes."
It's not clear what impact the poll will have now. The International Republican Institute maintained the rights to the poll for six months, ending June 26, after which the researchers could publish it themselves.
In that time, Kibaki and Odinga, under serious international pressure, formed a fragile coalition government, with Odinga as the prime minister. To top officials in both camps, the election and its bloody aftermath appear to be distant memories.
While jockeying already has begun for the next presidential contest, in 2012, there's been little effort to identify or prosecute the perpetrators of post-election crimes or to heal the tribal rivalries that the disputed vote ripped open. Tens of thousands of Kenyans who fled their homes still live in squalid displacement camps.
Ken Flottman, who served as the head of the International Republican Institute's Kenya office until his term expired in May, said that the poll's findings could serve as a catalyst for electoral reform.
"I hope that (Kenya's) parliament will take note of the important research from the University of California in understanding how Kenyans actually voted and in addressing the problems with the conduct of the election," Flottman said.
The institute, which also paid for exit polls in Kenya's two previous national elections, in 2002 and 2005, has tried to distance itself from this poll. Officials initially cited concerns about the data, saying that many survey forms from far-flung areas were returned to pollsters in Nairobi several days after the election due to the violence, and that some forms may have gone missing.
Long and Gibson said those problems didn't compromise the results. Surveys that were returned late showed no signs of being tampered with, and the polling firm eventually received all the allocated questionnaires, the authors said.
The authors also found that, despite the ethnic nature of the violence, most Kenyan voters chose presidential candidates for a variety of reasons, not just tribe.
Voters who were richer and who saw the economy as the most important issue in the election favored Kibaki, who's presided over strong macroeconomic growth in Kenya. Poorer voters who felt shut out from such growth tended to vote for Odinga, the poll found.
McClatchy Newspapers
July 8 2008
Six months after a deeply flawed election triggered a wave of ethnic killings in Kenya, a U.S. government-funded exit poll finds that the wrong candidate was declared the winner.
President Mwai Kibaki, whom official results credited with a 2-point margin of victory in the December vote, finished nearly 6 points behind in the exit poll, which was released Tuesday by researchers from the University of California, San Diego.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga scored "a clear win outside the margin of error" according to surveys of voters as they left polling places on Election Day, the poll's author said.
The incumbent Kibaki was sworn in for a second term despite major irregularities in vote-counting, sparking tribal attacks that killed more than 1,000 people, the worst violence in this East African nation in nearly two decades.
The exit poll, whose existence McClatchy first reported in January, was financed by the Washington-based International Republican Institute, a nonpartisan democracy-building organization, with a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the foreign-aid arm of the State Department.
Amid a worldwide furor over the election results, the institute decided not to release the poll, citing concerns about its validity. But the poll's authors and the former head of the institute's program in Kenya stand by the research, which the authors presented Tuesday in Washington at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an independent research center.
In the exit poll, Odinga had 46.07 percent of the vote to 40.17 percent for Kibaki, a difference well outside the poll's margin of error of 1.32 percentage points. The official results gave Kibaki 46.42 percent of the vote to 44.07 percent for Odinga.
"The results of the exit poll do show a clear win for Raila," said the poll's author, James D. Long, a Ph.D. candidate in political science at UCSD. His co-author is Clark C. Gibson, the chair of the university's political science department.
Their research offers more evidence of serious fraud in Kenya's government election commission. Independent observers have alleged that partisans of both candidates altered or invented results in the vote-counting center and that top officials in Kibaki's government pressured election officials to announce incomplete or disputed tallies.
The pollsters contracted Strategic Research, a veteran Kenyan public-opinion firm, which surveyed voters in each of Kenya's eight provinces and in 179 out of 210 electoral constituencies. According to their projections, Odinga, who also led Kibaki in pre-election polls, should have received about 58,000 more votes than he was credited with. Kibaki should have received about 356,000 fewer votes.
In four provinces where Odinga had strong support in the exit poll — the northeastern, western and coastal areas of the country as well as the capital, Nairobi — he received substantially fewer votes in the official tally. Kibaki's vote totals in those areas were surprisingly high.
Kibaki's official margin of victory was a slim 231,728 votes out of nearly 10 million cast.
"Our results cannot definitively prove fraud," Long said. "However, they do highlight important discrepancies in the official vote count that suggest both candidates may have engaged in the artificial production or subtraction of votes."
It's not clear what impact the poll will have now. The International Republican Institute maintained the rights to the poll for six months, ending June 26, after which the researchers could publish it themselves.
In that time, Kibaki and Odinga, under serious international pressure, formed a fragile coalition government, with Odinga as the prime minister. To top officials in both camps, the election and its bloody aftermath appear to be distant memories.
While jockeying already has begun for the next presidential contest, in 2012, there's been little effort to identify or prosecute the perpetrators of post-election crimes or to heal the tribal rivalries that the disputed vote ripped open. Tens of thousands of Kenyans who fled their homes still live in squalid displacement camps.
Ken Flottman, who served as the head of the International Republican Institute's Kenya office until his term expired in May, said that the poll's findings could serve as a catalyst for electoral reform.
"I hope that (Kenya's) parliament will take note of the important research from the University of California in understanding how Kenyans actually voted and in addressing the problems with the conduct of the election," Flottman said.
The institute, which also paid for exit polls in Kenya's two previous national elections, in 2002 and 2005, has tried to distance itself from this poll. Officials initially cited concerns about the data, saying that many survey forms from far-flung areas were returned to pollsters in Nairobi several days after the election due to the violence, and that some forms may have gone missing.
Long and Gibson said those problems didn't compromise the results. Surveys that were returned late showed no signs of being tampered with, and the polling firm eventually received all the allocated questionnaires, the authors said.
The authors also found that, despite the ethnic nature of the violence, most Kenyan voters chose presidential candidates for a variety of reasons, not just tribe.
Voters who were richer and who saw the economy as the most important issue in the election favored Kibaki, who's presided over strong macroeconomic growth in Kenya. Poorer voters who felt shut out from such growth tended to vote for Odinga, the poll found.
11 July, 2008
Iraq to hold major oil conference in Oct.
Reuters
10 July 2008
Iraq will hold a major oil and gas conference in October to allow foreign oil firms to get a better understanding of the country's energy potential, the Oil Ministry said on Wednesday.
The Oct 17-19 energy conference and exhibition will be the first event of its type in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. More than 50 international oil companies would take part, Oil Ministry spokesman Asim Jihad told a news conference.
"It will be a great chance for the Oil Ministry to meet global oil companies and discuss their potential role in developing Iraq's oil sector," Jihad said.
Iraq late last month opened up its giant producing oilfields for long-term foreign development contracts.
The Iraqi-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry said oil majors would attend the conference, which will be held at Baghdad's international airport.
Iraq needs major foreign investment to revive its oil sector, battered by decades of war and sanctions. Iraq has the world's third-largest proven reserves of oil.
(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, editing by James Jukwey)
10 July 2008
Iraq will hold a major oil and gas conference in October to allow foreign oil firms to get a better understanding of the country's energy potential, the Oil Ministry said on Wednesday.
The Oct 17-19 energy conference and exhibition will be the first event of its type in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. More than 50 international oil companies would take part, Oil Ministry spokesman Asim Jihad told a news conference.
"It will be a great chance for the Oil Ministry to meet global oil companies and discuss their potential role in developing Iraq's oil sector," Jihad said.
Iraq late last month opened up its giant producing oilfields for long-term foreign development contracts.
The Iraqi-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry said oil majors would attend the conference, which will be held at Baghdad's international airport.
Iraq needs major foreign investment to revive its oil sector, battered by decades of war and sanctions. Iraq has the world's third-largest proven reserves of oil.
(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, editing by James Jukwey)
Canadian company involved in building Jewish settlement sued.
BBC News
11 July 2008
Palestinian villagers are suing two Canadian construction companies over their involvement in building a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank.
The case, filed at a court in Montreal, accuses the firms of violating international and Canadian law.
The Palestinians are seeking a court order to halt building work.
The lawyer for the villagers says this is the first case in which a foreign private sector company has been sued for investing in West Bank settlements.
The two companies, both registered in the province of Quebec, could not be reached for comment.
'Blinking red light'
The Palestinian villagers accuse the companies of violating international and Canadian law by building on land belonging to the village of Bilin, and selling the homes to Israelis.
Bilin has been a focus for protests against the West Bank barrier
The building work is taking place on land seized from Bilin after Israel captured the West Bank in 1967, according to the legal papers.
The villagers argue that the construction work violates international war crimes laws that forbid an occupying power from transferring its own people into occupied land.
The villagers want the court to order the demolition of all the homes that the companies have built. They are also seeking punitive damages of nearly $2m (£1m).
"My understanding is that it will serve as a blinking red light for any investors and corporations that are considering doing anything in the settlements," said Michael Sfard, the villagers' lawyer.
Bilin has been the scene of ongoing protests over the controversial barrier built by Israel in the West Bank, which cuts Bilin from most of its agricultural land.
In September, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the government to redraw its route near Bilin, accepting an appeal by residents. The decision has yet to be enforced.
11 July 2008
Palestinian villagers are suing two Canadian construction companies over their involvement in building a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank.
The case, filed at a court in Montreal, accuses the firms of violating international and Canadian law.
The Palestinians are seeking a court order to halt building work.
The lawyer for the villagers says this is the first case in which a foreign private sector company has been sued for investing in West Bank settlements.
The two companies, both registered in the province of Quebec, could not be reached for comment.
'Blinking red light'
The Palestinian villagers accuse the companies of violating international and Canadian law by building on land belonging to the village of Bilin, and selling the homes to Israelis.
Bilin has been a focus for protests against the West Bank barrier
The building work is taking place on land seized from Bilin after Israel captured the West Bank in 1967, according to the legal papers.
The villagers argue that the construction work violates international war crimes laws that forbid an occupying power from transferring its own people into occupied land.
The villagers want the court to order the demolition of all the homes that the companies have built. They are also seeking punitive damages of nearly $2m (£1m).
"My understanding is that it will serve as a blinking red light for any investors and corporations that are considering doing anything in the settlements," said Michael Sfard, the villagers' lawyer.
Bilin has been the scene of ongoing protests over the controversial barrier built by Israel in the West Bank, which cuts Bilin from most of its agricultural land.
In September, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the government to redraw its route near Bilin, accepting an appeal by residents. The decision has yet to be enforced.
UN to rule on Darfur peacekeeper.
Financial Times
Reporting by Harvey Morris at the United Nations
July 11 2008
The United Nations must decide soon whether to keep a senior Rwandan general as its number two peacekeeper in Darfur after he was indicted for war crimes.
The alternative is to allow his contract to lapse and risk a threatened pull-out by the entire Rwandan contingent that would further undermine an already troubled peace mission in the Sudanese province. A quarter of the peacekeepers in Darfur are Rwandans.
The Karake case is proving to be a test of how the international community juggles the imperatives of peacekeeping and international law. UN officials said questions over Gen Karake’s past had delayed his re-appointment and the final decision would now rest with Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general.
Gen Karake, described by officials and diplomats as one of Unamid’s most able officers whom the force could ill afford to lose, was appointed to his post almost a year ago and his contract is up for renewal.
In the meantime, however, a Spanish judge named him in a February indictment for his role in the killing of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Hutu civilians in the years following 1994.
The 180-page indictment, which names 40 suspects, says Gen Karake, a former military intelligence chief, knew and approved of military operations directed against civilians in which three Spanish aid workers were among those killed.
Paul Kagame, Rwandan president and former head of Tutsi rebels who took power in 1994, has rejected the option of quietly replacing Gen Karake when his contract runs out in September. He warned he would sooner withdraw his country’s contingent from Darfur than countenance the sacking of his former comrade-in-arms.
President Kagame is also named in the Spanish indictment, although Judge Fernando Merelles acknowledged that, as a head of state, the Rwandan leader was beyond the reach of Spanish law. Last week Mr Kagame told the FT that Rwanda would consider pursuing French nationals accused of being involved in the genocide unless France and Spain reversed the indictments against the officials.
The US and Britain, both very strong supporters of the Kagame administration, have urged Mr Ban to renew Gen Karake’s contract. One diplomat described the Rwandan contingent in Darfur as the “core element of a very weak force”.
Richard Williamson, US special envoy to Sudan, this month expressed support for both Gen Karake and Gen Martin Luther Agwai, Unamid’s Nigerian force commander. “General Agwai and the deputy commander ... are experienced and able individuals. In the end there are decisions that the UN Secretariat has to make, but we’ve made our views known.”
But Human Rights Watch, the New York-based lobbying group, said the allegations against Gen Karenzi long predated the Madrid indictment and that the organization warned the UN last year of “important concerns regarding Gen Karake’s military record with regard to the protection of civilians”.
Reporting by Harvey Morris at the United Nations
July 11 2008
The United Nations must decide soon whether to keep a senior Rwandan general as its number two peacekeeper in Darfur after he was indicted for war crimes.
The alternative is to allow his contract to lapse and risk a threatened pull-out by the entire Rwandan contingent that would further undermine an already troubled peace mission in the Sudanese province. A quarter of the peacekeepers in Darfur are Rwandans.
The Karake case is proving to be a test of how the international community juggles the imperatives of peacekeeping and international law. UN officials said questions over Gen Karake’s past had delayed his re-appointment and the final decision would now rest with Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general.
Gen Karake, described by officials and diplomats as one of Unamid’s most able officers whom the force could ill afford to lose, was appointed to his post almost a year ago and his contract is up for renewal.
In the meantime, however, a Spanish judge named him in a February indictment for his role in the killing of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Hutu civilians in the years following 1994.
The 180-page indictment, which names 40 suspects, says Gen Karake, a former military intelligence chief, knew and approved of military operations directed against civilians in which three Spanish aid workers were among those killed.
Paul Kagame, Rwandan president and former head of Tutsi rebels who took power in 1994, has rejected the option of quietly replacing Gen Karake when his contract runs out in September. He warned he would sooner withdraw his country’s contingent from Darfur than countenance the sacking of his former comrade-in-arms.
President Kagame is also named in the Spanish indictment, although Judge Fernando Merelles acknowledged that, as a head of state, the Rwandan leader was beyond the reach of Spanish law. Last week Mr Kagame told the FT that Rwanda would consider pursuing French nationals accused of being involved in the genocide unless France and Spain reversed the indictments against the officials.
The US and Britain, both very strong supporters of the Kagame administration, have urged Mr Ban to renew Gen Karake’s contract. One diplomat described the Rwandan contingent in Darfur as the “core element of a very weak force”.
Richard Williamson, US special envoy to Sudan, this month expressed support for both Gen Karake and Gen Martin Luther Agwai, Unamid’s Nigerian force commander. “General Agwai and the deputy commander ... are experienced and able individuals. In the end there are decisions that the UN Secretariat has to make, but we’ve made our views known.”
But Human Rights Watch, the New York-based lobbying group, said the allegations against Gen Karenzi long predated the Madrid indictment and that the organization warned the UN last year of “important concerns regarding Gen Karake’s military record with regard to the protection of civilians”.
10 July, 2008
NORTH-KIVU: MORE DISARMAMENT PROMISES.
MISNA
10 July 2008
Two armed groups, including the CNDP led by Laurent Nkunda, failed to join the seminar dedicated to the regrouping and redeployment of the militias active in Kivu, as part of the ‘Amani’ peace process to rebuild the region held in the capital Goma. Official sources said that the participants “agreed” on the modalities for a disengagement plan providing for the need to declare the number of fighters, the volume and type of armament in their possession and their locations. Meanwhile, even as peace and disarmament were once again being discussed, you would not have guessed this on the ground, as there were a series of attacks involving various anti-government groups, including the very CNDP. In spite of the fact that 15 militias and the regular army signed a cessation of hostilities pact last January 26 before Congolese civil society and international diplomats, the so called ceasefire has not really amounted to much, as it is regularly violated every week, such that insecurity remains high in north Kivu, preventing refugees from returning to their homes.
10 July 2008
Two armed groups, including the CNDP led by Laurent Nkunda, failed to join the seminar dedicated to the regrouping and redeployment of the militias active in Kivu, as part of the ‘Amani’ peace process to rebuild the region held in the capital Goma. Official sources said that the participants “agreed” on the modalities for a disengagement plan providing for the need to declare the number of fighters, the volume and type of armament in their possession and their locations. Meanwhile, even as peace and disarmament were once again being discussed, you would not have guessed this on the ground, as there were a series of attacks involving various anti-government groups, including the very CNDP. In spite of the fact that 15 militias and the regular army signed a cessation of hostilities pact last January 26 before Congolese civil society and international diplomats, the so called ceasefire has not really amounted to much, as it is regularly violated every week, such that insecurity remains high in north Kivu, preventing refugees from returning to their homes.
MSF Leaves Ethiopia's Somali Region Due to Government Intimidation.
News 24
10 July 2008
The Swiss branch of Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) on Thursday said it was withdrawing from Ethiopia's Somali region due to intimidation from the Ethiopian authorities.
"The authorities' attitude towards humanitarian organisations has translated into recurrent arrests of MSF Switzerland staff without charge or explanation," MSF said in a statement.
These "repeated administrative hurdles and intimidations" had prevented the aid agency from bringing urgently needed medical aid to the population.
MSF Switzerland had started an aid programme in December 2007 in the Fiiq region, which was in the Somali part of Ethiopia.
"Over the six months of our intervention, our medical teams could only work for ten weeks in Fiiq town and five in the periphery of the town where the most important needs are," said Hugues Robert, who was in charge of the Ethiopia programme in Geneva.
Since April last year, increasing violence and economic blockages linked to ongoing conflict between the authorities and opposition movements had hit the civilian population hard.
The situation had been further worsened by regional drought.
10 July 2008
The Swiss branch of Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) on Thursday said it was withdrawing from Ethiopia's Somali region due to intimidation from the Ethiopian authorities.
"The authorities' attitude towards humanitarian organisations has translated into recurrent arrests of MSF Switzerland staff without charge or explanation," MSF said in a statement.
These "repeated administrative hurdles and intimidations" had prevented the aid agency from bringing urgently needed medical aid to the population.
MSF Switzerland had started an aid programme in December 2007 in the Fiiq region, which was in the Somali part of Ethiopia.
"Over the six months of our intervention, our medical teams could only work for ten weeks in Fiiq town and five in the periphery of the town where the most important needs are," said Hugues Robert, who was in charge of the Ethiopia programme in Geneva.
Since April last year, increasing violence and economic blockages linked to ongoing conflict between the authorities and opposition movements had hit the civilian population hard.
The situation had been further worsened by regional drought.
Gazprom Offers to Buy All Libya's Oil and Natural-Gas Exports.
Bloomberg
By Lucian Kim
10 July 2008
OAO Gazprom, Russia's state- controlled energy company, offered to buy all oil and gas available for export from Libya, threatening to grab greater control of Europe's energy supplies.
Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller made the proposal to Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qaddafi during a visit to Tripoli yesterday, the Moscow-based company said in a statement. Libya exported about 1.53 million barrels of oil a day in 2006, almost enough to supply Italy.
Gazprom considers the country its priority partner in North Africa and said it registered a unit called Gazprom Libya in Tripoli. Less than a month ago the company opened its first African office in neighboring Algeria. Russia, the world's largest producer of natural gas, is seeking to lead closer coordination among nations that produce the fuel.
``The Libyan side positively evaluated Gazprom's proposal to buy all future volumes of gas, oil and liquefied natural gas assigned for export at competitive prices,'' Gazprom said.
The two sides agreed to start talks on Gazprom buying ``available volumes of Libyan hydrocarbons,'' according to the statement, which didn't give further details. They also agreed to set up a joint venture to modernize existing oil refineries and build new plants. Russia will host a meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum later this year.
Gas Transportation
Gazprom also said it received a proposal to help build ``new gas transportation capacity'' from Libya to Europe.
``Libya's traditional customers shouldn't worry,'' Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya's National Oil Corp., said in a phone interview. ``Gazprom offered to buy whatever gas or oil that Libya has available for selling, or that has no buyer. It is not offering to take all of Libya's production.''
Libya, Africa's third-largest oil producer, wants to forge new energy partnerships after nearly two decades of international sanctions. The African nation produced 15.2 billion cubic meters of gas last year, piping 9.2 billion to Italy, and pumped 1.85 million barrels of oil a day, according to BP Plc data.
Eni SpA, Italy's largest oil company, has been in Libya since 1959 and has an average daily output of 550,000 barrels of oil equivalent from the nation.
Supply Accord
Eni and Libya last month extended an oil and gas supply agreement for 25 years, after agreeing last October to jointly invest $28 billion over a decade to expand energy production. No Eni official could be immediately reached for comment.
``Nobody needs to worry, not the Americans, not the Italians who have contracts with us,'' Ghanem said. ``We will respect all the contractual terms in all the contracts.''
``Gazprom is just another customer and they're asking for whatever extra supply we might have. If the price is right, we will sell to them.''
Gazprom's possible move into Libya may weigh on a U.S. strategy to weaken the Russian company's grip over supplies of gas to Europe. The U.S. is trying to line up new gas supplies from friendly governments in Central Asia, such as Azerbaijan, and from Iraq for shipment to Europe via pipelines that skirt Russia.
By Lucian Kim
10 July 2008
OAO Gazprom, Russia's state- controlled energy company, offered to buy all oil and gas available for export from Libya, threatening to grab greater control of Europe's energy supplies.
Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller made the proposal to Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qaddafi during a visit to Tripoli yesterday, the Moscow-based company said in a statement. Libya exported about 1.53 million barrels of oil a day in 2006, almost enough to supply Italy.
Gazprom considers the country its priority partner in North Africa and said it registered a unit called Gazprom Libya in Tripoli. Less than a month ago the company opened its first African office in neighboring Algeria. Russia, the world's largest producer of natural gas, is seeking to lead closer coordination among nations that produce the fuel.
``The Libyan side positively evaluated Gazprom's proposal to buy all future volumes of gas, oil and liquefied natural gas assigned for export at competitive prices,'' Gazprom said.
The two sides agreed to start talks on Gazprom buying ``available volumes of Libyan hydrocarbons,'' according to the statement, which didn't give further details. They also agreed to set up a joint venture to modernize existing oil refineries and build new plants. Russia will host a meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum later this year.
Gas Transportation
Gazprom also said it received a proposal to help build ``new gas transportation capacity'' from Libya to Europe.
``Libya's traditional customers shouldn't worry,'' Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya's National Oil Corp., said in a phone interview. ``Gazprom offered to buy whatever gas or oil that Libya has available for selling, or that has no buyer. It is not offering to take all of Libya's production.''
Libya, Africa's third-largest oil producer, wants to forge new energy partnerships after nearly two decades of international sanctions. The African nation produced 15.2 billion cubic meters of gas last year, piping 9.2 billion to Italy, and pumped 1.85 million barrels of oil a day, according to BP Plc data.
Eni SpA, Italy's largest oil company, has been in Libya since 1959 and has an average daily output of 550,000 barrels of oil equivalent from the nation.
Supply Accord
Eni and Libya last month extended an oil and gas supply agreement for 25 years, after agreeing last October to jointly invest $28 billion over a decade to expand energy production. No Eni official could be immediately reached for comment.
``Nobody needs to worry, not the Americans, not the Italians who have contracts with us,'' Ghanem said. ``We will respect all the contractual terms in all the contracts.''
``Gazprom is just another customer and they're asking for whatever extra supply we might have. If the price is right, we will sell to them.''
Gazprom's possible move into Libya may weigh on a U.S. strategy to weaken the Russian company's grip over supplies of gas to Europe. The U.S. is trying to line up new gas supplies from friendly governments in Central Asia, such as Azerbaijan, and from Iraq for shipment to Europe via pipelines that skirt Russia.
Gersony Report Could Have Saved Lives if Published.
Information (Denmark)
28 June 1999
English Translation by Bjorn Willum
Story by Gunnar Willum
If the UN leadership had chosen to publish a report on a counter-genocide of between 30,000 to 45,000 civilian Hutus in Rwanda in 1994, it could have prevented further attacks, says a professor in a statement on the so-called Gersony report. A high-ranking official in the UN system now acknowledges its existence. The Tutsi-dominated rebel army RPF carried out this `counter- genocide` when it took power in 1994. These massacres were documented in the Gersony report, which as previously described by Information, is still being kept secret.
"By not publishing the Gersony report and other information about RPF´s massacres, a blank cheque was issued to continue the murders," says the Rwanda expert Filip Reyntjens, who is a professor at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. The RPF filled in this blank cheque in 1996, when Rwanda invaded Zaire under cover of Laurent Kabila´s uprising army against Mobutu. The aim of the operation was to dissolve the camps that not only gave shelter to hundreds of thousands of refugees but also accommodate what was left of the genocide militia. According to the Human Rights Organisations, the Rwandese government, in this operation killed up to 200,000 Hutu refugees.
"Publication of the report would have prevented the RPF to commit the massacre of over 200,000 Hutu refugees in Zaire," says Reyntjens. "The RPF has used the genocide to legitimate massacres on this civilian population. The same way that Israel has used the holocaust to legitimate attacks on the Palestinians," says Reyntjens. But in reality it is not the RPF-Tutsis who were victims of the genocide, points out Reyntjens. The RPF-Tutsis came from Uganda and other neighbouring countries where they had lived in exile for many years and were therefore not in Rwanda when the genocide occurred. It was the so-called "internal," the Rwandese Tutsis, who were victims of the genocide. They are like the Hutus today excluded from power and opposed to the RPF-Tutsi regime."
There have been rising doubts about the Gersony Report's existence. But yet another source confirms it.
"The report exists. I have read it myself," says a high-ranking diplomatic source, who demands anonymity, to Information. Both UN and UNHCR deny that the report exists at all. Annan and Boutros-Ghali suppressed the report, according to Human Rights Watch, after pressure from the Rwandese government and USA. The UN leadership's lack of effort under the genocide made it susceptible to blackmail from the Rwandese government. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recently summoned the Rwandese UN Ambassador in order to ask the Rwandese Government to soften his criticism of Annan in connection with an internal UN enquiry of the UN Secretariat's role in the genocide in 1994. The enquiry was carried out, as a result of Information´s disclosures in autumn 1996, that UN top officials received many warnings that a genocide was under way, which were ignored.
The UN top officials were frightened, claims the Human Rights Watch, that the Gersony Report would discredit the UN further, as UN peacekeeping forces, which were stationed in Rwanda, did not know anything about the attacks. USA kept the secret in fear that publication of the report could weaken the increasingly weak Rwandese government.
28 June 1999
English Translation by Bjorn Willum
Story by Gunnar Willum
If the UN leadership had chosen to publish a report on a counter-genocide of between 30,000 to 45,000 civilian Hutus in Rwanda in 1994, it could have prevented further attacks, says a professor in a statement on the so-called Gersony report. A high-ranking official in the UN system now acknowledges its existence. The Tutsi-dominated rebel army RPF carried out this `counter- genocide` when it took power in 1994. These massacres were documented in the Gersony report, which as previously described by Information, is still being kept secret.
"By not publishing the Gersony report and other information about RPF´s massacres, a blank cheque was issued to continue the murders," says the Rwanda expert Filip Reyntjens, who is a professor at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. The RPF filled in this blank cheque in 1996, when Rwanda invaded Zaire under cover of Laurent Kabila´s uprising army against Mobutu. The aim of the operation was to dissolve the camps that not only gave shelter to hundreds of thousands of refugees but also accommodate what was left of the genocide militia. According to the Human Rights Organisations, the Rwandese government, in this operation killed up to 200,000 Hutu refugees.
"Publication of the report would have prevented the RPF to commit the massacre of over 200,000 Hutu refugees in Zaire," says Reyntjens. "The RPF has used the genocide to legitimate massacres on this civilian population. The same way that Israel has used the holocaust to legitimate attacks on the Palestinians," says Reyntjens. But in reality it is not the RPF-Tutsis who were victims of the genocide, points out Reyntjens. The RPF-Tutsis came from Uganda and other neighbouring countries where they had lived in exile for many years and were therefore not in Rwanda when the genocide occurred. It was the so-called "internal," the Rwandese Tutsis, who were victims of the genocide. They are like the Hutus today excluded from power and opposed to the RPF-Tutsi regime."
There have been rising doubts about the Gersony Report's existence. But yet another source confirms it.
"The report exists. I have read it myself," says a high-ranking diplomatic source, who demands anonymity, to Information. Both UN and UNHCR deny that the report exists at all. Annan and Boutros-Ghali suppressed the report, according to Human Rights Watch, after pressure from the Rwandese government and USA. The UN leadership's lack of effort under the genocide made it susceptible to blackmail from the Rwandese government. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recently summoned the Rwandese UN Ambassador in order to ask the Rwandese Government to soften his criticism of Annan in connection with an internal UN enquiry of the UN Secretariat's role in the genocide in 1994. The enquiry was carried out, as a result of Information´s disclosures in autumn 1996, that UN top officials received many warnings that a genocide was under way, which were ignored.
The UN top officials were frightened, claims the Human Rights Watch, that the Gersony Report would discredit the UN further, as UN peacekeeping forces, which were stationed in Rwanda, did not know anything about the attacks. USA kept the secret in fear that publication of the report could weaken the increasingly weak Rwandese government.
Russia may veto Mugabe sanctions.
BBC News
10 July 2008
Russia has said it could veto proposed UN sanctions against Zimbabwe's president and his allies, despite agreeing a G8 statement backing them.
Russia has the power to veto any measures at the UN Security Council, which could take a vote this week.
The US and the UK are pushing for a travel ban and assets freeze on Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and 13 of his allies, and an arms embargo.
Several African leaders have also said they oppose sanctions.
They see a government of national unity as a more realistic solution to Zimbabwe's crisis.
'Blow apart'
Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev said the world was "dissatisfied" with the recent elections.
But he said no decision had been taken at the G8 about "specific decisions" which the UN should take.
BBC UN Correspondent Laura Trevelyan said Russia had not ruled out using its veto, however it could abstain.
Its UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin said sanctions were not appropriate and could undermine the political process.
DRAFT SANCTIONS LIST
Robert Mugabe, President
Constantine Chiwenga, Defence Forces Commander
Emmerson Mnangagwa, Rural Housing Minister
Gideon Gono, Reserve Bank head
Augustine Chihuri, Police chief
Patrick Chinamasa, Justice Minister
Perence Shiri, Air Force chief
David Parirenyatwa, Health Minister
Didymus Mutasa, Security and Lands Minister
George Charamba, President's spokesman
Paradzi Zimondi, Prison Service head
Happyton Bonyongwe, Central Intelligence Organisation head
Sydney Sekeremayi, Defence Minister
Joseph Made, State Minister for Agricultural Engineering
Source: Draft UN Security Council resolution
China also has the power of veto at the UN Security Council and has recently increased economic co-operation with Zimbabwe.
South Africa's UN ambassador Dumisani Khumalo said the proposed measures "could blow the country apart".
"We do not believe at all that Zimbabwe is a threat to international peace and security."
South Africa is currently on the UN Security Council but does not have the power of veto.
But US ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad claimed Mr Mugabe would only respond to "pressure".
France's ambassador to the UN has told the BBC he believes those in favour of the resolution have the nine votes out of 15 needed to pass it.
Zimbabwe Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told the state-run Herald newspaper that the G8 statement amounted to "international racism".
The statement called for financial and other measures against individuals "responsible for violence" in Zimbabwe.
Mr Mbeki and the leaders of Senegal and Tanzania told the G8 leaders that sanctions would not solve Zimbabwe's problems.
Mr Mbeki reportedly said that UN sanctions could lead to civil war.
Senegal's leader, Abdoulaye Wade, told the AFP news agency: "I said that sanctions... wouldn't change the regime."
10 July 2008
Russia has said it could veto proposed UN sanctions against Zimbabwe's president and his allies, despite agreeing a G8 statement backing them.
Russia has the power to veto any measures at the UN Security Council, which could take a vote this week.
The US and the UK are pushing for a travel ban and assets freeze on Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and 13 of his allies, and an arms embargo.
Several African leaders have also said they oppose sanctions.
They see a government of national unity as a more realistic solution to Zimbabwe's crisis.
'Blow apart'
Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev said the world was "dissatisfied" with the recent elections.
But he said no decision had been taken at the G8 about "specific decisions" which the UN should take.
BBC UN Correspondent Laura Trevelyan said Russia had not ruled out using its veto, however it could abstain.
Its UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin said sanctions were not appropriate and could undermine the political process.
DRAFT SANCTIONS LIST
Robert Mugabe, President
Constantine Chiwenga, Defence Forces Commander
Emmerson Mnangagwa, Rural Housing Minister
Gideon Gono, Reserve Bank head
Augustine Chihuri, Police chief
Patrick Chinamasa, Justice Minister
Perence Shiri, Air Force chief
David Parirenyatwa, Health Minister
Didymus Mutasa, Security and Lands Minister
George Charamba, President's spokesman
Paradzi Zimondi, Prison Service head
Happyton Bonyongwe, Central Intelligence Organisation head
Sydney Sekeremayi, Defence Minister
Joseph Made, State Minister for Agricultural Engineering
Source: Draft UN Security Council resolution
China also has the power of veto at the UN Security Council and has recently increased economic co-operation with Zimbabwe.
South Africa's UN ambassador Dumisani Khumalo said the proposed measures "could blow the country apart".
"We do not believe at all that Zimbabwe is a threat to international peace and security."
South Africa is currently on the UN Security Council but does not have the power of veto.
But US ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad claimed Mr Mugabe would only respond to "pressure".
France's ambassador to the UN has told the BBC he believes those in favour of the resolution have the nine votes out of 15 needed to pass it.
Zimbabwe Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told the state-run Herald newspaper that the G8 statement amounted to "international racism".
The statement called for financial and other measures against individuals "responsible for violence" in Zimbabwe.
Mr Mbeki and the leaders of Senegal and Tanzania told the G8 leaders that sanctions would not solve Zimbabwe's problems.
Mr Mbeki reportedly said that UN sanctions could lead to civil war.
Senegal's leader, Abdoulaye Wade, told the AFP news agency: "I said that sanctions... wouldn't change the regime."
4 arrested in Belarus bomb attack probe.
AFP
9 July 2008
Four people have been arrested in connection with a bomb attack in Belarus last week that wounded dozens of people, state television reported on Wednesday.
"Four people have been detained," the report quoted Igor Kuznetsov, head of the KGB secret service in the Belarusian capital Minsk, as saying.
"These include people who belong to an unregistered destructive organization and people with experience in using explosives," the report said.
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Font:****The explosion of a home-made bomb filled with bolts and screws injured dozens of people in the early hours of Friday morning at an outdoor concert attended by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
The concert was held to commemorate Belarusian Independence Day on July 3. The authorities said Saturday that they had found a second explosive device at the concert that had failed to detonate.
The arrests came after opposition forces urged the authoritarian Lukashenko not to use the bomb attack as a justification to crack down on his opponents in a regime classified by Washington as "the last dictatorship in Europe."
The wife of one of the detainees and a human rights activist named the four as Sergei Chislov, Igor Korsak, Viktor Leshchinsky and Miroslav Lozovsky, all members of the White Legion, a nationalist youth group.
"All four of the detainees are members of the unregistered organization the White Legion," the youth wing of the outlawed Belarusian Union of Military Personnel, Lozovsky's wife Nina Shidlovskaya told AFP by telephone.
"They kept my husband until very late last night on the orders of the Minsk region KGB, then they handed him over to investigators in the capital," said Shidlovskaya, a former spokeswoman for opposition leader Alexander Kozulin.
The Belarusian Union of Military Personnel was formed in the last years of the Soviet Union and enforced public order at demonstrations in the early 1990s but was banned in 1996 after Lukashenko's rise to power.
Viktor Sheiman, the former head of the national security council, who was sacked by Lukashenko in the aftermath of the attack along with presidential administration chief Gennady Navyglas, was also a member of the organization.
Human rights activist Lyubov Luneva told AFP that Korsak has been in custody for the past three days.
"Igor lives with his stepmother. They found bolts, screws and rubber gloves in his apartment. The stepmother pointed out that all these things can be found in any apartment and that on July 3 the family had left the apartment for the countryside, got back late and did not go out again," Luneva said.
An activist with the Youth Front opposition organization, Nastya Azarka, told AFP that she had been questioned on Tuesday by the KGB. Six Belarusian opposition figures were questioned earlier in connection with the bombing.
9 July 2008
Four people have been arrested in connection with a bomb attack in Belarus last week that wounded dozens of people, state television reported on Wednesday.
"Four people have been detained," the report quoted Igor Kuznetsov, head of the KGB secret service in the Belarusian capital Minsk, as saying.
"These include people who belong to an unregistered destructive organization and people with experience in using explosives," the report said.
Email to a friend
Printer friendly
Font:****The explosion of a home-made bomb filled with bolts and screws injured dozens of people in the early hours of Friday morning at an outdoor concert attended by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
The concert was held to commemorate Belarusian Independence Day on July 3. The authorities said Saturday that they had found a second explosive device at the concert that had failed to detonate.
The arrests came after opposition forces urged the authoritarian Lukashenko not to use the bomb attack as a justification to crack down on his opponents in a regime classified by Washington as "the last dictatorship in Europe."
The wife of one of the detainees and a human rights activist named the four as Sergei Chislov, Igor Korsak, Viktor Leshchinsky and Miroslav Lozovsky, all members of the White Legion, a nationalist youth group.
"All four of the detainees are members of the unregistered organization the White Legion," the youth wing of the outlawed Belarusian Union of Military Personnel, Lozovsky's wife Nina Shidlovskaya told AFP by telephone.
"They kept my husband until very late last night on the orders of the Minsk region KGB, then they handed him over to investigators in the capital," said Shidlovskaya, a former spokeswoman for opposition leader Alexander Kozulin.
The Belarusian Union of Military Personnel was formed in the last years of the Soviet Union and enforced public order at demonstrations in the early 1990s but was banned in 1996 after Lukashenko's rise to power.
Viktor Sheiman, the former head of the national security council, who was sacked by Lukashenko in the aftermath of the attack along with presidential administration chief Gennady Navyglas, was also a member of the organization.
Human rights activist Lyubov Luneva told AFP that Korsak has been in custody for the past three days.
"Igor lives with his stepmother. They found bolts, screws and rubber gloves in his apartment. The stepmother pointed out that all these things can be found in any apartment and that on July 3 the family had left the apartment for the countryside, got back late and did not go out again," Luneva said.
An activist with the Youth Front opposition organization, Nastya Azarka, told AFP that she had been questioned on Tuesday by the KGB. Six Belarusian opposition figures were questioned earlier in connection with the bombing.
Croatia, Albania sign NATO membership accords.
USA Today
9 July 2008
Croatia and Albania signed NATO membership accords Wednesday, opening the way for them to join the Western military alliance, probably by early next year.
Following the signing by their foreign ministers, the two Balkan nations will be able to sit in on meetings of NATO's main decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council.
They will become full members, under the alliance's defense umbrella, after membership is ratified by their parliaments and those of the 26 current members. NATO officials hope that can be done before an alliance summit in April.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the signing showed the progress in the Balkans since the violence that marked the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
"This is an historical achievement for these two countries and for the entire Atlantic community of nations," he said in a statement. "Both our new allies come from a region that not long ago saw the first operational deployment of the alliance and a region that has witnessed the first major conflict on European soil since the end of World War II."
NATO leaders agreed at their last summit in April to bring the two countries in, but excluded neighboring Macedonia after NATO-member Greece objected to that country's name, saying it implies a territorial claim on part of northern Greece also known as Macedonia.
The signing is widely regarded as a blow to the nation of Macedonia's hopes of catching up with the others and joining at the same time.
Croatia will become the second former Yugoslav nation to join NATO following Slovenia which entered in 2004.
9 July 2008
Croatia and Albania signed NATO membership accords Wednesday, opening the way for them to join the Western military alliance, probably by early next year.
Following the signing by their foreign ministers, the two Balkan nations will be able to sit in on meetings of NATO's main decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council.
They will become full members, under the alliance's defense umbrella, after membership is ratified by their parliaments and those of the 26 current members. NATO officials hope that can be done before an alliance summit in April.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the signing showed the progress in the Balkans since the violence that marked the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
"This is an historical achievement for these two countries and for the entire Atlantic community of nations," he said in a statement. "Both our new allies come from a region that not long ago saw the first operational deployment of the alliance and a region that has witnessed the first major conflict on European soil since the end of World War II."
NATO leaders agreed at their last summit in April to bring the two countries in, but excluded neighboring Macedonia after NATO-member Greece objected to that country's name, saying it implies a territorial claim on part of northern Greece also known as Macedonia.
The signing is widely regarded as a blow to the nation of Macedonia's hopes of catching up with the others and joining at the same time.
Croatia will become the second former Yugoslav nation to join NATO following Slovenia which entered in 2004.
Rwandans To Pullout of Darfur If Karenzi is Replaced.
Inner City Press
3 July 2008
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, July 3 -- As the United States criticizes the UN for the slow pace of deployment of its Darfur hybrid peacekeeping force with the African Union, UNAMID, the president of Rwanda, the substantial troop contributor to UNAMID, has threatened to pull out his troops if Rwandan general Karake Karenzi is not given another year on the job, diplomatic sources confirm to Inner City Press. Karenzi has been indicted for war crimes in Spain, settin up the possibility that he could be arrested while serving the UN in Sudan, or while traveling during his term of office in Darfur.
Sudan's support for Karenzi now appears in a different light: certainly it would be harder to criticize Sudan for not turning over its two indicted war crimes suspects, Ahmad Harun and Ali Kushayb, if the UN's own peacekeeping mission's deputy commander is also indicted. Despite Sudan and the U.S. both supporting Karenzi, perhaps this and not only the lobbying of human rights groups is why the UN still has not offered Karenzi a renewal.
Inner City Press on Thursday asked UN spokesperson Michele Montas to confirm or deny that the UN has written to Rwanda asking them to suggest an alternate general, and that Rwanda has threatened to pull its troops out of UNAMID if Karenzi himself is not renewed. Ms. Montas declined to comment on either question, suggesting that Inner City Press use its "diplomatic sources." Inner City Press asked, but if the UN were to write such a letter, would it confer with the African Union first? Yes, Ms. Montas said. Then asked who would make the decision to remove Karenzi, she said, the Secretary-General. Clarification has been promised.
3 July 2008
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, July 3 -- As the United States criticizes the UN for the slow pace of deployment of its Darfur hybrid peacekeeping force with the African Union, UNAMID, the president of Rwanda, the substantial troop contributor to UNAMID, has threatened to pull out his troops if Rwandan general Karake Karenzi is not given another year on the job, diplomatic sources confirm to Inner City Press. Karenzi has been indicted for war crimes in Spain, settin up the possibility that he could be arrested while serving the UN in Sudan, or while traveling during his term of office in Darfur.
Sudan's support for Karenzi now appears in a different light: certainly it would be harder to criticize Sudan for not turning over its two indicted war crimes suspects, Ahmad Harun and Ali Kushayb, if the UN's own peacekeeping mission's deputy commander is also indicted. Despite Sudan and the U.S. both supporting Karenzi, perhaps this and not only the lobbying of human rights groups is why the UN still has not offered Karenzi a renewal.
Inner City Press on Thursday asked UN spokesperson Michele Montas to confirm or deny that the UN has written to Rwanda asking them to suggest an alternate general, and that Rwanda has threatened to pull its troops out of UNAMID if Karenzi himself is not renewed. Ms. Montas declined to comment on either question, suggesting that Inner City Press use its "diplomatic sources." Inner City Press asked, but if the UN were to write such a letter, would it confer with the African Union first? Yes, Ms. Montas said. Then asked who would make the decision to remove Karenzi, she said, the Secretary-General. Clarification has been promised.
France Overturns Extradiction of Rwandan Suspect.
News 24
9 July 2008
France's top court on Wednesday overturned a decision to extradite Rwandan suspect Clavere Kamana, a businessman accused of being a key instigator of the 1994 mass killings.
Kamana, born in 1940 and a legal resident of France, was arrested in February in the southeastern city of Annecy by police acting on an international arrest warrant issued by Rwanda.
The Cour de Cassation overturned a lower court ruling in favour of extradition and sent the case back to the Lyon appeals tribunal which has been asked to review the case.
Kamana's lawyer Claire Waquet said she was "very satisfied" by the decision.
France has extradited three genocide suspects to the Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) since 2000, but has yet to hand over any suspect wanted for trial to Rwanda.
9 July 2008
France's top court on Wednesday overturned a decision to extradite Rwandan suspect Clavere Kamana, a businessman accused of being a key instigator of the 1994 mass killings.
Kamana, born in 1940 and a legal resident of France, was arrested in February in the southeastern city of Annecy by police acting on an international arrest warrant issued by Rwanda.
The Cour de Cassation overturned a lower court ruling in favour of extradition and sent the case back to the Lyon appeals tribunal which has been asked to review the case.
Kamana's lawyer Claire Waquet said she was "very satisfied" by the decision.
France has extradited three genocide suspects to the Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) since 2000, but has yet to hand over any suspect wanted for trial to Rwanda.
09 July, 2008
Letter from ICTR Detainees to the SG Ki Moon and the ICTR President.
Arusha, June 29 2008
UN Political Prisoners
UN Detention Facility (UNDF)
Arusha, Tanzania.
His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary General
Honorable Judge Dennis C.M. Byron, President of the ICTR,
Subject: Denunciation of the obstruction of justice by the ICTR Prosecutor
Mr. Secretary General,
Mr. President,
By his statement before the UN Security Council, on June 4, 2008[1], Mr. Hassan Bubakar Jallow, the ICTR Prosecutor, acknowledged, for the first time, that members of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) committed crimes falling under the ICTR jurisdiction. Indeed, he stated that he is in possession of evidence which shows that members of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPF's military wing) killed 13 religious people, including 5 bishops, as well as two civilians, at Kabgayi on June 5, 1994. However, he said nothing about other cases concerning hundreds of thousands of civilians massacred by RPF soldiers, identified thanks to investigations conducted by the UNHCR[2], by independent human rights organizations such as Amnesty International[3] and Human Rights Watch[4], by Spanish Judge Andreu Merelles, as well as by independent personalities, such as Filip Reyntjens and Serge Desouter[5], He also chose to consign to oblivion the attack against the plane carrying President Habyarimana by the RPF on April 6, 1994, a terrorist attack which is recognized, by numberous observers and experts of the region, including UN and ICTR Prosecutor’s experts, as the factor which treiggered the Rwandan tragedy[6].
The ICTR Prosecutor has chosen to deprive the ICTR judges of the possibility to hear cases about crimes committed by RPF members at Kabgayi and elsewhere in Rwanda in 1994[7]. Between 2003 and 2008, the Prosecutor, M. Bubakar Jallow, did not prosecute any of them despite the fact that his predecessor, Madame Carla Del Ponte, had, before her removal from office following pressure from the US and UK governments, already completed some cases and was on the verge of issuing indictments against RPF members[8]. Meanwhile, he is extremely unwilling to communicate to the Defense exculpatory material for the persons accused before the ICTR despite their numerous requests[9]. For that reason and in view of the ICTR Statute and Rules, the Prosecutor bears the essential responsibility for granting impunity to the RPF members. On the contrary, he convicted persons associated with the former regime for crimes committed by the RPF members, and is doing his utmost to achieve other convictions[10]. This is the reason why we want strongly to denounce him for his systematic obstruction of fair and impartial justice at the ICTR.
We find particularly outrageous the decision of the ICTR Prosecutor, Mr. Hassan Bubacar Jallow, to hand over to the Rwandan government the case concerning civilians killed at Gakuazo near Kabgayi, whereas, according to his statement before the UN Security Council, it relates to RPF senior officers still on active duty. The pretext according to which the ICTR and Rwanda share a concurrent jurisdiction is unacceptable. Such a point of view is contrary to the mission entrusted to the ICTR by the UN Security Council, to concentrate “on the prosecution and try the most senior leaders suspected of being most responsible for crimes” and to transfer “cases involving those who may not bear this level of responsibility to competent national jurisdictions”[11] .
This kind of conception is additional proof that the Prosecutor conducts a discriminatory prosecution with the objective of shielding RPF military from international justice by pretending that really independent and fair trials of the RPF military would be possible before jurisdictions under the control of the same RPF[12]. The ICTR Prosecutor, Mr. Hassan Bubacar Jallow, pretends not to be aware of the fact that President Kagame has consistently stated that RPF officers never committed the crimes of which they are accused[13], notably by human rights organizations mentioned above, by the French Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière and the Spanish Judge Andreu Merelles. The Prosecutor deliberately wants to ignore the scandalous outcome of the case concerning the Kibeho massacres in which eight thousand (8,000) internally displaced persons were exterminated by RPF military led by Colonel Ibingira. In order to mislead the public opinion outraged by that slaughter, a travesty of justice was set up against the latter. He was given a symbolic sentence. But that sentence was never served. Instead, soon after that conviction, he was promoted to the rank of general[14].
We would like to recall that the RPF regime, through its national assembly, categorically refused that those religious people killed at Kabgayi be buried in dignity under the pretext that they were “génocidaires”[15]. How can the Prosecutor think, today, that the RPF regime is suitable to dispense justice to victims that it refused to recognize as such? The archbishop of Kigali, Mgr. Thaddée Ntihinyurwa, who courageously expressed his doubt about the neutrality of the RPF regime in the trial of the authors of the killing of religious people at Gakurazo, near Kabgayi, following orders from the RPF leaders, was threatened in thinly veiled terms by President Kagame during his press conference held in Kigali on June 18, 2008[16].
During that same press conference, General Kagame directed his attack against justice. He stated that judges should not put the blame on the military of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) who might have committed crimes here and there during the war. He maintained that if the judges think that they have the power to do so, they should instead ask him to answer for them because all of them were under his command. With that statement, General Kagame publicly challenged justice, in general, and, in particular, the ICTR, which did not dare to prosecute him despite the fact that it has jurisdiction over him.
The Prosecutor compromised his credibility and that of the ICTR by yielding to external pressure in violation of Article 15 of the Statute, which requires of him a strict independence, and by protecting a criminal who dares to insult publicly national and international justice.
Taking into account the foregoing, the UN Political Prisoners, signatories of the present letter, request the UN authorities, in general, and the UN Secretary General and the ICTR President, in particular, to take necessary measures to preserve the impartiality, the independence and the credibility of the Tribunal. They should make sure that the Prosecutor fulfils his functions provided for by the ICTR Statute. He should retract his scandalous decision to transfer the Kabgayi case to the Rwandan jurisdiction. Indeed, he has no right to relinquish his obligation to follow through with the investigations of all crimes committed by all persons responsible before the ICTR.
We urge all human rights activists to undertake concrete actions to prevent the ICTR Prosecutor from granting definitively impunity to RPF members.
Sincerely yours,
Signatories: See the attached list {in PDF}
_____________________________
Copie pour information:
- The President of the UN Security Council;
- The ICTR Judges (all);
- The ICTR Prosecutor, Arusha;
- The ICTR Registrar, Arusha;
- Defense Lawyers (all);
- ADAD President, Arusha;
- UN Council for Human Rights, Geneva;
- International Commission of Jurists, Geneva;
- European Court of Justice, Luxembourg;
- European Court for Human Rights, Strasbourg;
- Amnesty International, London;
- Sidiki Kaba, President of Fédération Internationale
des Ligues des Droits de l’Homme (FIDH), Paris;
- Mike Posner, Executive Director of Lawyers Committee for Human Rights;
- Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch;
- Alioune Tine, Secretary-General of Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme;
- Families of the signatories;
- Centre de Lutte contre l’Impunité et l’Injustice au Rwanda (CLIR), Brussels;
- FDU (Forces Démocratiques Unifiées);
- SOS Rwanda-Burundi;
- Dukomere Association, Brussels;
- International Crisis Group (ICG);
- Human Rights Watch, New York;
- The press.
*********************
Notes:
[1] Statement made at the occasion of the presentation of the Report by the ICTR President before the UN Security Council (5904th Meeting).
[2] Investigations conducted by Mr. Gersony, on behalf of UNHCR, but no action was taken about it by the UN. See also about this matter, investigations carried out by Human Rights Watch and published in the book “Leave None to Tell the Story”[by Alison Des Forges] put into evidence before several ICTR Chambers; See also the book of Mme Florence Hartmann: Paix et châtiment: les guerres secrètes de la politque et de la justice internationales (Paris, Flammarion, 10 septembre 2007).
[3] Report of Amnesty International dated 20/10/1994, “RWANDA: Reports of killings and abductions by the Rwandese Patriotic Army”, April-August 1994.
[4] “The Aftermath of Genocide in Rwanda”; “Leave None to Tell the Story”.
[5] Filip Reyntjens: “Sujets d’inquiétude au Rwanda en octobre 1994”.
[6] See the Report on the situation of human rights in Rwanda by Mr. R. Degni-Segui, Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Commission, 28 June 1994; Report of the UN Commission of Experts, Doc. S/1994/1405 of 9 December 1994; expert witnesses before the ICTR notably Bernard Lugan, Helmut Strizek, Serge Desouter, Filip Reynjens and André Guichaoua.
[7] Curiously, in his recent decision to hand over the Kabgayi case to the Kigali regime, he deliberately ignored crimes committed elsewhere in Rwanda for which some direct testimonies in his possession were disclosed in some cases before the ICTR.
[8] Madame Florence Hartmann, former spokesperson of the Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, in her book published in September 2007 and entitled: Paix et châtiment: les guerres secrètes de la politique et de la justice internationales (Paris, Flammarion, 10 September 2007), unveiled manipulations which the ICTR was subjected to in order to grant impunity to RPF members. In her book published in April 2008 under the title “The Hunt: Me and My War Criminals,” Madame Carla Del Ponte did not contradict Florence Hartmann.
[9] For example, motions were filed in the following cases: Case the Prosecutor vs Nahimana et al, No ICTR-99-52-T, Case the Prosecutor vs Nyiramasuhuko et al, No ICTR-98-42-T, Case the Prosecutor vs Bagosora et al, No ICTR-98-41-T, Affaire Procureur contre Karemera et al, No ICTR-9844-T, Case the Prosecutor vs Casimir Bisimungu et al, No ICTR-99-50-T, Case the Prosecutor vs Ndindiliyimana et al, No ICTR-00-56-T.
[10] Even if it appears, from several scandalous decisions rendered by the ICTR judges, that the latter also bear the responsibility for the blatant partisan direction taken by the ICTR justice, in favor of the victor, the Prosecutor is, pursuant to Article 15 of the Statute, responsible for the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of Rwanda and Rwandan citizens responsible for such violations committed in the territory of neighboring states, between 1 January and 31 December 1994. According to that Article, the Prosecutor shall act independently.
[11] Resolution 1503 of 28 August 2003.
[12] One knows that entrusting to the butcher the right to prosecute his accomplices equates to giving him license to perpetuate impunity. Similar iniquity has already been committed in the case of Rwanda. Indeed, one recalls that the UN Security Council entrusted, by its Declaration of 13 July 1998, to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda the investigation of massacres of Rwandan refugees and Congolese civilians committed between 1996 and 1998 and to punish the perpetrators. Ten years after, no suspect was prosecuted.
[13] Read, for example, the interview of President Kagame with the Editor in chief of Jeune Afrique No 2466 of 13 to 19 April 2008.
[14] Filip Reyntjens: “Rwanda Ten Years on: From genocide to dictatorship” (2004). Even if those crimes committed in Kibeho do not fall under the ICTR jurisdiction, they were committed by the RPF military in the presence of UN forces (UNAMIR 2). That incident is sufficiently documented. It shows the impunity granted to RPF members.
[15] See the Communiqué of the Rwandan Bishops Conference, dated 29 May 1995.
[16] Agence Hirondelle of 19 June 2008.
Editor's Note: The original document is available here by request.
UN Political Prisoners
UN Detention Facility (UNDF)
Arusha, Tanzania.
His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary General
Honorable Judge Dennis C.M. Byron, President of the ICTR,
Subject: Denunciation of the obstruction of justice by the ICTR Prosecutor
Mr. Secretary General,
Mr. President,
By his statement before the UN Security Council, on June 4, 2008[1], Mr. Hassan Bubakar Jallow, the ICTR Prosecutor, acknowledged, for the first time, that members of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) committed crimes falling under the ICTR jurisdiction. Indeed, he stated that he is in possession of evidence which shows that members of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPF's military wing) killed 13 religious people, including 5 bishops, as well as two civilians, at Kabgayi on June 5, 1994. However, he said nothing about other cases concerning hundreds of thousands of civilians massacred by RPF soldiers, identified thanks to investigations conducted by the UNHCR[2], by independent human rights organizations such as Amnesty International[3] and Human Rights Watch[4], by Spanish Judge Andreu Merelles, as well as by independent personalities, such as Filip Reyntjens and Serge Desouter[5], He also chose to consign to oblivion the attack against the plane carrying President Habyarimana by the RPF on April 6, 1994, a terrorist attack which is recognized, by numberous observers and experts of the region, including UN and ICTR Prosecutor’s experts, as the factor which treiggered the Rwandan tragedy[6].
The ICTR Prosecutor has chosen to deprive the ICTR judges of the possibility to hear cases about crimes committed by RPF members at Kabgayi and elsewhere in Rwanda in 1994[7]. Between 2003 and 2008, the Prosecutor, M. Bubakar Jallow, did not prosecute any of them despite the fact that his predecessor, Madame Carla Del Ponte, had, before her removal from office following pressure from the US and UK governments, already completed some cases and was on the verge of issuing indictments against RPF members[8]. Meanwhile, he is extremely unwilling to communicate to the Defense exculpatory material for the persons accused before the ICTR despite their numerous requests[9]. For that reason and in view of the ICTR Statute and Rules, the Prosecutor bears the essential responsibility for granting impunity to the RPF members. On the contrary, he convicted persons associated with the former regime for crimes committed by the RPF members, and is doing his utmost to achieve other convictions[10]. This is the reason why we want strongly to denounce him for his systematic obstruction of fair and impartial justice at the ICTR.
We find particularly outrageous the decision of the ICTR Prosecutor, Mr. Hassan Bubacar Jallow, to hand over to the Rwandan government the case concerning civilians killed at Gakuazo near Kabgayi, whereas, according to his statement before the UN Security Council, it relates to RPF senior officers still on active duty. The pretext according to which the ICTR and Rwanda share a concurrent jurisdiction is unacceptable. Such a point of view is contrary to the mission entrusted to the ICTR by the UN Security Council, to concentrate “on the prosecution and try the most senior leaders suspected of being most responsible for crimes” and to transfer “cases involving those who may not bear this level of responsibility to competent national jurisdictions”[11] .
This kind of conception is additional proof that the Prosecutor conducts a discriminatory prosecution with the objective of shielding RPF military from international justice by pretending that really independent and fair trials of the RPF military would be possible before jurisdictions under the control of the same RPF[12]. The ICTR Prosecutor, Mr. Hassan Bubacar Jallow, pretends not to be aware of the fact that President Kagame has consistently stated that RPF officers never committed the crimes of which they are accused[13], notably by human rights organizations mentioned above, by the French Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière and the Spanish Judge Andreu Merelles. The Prosecutor deliberately wants to ignore the scandalous outcome of the case concerning the Kibeho massacres in which eight thousand (8,000) internally displaced persons were exterminated by RPF military led by Colonel Ibingira. In order to mislead the public opinion outraged by that slaughter, a travesty of justice was set up against the latter. He was given a symbolic sentence. But that sentence was never served. Instead, soon after that conviction, he was promoted to the rank of general[14].
We would like to recall that the RPF regime, through its national assembly, categorically refused that those religious people killed at Kabgayi be buried in dignity under the pretext that they were “génocidaires”[15]. How can the Prosecutor think, today, that the RPF regime is suitable to dispense justice to victims that it refused to recognize as such? The archbishop of Kigali, Mgr. Thaddée Ntihinyurwa, who courageously expressed his doubt about the neutrality of the RPF regime in the trial of the authors of the killing of religious people at Gakurazo, near Kabgayi, following orders from the RPF leaders, was threatened in thinly veiled terms by President Kagame during his press conference held in Kigali on June 18, 2008[16].
During that same press conference, General Kagame directed his attack against justice. He stated that judges should not put the blame on the military of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) who might have committed crimes here and there during the war. He maintained that if the judges think that they have the power to do so, they should instead ask him to answer for them because all of them were under his command. With that statement, General Kagame publicly challenged justice, in general, and, in particular, the ICTR, which did not dare to prosecute him despite the fact that it has jurisdiction over him.
The Prosecutor compromised his credibility and that of the ICTR by yielding to external pressure in violation of Article 15 of the Statute, which requires of him a strict independence, and by protecting a criminal who dares to insult publicly national and international justice.
Taking into account the foregoing, the UN Political Prisoners, signatories of the present letter, request the UN authorities, in general, and the UN Secretary General and the ICTR President, in particular, to take necessary measures to preserve the impartiality, the independence and the credibility of the Tribunal. They should make sure that the Prosecutor fulfils his functions provided for by the ICTR Statute. He should retract his scandalous decision to transfer the Kabgayi case to the Rwandan jurisdiction. Indeed, he has no right to relinquish his obligation to follow through with the investigations of all crimes committed by all persons responsible before the ICTR.
We urge all human rights activists to undertake concrete actions to prevent the ICTR Prosecutor from granting definitively impunity to RPF members.
Sincerely yours,
Signatories: See the attached list {in PDF}
_____________________________
Copie pour information:
- The President of the UN Security Council;
- The ICTR Judges (all);
- The ICTR Prosecutor, Arusha;
- The ICTR Registrar, Arusha;
- Defense Lawyers (all);
- ADAD President, Arusha;
- UN Council for Human Rights, Geneva;
- International Commission of Jurists, Geneva;
- European Court of Justice, Luxembourg;
- European Court for Human Rights, Strasbourg;
- Amnesty International, London;
- Sidiki Kaba, President of Fédération Internationale
des Ligues des Droits de l’Homme (FIDH), Paris;
- Mike Posner, Executive Director of Lawyers Committee for Human Rights;
- Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch;
- Alioune Tine, Secretary-General of Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme;
- Families of the signatories;
- Centre de Lutte contre l’Impunité et l’Injustice au Rwanda (CLIR), Brussels;
- FDU (Forces Démocratiques Unifiées);
- SOS Rwanda-Burundi;
- Dukomere Association, Brussels;
- International Crisis Group (ICG);
- Human Rights Watch, New York;
- The press.
*********************
Notes:
[1] Statement made at the occasion of the presentation of the Report by the ICTR President before the UN Security Council (5904th Meeting).
[2] Investigations conducted by Mr. Gersony, on behalf of UNHCR, but no action was taken about it by the UN. See also about this matter, investigations carried out by Human Rights Watch and published in the book “Leave None to Tell the Story”[by Alison Des Forges] put into evidence before several ICTR Chambers; See also the book of Mme Florence Hartmann: Paix et châtiment: les guerres secrètes de la politque et de la justice internationales (Paris, Flammarion, 10 septembre 2007).
[3] Report of Amnesty International dated 20/10/1994, “RWANDA: Reports of killings and abductions by the Rwandese Patriotic Army”, April-August 1994.
[4] “The Aftermath of Genocide in Rwanda”; “Leave None to Tell the Story”.
[5] Filip Reyntjens: “Sujets d’inquiétude au Rwanda en octobre 1994”.
[6] See the Report on the situation of human rights in Rwanda by Mr. R. Degni-Segui, Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Commission, 28 June 1994; Report of the UN Commission of Experts, Doc. S/1994/1405 of 9 December 1994; expert witnesses before the ICTR notably Bernard Lugan, Helmut Strizek, Serge Desouter, Filip Reynjens and André Guichaoua.
[7] Curiously, in his recent decision to hand over the Kabgayi case to the Kigali regime, he deliberately ignored crimes committed elsewhere in Rwanda for which some direct testimonies in his possession were disclosed in some cases before the ICTR.
[8] Madame Florence Hartmann, former spokesperson of the Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, in her book published in September 2007 and entitled: Paix et châtiment: les guerres secrètes de la politique et de la justice internationales (Paris, Flammarion, 10 September 2007), unveiled manipulations which the ICTR was subjected to in order to grant impunity to RPF members. In her book published in April 2008 under the title “The Hunt: Me and My War Criminals,” Madame Carla Del Ponte did not contradict Florence Hartmann.
[9] For example, motions were filed in the following cases: Case the Prosecutor vs Nahimana et al, No ICTR-99-52-T, Case the Prosecutor vs Nyiramasuhuko et al, No ICTR-98-42-T, Case the Prosecutor vs Bagosora et al, No ICTR-98-41-T, Affaire Procureur contre Karemera et al, No ICTR-9844-T, Case the Prosecutor vs Casimir Bisimungu et al, No ICTR-99-50-T, Case the Prosecutor vs Ndindiliyimana et al, No ICTR-00-56-T.
[10] Even if it appears, from several scandalous decisions rendered by the ICTR judges, that the latter also bear the responsibility for the blatant partisan direction taken by the ICTR justice, in favor of the victor, the Prosecutor is, pursuant to Article 15 of the Statute, responsible for the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of Rwanda and Rwandan citizens responsible for such violations committed in the territory of neighboring states, between 1 January and 31 December 1994. According to that Article, the Prosecutor shall act independently.
[11] Resolution 1503 of 28 August 2003.
[12] One knows that entrusting to the butcher the right to prosecute his accomplices equates to giving him license to perpetuate impunity. Similar iniquity has already been committed in the case of Rwanda. Indeed, one recalls that the UN Security Council entrusted, by its Declaration of 13 July 1998, to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda the investigation of massacres of Rwandan refugees and Congolese civilians committed between 1996 and 1998 and to punish the perpetrators. Ten years after, no suspect was prosecuted.
[13] Read, for example, the interview of President Kagame with the Editor in chief of Jeune Afrique No 2466 of 13 to 19 April 2008.
[14] Filip Reyntjens: “Rwanda Ten Years on: From genocide to dictatorship” (2004). Even if those crimes committed in Kibeho do not fall under the ICTR jurisdiction, they were committed by the RPF military in the presence of UN forces (UNAMIR 2). That incident is sufficiently documented. It shows the impunity granted to RPF members.
[15] See the Communiqué of the Rwandan Bishops Conference, dated 29 May 1995.
[16] Agence Hirondelle of 19 June 2008.
Editor's Note: The original document is available here by request.
Congress May Not Pass U.S.-India Nuclear Pact.
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 9, 2008; A10
India's civil nuclear agreement with the United States may have cleared a key hurdle in New Delhi this week, but it appears unlikely to win final approval in the U.S. Congress this year, raising the possibility that India could begin nuclear trade with other countries even without the Bush administration's signature deal, according to administration officials and congressional aides.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has struggled to keep his coalition government intact over the controversial deal to give New Delhi access to U.S. nuclear technology for the first time since it conducted a nuclear test in 1974. This week, he secured an agreement with the Samajwadi Party to back the deal, giving him enough support to retain his majority even as the Communists bolted over fears that the pact would infringe on India's sovereignty.
But the legislation passed in 2006 -- the so-called Hyde Act -- that gave preliminary approval to the U.S.-India agreement, requires that Congress be in 30 days of continuous session to consider it. Congressional aides said that clock can begin to tick only once India clears two more hurdles -- completing an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and securing approval from the 45 nations that form the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which governs trade in reactors and uranium. Because of the long August recess, less than 40 days are left in the session before Congress adjourns on Sept. 26.
"At this point, both [the IAEA and NSG actions] have to take place in the next couple of weeks" for the deal to be considered by Congress, said Lynne Weil, spokeswoman for the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But the IAEA Board of Governors is not expected to take up the matter until August, whereas the NSG may take several months to reach a consensus.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has repeatedly insisted there will be no lame-duck session after the Nov. 4 elections. There would be little incentive for the Democratic majority to hold a lame-duck session if, as expected, the Democrats significantly gain seats.
President Bush's agreement with India, considered a key part of his foreign policy legacy, is designed to solidify Washington's relationship with a fast-emerging economic power. Bush and Singh agreed to the pact in July 2005, but it has faced repeated delays and opposition in both countries.
Now, with the near impossibility of congressional passage by year-end, officials and experts have begun to focus on the possibility that other countries -- such as France and Russia -- would rush in to make nuclear sales to India while U.S. companies still face legal restrictions.
"India doesn't need the U.S. deal at all" once the NSG grants approval, said Sharon Squassoni, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It was a fatal flaw in the logic of the U.S. Congress."
A State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing congressional strategy, agreed. "I don't believe there is anything to prevent them from doing that, if we don't ratify it," he said, noting the irony of the United States not profiting from a deal it set in motion.
But he suggested the administration would use that awkward situation to pressure Congress not to thwart potential business opportunities for American companies. "It is the hidden force of this agreement," the official said. "It is U.S. business that sees an opportunity."
Ever since the deal was struck, the administration has performed a balancing act between adhering to the letter of U.S. nonproliferation law and assuaging Indian concerns that it was not being treated like a true nuclear power. This year, when the administration answered nearly 50 questions posed by Congress about a separate implementing agreement negotiated with India, it took the unusual step of insisting the answers remain secret for fear of torpedoing the agreement.
India, which is running short of uranium needed to fuel its reactors, is especially eager to win "clean" agreements with the IAEA and the NSG that would not result in fuel cutoffs if it decides to resume testing nuclear weapons.
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is a strong supporter of the agreement, but Sen. Barack Obama, his Democratic rival, is more skeptical. During the congressional debate on the Hyde Act, Obama inserted language in the bill limiting the amount of nuclear fuel supplied to India from the United States to deter nuclear testing.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 9, 2008; A10
India's civil nuclear agreement with the United States may have cleared a key hurdle in New Delhi this week, but it appears unlikely to win final approval in the U.S. Congress this year, raising the possibility that India could begin nuclear trade with other countries even without the Bush administration's signature deal, according to administration officials and congressional aides.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has struggled to keep his coalition government intact over the controversial deal to give New Delhi access to U.S. nuclear technology for the first time since it conducted a nuclear test in 1974. This week, he secured an agreement with the Samajwadi Party to back the deal, giving him enough support to retain his majority even as the Communists bolted over fears that the pact would infringe on India's sovereignty.
But the legislation passed in 2006 -- the so-called Hyde Act -- that gave preliminary approval to the U.S.-India agreement, requires that Congress be in 30 days of continuous session to consider it. Congressional aides said that clock can begin to tick only once India clears two more hurdles -- completing an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and securing approval from the 45 nations that form the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which governs trade in reactors and uranium. Because of the long August recess, less than 40 days are left in the session before Congress adjourns on Sept. 26.
"At this point, both [the IAEA and NSG actions] have to take place in the next couple of weeks" for the deal to be considered by Congress, said Lynne Weil, spokeswoman for the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But the IAEA Board of Governors is not expected to take up the matter until August, whereas the NSG may take several months to reach a consensus.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has repeatedly insisted there will be no lame-duck session after the Nov. 4 elections. There would be little incentive for the Democratic majority to hold a lame-duck session if, as expected, the Democrats significantly gain seats.
President Bush's agreement with India, considered a key part of his foreign policy legacy, is designed to solidify Washington's relationship with a fast-emerging economic power. Bush and Singh agreed to the pact in July 2005, but it has faced repeated delays and opposition in both countries.
Now, with the near impossibility of congressional passage by year-end, officials and experts have begun to focus on the possibility that other countries -- such as France and Russia -- would rush in to make nuclear sales to India while U.S. companies still face legal restrictions.
"India doesn't need the U.S. deal at all" once the NSG grants approval, said Sharon Squassoni, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It was a fatal flaw in the logic of the U.S. Congress."
A State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing congressional strategy, agreed. "I don't believe there is anything to prevent them from doing that, if we don't ratify it," he said, noting the irony of the United States not profiting from a deal it set in motion.
But he suggested the administration would use that awkward situation to pressure Congress not to thwart potential business opportunities for American companies. "It is the hidden force of this agreement," the official said. "It is U.S. business that sees an opportunity."
Ever since the deal was struck, the administration has performed a balancing act between adhering to the letter of U.S. nonproliferation law and assuaging Indian concerns that it was not being treated like a true nuclear power. This year, when the administration answered nearly 50 questions posed by Congress about a separate implementing agreement negotiated with India, it took the unusual step of insisting the answers remain secret for fear of torpedoing the agreement.
India, which is running short of uranium needed to fuel its reactors, is especially eager to win "clean" agreements with the IAEA and the NSG that would not result in fuel cutoffs if it decides to resume testing nuclear weapons.
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is a strong supporter of the agreement, but Sen. Barack Obama, his Democratic rival, is more skeptical. During the congressional debate on the Hyde Act, Obama inserted language in the bill limiting the amount of nuclear fuel supplied to India from the United States to deter nuclear testing.
Abkhazia rejects US-proposed international force.
Associated Press
8 July 2008
The breakaway Georgian republic of Abkhazia has rejected a U.S. proposal to deploy an international police force there, its leader said Tuesday.
The regional government, which is not internationally recognized, instead pledged to keep Russian peacekeepers on the ground, despite Georgia's accusations that they are fomenting tensions.
The U.S. State Department said Monday that Abkhazia "urgently" needs an international police presence in areas where recent bombings killed four people and wounded five. It also called on Abkhazia to resume peace talks with Georgia.
"We are not going to listen to any recommendations from the State Department, which always has a unilaterally pro-Georgian position," Abkhazia's leader Sergei Bagapsh told journalists.
He also refused to resume talks unless Georgia stops what he called "terrorist attacks."
Russia recently increased its peacekeeper contingent in Abkhazia — a move Georgia claimed was part of a Moscow plan to annex the region. Russia also supports separatists in another breakaway Georgian region, South Ossetia, and most people in both regions carry Russian passports.
Abkhazia said the explosions are part of a Georgian government effort to retake control of the regions by force. Georgian officials deny responsibility for the bombings and call them provocations.
8 July 2008
The breakaway Georgian republic of Abkhazia has rejected a U.S. proposal to deploy an international police force there, its leader said Tuesday.
The regional government, which is not internationally recognized, instead pledged to keep Russian peacekeepers on the ground, despite Georgia's accusations that they are fomenting tensions.
The U.S. State Department said Monday that Abkhazia "urgently" needs an international police presence in areas where recent bombings killed four people and wounded five. It also called on Abkhazia to resume peace talks with Georgia.
"We are not going to listen to any recommendations from the State Department, which always has a unilaterally pro-Georgian position," Abkhazia's leader Sergei Bagapsh told journalists.
He also refused to resume talks unless Georgia stops what he called "terrorist attacks."
Russia recently increased its peacekeeper contingent in Abkhazia — a move Georgia claimed was part of a Moscow plan to annex the region. Russia also supports separatists in another breakaway Georgian region, South Ossetia, and most people in both regions carry Russian passports.
Abkhazia said the explosions are part of a Georgian government effort to retake control of the regions by force. Georgian officials deny responsibility for the bombings and call them provocations.
U.K. Denies Reports on Anglo American Withdrawal From Zimbabwe.
Bloomberg News
9 July 2008
By Brett Foley
July 9 (Bloomberg) -- The U.K. government denied a report it urged Anglo American Plc to stop trading in Zimbabwe to increase pressure on President Robert Mugabe.
The government asked companies to investigate whether new investment in Zimbabwe was a good idea, a spokeswoman for U.K. Trade Minister Gareth Thomas, said today by telephone from Johannesburg. Specific companies hadn't been instructed to withdraw from the southern African nation, she added. The spokeswoman could not be identified due to government policy.
The Johannesburg-based Times reported the government urged Anglo to stop doing business in Zimbabwe, citing an interview with Thomas. The U.K. wants Anglo to rethink whether its investment in Zimbabwe is appropriate, after other companies decided to withdraw from the country, the newspaper said.
9 July 2008
By Brett Foley
July 9 (Bloomberg) -- The U.K. government denied a report it urged Anglo American Plc to stop trading in Zimbabwe to increase pressure on President Robert Mugabe.
The government asked companies to investigate whether new investment in Zimbabwe was a good idea, a spokeswoman for U.K. Trade Minister Gareth Thomas, said today by telephone from Johannesburg. Specific companies hadn't been instructed to withdraw from the southern African nation, she added. The spokeswoman could not be identified due to government policy.
The Johannesburg-based Times reported the government urged Anglo to stop doing business in Zimbabwe, citing an interview with Thomas. The U.K. wants Anglo to rethink whether its investment in Zimbabwe is appropriate, after other companies decided to withdraw from the country, the newspaper said.
Iraq to Open Oil Fields for 35 Foreign Companies; Initial No-Bid Contracts Delayed
New York Times
1 July 2008
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and ANDREW E. KRAMER
Iraq announced Monday that it was opening six key oil production fields to more than 30 foreign companies, while delaying an announcement on a series of no-bid consulting contracts with a handful of Western oil companies.
Iraq’s oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, speaking at a news conference here, said Iraq would begin taking bids later this year for longer-term contracts on six of its oil fields. Thirty-five foreign companies have qualified to participate. Winners will be announced in 2009, Mr. Shahristani said.
Iraq hopes to almost double its production, to 4.5 million barrels of oil a day over the next five years from the current 2.5 million barrels, Mr. Shahristani said. The contracts are aimed at helping the country do that.
Iraq had been expected on Monday to issue its first contracts to foreign oil companies that would provide technical support and help raise Iraqi oil production ahead of awarding lucrative long-tern contracts.
Those initial short-term contracts, with Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, BP and Chevron, are still under negotiation, a person close to the talks said, and will probably be completed in the next month.
The reason for the delay was unclear.
Chevron said in a statement that it was “continuing to negotiate” with the Oil Ministry on the short-term technical contract on an oil field called West Qurna, which is currently producing.
“The ministry has separately announced a tender for full field development and Chevron has been prequalified to participate in that bid round,” the company said.
Mr. Shahristani defended the way Iraq has handled the oil contracts, which have led to criticism in the Arab world and abroad, where suspicions run rampant that the United States-led invasion was at least partly about access to Iraq’s oil.
The initial contracts are expected to be awarded without competitive bidding, but Mr. Shahristani told the news conference, “There will be no privilege for any of those companies to participate in future contracts.”
Bloomberg News quoted the chief executive of Shell, Jeroen van der Veer, as saying at the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid that the company expected to sign oil agreements with Iraq in “a matter of weeks.”
A major legal question hangs over the process: Iraq has yet to pass a law that divides oil revenue among all parts of the country.
Iraq has some of the largest oil reserves on earth, but they are largely untapped because the country has long lacked the resources to develop them. The companies will provide equipment and expertise to refurbish the country’s aging infrastructure.
The six fields “are producing now, but there is a need for development because they were established years ago,” Mr. Shahristani said.
Iraqis interviewed on Monday said profit from oil was the business of the country’s most powerful politicians, as well as the United States, and ordinary people got little benefit from it
“The income won’t come to me,” said Abu Riyam, a 42-year-old engineer who was shoe shopping with a relative in central Baghdad. “They won’t build houses or hospitals with it.”
Despite Iraqi skepticism, oil accounts for nearly all of Iraq’s revenue, and provides salaries for public sector employees as well as financing for most public works projects.
Sabrina Tavernise reported from Baghdad, and Andrew E. Kramer from Moscow. Reporting was contributed by Riyadh Muhammad, Mudhafer al-Husaini and Mohammed Hussein from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Basra, Mosul, Baquba and Diwaniya.
1 July 2008
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and ANDREW E. KRAMER
Iraq announced Monday that it was opening six key oil production fields to more than 30 foreign companies, while delaying an announcement on a series of no-bid consulting contracts with a handful of Western oil companies.
Iraq’s oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, speaking at a news conference here, said Iraq would begin taking bids later this year for longer-term contracts on six of its oil fields. Thirty-five foreign companies have qualified to participate. Winners will be announced in 2009, Mr. Shahristani said.
Iraq hopes to almost double its production, to 4.5 million barrels of oil a day over the next five years from the current 2.5 million barrels, Mr. Shahristani said. The contracts are aimed at helping the country do that.
Iraq had been expected on Monday to issue its first contracts to foreign oil companies that would provide technical support and help raise Iraqi oil production ahead of awarding lucrative long-tern contracts.
Those initial short-term contracts, with Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, BP and Chevron, are still under negotiation, a person close to the talks said, and will probably be completed in the next month.
The reason for the delay was unclear.
Chevron said in a statement that it was “continuing to negotiate” with the Oil Ministry on the short-term technical contract on an oil field called West Qurna, which is currently producing.
“The ministry has separately announced a tender for full field development and Chevron has been prequalified to participate in that bid round,” the company said.
Mr. Shahristani defended the way Iraq has handled the oil contracts, which have led to criticism in the Arab world and abroad, where suspicions run rampant that the United States-led invasion was at least partly about access to Iraq’s oil.
The initial contracts are expected to be awarded without competitive bidding, but Mr. Shahristani told the news conference, “There will be no privilege for any of those companies to participate in future contracts.”
Bloomberg News quoted the chief executive of Shell, Jeroen van der Veer, as saying at the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid that the company expected to sign oil agreements with Iraq in “a matter of weeks.”
A major legal question hangs over the process: Iraq has yet to pass a law that divides oil revenue among all parts of the country.
Iraq has some of the largest oil reserves on earth, but they are largely untapped because the country has long lacked the resources to develop them. The companies will provide equipment and expertise to refurbish the country’s aging infrastructure.
The six fields “are producing now, but there is a need for development because they were established years ago,” Mr. Shahristani said.
Iraqis interviewed on Monday said profit from oil was the business of the country’s most powerful politicians, as well as the United States, and ordinary people got little benefit from it
“The income won’t come to me,” said Abu Riyam, a 42-year-old engineer who was shoe shopping with a relative in central Baghdad. “They won’t build houses or hospitals with it.”
Despite Iraqi skepticism, oil accounts for nearly all of Iraq’s revenue, and provides salaries for public sector employees as well as financing for most public works projects.
Sabrina Tavernise reported from Baghdad, and Andrew E. Kramer from Moscow. Reporting was contributed by Riyadh Muhammad, Mudhafer al-Husaini and Mohammed Hussein from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Basra, Mosul, Baquba and Diwaniya.
U.S Advised Iraqi Ministry on Oil Deals.
New York Times
30 June 2008
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say.
The disclosure, coming on the eve of the contracts’ announcement, is the first confirmation of direct involvement by the Bush administration in deals to open Iraq’s oil to commercial development and is likely to stoke criticism.
In their role as advisers to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, American government lawyers and private-sector consultants provided template contracts and detailed suggestions on drafting the contracts, advisers and a senior State Department official said.
It is unclear how much influence their work had on the ministry’s decisions.
The advisers — who, along with the diplomatic official, spoke on condition of anonymity — say that their involvement was only to help an understaffed Iraqi ministry with technical and legal details of the contracts and that they in no way helped choose which companies got the deals.
Repeated calls to the Oil Ministry’s press office for comment were not returned.
At a time of spiraling oil prices, the no-bid contracts, in a country with some of the world’s largest untapped fields and potential for vast profits, are a rare prize to the industry. The contracts are expected to be awarded Monday to Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Total and Chevron, as well as to several smaller oil companies.
The deals have been criticized by opponents of the Iraq war, who accuse the Bush administration of working behind the scenes to ensure Western access to Iraqi oil fields even as most other oil-exporting countries have been sharply limiting the roles of international oil companies in development.
For its part, the administration has repeatedly denied steering the Iraqis toward decisions. “Iraq is a sovereign country, and it can make decisions based on how it feels that it wants to move forward in its development of its oil resources,” said Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman.
Though enriched by high prices, the companies are starved for new oil fields. The United States government, too, has eagerly encouraged investment anywhere in the world that could provide new oil to alleviate the exceptionally tight global supply, which is a cause of high prices.
Iraq is particularly attractive in that light, because in addition to its vast reserves, it has the potential to bring new sources of oil onto the market relatively cheaply.
As sabotage on oil export pipelines has declined with improved security, this potential is closer to being realized. American military officials say the pipelines now have excess capacity, waiting for output to increase at the fields.
But any perception of American meddling in Iraq’s oil policies threatens to inflame opinion against the United States, particularly in Arab nations that are skeptical of American intentions in Iraq, which has the third-largest oil reserves in the world.
“We pretend it is not a centerpiece of our motivation, yet we keep confirming that it is,” Frederick D. Barton, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in a telephone interview. “And we undermine our own veracity by citing issues like sovereignty, when we have our hands right in the middle of it.”
United States officials are directly advising Iraq on a host of issues, from electricity to education. But they have avoided the limelight when questions turn to how Iraq should manage its oil endowment, insisting that a decision must rest with the Iraqi government.
The State Department advisers on the Western contracts say they purposely avoid trying to shape Iraqi policy.
“They have not negotiated with the international oil companies since the 1970s,” said the senior State Department official, who was speaking about Iraqi oil officials and who is directly involved in shaping United States energy policy in Iraq.
The advice on the drafting of the contracts was not binding, he said, and sometimes the ministry chose to ignore it. “The ministry did not have to take our advice,” he said, adding that the Iraqis had also turned to the Norwegian government for counsel. “It has been their sole decision.”
The advisers say they were not involved in advancing the oil companies’ interests, but rather treated the Oil Ministry as a client, the State Department official said. “I do not see this as a conflict of interest,” he said. A potential area of criticism, however, is that only Western companies got the bigger oil contracts. In particular, Russian companies that have experience in Iraq and had sought development contracts are still waiting.
Earlier in the occupation of Iraq, American advisers supported the Oil Ministry’s effort to dismiss claims by the Russian company Lukoil to a large Saddam Hussein-era deal. The ministry maintains that the Hussein government canceled the contract three months before the invasion. Lukoil says the attempt to cancel the deal was illegal because Mr. Hussein had not appealed to international arbitration first, as required in the contract terms.
The new oil contracts have also become a significant political issue in the United States.
Three Democratic senators, led by Charles E. Schumer of New York, sent a letter to the State Department last week asking that the deals be delayed until after the Iraqi Parliament passes a hydrocarbons law outlining the distribution of oil revenues and regulatory matters. They contend the contracts could deepen political tensions in Iraq and endanger American soldiers.
Criticism like that has prompted objections by the Bush administration and the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who say the deals are purely commercial matters. Ms. Rice, speaking on Fox News this month, said: “The United States government has stayed out of the matter of awarding the Iraq oil contracts. It’s a private sector matter.”
Advisers from the State, Commerce, Energy and Interior Departments are assigned to work with the Iraqi Oil Ministry, according to the senior diplomat. In addition, the United States Agency for International Development has a contract for Management Systems International, a Washington consulting firm, to advise the oil and other ministries. The agency’s program is called Tatweer, the Arabic word for development.
“The legal department of the Ministry of Oil passed us a draft of the contract,” Samir Abid, a Canadian of Iraqi origin who is an employee of the Tatweer program, said in a telephone interview. “They passed it to us and asked for our comments because we were mentoring them.”
He added: “It was an exercise in deciding how best to do these contracts. I don’t know if they used our comments or not.”
In a statement, the agency said its advisers had reviewed the oil company contracts, known as technical support agreements: “At the request of the Ministry of Oil, the Tatweer Energy Team has done a review of the format, structure and clarity of language of blank draft contracts.”
The statement said the team did not have access to confidential information from the oil companies.
Consultants said the advice was necessary because the Oil Ministry, like other sectors of the Iraqi government, has experienced an exodus of qualified employees and lacks lawyers schooled in drawing up contracts.
A supervisor with the Tatweer program, who was not authorized to speak publicly and declined to be quoted by name, said that ministry officials, many of them near retirement, needed help.
The American government lawyers provided specific advice, the State Department official said, like: “These are the clauses you may want. You will need a clause on arbitration. You will need this clause to make this work.”
30 June 2008
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say.
The disclosure, coming on the eve of the contracts’ announcement, is the first confirmation of direct involvement by the Bush administration in deals to open Iraq’s oil to commercial development and is likely to stoke criticism.
In their role as advisers to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, American government lawyers and private-sector consultants provided template contracts and detailed suggestions on drafting the contracts, advisers and a senior State Department official said.
It is unclear how much influence their work had on the ministry’s decisions.
The advisers — who, along with the diplomatic official, spoke on condition of anonymity — say that their involvement was only to help an understaffed Iraqi ministry with technical and legal details of the contracts and that they in no way helped choose which companies got the deals.
Repeated calls to the Oil Ministry’s press office for comment were not returned.
At a time of spiraling oil prices, the no-bid contracts, in a country with some of the world’s largest untapped fields and potential for vast profits, are a rare prize to the industry. The contracts are expected to be awarded Monday to Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Total and Chevron, as well as to several smaller oil companies.
The deals have been criticized by opponents of the Iraq war, who accuse the Bush administration of working behind the scenes to ensure Western access to Iraqi oil fields even as most other oil-exporting countries have been sharply limiting the roles of international oil companies in development.
For its part, the administration has repeatedly denied steering the Iraqis toward decisions. “Iraq is a sovereign country, and it can make decisions based on how it feels that it wants to move forward in its development of its oil resources,” said Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman.
Though enriched by high prices, the companies are starved for new oil fields. The United States government, too, has eagerly encouraged investment anywhere in the world that could provide new oil to alleviate the exceptionally tight global supply, which is a cause of high prices.
Iraq is particularly attractive in that light, because in addition to its vast reserves, it has the potential to bring new sources of oil onto the market relatively cheaply.
As sabotage on oil export pipelines has declined with improved security, this potential is closer to being realized. American military officials say the pipelines now have excess capacity, waiting for output to increase at the fields.
But any perception of American meddling in Iraq’s oil policies threatens to inflame opinion against the United States, particularly in Arab nations that are skeptical of American intentions in Iraq, which has the third-largest oil reserves in the world.
“We pretend it is not a centerpiece of our motivation, yet we keep confirming that it is,” Frederick D. Barton, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in a telephone interview. “And we undermine our own veracity by citing issues like sovereignty, when we have our hands right in the middle of it.”
United States officials are directly advising Iraq on a host of issues, from electricity to education. But they have avoided the limelight when questions turn to how Iraq should manage its oil endowment, insisting that a decision must rest with the Iraqi government.
The State Department advisers on the Western contracts say they purposely avoid trying to shape Iraqi policy.
“They have not negotiated with the international oil companies since the 1970s,” said the senior State Department official, who was speaking about Iraqi oil officials and who is directly involved in shaping United States energy policy in Iraq.
The advice on the drafting of the contracts was not binding, he said, and sometimes the ministry chose to ignore it. “The ministry did not have to take our advice,” he said, adding that the Iraqis had also turned to the Norwegian government for counsel. “It has been their sole decision.”
The advisers say they were not involved in advancing the oil companies’ interests, but rather treated the Oil Ministry as a client, the State Department official said. “I do not see this as a conflict of interest,” he said. A potential area of criticism, however, is that only Western companies got the bigger oil contracts. In particular, Russian companies that have experience in Iraq and had sought development contracts are still waiting.
Earlier in the occupation of Iraq, American advisers supported the Oil Ministry’s effort to dismiss claims by the Russian company Lukoil to a large Saddam Hussein-era deal. The ministry maintains that the Hussein government canceled the contract three months before the invasion. Lukoil says the attempt to cancel the deal was illegal because Mr. Hussein had not appealed to international arbitration first, as required in the contract terms.
The new oil contracts have also become a significant political issue in the United States.
Three Democratic senators, led by Charles E. Schumer of New York, sent a letter to the State Department last week asking that the deals be delayed until after the Iraqi Parliament passes a hydrocarbons law outlining the distribution of oil revenues and regulatory matters. They contend the contracts could deepen political tensions in Iraq and endanger American soldiers.
Criticism like that has prompted objections by the Bush administration and the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who say the deals are purely commercial matters. Ms. Rice, speaking on Fox News this month, said: “The United States government has stayed out of the matter of awarding the Iraq oil contracts. It’s a private sector matter.”
Advisers from the State, Commerce, Energy and Interior Departments are assigned to work with the Iraqi Oil Ministry, according to the senior diplomat. In addition, the United States Agency for International Development has a contract for Management Systems International, a Washington consulting firm, to advise the oil and other ministries. The agency’s program is called Tatweer, the Arabic word for development.
“The legal department of the Ministry of Oil passed us a draft of the contract,” Samir Abid, a Canadian of Iraqi origin who is an employee of the Tatweer program, said in a telephone interview. “They passed it to us and asked for our comments because we were mentoring them.”
He added: “It was an exercise in deciding how best to do these contracts. I don’t know if they used our comments or not.”
In a statement, the agency said its advisers had reviewed the oil company contracts, known as technical support agreements: “At the request of the Ministry of Oil, the Tatweer Energy Team has done a review of the format, structure and clarity of language of blank draft contracts.”
The statement said the team did not have access to confidential information from the oil companies.
Consultants said the advice was necessary because the Oil Ministry, like other sectors of the Iraqi government, has experienced an exodus of qualified employees and lacks lawyers schooled in drawing up contracts.
A supervisor with the Tatweer program, who was not authorized to speak publicly and declined to be quoted by name, said that ministry officials, many of them near retirement, needed help.
The American government lawyers provided specific advice, the State Department official said, like: “These are the clauses you may want. You will need a clause on arbitration. You will need this clause to make this work.”
Sudan talks to Chinese firms for help in Darfur oil exploration,
Sudan Tribune
9 July 2008
State-linked Chinese oil services companies are in talks to help Sudan exploit its crude reserves in its troubled Darfur region with the Sudanese army providing security, a company official confirmed Tuesday.
"Preparations are ongoing to launch a small campaign of 1,000 kilometers of seismic" works at Block 12A in Northern Darfur, Sudan’s country manager at Ansan Wikfs, a partner of Sudan-owned Sudapet, Denis Rey told the Dow Jones.
Based in Cayman Islands, Ansan Wikfs Investments Limited was formed in 1991. The company has operations in Yemen and Sudan. Ansan is an independent oil and mineral resources holding company engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development and operation of petroleum and mineral properties.
The area to prospect is half the size of the Philippines. This would be the first exploration move deep into the region since conflict erupted in 2003.
Seismic work sends vibrations to the ground in order to locate oil and gas reserves. Commercial crude production starts several years after any promising finds.
In an e-mail to Dow Jones Newswires, Ansan Wikfs’ Rey said the partners in Block 12A had considered using BGP, the geophysical services unit of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. CNPC, which controls New-York-listed PetroChina Co. Ltd. (PTR).
PetroChina has already come under fire from U.S. campaigners for its parent company’s investments in Sudan.
However, timing issues meant the partners are also in talks with Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, owned by China’s state-run Sinopec (SNP), Asia’s largest oil refining and petrochemical enterprise, which is "ready to import (vibratory equipment) to Sudan for this contract," Rey added.
Sudan is one of Africa’s largest oil producers with output of 500,000 barrels a day. More than 200,000 barrels a day are imported by China, making Sudan its fourth-largest provider of crude.
Given "the vulnerable condition of civilians in Darfur as the conflict there continues," the beginning of seismic work on the block would warrant "serious scrutiny and concern," said Nina McMurry, an advocacy analyst at the Washington-based Sudan Divestment Task Force.
The Task Force, part of the Genocide Intervention Network, is campaigning for investors to sell shares in companies deemed complicit in what some say is genocide in Darfur.
Ansan Wikfs’ Rey said a memorandum of understanding was signed in the first quarter of this year between the Darfur block operators and South Africa’s PetroSA, which holds neighboring acreage, to swap seismic contracts and support and to share information.
Sudapet, Ansan and Saudi Arabia’s Al-Qahtani Group are the joint-operators of Block 12A, Rey said.
Smaller shareholders include Hi-Tech Petroleum Group, a venture partly-owned by Ali Al-Bashir, brother of Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir; and Libyan-controlled All Africa Investment Corp. The other shareholders as well as ZPEB and PetroSA didn’t return requests for comment. All Africa Investment couldn’t be reached for comment.
Rey added the Darfur block partners had an option to use CNPC’s geophysical unit as it is already doing seismic work in the South African-controlled block.
Other people involved in the Darfur block confirmed BGP had looked into working in Block 12A and had asked for an assessment of security conditions there.
"As to my knowledge, I don’t think BGP has a MOU with Sudapet on the seismic survey in Block 12A," Han Shaoguo, senior vice-president of BGP International, said.
ARMY TO PROTECT EXPLORATION AREA
Sudan’s government demands "that the Sudanese army be deployed and in control of the area to be prospected before operations start," Rey said in an e-mail response to questions.
A border station called Karab Al Tom, located between Block 12A and PetroSA’s acreage, "is now under (Khartoum’s) military control," he added. "We are awaiting progress reports about the situation more in the south of Block 12A before awarding contracts and make (sic) progress on this campaign."
Seismic surveys will only begin once the army has "provided security passages in the area," an unnamed person with knowledge of the oil exploration plans confirmed.
Sudan’s Oil Minister Zubair Ahmed al-Hassan told Dow Jones Newswires in April that members of the consortium "are not operating up until now because (they) are afraid... of the image in the media saying things are terrible in Darfur."
9 July 2008
State-linked Chinese oil services companies are in talks to help Sudan exploit its crude reserves in its troubled Darfur region with the Sudanese army providing security, a company official confirmed Tuesday.
"Preparations are ongoing to launch a small campaign of 1,000 kilometers of seismic" works at Block 12A in Northern Darfur, Sudan’s country manager at Ansan Wikfs, a partner of Sudan-owned Sudapet, Denis Rey told the Dow Jones.
Based in Cayman Islands, Ansan Wikfs Investments Limited was formed in 1991. The company has operations in Yemen and Sudan. Ansan is an independent oil and mineral resources holding company engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development and operation of petroleum and mineral properties.
The area to prospect is half the size of the Philippines. This would be the first exploration move deep into the region since conflict erupted in 2003.
Seismic work sends vibrations to the ground in order to locate oil and gas reserves. Commercial crude production starts several years after any promising finds.
In an e-mail to Dow Jones Newswires, Ansan Wikfs’ Rey said the partners in Block 12A had considered using BGP, the geophysical services unit of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. CNPC, which controls New-York-listed PetroChina Co. Ltd. (PTR).
PetroChina has already come under fire from U.S. campaigners for its parent company’s investments in Sudan.
However, timing issues meant the partners are also in talks with Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, owned by China’s state-run Sinopec (SNP), Asia’s largest oil refining and petrochemical enterprise, which is "ready to import (vibratory equipment) to Sudan for this contract," Rey added.
Sudan is one of Africa’s largest oil producers with output of 500,000 barrels a day. More than 200,000 barrels a day are imported by China, making Sudan its fourth-largest provider of crude.
Given "the vulnerable condition of civilians in Darfur as the conflict there continues," the beginning of seismic work on the block would warrant "serious scrutiny and concern," said Nina McMurry, an advocacy analyst at the Washington-based Sudan Divestment Task Force.
The Task Force, part of the Genocide Intervention Network, is campaigning for investors to sell shares in companies deemed complicit in what some say is genocide in Darfur.
Ansan Wikfs’ Rey said a memorandum of understanding was signed in the first quarter of this year between the Darfur block operators and South Africa’s PetroSA, which holds neighboring acreage, to swap seismic contracts and support and to share information.
Sudapet, Ansan and Saudi Arabia’s Al-Qahtani Group are the joint-operators of Block 12A, Rey said.
Smaller shareholders include Hi-Tech Petroleum Group, a venture partly-owned by Ali Al-Bashir, brother of Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir; and Libyan-controlled All Africa Investment Corp. The other shareholders as well as ZPEB and PetroSA didn’t return requests for comment. All Africa Investment couldn’t be reached for comment.
Rey added the Darfur block partners had an option to use CNPC’s geophysical unit as it is already doing seismic work in the South African-controlled block.
Other people involved in the Darfur block confirmed BGP had looked into working in Block 12A and had asked for an assessment of security conditions there.
"As to my knowledge, I don’t think BGP has a MOU with Sudapet on the seismic survey in Block 12A," Han Shaoguo, senior vice-president of BGP International, said.
ARMY TO PROTECT EXPLORATION AREA
Sudan’s government demands "that the Sudanese army be deployed and in control of the area to be prospected before operations start," Rey said in an e-mail response to questions.
A border station called Karab Al Tom, located between Block 12A and PetroSA’s acreage, "is now under (Khartoum’s) military control," he added. "We are awaiting progress reports about the situation more in the south of Block 12A before awarding contracts and make (sic) progress on this campaign."
Seismic surveys will only begin once the army has "provided security passages in the area," an unnamed person with knowledge of the oil exploration plans confirmed.
Sudan’s Oil Minister Zubair Ahmed al-Hassan told Dow Jones Newswires in April that members of the consortium "are not operating up until now because (they) are afraid... of the image in the media saying things are terrible in Darfur."
SLM Chief to Visit US for Talks.
Sudan Tribune
9 July 2008
The leader of a Darfur rebel group announced that he will be making his first visit to the United States this week.
Mr. al-Nur has frustrated international efforts for holding peace talks to resolve the 5-year conflict in Darfur claiming he wants security on the ground first.
Some countries including Sudan, have pressed the French government to expel Al-Nur for his boycotting Darfur peace negotiations.
Last month the US special envoy to Sudan Richard Williamson, speaking at the US Institute of Peace, criticized the SLM leader for refusing to engage in peace negotiations.
9 July 2008
The leader of a Darfur rebel group announced that he will be making his first visit to the United States this week.
Mr. al-Nur has frustrated international efforts for holding peace talks to resolve the 5-year conflict in Darfur claiming he wants security on the ground first.
Some countries including Sudan, have pressed the French government to expel Al-Nur for his boycotting Darfur peace negotiations.
Last month the US special envoy to Sudan Richard Williamson, speaking at the US Institute of Peace, criticized the SLM leader for refusing to engage in peace negotiations.
CRISIS IN KASHMIR, STATE GOVERNOR RESIGNS.
MISNA
7 July 2008
The chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir has resigned. Ghulam Nabi Azad, elected in 2005, was facing heavy criticism over the decision to grant 40 hectares of land to a Hindu group to build lodging facilities for pilgrims. The majority Muslim population has protested for days for the government to revoke the grant, and at least five people were killed in the clashes with police; the government finally revoked the grant, provoking angry reactions from some Hindus leading to more clashes and dozens of wounded.
In a speech to the local government, Ghulam Nabi Azad said he did not regret anything and accused radical elements of the Muslim and Hindu populations of turning religion into politics putting public safety at risk. The governor of Jammu & Kashmir, Narinder Nath Vohra has accepted Azad’s resignation asking him to remain in office until a new executive head can be chosen. Azad and his Congress Party had already lost its majority in parliament after the defection of its most important ally, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), left the coalition on June 28 in view of the aforementioned protests. Jammu and Kashmir is the only Muslim majority state in the Indian Federation and it has endured a separatist guerrilla war since 1989 that has left thousands of victims.
7 July 2008
The chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir has resigned. Ghulam Nabi Azad, elected in 2005, was facing heavy criticism over the decision to grant 40 hectares of land to a Hindu group to build lodging facilities for pilgrims. The majority Muslim population has protested for days for the government to revoke the grant, and at least five people were killed in the clashes with police; the government finally revoked the grant, provoking angry reactions from some Hindus leading to more clashes and dozens of wounded.
In a speech to the local government, Ghulam Nabi Azad said he did not regret anything and accused radical elements of the Muslim and Hindu populations of turning religion into politics putting public safety at risk. The governor of Jammu & Kashmir, Narinder Nath Vohra has accepted Azad’s resignation asking him to remain in office until a new executive head can be chosen. Azad and his Congress Party had already lost its majority in parliament after the defection of its most important ally, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), left the coalition on June 28 in view of the aforementioned protests. Jammu and Kashmir is the only Muslim majority state in the Indian Federation and it has endured a separatist guerrilla war since 1989 that has left thousands of victims.
ATTACK ON GOVERNMENT TROOPS, PREMIER CALLS FOR WITHDRAWAL OF ETHIOPIAN FORCES.
MISNA
8 July 2008
At least 11 Somali soldiers were killed in a violent attack overnight against a government post in Baidoa, a town in southern Somalia temporary seat of the transitional parliament. According to the local press, groups of armed insurgents attacked an official military post with mortar fire. The attack was followed by an intense gunbattle, in which at least another twenty people were wounded. The attack was claimed by the resistance forces to the government and allied Ethiopian troops.
The issue of the urgent withdrawal of Ethiopian troops was addressed by Somalia’s Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, at the conclusion of an official visit that in the past days brought him to Ethiopia. The Premier, who pushed for dialogue with the armed and unarmed opposition forces, called on the United Nations to promptly deploy UN peacekeepers, to allow the withdrawal of Ethiopia’s forces that now represent among the main obstacles to a political accord between the many Somali sides.
8 July 2008
At least 11 Somali soldiers were killed in a violent attack overnight against a government post in Baidoa, a town in southern Somalia temporary seat of the transitional parliament. According to the local press, groups of armed insurgents attacked an official military post with mortar fire. The attack was followed by an intense gunbattle, in which at least another twenty people were wounded. The attack was claimed by the resistance forces to the government and allied Ethiopian troops.
The issue of the urgent withdrawal of Ethiopian troops was addressed by Somalia’s Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, at the conclusion of an official visit that in the past days brought him to Ethiopia. The Premier, who pushed for dialogue with the armed and unarmed opposition forces, called on the United Nations to promptly deploy UN peacekeepers, to allow the withdrawal of Ethiopia’s forces that now represent among the main obstacles to a political accord between the many Somali sides.
ETHIOPIAN SOLDIERS CROSS BORDER.
MISNA
8 July 2008
Armed clashes between Ethiopian troops and Sudanese police units in Sudan, a few kilometers from the Ethiopian border, have left 19 dead said a Sudanese army spokesman. He said that the parties involved in the episode shall conduct a joint investigation. Osman Al-Agbash said that the fighting took place on Monday at a border police base in the mountain region of Jabal Hantoub; the spokesman said that the raid is not connected to the current tensions with Ethiopia, a country with which Khartoum has actually had good relations in recent years. The “Sudan Tribune” suggested that, recently, Khartoum refused to hand over the governor of the Ethiopian city of Asosa, Ahmed Khalifa who fled for as yet unknown reasons, to Addis Abeba. International agencies, in fact, have stressed that in the past few weeks several Ethiopian officials have fled to Sudan and for whom Khartoum has denied requests for extraditions to Addis Ababa.
8 July 2008
Armed clashes between Ethiopian troops and Sudanese police units in Sudan, a few kilometers from the Ethiopian border, have left 19 dead said a Sudanese army spokesman. He said that the parties involved in the episode shall conduct a joint investigation. Osman Al-Agbash said that the fighting took place on Monday at a border police base in the mountain region of Jabal Hantoub; the spokesman said that the raid is not connected to the current tensions with Ethiopia, a country with which Khartoum has actually had good relations in recent years. The “Sudan Tribune” suggested that, recently, Khartoum refused to hand over the governor of the Ethiopian city of Asosa, Ahmed Khalifa who fled for as yet unknown reasons, to Addis Abeba. International agencies, in fact, have stressed that in the past few weeks several Ethiopian officials have fled to Sudan and for whom Khartoum has denied requests for extraditions to Addis Ababa.
U.K. Asks Anglo American to Pull Out of Zimbabwe, Times Reports.
Bloomberg News
8 July 2008
By Ron Derby
The U.K. government urged Anglo American Plc to stop trading in Zimbabwe in order to bring increased pressure to bear on President Robert Mugabe, the Johannesburg- based Times reported, citing U.K. Trade Minister Gareth Thomas as a source.
The U.K. wants Anglo to rethink whether its investment in Zimbabwe is appropriate, after other companies decided to withdraw from the southern African nation, the newspaper cited Thomas as saying.
Anglo American last month announced plans to invest $400 million in its platinum mine at Unki in Zimbabwe, the newspaper said.
8 July 2008
By Ron Derby
The U.K. government urged Anglo American Plc to stop trading in Zimbabwe in order to bring increased pressure to bear on President Robert Mugabe, the Johannesburg- based Times reported, citing U.K. Trade Minister Gareth Thomas as a source.
The U.K. wants Anglo to rethink whether its investment in Zimbabwe is appropriate, after other companies decided to withdraw from the southern African nation, the newspaper cited Thomas as saying.
Anglo American last month announced plans to invest $400 million in its platinum mine at Unki in Zimbabwe, the newspaper said.
Canadian firm to survey Lake Kivu for oil.
African News Agency
8 July 2008
A Canadian oil exploration company Vangold Resources Ltd on Tuesday announced that it has signed a service agreement with a South African company to carry out an aerial survey of Lake Kivu for possible oil deposits.
The announcement comes after an announcement on April 18 by Vangold that with more than 57 oil slicks, the results of its preliminary study of satellite imagery of Lake Kivu indicated high chances of oil deposits.
"After our preliminary survey into Lake Kivu, with promising results of a possible presence of oil, we are now moving into the second phases of aerial survey," says Vangold chief executive officer Dal Brynelsen in a statement issued in Vancouver.
He said the airborne survey, to be carried out by New Resolution Geophysics of South Africa, will be completed by October.
The survey, estimated to cost $275,000, will be flown over Vangold's 1,631 sq km oil and gas concession which covers the complete sedimentary basin of the Kivu Graben.
The Kivu Graben is located south of the Albertine Graben in Uganda on Lake Albert where Tullow and Heritage Oil companies have made a major oil and gas discovery of over 500,000 barrels.
Both grabens occupy the northern part of the western branch of the East African rift valley system.
8 July 2008
A Canadian oil exploration company Vangold Resources Ltd on Tuesday announced that it has signed a service agreement with a South African company to carry out an aerial survey of Lake Kivu for possible oil deposits.
The announcement comes after an announcement on April 18 by Vangold that with more than 57 oil slicks, the results of its preliminary study of satellite imagery of Lake Kivu indicated high chances of oil deposits.
"After our preliminary survey into Lake Kivu, with promising results of a possible presence of oil, we are now moving into the second phases of aerial survey," says Vangold chief executive officer Dal Brynelsen in a statement issued in Vancouver.
He said the airborne survey, to be carried out by New Resolution Geophysics of South Africa, will be completed by October.
The survey, estimated to cost $275,000, will be flown over Vangold's 1,631 sq km oil and gas concession which covers the complete sedimentary basin of the Kivu Graben.
The Kivu Graben is located south of the Albertine Graben in Uganda on Lake Albert where Tullow and Heritage Oil companies have made a major oil and gas discovery of over 500,000 barrels.
Both grabens occupy the northern part of the western branch of the East African rift valley system.
Ethiopia Send Soldiers to UN Mission in Liberia.
African Press Agency
8 July 2008
Ethiopia on Monday sent over 200 peacekeeping forces to work under the United Nations mission in Liberia (UNMIL).
The Ethiopian defence ministry said that it was the eighth time the country has sent troops to Liberia in the past five years.
Over 4,000 Ethiopian troops have served in Liberia under the UNMIL.
8 July 2008
Ethiopia on Monday sent over 200 peacekeeping forces to work under the United Nations mission in Liberia (UNMIL).
The Ethiopian defence ministry said that it was the eighth time the country has sent troops to Liberia in the past five years.
Over 4,000 Ethiopian troops have served in Liberia under the UNMIL.
08 July, 2008
Former US Official Fingers Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso for Liberian War.
African Press Agency
8 July 2008
The former United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Herman Cohen, testifying before the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) sitting in Minnesota, United States, has blamed the president of Burkina Faso Blaise Compaore and the late president of Cote d’Ivoire Houphouet Boigny for the war in Liberia, according to a TRC press statement issued in Monrovia on Tuesday.
"There would not have been war in Liberia, if these two outside powers had not sponsored it," the statement quotes Cohen saying.
Cohen, who was charged with the responsibility by Washington to mediate in the Liberian civil war, said President Compaore and the late President Boigny were fully responsible for sponsoring the carnage in Liberia because they wanted a regime change in the country.
Speaking on the "Role of the United States in the Liberian Civil Conflict," Mr. Cohen said; "some of the greatest tragedies in Africa have come about because of the kind of surrogate war that was supported in Liberia by presidents Boigny and Compaore".
8 July 2008
The former United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Herman Cohen, testifying before the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) sitting in Minnesota, United States, has blamed the president of Burkina Faso Blaise Compaore and the late president of Cote d’Ivoire Houphouet Boigny for the war in Liberia, according to a TRC press statement issued in Monrovia on Tuesday.
"There would not have been war in Liberia, if these two outside powers had not sponsored it," the statement quotes Cohen saying.
Cohen, who was charged with the responsibility by Washington to mediate in the Liberian civil war, said President Compaore and the late President Boigny were fully responsible for sponsoring the carnage in Liberia because they wanted a regime change in the country.
Speaking on the "Role of the United States in the Liberian Civil Conflict," Mr. Cohen said; "some of the greatest tragedies in Africa have come about because of the kind of surrogate war that was supported in Liberia by presidents Boigny and Compaore".
Sudan says Ethiopia attacked military base.
Reuters
9 July 2008
By Opheera McDoom
Sudan's army said Ethiopian troops attacked a military camp in northern Sudan on Tuesday, killing about 19 people.
A senior Ethiopian official played down the allegation, saying any "minor incident" on the border could be easily resolved.
Sudan's military spokesman said the attack took place early on Monday in the Jabel Hantub area of Sennar state.
"They hit a camp belonging to the central reserve police and they killed about 19 people," the Sudanese army spokesman said. He did not know how many people were injured.
The central reserve police are a heavily armed military unit and are often deployed along border areas or to defend the capital Khartoum.
"This was an attack and we don't know the reason -- we have no problem with Ethiopia and there are no border disputes or tribal clashes in that area," the army spokesman said.
Bereket Simon, special adviser to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, told Reuters in Addis Ababa the problem was that the long frontier was not properly demarcated.
"Sometimes locals from both sides trespass and minor incidents do happen," he said, denying troops were involved.
"If there was a minor incident involving local inhabitants ... Ethiopia is confident both governments will solve the problem in accordance with the prevailing peaceful norms we maintain."
Sudan signed a north-south peace deal in 2005 which ended Africa's longest civil war and also improved relations with its east African neighbours.
One Sudanese security source and another government official said the attack may have been because Sudan had given refuge a to local Ethiopian officials few weeks earlier and had refused to hand them over to Addis Ababa.
It was not clear why the officials sought refuge in Sudan. Ethiopia is fighting rebels from the Oromo region which borders Sudan and who want greater autonomy for their areas.
The Sudan army spokesman said a joint Ethiopian-Sudanese committee had been formed to investigate the attack.
(Additional reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)
9 July 2008
By Opheera McDoom
Sudan's army said Ethiopian troops attacked a military camp in northern Sudan on Tuesday, killing about 19 people.
A senior Ethiopian official played down the allegation, saying any "minor incident" on the border could be easily resolved.
Sudan's military spokesman said the attack took place early on Monday in the Jabel Hantub area of Sennar state.
"They hit a camp belonging to the central reserve police and they killed about 19 people," the Sudanese army spokesman said. He did not know how many people were injured.
The central reserve police are a heavily armed military unit and are often deployed along border areas or to defend the capital Khartoum.
"This was an attack and we don't know the reason -- we have no problem with Ethiopia and there are no border disputes or tribal clashes in that area," the army spokesman said.
Bereket Simon, special adviser to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, told Reuters in Addis Ababa the problem was that the long frontier was not properly demarcated.
"Sometimes locals from both sides trespass and minor incidents do happen," he said, denying troops were involved.
"If there was a minor incident involving local inhabitants ... Ethiopia is confident both governments will solve the problem in accordance with the prevailing peaceful norms we maintain."
Sudan signed a north-south peace deal in 2005 which ended Africa's longest civil war and also improved relations with its east African neighbours.
One Sudanese security source and another government official said the attack may have been because Sudan had given refuge a to local Ethiopian officials few weeks earlier and had refused to hand them over to Addis Ababa.
It was not clear why the officials sought refuge in Sudan. Ethiopia is fighting rebels from the Oromo region which borders Sudan and who want greater autonomy for their areas.
The Sudan army spokesman said a joint Ethiopian-Sudanese committee had been formed to investigate the attack.
(Additional reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)
DRC opens honorable consulate in Russia.
Xinhua News Agency
8 July 2008
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday opened its honorable consulate in the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.
The consulate is the DRC's first diplomatic mission in Russia, the report said.
"We want to establish fraternal relations with your region and borrow your experience to give dynamics to the development of our country," said Leonard She Okitundu, former foreign minister of the DRC.
Sverdlovsk's governor Eduard Rossel gave his support for proposals for cooperation in metallurgy, personnel training and tourism.
He expressed his belief that the DRC and the Sverdlovsk region have great potential in developing mutually beneficial relations.
8 July 2008
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday opened its honorable consulate in the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.
The consulate is the DRC's first diplomatic mission in Russia, the report said.
"We want to establish fraternal relations with your region and borrow your experience to give dynamics to the development of our country," said Leonard She Okitundu, former foreign minister of the DRC.
Sverdlovsk's governor Eduard Rossel gave his support for proposals for cooperation in metallurgy, personnel training and tourism.
He expressed his belief that the DRC and the Sverdlovsk region have great potential in developing mutually beneficial relations.
Tension grows along Sudan-Ethiopia border.
Sudan Tribune
8 July 2008
Editor's Note: Another front opening up in the war against Khartoum?
A row has erupted between the Khartoum and Addis Ababa following the defection of an Ethiopian official to Sudan.
The governor of Asosa town in Western Ethiopia Ahmed Khalifa fled to the capital city of Damazin in the Blue Nile state for unknown reasons, according to the daily Al-Hayat published in London.
The newspaper said that Khalifa was accused by the Ethiopian authorities of offering concessions to Sudan on border issues. Sudan has turned down a request by its Eastern neighbor to hand over Khalifa.
The report quoting unidentified Sudanese officials said that Ethiopian forces have been chasing Bani Shangol armed opposition members inside Sudan near the towns of Kurmuk and Gaissan.
Atem Garang, a senior southern official and deputy national parliament speaker, denied any involvement by the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS).
Some observers speaking to Al-Hayat expressed fears that Addis Ababa could retaliate to what it perceives as support to its dissident by arming Darfur rebels.
The Sudanese army today issued a statement accusing Ethiopian forces of attacking Hantoub Mountains and killing one policeman.
The Sudanese army spokesperson Osman Al-Agbash said the attack "represents another cycle of international conspiracy on our natural resources and economic gains".
Al-Agbash said Ethiopia violated an agreement that allows Sudanese troops to be stationed in the area. He further said a joint committee with Ethiopia will commence to discuss the incident.
8 July 2008
Editor's Note: Another front opening up in the war against Khartoum?
A row has erupted between the Khartoum and Addis Ababa following the defection of an Ethiopian official to Sudan.
The governor of Asosa town in Western Ethiopia Ahmed Khalifa fled to the capital city of Damazin in the Blue Nile state for unknown reasons, according to the daily Al-Hayat published in London.
The newspaper said that Khalifa was accused by the Ethiopian authorities of offering concessions to Sudan on border issues. Sudan has turned down a request by its Eastern neighbor to hand over Khalifa.
The report quoting unidentified Sudanese officials said that Ethiopian forces have been chasing Bani Shangol armed opposition members inside Sudan near the towns of Kurmuk and Gaissan.
Atem Garang, a senior southern official and deputy national parliament speaker, denied any involvement by the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS).
Some observers speaking to Al-Hayat expressed fears that Addis Ababa could retaliate to what it perceives as support to its dissident by arming Darfur rebels.
The Sudanese army today issued a statement accusing Ethiopian forces of attacking Hantoub Mountains and killing one policeman.
The Sudanese army spokesperson Osman Al-Agbash said the attack "represents another cycle of international conspiracy on our natural resources and economic gains".
Al-Agbash said Ethiopia violated an agreement that allows Sudanese troops to be stationed in the area. He further said a joint committee with Ethiopia will commence to discuss the incident.
Lockheed Subsidary PA&E Will Not Have Darfur Contract Renewed by the UN.
Sudan Tribune
8 July 2008
Editor's Note: For further information on the contract and PA&E, please see the Corpwatch article, "Darfur Diplomacy: Enter the Contactors," by Pratap Chatterjee from 24 October, 2004.
The contract for a US firm building infrastructure for peacekeeping forces in Darfur will be terminated mid-July, a UN official confirmed.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (right) swears-in Susana Malcorra, new Under-Secretary-General of the Department of Field Support in New York May 6, 2008(UN) The new head for the UN Department of Field Support Susana Malcorra told Inner City Press website that the contract will be “broken up into smaller pieces for a broader range of vendors including from Sudan”.
The controversial no-bid contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin’s PA&E subsidiary by the UN Secretariat drawing fire from UN members.
The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon defended the contract at the time saying that under the time constraint to build bases for peacekeepers in Darfur.
“You don’t have many vendors who are readily available to provide such service at a limited time. And that is why, in accordance with the necessary rules and regulations bestowed upon me as the Secretary-General, I have taken an exceptional decision. I am allowed to do that” he said last January.
Sudan told a visiting UN Security Council (UNSC) delegation last month that it will not allow PA&E to operate in Darfur in retaliation to the long standing sanctions imposed by Washington.
The US special envoy Richard Williamson told reporters that he has raised the issue with Sudanese officials saying Washington wants to see the “job done”.
“PA&E has experience; they were a company used by the US when we built 30 African Union camps…it would be prudent if they are allowed to continue to perform their service…There would be a substantial lag of you try and bring someone new” he said.
But the UN peacekeeping official ruled out any possible extension.
8 July 2008
Editor's Note: For further information on the contract and PA&E, please see the Corpwatch article, "Darfur Diplomacy: Enter the Contactors," by Pratap Chatterjee from 24 October, 2004.
The contract for a US firm building infrastructure for peacekeeping forces in Darfur will be terminated mid-July, a UN official confirmed.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (right) swears-in Susana Malcorra, new Under-Secretary-General of the Department of Field Support in New York May 6, 2008(UN) The new head for the UN Department of Field Support Susana Malcorra told Inner City Press website that the contract will be “broken up into smaller pieces for a broader range of vendors including from Sudan”.
The controversial no-bid contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin’s PA&E subsidiary by the UN Secretariat drawing fire from UN members.
The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon defended the contract at the time saying that under the time constraint to build bases for peacekeepers in Darfur.
“You don’t have many vendors who are readily available to provide such service at a limited time. And that is why, in accordance with the necessary rules and regulations bestowed upon me as the Secretary-General, I have taken an exceptional decision. I am allowed to do that” he said last January.
Sudan told a visiting UN Security Council (UNSC) delegation last month that it will not allow PA&E to operate in Darfur in retaliation to the long standing sanctions imposed by Washington.
The US special envoy Richard Williamson told reporters that he has raised the issue with Sudanese officials saying Washington wants to see the “job done”.
“PA&E has experience; they were a company used by the US when we built 30 African Union camps…it would be prudent if they are allowed to continue to perform their service…There would be a substantial lag of you try and bring someone new” he said.
But the UN peacekeeping official ruled out any possible extension.
There has been blood...
Malta Today
6 July 2008
By MATTHEW VELLA
Controversial and notorious – nothing could be closer to the truth for the man whom the Maltese government has licensed to conduct oil exploration in the islands’ south-eastern shelf, close to the disputed median line with Libya.
That man is British oil tycoon Tony Buckingham, chief executive of the Canadian company Heritage Oil. Last December, Heritage was given two offshore areas spread over 18,000 square kilometres in a 30-year deal.
But Buckingham is not the average chief executive who slogged his way up through boardroom battles.
The truth can be found right inside Heritage Oil’s 300-page prospectus, which explicitly points out how “Mr Buckingham… has had no involvement with any military or security operators since the spring of 1998”.
This, then, is how Tony Buckingham’s mercenary past in Africa and beyond, his befriending of dictators and oil barons, took him to the London listing of the €940 million Heritage Oil, with its assets in Russia, Oman, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Pakistan, Kurdistan, and now even in Malta.
Friends in dark places
Only two weeks ago, mercenary Simon Mann went on trial in Equatorial Guinea. Mann, a former Scots Guard, is imprisoned in Equatorial Guinea, and faces trial for leading the failed coup to depose oil dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has ruled the country since 1979.
He was arrested in 2004 disembarking from a plane with 60 other mercenaries in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe.
Today, Heritage Oil’s prospectus makes it clear that Buckingham “has had no substantive business contact with Simon Mann since 1998 and no contact of any nature with him since 2000. He had no knowledge of Mr Mann’s activity Guinea.”
And the reason for such a dubious disclaimer is Mann’s and Buckingham’s past in the mercenary outfit Executive Outcomes, which they used to recover oil installations belonging to Heritage Oil from UNITA rebels in Angola.
For Tony Buckingham, the fact that his old friend is on trial for the foiled coup has brought yet more digging inside his business connections in the Caribbean tax havens.
Mann is the director of the company Logo Limited, the company he used for purchasing arms and paying mercenaries. The Equatorial Guinea legal action is connecting Logo to Hansard Trust Company Ltd and Hansard Management – companies which hold one share in each of four companies within Heritage Oil’s corporate structure. What is known is that both Logo and Hansard have the same business address in St Peter Port.
There is yet, no evidence links Buckingham with Mann, although it’s the latest in a series of connections between the two.
War mercenary
Born in 1951, Heritage’s prospectus says that in 1989, Anthony Leslie Buckingham, a former British SAS officer, became an adviser to the government of Angola and assisted the Angolan Oil Ministry in establishing Sonangol as an oil and gas exploration and production company. He founded Heritage Oil in 1992, and together with Sonangol held operations there.
In 1993, when the Angolan holding was overrun by communist UNITA rebels, Buckingham, together with Lt-Col Eeben Barlow – a former Apartheid-era member of the South African Defence Force – and former Scots Guard Simon Mann became business partners in Executive Outcomes, a private military company formed by Barlow in 1989.
Executive Outcomes’ senior personnel were composed primarily of former members of the South African Defence Force and later fought against UNITA to retake their operations.
But Executive Operations is also infamous for its involvement with another British mercenary company, Sandline International, that broke a UN arms embargo in Sierra Leone, allegedly with British government approval. Sandline’s CEO was the retired Lt-Col Tim Spicer OBE.
In 1995, the government of Sierra Leone engaged Executive Outcomes to train the Sierra Leone army and support it in defeating RUF rebels. Sandline International was formed in late 1996 with Buckingham as one of the principals.
In 1997, when a military coup ousted president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of Sierra Leone, millionaire Indian financier Rakesh Saxena contracted Sandline to organise a counter-coup in exchange for diamond exploration permits. The Heritage prospectus says Sandline had the tacit approval of the British government as well as support from a Royal Navy frigate. Saxena is implicated in the fraud and collapse of the Bangkok Bank of Commerce in 1996 and is today trying avoid extradition to Thailand from Canada to face embezzlement charges.
According to the British Parliament’s Report of the Sierra Leone Arms Investigation, Saxena would raise the money so that Sandline could hire soldiers and buy equipment.
Sandline was also engaged by the government of Papua New Guinea to suppress the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA), which was seeking independence from the PNG.
At the Papua New Guinea Commission of Enquiry into Sandline’s contract with the PNG government, the enquiry concluded that the ‘controllers’ of Sandline were obviously Buckingham and at least to some extent Spicer. It said Executive Outcomes was a ‘significant’ sub-contractor of Sandline and ‘supplied a significant number of the personnel’ brought to PNG by Sandline.
Sandline International became dormant and the company was dissolved in 2004, while Executive Outcomes was dissolved in 1999.
Besides Sandline and Executive Outcomes, Tony Buckingham is also the principal shareholder in Indigo Sky Gem, a mining company which bought the exclusive prospecting rights for diamonds on the Neu Schwaben farm from the Namibian government. It is accused of using ‘strong-arm’ tactics to evict some 1,000 small-time miners who had been digging for the gems for years.
Such is the risk, then, documented inside Heritage’s prospectus: “Adverse media… about the CEO’s past associations could materially adversely affect the group’s reputation and the market price of the ordinary shares.”
And even though the prospectus neatly transcribes Buckingham’s mercenary past into struggles aimed at restoring internationally recognised governments and combating rebels, or that Heritage’s efforts are firmly focused in oil and gas exploration, the perfect tonic to Buckingham’s reputation is JP Morgan Cazenove’s research note: “Heritage ought to be seen as a high-risk, high-impact play… with a tolerance for share-price volatility.”
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
6 July 2008
By MATTHEW VELLA
Controversial and notorious – nothing could be closer to the truth for the man whom the Maltese government has licensed to conduct oil exploration in the islands’ south-eastern shelf, close to the disputed median line with Libya.
That man is British oil tycoon Tony Buckingham, chief executive of the Canadian company Heritage Oil. Last December, Heritage was given two offshore areas spread over 18,000 square kilometres in a 30-year deal.
But Buckingham is not the average chief executive who slogged his way up through boardroom battles.
The truth can be found right inside Heritage Oil’s 300-page prospectus, which explicitly points out how “Mr Buckingham… has had no involvement with any military or security operators since the spring of 1998”.
This, then, is how Tony Buckingham’s mercenary past in Africa and beyond, his befriending of dictators and oil barons, took him to the London listing of the €940 million Heritage Oil, with its assets in Russia, Oman, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Pakistan, Kurdistan, and now even in Malta.
Friends in dark places
Only two weeks ago, mercenary Simon Mann went on trial in Equatorial Guinea. Mann, a former Scots Guard, is imprisoned in Equatorial Guinea, and faces trial for leading the failed coup to depose oil dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has ruled the country since 1979.
He was arrested in 2004 disembarking from a plane with 60 other mercenaries in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe.
Today, Heritage Oil’s prospectus makes it clear that Buckingham “has had no substantive business contact with Simon Mann since 1998 and no contact of any nature with him since 2000. He had no knowledge of Mr Mann’s activity Guinea.”
And the reason for such a dubious disclaimer is Mann’s and Buckingham’s past in the mercenary outfit Executive Outcomes, which they used to recover oil installations belonging to Heritage Oil from UNITA rebels in Angola.
For Tony Buckingham, the fact that his old friend is on trial for the foiled coup has brought yet more digging inside his business connections in the Caribbean tax havens.
Mann is the director of the company Logo Limited, the company he used for purchasing arms and paying mercenaries. The Equatorial Guinea legal action is connecting Logo to Hansard Trust Company Ltd and Hansard Management – companies which hold one share in each of four companies within Heritage Oil’s corporate structure. What is known is that both Logo and Hansard have the same business address in St Peter Port.
There is yet, no evidence links Buckingham with Mann, although it’s the latest in a series of connections between the two.
War mercenary
Born in 1951, Heritage’s prospectus says that in 1989, Anthony Leslie Buckingham, a former British SAS officer, became an adviser to the government of Angola and assisted the Angolan Oil Ministry in establishing Sonangol as an oil and gas exploration and production company. He founded Heritage Oil in 1992, and together with Sonangol held operations there.
In 1993, when the Angolan holding was overrun by communist UNITA rebels, Buckingham, together with Lt-Col Eeben Barlow – a former Apartheid-era member of the South African Defence Force – and former Scots Guard Simon Mann became business partners in Executive Outcomes, a private military company formed by Barlow in 1989.
Executive Outcomes’ senior personnel were composed primarily of former members of the South African Defence Force and later fought against UNITA to retake their operations.
But Executive Operations is also infamous for its involvement with another British mercenary company, Sandline International, that broke a UN arms embargo in Sierra Leone, allegedly with British government approval. Sandline’s CEO was the retired Lt-Col Tim Spicer OBE.
In 1995, the government of Sierra Leone engaged Executive Outcomes to train the Sierra Leone army and support it in defeating RUF rebels. Sandline International was formed in late 1996 with Buckingham as one of the principals.
In 1997, when a military coup ousted president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of Sierra Leone, millionaire Indian financier Rakesh Saxena contracted Sandline to organise a counter-coup in exchange for diamond exploration permits. The Heritage prospectus says Sandline had the tacit approval of the British government as well as support from a Royal Navy frigate. Saxena is implicated in the fraud and collapse of the Bangkok Bank of Commerce in 1996 and is today trying avoid extradition to Thailand from Canada to face embezzlement charges.
According to the British Parliament’s Report of the Sierra Leone Arms Investigation, Saxena would raise the money so that Sandline could hire soldiers and buy equipment.
Sandline was also engaged by the government of Papua New Guinea to suppress the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA), which was seeking independence from the PNG.
At the Papua New Guinea Commission of Enquiry into Sandline’s contract with the PNG government, the enquiry concluded that the ‘controllers’ of Sandline were obviously Buckingham and at least to some extent Spicer. It said Executive Outcomes was a ‘significant’ sub-contractor of Sandline and ‘supplied a significant number of the personnel’ brought to PNG by Sandline.
Sandline International became dormant and the company was dissolved in 2004, while Executive Outcomes was dissolved in 1999.
Besides Sandline and Executive Outcomes, Tony Buckingham is also the principal shareholder in Indigo Sky Gem, a mining company which bought the exclusive prospecting rights for diamonds on the Neu Schwaben farm from the Namibian government. It is accused of using ‘strong-arm’ tactics to evict some 1,000 small-time miners who had been digging for the gems for years.
Such is the risk, then, documented inside Heritage’s prospectus: “Adverse media… about the CEO’s past associations could materially adversely affect the group’s reputation and the market price of the ordinary shares.”
And even though the prospectus neatly transcribes Buckingham’s mercenary past into struggles aimed at restoring internationally recognised governments and combating rebels, or that Heritage’s efforts are firmly focused in oil and gas exploration, the perfect tonic to Buckingham’s reputation is JP Morgan Cazenove’s research note: “Heritage ought to be seen as a high-risk, high-impact play… with a tolerance for share-price volatility.”
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
Ethiopia: New Media Law, New Threat to Press Freedom.
Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)
8 July 2008
By Najum Mushtaq
A new media law - six years in the making - has been passed by Ethiopia's House of People's Representatives. Its preamble declares that "the proclamation removes all obstacles that were impediments to the operation of the media in Ethiopia."
But an analysis by Ethiopian journalists finds it actually clears the way for government to continue to harass and persecute the messenger when the message is not in line with the whims of the rulers.
The 'Mass Media and Freedom of Information Proclamation', which purports to update and reform the first ever Ethiopian press law of 1992, has been a source of controversy ever since its initiation in 2002.
In countless meetings with the ministry of information -- which regulates Ethiopian media -- local and international activists have been lobbying in vain for revisions in the draft to make it compatible with international norms and conventions on press freedom. The version adopted by parliament last week seems certain to further restrict freedom of expression and intimidate journalists.
"We have come to understand... that the proclamation is incompatible with the (Ethiopian) constitution and other international human rights laws, conventions and agreements. It is a reversal and desecration of victories achieved by the repealed press law (of 2004)," says a resolution adopted Wednesday at the end of a UN-sponsored workshop of media practitioners in Addis Ababa organised by the Horn of Africa Press Institute (HAPI).
The workshop reviewed the new legislation and called for "a reassessment of all the provisions of the law" as it imposes "substantive restrictions with heavy burden and obligations" on journalists.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the new law is that the government has appropriated the right to prosecute defamation cases against the media even if the ostensibly defamed government officials do not initiate legal proceedings. Article 43 (7) of the proclamation says that defamation and false accusation against "constitutionally mandated legislators, executives and judiciaries will be a matter of the government and prosecutable even if the person against whom they were committed chooses not to press charge."
This provision overrides the 2004 criminal law which had stated that cases of defamation would go to court only when the victims make complaints. Also, the compensation for moral damage caused by mass media has been raised from 1,000 birr to a crippling 100,000 birr -- just over $10,000.
Journalists attending the workshop also pointed out that many restrictive measures had already been incorporated into other laws during the six-year debate on the media bill. For instance, the Criminal Code of the country which came into force in 2005 includes penal provisions for "participation in crimes by the mass media."
In another example, the role and duties of the Ministry of Information were redefined in 2007 to give the government arbitrary powers to use registration and licensing procedures as a punishment for dissent. It also empowers the government to stop distribution of a newspaper if the attorney general deems a news item to be a criminal act.
And in a country where most of the established newspapers as well as radio and television channels are government-owned, the new law undermines the growth of the independent private sector by placing its fate in the hands of the information ministry.
"We understand that the regulatory authority itself is involved in the media and news making and has no institutional freedom," the workshop resolution observed.
Banned journalists
The new law fits into a pattern of official persecution of journalists seen over the last three years. Soon after controversial 2005 elections, three newspapers and magazines belonging to the country's largest private publisher, Serkalem Publishing House, were closed down as part of a widespread crackdown on media that dared to criticise the handling of the poll. Serkalem Fasil and her family were imprisoned for over a year.
Ten other independent publications were also forced to shut down, leaving hundreds of journalists unemployed.
Already this year, the government has forced two more magazines out of circulation using laws against disturbance to public order. One of them, Enku, a fashion magazine, was not only confiscated but its deputy editor, Aleymayehu Mahtemwork and three colleagues spent four days in jail for covering the trial of a popular pop star whose songs angered the government. Though he was released, the case against him remains pending and his magazine is yet to be revived.
Fasil recalls the recent history of media persecution by the state and observes and explains the apathy of the international community: "Much to the utter amazement of the of the Ethiopian public, the international community shrugged and moved on, perhaps writing off the democratic cause in Ethiopia as superfluous in light of the perceived danger posed by Islamic extremists in the Horn. Every single one of those papers is still closed, and almost all journalists that worked for them are either in exile or remain unemployed to this day."
She told IPS that a few months after her acquittal she applied for new press licenses as prescribed by the press law and the constitution. "And though we were assured by the Ministry of Information that we had fulfilled all legal requirements and are entitled to the licenses by law, we were advised to pursue the issue at the prime minister's office, which had extra-judicially interceded to block the applications. Ten months later, we are still patiently waiting for the application of rule of law."
"The provisions of better laws are desirable," she says, "but they will hardly matter if they are not binding and could be abrogated at will by government officials, as has been clearly established in our case."
Signs are that the government intends to widen the scope of its assault on people's rights. The current session of parliament is also taking up a bill to regulate non-governmental and civil society organisations. The banned journalists, it seems, will soon have more allies to share their adversity and join their struggle.
8 July 2008
By Najum Mushtaq
A new media law - six years in the making - has been passed by Ethiopia's House of People's Representatives. Its preamble declares that "the proclamation removes all obstacles that were impediments to the operation of the media in Ethiopia."
But an analysis by Ethiopian journalists finds it actually clears the way for government to continue to harass and persecute the messenger when the message is not in line with the whims of the rulers.
The 'Mass Media and Freedom of Information Proclamation', which purports to update and reform the first ever Ethiopian press law of 1992, has been a source of controversy ever since its initiation in 2002.
In countless meetings with the ministry of information -- which regulates Ethiopian media -- local and international activists have been lobbying in vain for revisions in the draft to make it compatible with international norms and conventions on press freedom. The version adopted by parliament last week seems certain to further restrict freedom of expression and intimidate journalists.
"We have come to understand... that the proclamation is incompatible with the (Ethiopian) constitution and other international human rights laws, conventions and agreements. It is a reversal and desecration of victories achieved by the repealed press law (of 2004)," says a resolution adopted Wednesday at the end of a UN-sponsored workshop of media practitioners in Addis Ababa organised by the Horn of Africa Press Institute (HAPI).
The workshop reviewed the new legislation and called for "a reassessment of all the provisions of the law" as it imposes "substantive restrictions with heavy burden and obligations" on journalists.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the new law is that the government has appropriated the right to prosecute defamation cases against the media even if the ostensibly defamed government officials do not initiate legal proceedings. Article 43 (7) of the proclamation says that defamation and false accusation against "constitutionally mandated legislators, executives and judiciaries will be a matter of the government and prosecutable even if the person against whom they were committed chooses not to press charge."
This provision overrides the 2004 criminal law which had stated that cases of defamation would go to court only when the victims make complaints. Also, the compensation for moral damage caused by mass media has been raised from 1,000 birr to a crippling 100,000 birr -- just over $10,000.
Journalists attending the workshop also pointed out that many restrictive measures had already been incorporated into other laws during the six-year debate on the media bill. For instance, the Criminal Code of the country which came into force in 2005 includes penal provisions for "participation in crimes by the mass media."
In another example, the role and duties of the Ministry of Information were redefined in 2007 to give the government arbitrary powers to use registration and licensing procedures as a punishment for dissent. It also empowers the government to stop distribution of a newspaper if the attorney general deems a news item to be a criminal act.
And in a country where most of the established newspapers as well as radio and television channels are government-owned, the new law undermines the growth of the independent private sector by placing its fate in the hands of the information ministry.
"We understand that the regulatory authority itself is involved in the media and news making and has no institutional freedom," the workshop resolution observed.
Banned journalists
The new law fits into a pattern of official persecution of journalists seen over the last three years. Soon after controversial 2005 elections, three newspapers and magazines belonging to the country's largest private publisher, Serkalem Publishing House, were closed down as part of a widespread crackdown on media that dared to criticise the handling of the poll. Serkalem Fasil and her family were imprisoned for over a year.
Ten other independent publications were also forced to shut down, leaving hundreds of journalists unemployed.
Already this year, the government has forced two more magazines out of circulation using laws against disturbance to public order. One of them, Enku, a fashion magazine, was not only confiscated but its deputy editor, Aleymayehu Mahtemwork and three colleagues spent four days in jail for covering the trial of a popular pop star whose songs angered the government. Though he was released, the case against him remains pending and his magazine is yet to be revived.
Fasil recalls the recent history of media persecution by the state and observes and explains the apathy of the international community: "Much to the utter amazement of the of the Ethiopian public, the international community shrugged and moved on, perhaps writing off the democratic cause in Ethiopia as superfluous in light of the perceived danger posed by Islamic extremists in the Horn. Every single one of those papers is still closed, and almost all journalists that worked for them are either in exile or remain unemployed to this day."
She told IPS that a few months after her acquittal she applied for new press licenses as prescribed by the press law and the constitution. "And though we were assured by the Ministry of Information that we had fulfilled all legal requirements and are entitled to the licenses by law, we were advised to pursue the issue at the prime minister's office, which had extra-judicially interceded to block the applications. Ten months later, we are still patiently waiting for the application of rule of law."
"The provisions of better laws are desirable," she says, "but they will hardly matter if they are not binding and could be abrogated at will by government officials, as has been clearly established in our case."
Signs are that the government intends to widen the scope of its assault on people's rights. The current session of parliament is also taking up a bill to regulate non-governmental and civil society organisations. The banned journalists, it seems, will soon have more allies to share their adversity and join their struggle.
More Oil Blocks Face Revocation.
This Day (Lagos)
By Stanley Nkwazema
8 July 2008
More oil blocks may be revoked following moves being made by the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee investigating the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), its subsidiaries and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).
THIS DAY was also informed last night that the committee will urge President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua not to sign the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) agreements with the companies which won oil blocks during the controversial 2005 and 2007 bid rounds.
THIS DAY investigations revealed that despite the fact that the committee is yet to commence public hearing on the agencies, it has gone far in its preliminary investigation and has discovered that in spite of the anomalies believed to be inherent in the bid rounds between 2005 and 2007, the Federal Ministry of Finance is allegedly asking the president to sign the PSCs.
THISDAY had reported yesterday that the Federal Government had reversed the award of Oil Prospecting Leases (OPLs) 226, 2005 and 2006 to two Indian oil companies, Essar Exploration and Production Limited and Sterling Global Resources Limited, during the 2007 round, but many more may now follow.
This is because some of the blocks awarded between 2005 and 2007 were based on the fact that the preferred bidders all agreed to invest in the downstream sector.
Some promised to invest in refineries, railways, power, roads and the Nigerian leg of the Trans Saharan Gas Pipeline.
But the lawmakers have discovered that none has done anything since they got the offers. This principle of "backward integration" was used to preferentially allot blocks in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
The 2006 bids were for only those who promised to provide the infrastructure. ONGC Mittal Group promised to build a 180bpd refinery, construct the East/West railway, and build 2000mw power generating plant. The investment was supposed to commence immediately after the award.
It was also discovered that out of the lot, only Korean National Oil Corporation (KNOC), which won OPLs 321 and 327 and were allegedly granted a discount on the signature bonus by former President Olusegun Oba-sanjo, commenced consultancy service for their downstream commitment in respect of the Trans Saharan Gas Pipeline which is the bedrock of the success or failure of the gas policy.
This development is coming just as the special committee of the House has confirmed that it would commence the public hearing of the investigation next week with the DPR.
The committee is, however, said to not be impressed with the DPR for not coming up with the documents so far demanded so that they would commence the hearing.
THISDAY was told that the committee had two months ago written to the DPR to certify all the documents in court and make available all the papers relating to the bid rounds conducted between 1999 and 2007.
The agency was given up till June 21 to submit all the required documents, but it did not meet up and only submitted what one committee member described as "snippets" on Wednesday July 2.
The committee had earlier requested for the guidelines, names of the companies that participated in the round, reason for non pre-qualification and the list of those that won, how much was paid and to which accounts the payments were made - all on a bid-by-bid basis.
The House has however threatened to invoke its constitutional powers to ensure that DPR make it available before the opening day of the first leg of the hearing which has been scheduled for Monday July 14, 2008.
It was also gathered yesterday that the Director of DPR, Mr Tony Chukwueke, who has been suspended, has been directed to report at the National Assembly when the public hearing starts.
Chukwueke is at the centre of the investigation and could provide the necessary leads needed by the House in its report on DPR's activities within the period he served.
By Stanley Nkwazema
8 July 2008
More oil blocks may be revoked following moves being made by the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee investigating the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), its subsidiaries and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).
THIS DAY was also informed last night that the committee will urge President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua not to sign the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) agreements with the companies which won oil blocks during the controversial 2005 and 2007 bid rounds.
THIS DAY investigations revealed that despite the fact that the committee is yet to commence public hearing on the agencies, it has gone far in its preliminary investigation and has discovered that in spite of the anomalies believed to be inherent in the bid rounds between 2005 and 2007, the Federal Ministry of Finance is allegedly asking the president to sign the PSCs.
THISDAY had reported yesterday that the Federal Government had reversed the award of Oil Prospecting Leases (OPLs) 226, 2005 and 2006 to two Indian oil companies, Essar Exploration and Production Limited and Sterling Global Resources Limited, during the 2007 round, but many more may now follow.
This is because some of the blocks awarded between 2005 and 2007 were based on the fact that the preferred bidders all agreed to invest in the downstream sector.
Some promised to invest in refineries, railways, power, roads and the Nigerian leg of the Trans Saharan Gas Pipeline.
But the lawmakers have discovered that none has done anything since they got the offers. This principle of "backward integration" was used to preferentially allot blocks in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
The 2006 bids were for only those who promised to provide the infrastructure. ONGC Mittal Group promised to build a 180bpd refinery, construct the East/West railway, and build 2000mw power generating plant. The investment was supposed to commence immediately after the award.
It was also discovered that out of the lot, only Korean National Oil Corporation (KNOC), which won OPLs 321 and 327 and were allegedly granted a discount on the signature bonus by former President Olusegun Oba-sanjo, commenced consultancy service for their downstream commitment in respect of the Trans Saharan Gas Pipeline which is the bedrock of the success or failure of the gas policy.
This development is coming just as the special committee of the House has confirmed that it would commence the public hearing of the investigation next week with the DPR.
The committee is, however, said to not be impressed with the DPR for not coming up with the documents so far demanded so that they would commence the hearing.
THISDAY was told that the committee had two months ago written to the DPR to certify all the documents in court and make available all the papers relating to the bid rounds conducted between 1999 and 2007.
The agency was given up till June 21 to submit all the required documents, but it did not meet up and only submitted what one committee member described as "snippets" on Wednesday July 2.
The committee had earlier requested for the guidelines, names of the companies that participated in the round, reason for non pre-qualification and the list of those that won, how much was paid and to which accounts the payments were made - all on a bid-by-bid basis.
The House has however threatened to invoke its constitutional powers to ensure that DPR make it available before the opening day of the first leg of the hearing which has been scheduled for Monday July 14, 2008.
It was also gathered yesterday that the Director of DPR, Mr Tony Chukwueke, who has been suspended, has been directed to report at the National Assembly when the public hearing starts.
Chukwueke is at the centre of the investigation and could provide the necessary leads needed by the House in its report on DPR's activities within the period he served.
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