Burundi: En bref ce 16 MARS 2006 ...

Ethiopians leave Burundi as part of UN pullout
Reuters / Thursday, March 16, 2006 /
BUJUMBURA (Reuters) - Ethiopian soldiers became the latest batch of United Nations peacekeepers to begin leaving the tiny central African nation on Thursday in a sign of its emergence from a civil war that killed 300,000 people.
Some 658 Ethiopians were flying home as part of a U.N. plan to nearly halve its troop levels by April, said Momar Diagne, a military spokesperson for the U.N. operation in Burundi (ONUB).
About 450 Kenyan and Mozambican peacekeepers have pulled out since December, leaving some 4,500 U.N. troops.
Burundi's government has urged the U.N. to shift its focus from peacekeeping to more urgent needs like education and health in a nation shattered by more than a decade of war.
Most Burundians believe they are on a path to peace after ex-rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza was elected president last year under a peace deal ending a conflict pitting rebels from a Hutu majority against a Tutsi ruling elite.
But analysts say Burundi will not enjoy lasting peace until Hutu rebels from the only remaining rebel group, the Forces for National Liberation (FNL), lay down their arms.
FNL leader Agathon Rwasa declared this week the group's readiness for peace talks with the government. But Burundi's government said the FNL must first demonstrate its seriousness by giving up weapons and ending the killing of civilians.

216 Casques bleus éthiopiens vont quitter le Burundi
Bujumbura, Burundi (PANA) - 16/03/2006 Quelque 216 Casques bleus éthiopiens devaient retourner au bercail jeudi en début d'après-midi dans le cadre du désengagement progressif des contingents militaires de l'Opération des Nations unies au Burundi (ONUB), a-t-on appris de source sécuritaire à Bujumbura.

La représentante de l'ONU au Burundi prépare ses valises
Bujumbura, Burundi (PANA) -15/03/2006 La représentante spéciale du Secrétaire général des Nations unies au Burundi, Mme Carolyn McAskie, a entamé mardi une série de visites de courtoisie et de remerciement aux chefs d'Etat et personnalités de quelques pays de la sous-région des Grands Lacs à l'approche de son départ définitif du Burundi, annonce un communiqué de presse de l'organisation onusienne parvenu mercredi à la PANA.

UGANDA

Ugandan army says LRA rebel boss enters CongoBy Daniel Wallis

KAMPALA, March 16 (Reuters) - Uganda's army said on Thursday the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels had left a south Sudanese hideout and joined his deputy in the jungles of neighbouring Congo.

Uganda's military spokesman Major Felix Kulayigye said intelligence reports that LRA leader Joseph Kony, wanted internationally for war crimes, had entered the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday partly prompted an extra deployment of troops along the Congolese border.

"We have stepped up security and we are on high alert, although Kony and his men are weakened," he said. "We don't want to take chances. We have to ensure our people are safe."

On Tuesday, the military said it was increasing border surveillance because of fresh fears that other anti-Ugandan rebels in Congo might slip into the country and launch attacks.

Uganda has long accused Congo of being a safe haven for rebels seeking to destabilise it and has twice joined Rwanda to invade the huge country with the stated aim of flushing out rebel bases in its eastern forests.

Both Kony, a self-proclaimed mystic, and LRA deputy commander Vincent Otti are wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

But they have remained elusive throughout their 20-year rebellion, mostly hiding out in their bases in lawless southern Sudan.

Last year, Otti led a heavily-armed group of LRA fighters into northeastern Congo's Garamba National Park from Sudan. A failed U.N. mission to catch him there in January claimed the lives of eight Guatemalan commandos.

Staging raids into northern Uganda, LRA fighters have massacred civilians, cut off the lips of survivors and abducted at least 25,000 children to serve as fighters and "wives".

The U.N. estimates that some 1.6 million people have been uprooted by the war.

The U.N. and Congolese government have turned down many offers by Uganda's military to pursue the LRA over the border.

Uganda's army said it was giving intelligence to Kinshasa.

"Since we are not allowed to cross over and hunt them down, we have alerted DRC authorities to find them and annihilate them wherever they may be hiding," Kulayigye said.

Uganda: MTN to Build 70 Houses
March 15, 2006, / By Andnetwork .com /Source: Monitor

MTN Uganda, a telecommunication company, has signed an agreement with Habitat for Humanity to construct 70 houses for the low-income earners.

Habitat for Humanity is a non-governmental organisation. "Basically the main aim of the partnership is to build low cost decent housing which is a flag ship of corporate social responsibility that we take to the community," Mr Noel Meier, the MTN boss said on March 13 after the signing ceremony in Kampala.

Meier said over 70 families would benefit from the three-year agreement worth Shs229,446,000.

He said MTN Uganda would like to focus on building more sustainable projects with the communities to ensure longevity and self-sustainability.

Mr. Scott Metze, the Country Director for Habitat for Humanity, said they have different houses depending on the materials. The houses range from Shs10,000 to Shs50,000 rent per month.

MTN Uganda in partnership with Habitat for Humanity has since 1999 constructed 250 houses worth $366,000 (about Shs666,486,000).

Current account deficit up in Tanzania
March 16, 2006 / Source: Xinhua

Tanzania's current account deficit has risen to 89 million U.S. dollars in January this year, up from 74 million dollars in the preceding month.

The February review issued by the Bank of Tanzania and available on Thursday attributed the deficit increase to poor agricultural exports.

"The (current account) deterioration was largely due to low performance of traditional exports, particularly cashew, tea and cotton," the central bank report said.

The report said that earnings from traditional exports had dropped to 42.4 million dollars in January from 61.6 million dollars in December last year.

The bank also held decline in service receipts and in official current transfers responsible.

Non-traditional exports rose by 10 percent to 111.6 million dollars in January compared with December, boosted by increased sales of manufactured goods and minerals, especially gold.

Mbeki and Kabila to meet in Congo
March 16, 2006 -Sapa

President Thabo Mbeki will meet his Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) counterpart, Joseph Kabila, in the capital of Kinshasa today for a tete-a-tete, Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said.

He said Mbeki, whose trip to the DRC was to attend a bi-national commission between the two countries, was accompanied by several ministers.

South Africa's role in the bi-national commission should be understood in the context of the country's "commitment to help consolidate peace efforts" in the DRC, Mamoepa said.

Mbeki's delegation included cabinet ministers Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Mosiuoa Lekota, Jeff Radebe, Charles Nqakula, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, Naledi Pandor, Lindiwe Hendrickse and deputy ministers Rob Davies and Ntopile Kganyago.

The bi-national commission started yesterday and would end today, with Mbeki's return to South Africa also scheduled for the same day.
Yesterday, Mbeki received a courtesy call from a senior official from the Independent Electoral Commission of the DRC.

Pansy Tlakula, the chief electoral officer of the IEC in South Africa, and Mbeki's legal advisor Mojanku Gumbi were on the trip. -

UN sees no major obstacles to DR Congo general elections

www.chinaview.cn 2006-03-16

KINSHASA, March 15 (Xinhuanet) -- The general elections scheduled for June 18 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) face no major obstacles, UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno said here on Wednesday.

He called on the DRC people to seize the historic opportunity in carrying out the first democratic polls in the Central African country in 45 years

Guehenno, who wrapped up his ten-day visit to the DRC on Wednesday evening, said democratic elections are conducive to producing a responsible government and curbing corruption and violence plaguing the country.

He expressed the hope that the elections would be held in an atmosphere of calm and tolerance.

The official added that destructive activities by militias and foreign armed groups in the east of the country have dropped considerably as compared with two years ago.

He went to say that it is necessary to reform the DRC's armed and police forces under the the current security situation.

Meanwhile, he urged the DRC government to take measures to build an army force that is well-trained, professionalized, well-treated and knows how to respect human rights.

A 1998-2003 civil war in the DRC left nearly 4 million people dead. Various militias are still fighting in the mineral-rich east. The country now hosts nearly 17,000 UN peacekeepers, the largest dispatch by the world body.

Poland offers soldiers for the coming DRC elections
March 16, 2006, Source : Sapa
Poland has pledged to contribute soldiers to a European Union force that could be deployed in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during the African state's historic elections in June.
The new EU member would send "at least 32 military gendarmes. The prime minister and president have already agreed conditionally to the mission," Defence Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said.
Poland received a request from EU foreign policy Chief Javier Solana to contribute troops to the EU mission that may be deployed during presidential and parliamentary elections in June to back up the UN peacekeeping mission, known as MONUC, in conflict-battered
DRC, Sikorski said.
The elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo will be the first democratic polls to be held in the former Zaire since those held on independence from Belgium 45 years ago.
More than 25.6 million people are eligible to vote in the elections in the country of nearly 60 million people which is slowly making a UN-supervised transition towards democracy after successive wars in the 1990s claimed about four million lives.
Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Turkey have also said they could contribute to the EU force, which was discussed by EU defense ministers at a meeting in Innsbruck, Austria early this month.

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

GOMA, 16 Mar 2006 (IRIN) - Elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are a near certainty, despite the obstacles that threaten a smooth transition to democracy. What is largely uncertain, however, is how stable the country will be in the aftermath of the polls.

Among the main concerns raised by Congolese and international observers are issues such as strengthening the integrated national army; securing the eastern part of the country from northern Katanga and the Kivus to the northeastern district of Ituri; and applying measures to prevent conflict if some losing candidates reject the election results.

Recent incidents in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu are part of efforts to destabilise the country's electoral process, said Jean-Marie Kati Kati Muhongya, a civil rights activist and political analyst in Goma, the capital of North Kivu.

"Democracy is a relatively new concept among the Congolese," he said. "One has to remember that the Congo is entering democracy without democrats."

He added that the Congolese were used to dictatorship - "from the traditional chiefs to the couuntry's coloniser to the [late president] Mobutu Sese Seko, to the warlords who engaged in civil conflict, right up to the governor's authority".

Another issue central to the DRC's stability is ethnicity, especially in the east. According to Kati Kati, everything is based on ethnic considerations - be it politics, economics or even sectors such as education and development of infrastructure. Congo's sheer dimensions - some 2.3 million sq km, roughly the size of Western Europe - amplify the difficulties. South Kivu alone is 65,000 sq km, the size of the countries of Burundi and Rwanda combined. The distance between the capital, Kinshasa, and the eastern provinces, for instance, is more than 1,000 km. This, coupled with insecurity and poor infrastructure, has prevented President Joseph Kabila's transitional government in Kinshasa from stamping its full authority in the mineral-rich east and northeast.

The DRC's transitional government was established in 2003, after five years of civil war that a Congolese observer called the "years of the rebellion". Political parties and former rebel movements signed an accord in Sun City, South Africa, in April 2003 that allowed the formation of a transitional government with a president assisted by four vice-presidents.

Years of dictatorships

Understanding the volatility of eastern DRC requires a review of the country's precolonial, colonial and postcolonial history.

Before colonialism, people lived in chiefdoms, under the rule of a traditional chief, or mwami, who had absolute authority. From 1881 until 1908, the country was the personal fiefdom of Belgian King Leopold II. The Belgian Congo, as it was then called, then became a colony of Belgium until independence on 30 June 1960. It was also during Belgium's colonisation that a group of Rwandans - now referred to as Rwandophones - settled in the Kivus, with the colonial power's approval. Conflict in the Republic of Congo emerged soon after independence, resulting in the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba - in which some Western powers were heavily implicated, according to some analysts. From the early 1960s until the 1990s, Mobutu Sese Seko ruled the country - which he named Zaire in 1971 - with Western support through a dictatorial regime. It was under Mobutu that militias, known as the Mayi-Mayi, became organised into powerful, armed groups in various parts of the country. [see separate story on the Net: From protection to insurgency - history of the Mayi-Mayi <http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=52245>]

In 1996, an uprising against Mobutu began in the east. On 17 May 1997, rebel forces of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL), led by Laurent Kabila, took the capital, Kinshasa, and changed the country's name to Democratic Republic of Congo, ending 31 years of Mobutu's rule. Between 1998 and 2003, various rebel groups fought against Kabila's government. One of these rebel movements, the Rassemblement Congolais pour la démocratie (RCD-Goma), was based in Goma, with Azarias Ruberwa as its leader. He is currently one of the vice-presidents in the transitional government. Laurent Kabila, who was assassinated in 2001 by one of his guards, was succeeded by his son Joseph, the current head of state.

In the midst of the civil conflict in DRC, there was genocide in neighbouring Rwanda in 1994, which led to an influx of Rwandan refugees into eastern Congo, specifically North and South Kivu. Rwanda, along with Uganda, had supported Kabila in his rebellion against Mobutu. In the course of Kabila's advance to Kinshasa from the east, the Rwandan government claimed that militiamen known as "Interahamwe" and soldiers of its former army, the Forces armees Rwandaise (known as the ex-FAR), were among the Rwandan refugees in Congo. These militiamen and the ex-FAR, most of whom were members of the majority Hutu ethnic group, have been largely blamed for the genocide that claimed an estimated 937,000 people - most of them minority Tutsi and politically moderate Hutus - according to the Rwandan government.

In 1996, Rwandan troops attacked camps in the Kivus where the Rwandans had sought refuge, forcing the refugees, including non-combatants, to flee into the dense tropical forest that covers much of the country. Elements of Interahamwe and ex-FAR joined forces to create the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR), thus creating a mainly Hutu rebel movement seeking to oust the government of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi.

Perpetrators of insecurity in the east

The FDLR, local militias, former rebel combatants and Ugandan rebels calling themselves Uganda's Allied Democratic Forces/National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF/NALU) have all contributed to insecurity in the east.

With the transitional government's formation of an integrated national army - comprised of former rebel fighters, militia and soldiers from the former national army - the Forces armées de la république démocratique du Congo (FARDC) became the fourth party to the insecurity. The FARDC has at times fuelled rather than quelled insecurity in the Kivus. FARDC soldiers, most of whom do not receive their salaries, have no food and lack the means to support their families. Subsequently, they have forced the local communities to support them. They have been accused of widespread human rights violations, looting, and raping and even killing civilians.

The United Nations Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, has a 17,000-strong presence in the country and, together with the integrated FARDC brigades, has helped secure parts of the east. However, these efforts have been frustrated by continued militia and rebel attacks against civilians as well as the proliferation of small arms - the result of a porous border with neighbouring countries and years without government authority.

The problem with North Kivu

Stanislas Kisangani Endanda, a political-science professor at the University of Goma, said there were really two conflicts occurring simultaneously in the Kivus: the government’s battle to flush out the FDLR and neutralise armed rebel groups, and the war between the various militia groups for control over the region's abundant minerals and other natural resources.

"North Kivu, especially, has huge social and political problems. The government's authority is not well established, and the economy is not benefiting the local people," Kisangani said. "Even as it is said that Rwandan troops have withdrawn from Congo [in December 2002], they left behind an elaborate information and political network."

Contrary to the widely held belief that tension in eastern Congo is mainly spurred by the quest to control resources, Kisangani viewed it as being in essence a war over political and ethnic dominance.

"Many [business] people here [in Goma] are Rwandophones. They have an economic network with links to the government," he said. "They continue exploiting the land and its resources; they continue to get rich and go on to buy more weapons. … It is like a mafia. In fact, it is these mafioso who are causing problems in North Kivu. This mafia has profited from the country's historical and structural problems."

Kisangani said this group of Rwandophones was frustrating the government's efforts to improve roads in the province so it could continue its economic-growth activities. "For instance, the government, in conjunction with [German] Agro Action [AAA] was in the process of rehabilitating the road to Walikale [Territory], but the mafia provoked war and AAA property was seized by attackers, forcing the road works to stop," he said. "The mafioso use planes to get to Walikale, and so they continue their exploitation. In the meantime, cheaper efforts to get goods to the people are frustrated because there is no road."

He said fighting that in early 2006, instigated by renegade Congolese soldiers in Rutshuru Territory of North Kivu, was an example of the Rwandophone group's efforts to foster continued insecurity. He claimed the group's armed wing uses renegade soldiers, such as those led by Gen Laurent Nkunda, to fuel ethnic tension and ensure continued insecurity.

"The problem we face, ahead of the elections, is this mafia," Kisangani said. "Many of them are Tutsis. If elections are held and, because of their minority figures, they don't win the seats they will contest, then we may not have peace. … The mafia could even be supporting the FDLR by giving them arms, to encourage them to continue fighting in a bid to have their illegal trade continue."

He also said the Rwandophone group had infiltrated Congo's army, meaning that some of the national troops were loyal to Nkunda and the Rwandophone group and others had remained loyal to the Kabila government.

"When Nkunda took Bukavu [in June 2004], a lot of army officials were aware of this before it happened. Some of these people have led the army since the Rwanda genocide," he said. "If we go to the polls with a weak FARDC, the polls won't be peaceful and the period after the elections won't also be peaceful."

Situation in South Kivu

In South Kivu, the main actors fuelling insecurity are the FDLR, local militias and the army - especially in areas where the army acts alone, without MONUC's logistic support.

According to MONUC, there are 15,000 FDLR in Congo - 10,000 of whom are in North Kivu and the rest in South Kivu. However, despite the majority of FDLR being in North Kivu, they are committing more atrocities in South Kivu. The reason for this, according to Alpha Sow, the head of MONUC in Bukavu, is because Goma was an RCD stronghold and since Rwanda backed RCD-Goma, the FDLR could not commit as many atrocities in the region.

Since the repatriation of all foreign groups in the DRC started four years ago, some 13,000 combatants and their dependants returned home, mostly to Rwanda, but also to Burundi and Uganda. However, security for the local communities is still difficult, said Peter van Holder, the liaison officer for Oxfam-Solidarites in Bukavu.

"In areas like Kitutu [Mwenga Territory], rebel activity is intense. I know that the population in Mwenga suffers insecurity a great deal, with FDLR being the main perpetrators of the insecurity," he said.

Moreover, insecurity for civilians in South Kivu's Kitutu, Shabunda and Mwenga areas had been blamed on the government solders. "Since they are not paid, they intimidate and harass the populations into supporting them," van Holder said. The beneficiaries of Oxfam aid - who often receive seeds to plant and animals to breed - were often afraid to work in their fields because of security concerns.

Since May-June 2004, when Gen Laurent Nkunda occupied Bukavu, the Congolese government has increased its military presence in the region. Instead of one brigade covering both North and South Kivu, the government has deployed a brigade for each province. According to Sow, the brigade deployed in South Kivu is in all the "sensitive areas".

Humanitarian impact

Civilians, who are already grappling with poverty, disease and other social ills, have borne the brunt of all the fighting between the army, on one side, and the militias and rebels on the other that has ravaged eastern Congo since 1996. Although the number of displaced people fluctuates depending on the level of security in an area, the estimated number of displaced in North and South Kivu was at least 750,000 in February 2006.

Joseph Inganji, MONUC's humanitarian affairs officer in Bukavu, said an estimated 270,000 displaced people were in South Kivu alone. However, Inganji said another 140,000 previously displaced people had returned to their homes because security had improved. While security was better in non-FDLR areas, it had deteriorated in FDLR areas, he said. Still, displaced or at home, most people in the region needed help.

Inganji said government troops that had been deployed in the province were as much a problem as the FDLR. "Both pillage, rape, tax and generally harass civilians," he said. "This leads to population movements."

In the territory of Walungu alone, some 12,000 women had been raped since 2002.

In some areas where the FDLR was active - like Mwenga, Shabunda and Kabare territories - the security situation had not improved. In the south of the province - Walungu Territory - there had been improvement because of MONUC's work.

"With MONUC's presence, all IDPs [internally displaced persons] that had been in a stadium in the area have gone back to their villages, although sporadic attacks by the FDLR continue in some areas," he said. "We now see that the 152,000 Congolese refugees in Tanzania have started returning home, some of them spontaneously [without assistance from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)]. Even those in Burundi have started returning."

Claude Mululu, liaison officer for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Bukavu, said FDLR and military operations by the government army were the two causes of population displacement in the province. A civilian militia, known as "Raia Batomboki" (Congolese Swahili for "Angry Civilians") had also caused displacement in parts of South Kivu, he said.

Humanitarian workers often lack access to vulnerable populations because of insecurity, Mululu said. He gave the example of Bunyakiri area, where local NGOs had reported in February that 11,000 to 13,000 civilians were displaced following FDLR attacks. Access to them was difficult because armed escorts were required to cross a huge stretch of forest.

Natural disasters

Drought in the Rusizi Plains has also caused displacement, Mululu said, as families have left their homes in search of food. This has been worsened by outbreaks of the mosaic disease, that affects the cassava crop. Cassava, a root tuber, is a staple food in the region. A disease affecting banana plantations has also hit the province, further threatening food security and hampering efforts by humanitarian actors to resettle the displaced.

The UN and NGOs estimated there were 576,911 displaced in North Kivu as of 6 February. The head of OCHA in Goma, Patrick Lavand'homme, said that since late December 2005, the province had seen a huge increase in displacement figures. He attributed the jump to joint military operations by MONUC and the army against the Ugandan ADF/NALU in Beni Territory.

"Up to now, the military operations in Beni have led to 41,000 IDPs, who have no access to their fields because of the operations," he said.

The other large population movement in the province began in mid-January following fighting between the army and Nkunda's renegade soldiers. This occurred mainly in Rutshuru Territory, he said, and resulted in the displacement of at least 50,000 people.

Challenges

Lavand'homme said most of the newly displaced had received humanitarian aid. However, they still needed protection from continued attacks by militias, ADF/NALU and the FDLR, as well as ongoing military operations.

"Most of those displaced fled their homes in December, during the harvest period, meaning they were unable to harvest the crops in the fields," he said. "Now we are at the planting season and they remain displaced. If FARDC does not secure the area, these people won't plant, and this poses a serious food security problem in coming months."

Humanitarian actors faced several challenges, including lack of adequate capacity to respond to the large population movement; difficult access to the vulnerable people; and lack of funding, especially for the provision of medical care. As humanitarian workers in the east struggle to overcome these challenges, the transitional government continues making efforts to establish its authority.

Politics, military efforts

President Kabila has made two visits to Bukavu since December 2005. During his last visit in February, he announced that he would transfer part of the military's high command from Kinshasa to Bukavu. This high command would take care of the east and the northeast areas of the country - from Ituri to northern Katanga.

Alpha Sow said the Kabila government had transferred the 3rd Brigade in Kitona to Bukavu to replace members of the 10th Brigade, most of which had gone for integration with other former fighters at a centre in Luberizi, Kamanyola Territory.

"The idea here is to send fresh troops - trained and with more effective support - to deal with this problem [of the FDLR and local militias]," he said.

MONUC had raised the issue of human rights violations by the army with the government in Kinshasa.

"We have received an initial response. The government has pledged to ensure that these abuses end.

"There have been cases of rape, looting and other human rights abuses, some of them committed by members of the FARDC, especially in Bunyakiri in Kalehe Territory. This has made civilians think that the FARDC targets them. As a result, 60 percent of the population displacement in this area has been attributed to the FARDC - those from the 10th Military Region," Sow said.

Regarding the civilian militia "Raia Batomboki", Sow said the group was not out to do any harm. "They just wanted to protect themselves against the FDLR," he said.

Gearing up for polls

With the government in the process of integrating the national army and rotating troops, hope for successful elections continues across the country, with politicians preparing for the first elections to be held in more than 40 years. The Independent Electoral Commission has announced that the first in a series of polls would take place by the end of June.

In North and South Kivu, politicians are already testing the waters - although campaigning is yet to begin officially. North Kivu Governor Eugene Serufuli, a member of RCD who will try to retain the governorship, said the country was "ready for the elections".

One of Serufuli's challengers, businessman Victor Ngezayo, who is head of the Mouvement des patriotes Congolais, said the government needed to secure the region and ensure a comprehensive voter registration before the elections are held. He said the government must resolve the issue of some 40,000 Congolese Tutsis who are living in camps in Rwanda and have missed the registration deadline to take part in the elections. The government's effort to repatriate these people would go a long way in fostering reconciliation in the Kivus, he said. National reconciliation, strengthening of the army and police, as well as resolving the ethnic tension in the Kivus, would improve chances of peace during and after the elections, he said.

For Serufuli, issues that need urgent attention include neutralising armed groups in the Kivus, integration and strengthening of the military and national reconciliation.

"The other problem is that of refugees and the internally displaced people," he said. "The electoral commission should make efforts to ensure that all these people register as voters."

Successful elections across the country depend on many factors, but the main one is security for all. As political science professor Kisangani said, "The biggest problem is the weakness of the army and the police - the weakness of the country's whole security system."

DRC: From protection to insurgency - history of the Mayi-Mayi[

GOMA, 16 Mar 2006 (IRIN) - Before colonialism in Africa, community life centred on ethnic customs and culture. In pre-colonial Congo, people lived under the authority of a traditional chief, in observance of these cultural norms.

According to Jean-Marie Kati Kati Muhongya, a political analyst and civil rights activist in Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province, communities continued their traditional practises even after Congo became a fiefdom of Belgian King Leopold II in the 1880s and later a Belgian colony. One of those customs was to segregate young boys in the bush for up to one month, to prepare them for manhood. Kati Kati said that during their time of seclusion, youths underwent training in many fields, including how to protect their communities from intruders.

In the 1960s, soon after independence from Belgium, politicians who were discontent with the country's leadership organised such youths into armed militia groups. From January 1964, Kati Kati said, one such leader, Pierre Mulele, who served as education minister in post-colonial Congo, organised the youths into strong militias as part of what he termed "the peasants’ revolution". A Maoist who was trained in China in guerrilla warfare, Mulele is credited with encouraging a Marxist-Leninist struggle in an effort to remove Mobutu Sese Seko, a Western-backed autocrat.

Kati Kati said Mulele drew support from the traditional chiefs, who were often medicine men, to encourage youths to join the armed struggle. The youths believed that the medicine men had made them invincible to bullets, inspiring the slogan, "Mulele Maji", meaning if you are for Mulele, all bullets directed at you would turn to water. This slogan later evolved into "Mai Mai" or "Mayi Mayi" (Congolese Swahili for "Water Water"). Hence the naming of Mayi-Mayi militia groups in various parts in today’s Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Jason Stearns, a Nairobi-based senior analyst in the International Crisis Group, told IRIN that the Mayi-Mayi have existed in eastern DRC since the so-called "Mulelist rebellion" of the 1960s. The militias reappeared in force in 1993 in North Kivu, from which they spread to the rest of the east. The Mayi-Mayi was a local defence force against the predation of Mobutu's army and the influx of soldiers of the Forces armees Rwandaise (known as the ex-FAR)and "Interahamwe" militiamen from neighbouring Rwanda in 1994.

"In that sense, they are the result of a power void, which made communities arm their youth for protection," he said. "They kept this function of community protection throughout the war, and in some cases the population was proud and satisfied for these local defence forces. Indeed, the dawa, or magic, of the Mayi-Mayi comes from the Congolese soil, and the strong patriotism within the group strikes a cord within many Congolese."

Stearns said "Tunafia nchi yetu" (Swahili language for 'We die for our country') was the rallying cry of the government-supported Mayi-Mayi when it fought against the Rwandan-backed Rassemblement Congolais pour la démocratie (RCD) rebels in the 1990s. Although many villagers became disillusioned with the Mayi-Mayi, they preferred it to the RCD and the Rwandan army - the latter being seen as foreign forces. Like any militia, the larger the Mayi-Mayi became, the more problems they had with supplies. As a result, they started preying on villages and imposed harsh taxes in markets and along trade routes.

"In this sense, the local communities preferred to be taxed by the Mayi-Mayi rather than by the RCD," he said.

When Mobutu seized power in 1965, he established a national army with recruits from all over the country. Attempts to topple him in 1976 prompted his "tribalising" the army, with most of the officers being drawn from his home territory in the northwest of the country. Kati Kati said the Mayi-Mayi controlled mining - of minerals including gold, diamonds and coltan - in the east, as well as the rampant regional arms-trafficking trade. As a result, they became quite powerful.

In the early 1990s, discontent with Mobutu's rule led to the formation of several rebel groups, most of them with bases in the east. Some of the Mayi-Mayi militia fought alongside the rebels, but most remained on the government side. These conflicts culminated in the overthrow of Mobutu in 1997 by an alliance of rebel movements led by Laurent Kabila, who seized power and renamed the country the Democratic Republic of Congo. Despite Mobutu's ouster, however, fighting in the east continued. Rivalry for control of the region's mineral resources and interethnic conflict from the late 1990s to date has resulted in attacks against civilians, killing tens of thousands of people and displacing millions of others.

The Mayi-Mayi soon became a force in itself and went beyond its initial function of community protection. Militia warlords like Gen Padiri Bulenda and Col Dunia were supported by the government in Kinshasa, and their influence soon spread outside the confines of their original communities.

"As the Mayi-Mayi often recruits along tribal lines, this became a problem," Stearns said. "When the Tembo of Gen Padiri took control of territory inhabited by the Rega community, for example, strong tensions developed. Padiri's Mayi-Mayi were guilty of widespread rape and abuse around the town of Shabunda."

Regarding the Mayi-Mayi's role in continued instability in the Great Lakes region, Stearns said the big problem was that the group's inclusion in the Congolese peace negotiations that led to the formation of a transitional government in 2003 came too late.

"Because they were a very poorly structured force - it's more realistic to speak of 20 separate groups that are loosely linked - and Kinshasa purposely didn't want them to become a cohesive force, they had poor political representation at the talks," Stearns said.

"Today it is fair to say that the Mayi-Mayi in government do not represent most of the Mayi-Mayi groups in the Kivus and Katanga province," he said. "There is no one to lobby for their interests, and they have been marginalised in the army and in Kinshasa. … Therefore - and because of their poor discipline - many have fallen out with the national army and reverted to banditry."

They have also become implicated in other regional conflicts. "Precisely because of this poor organisation, some Mayi-Mayi have become complicit in gun-running and gold smuggling, linking up with other militia like the FNL [Forces nationales de liberation] in Burundi," Stearns said, adding that there had been collaboration between the FNL and the Mayi-Mayi around Uvira (in South Kivu) and in the Ubware peninsula. Mayi-Mayi are also alleged to have participated in the August 2004 Gatumba massacre in Burundi.

With elections looming in the DRC, Stearns saw the fate of the Mayi-Mayi as relying on two factors. "There need to be two things: better community-driven demobilisation programmes that provide for jobs or schooling for Mayi-Mayi who have left the army. Secondly, the Mayi-Mayi needs to be given a fair place in the national army," he said.

Demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration efforts targeting the Mayi-Mayi in the Kivus had not even started, "and they will be urgently needed," he said. "Up to 40 percent or 50 percent of some Mayi-Mayi groups were children - what will happen to them now? How will they be integrated into society after four to seven years in the army?

"If they feel marginalized in the army," he warned, "they will revert to banditry and will become mercenaries available to the myriad of discontented politicians in the east who will lose power in elections."

Kenya, Sudan sign oil data exchange pact

Source: Xinhua / March 16, 2006

The Kenyan government has signed an oil data exchange deal with Sudan that will enable the two countries share information on oil exploration prospects, senior Kenyan official said here Wednesday.

Kenya's Energy Minister Henry Obwocha told a two-day international investors conference for southern Sudan that Kenya is among countries that now want to tap the oil resources in southern Sudan with the possible establishment of a Port in Lamu, through which oil from Sudan can be shipped to other countries.

"I am glad to note than a Memorandum of Understanding to this effect already exists between the governments of the Republic of Sudan and Kenya and what remains is to put in place modalities for its implementation," Obwocha said.

The country's refinery in the port city of Mombasa does not have the capacity to refine oil from Southern Sudan unless it is upgraded.

Obwocha who was speaking at a Southern Sudanese investment forum however said proposals have been made to build a new oil refinery in Mombasa that will enable the country build up its capacity in processing oil products.

He said the new move may also fast-track the building of an oil pipeline between Lamu and Kapoeta Port in the southern Sudan.

Under a landmark peace deal signed in Kenya last year that ended more than two decades of civil war pitting southern rebels against the Khartoum government, oil revenues are split roughly 50- 50 between the north and south.

Although the south has complained it has yet to receive its cut, the World Bank's lead economist for Sudan, Jeni Klugman, said it was projected to receive up to 1.3 billion U.S. dollars in oil money this year.

Up to 500,000 barrels of crude oil is produced every day, mainly from fields in the south with output forecast to rise by 150,000 barrels per day this year.

But the Kenyan minister said the discovery of oil in the Sudan alongside the discoveries of gas in Mozambique and Tanzania has helped to upgrade the petroleum prospect of the East African region.

"The level of interest by investors in the upstream sub-sector continues to rise. This increased level of interest is not only demonstrated by a remarkably high number of applications for exploration opportunities by oil companies, especially Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Madagascar, but also by drilling activity being undertaken," Obwocha said.

He said the increased interest in Africa's oil deposits has seen international oil firms acquiring exploration acreage throughout the continent.

He called on Kenya and Sudanese governments to put in place legal and fiscal regimes in order to attract investors into the region.

The Kenya Pipeline Corporation (KPC) announced plans to upgrade its infrastructure to deliver crude oil efficiently to neighboring countries including southern Sudan.

"The crude oil pipeline will provide an alternative source of petroleum for both Kenya and the Great Lakes region and consequently reduce dependence on imports from the Middle East. It will also increase the security of supplies of petroleum products to the region," said KPC Managing Director George Okungu.

Okungu told foreign investors that the extension of oil pipeline from the western Kenyan town of Eldoret to southern Sudan will provide the shortest route for the vast region's oil to the market and thus help in boosting the economy of the southern Sudan.

"The Kenya-southern Sudan oil pipeline will ensure security if supplies to the East and Central Africa region and provide alternative to the oil form Middle East," he said.

Analysts said if the project goes through, the extension will result in a significant reduction in the price of oil products in Uganda, Rwanda and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, all of which import refined oil products through Kenya.

The war restricted appraisal of Sudan's oil fields but experts estimate there are at least hundreds of millions of barrels of recoverable reserves in the south.

Kenya signs MOU with Sudan on Oil
March 16, 2006, / By ANDnetwork .com / -Sudan Vision Daily-
The new move may also fast-track the building of an oil pipeline between Lamu and Kapoeta Port in the Sudan . With the end of the civil war in Southern Sudan, countries across borders are now entering into bilateral agreements with Sudan to promote trade.
Kenya is among countries that now want to tap the oil resources in southern Sudan with the possible establishment of a Port in Lamu, through which oil from Sudan can be shipped to other countries. The country’s refinery in Mombasa does not have the capacity to refine oil from Southern Sudan unless it is upgraded. Obwocha who was speaking at a Southern Sudanese investment forum however says proposals have been made to build a new oil refinery in Mombasa that will enable the country build up its capacity in processing oil products .

South Sudan investment conference starts in Kenya
Thursday 16 March 2006
Mar 15, 2006 (NAIROBI) — Another southern Sudan investment conference started in Nairobi, Kenya today to explore opportunities for investment in southern Sudan.
The investment conference, organized by an organization called Bread of Life Africa, brought together over 200 business people around the world who are interested in investment in southern Sudan.
Our colleague Gibson Bullen Wande attended the opening of the conference.
According to the Sudan Radio service (SRS), the head of the European Commission’s delegation to Sudan, Ambassador Kent Degerfelt, said that southern Sudan is in need of much attention from both the international community and investors to meet the demands of the people of southern Sudan.
He said since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, some achievement has been made but more needs to be done so that the people of southern Sudan can realize the benefits of peace.
He urged investors to show their commitment in action and not in words so that the people of southern Sudan can feel that they are part of the world.
This is the second major investment conference organized by Bread of Life Africa. (SRS/ST)

Angola: Government Sets Up Development Bank, Cancels Social Fund
Angola Press Agency (Luanda) / March 15, 2006 / Luanda
Angola's Cabinet Council Wednesday in Luanda set up the Angola Development Bank (BDA) as a public financial entity, during an extraordinary session chaired by the head of State, José Eduardo dos Santos.
According to a press release, as a result of this Government's decision the Economic and Social Development Fund (FDES) was extinguished.
The patrimony and personnel of FDES is thus absorbed by BDA.
"The just created bank is a financial instrument for the execution of the Government development and investment policy and has as its purpose to support the country's social and economic development, in a diversified and sustained way, stimulating the rise in investments and productivity, through the financing of programmes, projects, works and services," reads the note.
Following the decision, says the source, the Government appointed a BDA setting up commission, tasked with creating the technical and operative conditions required for the start of activity.
The commission is made up by Paixão António Júnior (coordirnator), Teodoro da Paixão Franco Júnior, Amândio Esteves, Daniel Domingos António, Valter Rui Dias de Barros, João Boa Francisco Quipuipa and Valentina Filipe.
On the other hand, the Cabinet Council appointed the board of administrators that includes the Managing Board of the National Reserve Bank (BNA).
Thus, António Andre Lopes, Celestino Eliseu Kanda, Laura Maria Pires de Alcantara Monteiro and Manuel da Piedade dos Santos Júnior are the new members of BNA Managing Board.
The Government also tackled issues related to the regime of expansion of the National Agency of Private Investment.

AFRIQUE DU SUD :

South Africa come down to earth

March 16 2006 SAPA

In stark contrast to their wonderful performance in the final Standard Bank one-day international, South Africa struggled to 205 all out on the first day of the first Castle Lager Test match at Newlands on Thursday.

Graeme Smith won the toss and chose to bat on an overcast day. He may have regretted that decision as he watched the wickets tumble. Four wickets fell in each of the first two sessions of the day, with the final wicket 40 minutes after the tea break.

Debutant Stuart Clark had a brilliant start to his Test career, with a five-wicket haul. Brett Lee took three and Michael Kasprowicz two.

AFRIQUE / U A :

Sudan: UNHCR Probes Attack On Compound in Yei

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks / March 16, 2006 / Nairobi /

The United Nations refugee agency has launched an investigation into an attack on its compound in Yei, south Sudan in which two people, a local guard and one of the attackers, died.

Another guard was shot in the leg, and an expatriate staff member was shot in the abdomen during the attack on Wednesday, said a statement from UNHCR. The two were airlifted Juba Hospital on Thursday and are reported to be in critical condition.

"This is a shocking event, and our hearts and thoughts are with the family of the deceased and with critically ill staff members fighting for their lives," said António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

UNHCR said two people attacked the compound at 8.30 pm local time [1730 GMT], although details of the incident were still sketchy. "An investigation is ongoing to determine the identity of the attackers and the reason for the attack," Helene Caux, a spokeswoman for UNHCR in Geneva, told IRIN on Thursday.

Six other UNHCR international staff members who were in the compound during the attack were safe. One intruder was captured and detained in Yei, the agency said.

"This attack just underscores the difficulties UNHCR faces in our operations in South Sudan, where we are trying to create an environment for thousands of refugees in neighbouring countries to be able to return home and stay home," Guterres said.

UNHCR went into Yei in 2004 to prepare for the return of Sudanese refugees from the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda. The agency said there were 350,000 refugees from South Sudan in these countries. Some four million more Sudanese are displaced within their country.

A planned repatriation movement from the DRC to the Yei region due to start next week has been suspended while UNHCR reviews the situation.

African Union decision on Darfur mission fails the "Rwanda Test"
Thursday 16 March 2006 / By Eric Reeves

Mar 15, 2006 — No voice has been more honest or courageous throughout the Darfur catastrophe than that of Jan Egeland, head of UN humanitarian operations. It is only appropriate, then, that our understanding of ongoing genocidal destruction in western Sudan and eastern Chad be framed by Egeland’s assertion that this is the "test case for the world for having no more Rwandas and no more massive loss of innocent lives." It is a test that the international community has now failed---massively, conspicuously, irredeemably. Security has essentially collapsed in large areas of Darfur, and as a result humanitarian operations cannot reach hundreds of thousands of desperate civilians; ethnically targeted destruction is expanding unchecked into eastern Chad; and remaining rural populations are completely vulnerable to ongoing predations by Khartoum’s regular and militia forces. The prideful yet cowardly African Union decision to maintain its control of the current mission in Darfur for another six months ensures that conditions will deteriorate rapidly and precipitously.
The consequences of the AU decision, which effectively forecloses robust international humanitarian intervention for the foreseeable future, are also implicitly articulated by Egeland:
"As a result of [deteriorating insecurity], Egeland said, UN relief officials and relief organizations cannot reach more than 300,000 people on the Chad border in western Darfur and the central mountainous region of Jebal Marra because they are too dangerous. These unreachable areas, he said, ’will soon get massively increased mortality because there is nothing else but international assistance.’ He expected deaths to increase markedly within weeks." (Associated Press [dateline: United Nations], March 13, 2006)
Additional hundreds of thousands of civilians are inaccessible in South Darfur and North Darfur states. Egeland declared that "Darfur is returning to ’the abyss’ of early 2004 when the region was ’the killing fields of this world.’ ’We’re losing ground every day in the humanitarian operation which is the lifeline for more than 3 million people.’" In fact, aggregated UN estimates for the conflict-affected population in Darfur and eastern Chad now total approximately 4 million human beings. Tens of thousands of these people will certainly die in the coming weeks and months; the number of deaths could easily range into the hundreds of thousands over the full course of this rapidly accelerating catastrophe.
Knowing full well the consequences of leaving humanitarian personnel and vulnerable civilians without protection, the international community has nonetheless disingenuously welcomed the African Union decision to retain control of the Darfur mission---suggesting that somehow this decision represents either a triumph of tactful diplomacy or, at worst, the innocuous preservation of a status quo that couldn’t be fundamentally changed in any event.
Such dishonesty will be recorded by history as the defining moment of the Darfur genocide, inaugurating what will become the greatest cycle of human destruction. It no longer matters what happens in Abuja (Nigeria): peace has been irretrievably lost on the ground and only exhaustion through destruction will bring an end to the killing and dying.
THE AFRICAN UNION PEACE AND SECURITY COUNCIL COMMUNIQUE
The dramatically contrasting responses of the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum and humanitarian organizations in Darfur to the decision by the AU are well captured by the Africa correspondent for The Telegraph (UK):
"Sudan’s regime hailed a ’major achievement’ yesterday as it managed to delay the deployment of United Nations peacekeepers in the war-torn Darfur region for at least six months. [ ] Aid workers in Darfur fear that Sudan’s regime has won a free hand to continue a bloody campaign without any hindrance from an effective outside force." (March 13, 2006)
The dispatch continued by citing the views of Oxfam, one of the leading nongovernmental organizations operating in Darfur:
"’Further delay [in deploying UN peacekeepers] is putting the lives of millions of civilians in danger. While the debate drags on the situation in Darfur is getting worse,’ said Paul Smith-Lomas, Oxfam’s regional director. Mounting violence is making the delivery of aid increasingly difficult. This has forced the UN’s refugee agency to cut its Darfur budget by 44 per cent. ’The people of Darfur urgently require protection from daily threats of violence and harassment. They cannot wait,’ said Mr Smith-Lomas."
"But the Khartoum regime revelled in its diplomatic success. ’Sudan scored a major achievement by maintaining the AU’s role in Darfur and ensuring that a resolution to the conflict remains within the framework of the AU, said Jamal Ibrahim, the foreign ministry spokesman [in Khartoum]. He added that Sudan remained opposed to a UN peacekeeping force even after September 30 [2006]. ’It has been agreed that should there be a need for the UN to intervene, its role shall be that of a peace support mission and not a peacekeeping mission,’ said Mr Ibrahim." (The Telegraph [UK], March 13, 2006)
Lam Akol, the SPLM puppet "foreign minister" in the "Government of National Unity," enthusiastically shared the National Islamic Front line on the Addis Ababa decision:
"Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol called the AU decision a ’success’ for Sudan. ’The mandate of the AU has been extended for six months and this is what we had been calling for,’ he told Reuters." (March 10, 2006 [dateline: Addis Ababa])
Further, lest the comments of Foreign Ministry spokesman Ibrahim seem excessively confident in dismissing even the future role of the UN in Darfur, we should take careful note of an Associated Press dispatch (dateline: Khartoum), quoting Vice President Ali Osman Taha, arguably the most politically powerful figure within the National Islamic Front:
"Sudan will reject the proposed deployment of UN forces to Darfur after the African Union’s peacekeeping mandate expires in September, Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha told reporters Tuesday [March 14, 2006], according to the official Sudan Media Center. His comment conflicts with the agreement announced in Addis Ababa on Friday, when Sudan and the African Union agreed to extend the mandate of the AU peacekeepers in Darfur to September, and then allow them to be merged into a larger United Nations force."
"Referring to the UN force, Taha was quoted by the official media center as saying: ’Sudan’s stand is to reject those forces even when the period of six months has elapsed.’ He did not explain how the government reconciled that position with its acceptance of the Addis Ababa accord." (Associated Press [dateline: Khartoum], March 14, 2006)
In short, Khartoum has been sufficiently encouraged by the spineless response of the world community that it has been emboldened to announce even now that it has no intention of allowing a UN or any other international protection force into Darfur. This obduracy is made a good deal easier by the weak and ambiguous terms of the Communiqué from the recent meeting of the AU Peace and Security Council (Addis Ababa, March 10, 2006). The transition to a UN force so widely celebrated as an outcome of the meeting is in fact no more than a re-statement of a position already endorsed by the Peace and Security Council (January 12, 2006), viz. that it would accept "in principle" a transition to a UN force:
"[The AU Peace and Security Council] decides to support in principle the transition from AU Mission in Sudan to a UN Operation, within the framework of the partnership between AU and the United Nations in the promotion of peace, security and stability in Africa." (Communiqué of the 46th Meeting of the Peace and Security Council, Addis Ababa, March 10, 2006, clause [2])
There is simply nothing new here. Moreover, the Communiqué went on to indicate a large number of conditions constraining the very possibility of transition to a UN force:
"[The AU Peace and Security Council] stresses that the transition from the African Union Mission in Sudan to a UN operation in Darfur should be informed by the following:
[a] "The preparedness of the Government the Sudan to accept the deployment of a UN operation in Darfur;
[b] "That the decision on the mandate and size of any future UN peacekeeping operation in Darfur is informed by the evolving situation on the ground. In this respect, a successful outcome of the Abuja Peace Talks and a significant improvement in the security and humanitarian situation on the ground will be key factors in any decision by the UN Security Council on the nature of the peacekeeping operation in Darfur;
[c] "That the African character of the mission, including through its composition and leadership, is maintained in order, as much as possible, to secure the cooperation of all the parties, which is necessary to achieve a lasting solution to the conflict in Darfur;
[d] "That the lead role of the African Union in the overall Darfur peace process is maintained, including the conduct of the Abuja Peace Talks and the Darfur-Darfur dialogue and consultation provided for by the Declaration of Principles signed in Abuja on 5 July 2005, as well as in the implementation of existing and future agreements between the parties;
[e] "That, during and after the transition, consultations are maintained between the AU and UN, including between the Peace and Security Council and the UN Security Council, as well as between the Chairperson of the Commission and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, particularly prior to any decision by the UN Security Council regarding the envisaged UN peacekeeping operation in Darfur." (Communiqué of the 46th Meeting of the Peace and Security Council, Addis Ababa, march 10, 2006, clause [6])
The various contingencies and ambiguities in this language provide Khartoum with more than enough room to maneuver endlessly in forestalling an actual AU transition to a UN mission. It is in this context that we may for once take Ali Osman Taha at his word:
"Referring to the UN force, Taha was quoted by the official media center as saying: ’Sudan’s stand is to reject those forces even when the period of six months has elapsed.’"
Indeed, Khartoum has decided not to wait six months to make clear through its actions that it has no intention of cooperating in any way with a UN mission in Darfur. Reuters reports from the United Nations in New York (March 14, 2006):
"Sudanese government opposition is preventing a UN team from laying the groundwork for its planned peacekeeping mission in the troubled Darfur region, a senior UN official said on Monday. Without a visit by the assessment team, which the government is opposing, it would be difficult for the Security Council to send in peacekeepers to take over from an under-equipped African Union force, said Hedi Annabi, a UN assistant secretary general for peacekeeping."
This obstructionism is entirely in keeping with the character of the National Islamic Front, which has not simply obstructed and relentlessly harassed the AU mission in Darfur, but has for two and a half years deliberately and consequentially impeded international humanitarian assistance, by both the UN and nongovernmental aid organizations. A recent survey by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs echoes the findings of the UN Secretariat, human rights organizations, individual UN humanitarian organizations, and nongovernmental humanitarian organizations over a period of more than two years:
"the cooperation level of the Government [of Sudan] with the humanitarian partners, including facilitation of access and provision of assistance has declined. UN and NGOs [nongovernmental humanitarian organizations] alike are experiencing an increased in harassment episodes and increasing ’administrative’ difficulties in carrying out programs. The Government of Sudan increased restrictions on NGOs with regard to obtaining travel permits, entry/exit visas, customs issues; and hiring restrictions are limiting the operational capacity of NGOs." ("Preliminary analysis of the impact of reduced access and funding shortages on humanitarian activities in Darfur," February 25, 2006)
Such obstruction of humanitarian assistance extends to indigenous Sudanese aid and human rights groups, such as the Sudan Social Development Organization (SUDO). No organization in Darfur is working harder to bring about reconciliation on the ground in Darfur, and to bring about peace talks across an increasingly hardening ethnic divide. But Reuters reports today that Khartoum is deliberately thwarting such peace efforts:
"The Sudanese human rights organisation SUDO said on Wednesday the West Darfur authorities had closed down three of its offices because it did not like its work overcoming divisions in the troubled region. SUDO, one of the few rights groups based in the country, is often targeted by the government. International non-governmental organisations (NGOs) complain of harassment by authorities who they say create obstacles to their activities. ’They don’t want our work on peace building and human rights because we are uniting the people and they want to divide them,’ said Mudawi Ibrahim, head of SUDO.’" (Reuters [dateline: el-Geneina], March 15, 2006)
4 million people are in increasingly desperate need of humanitarian assistance and Khartoum’s genocidaires are deliberately harassing, impeding, and obstructing such assistance---and working at the same time to obstruct the critical process of ethnic reconciliation in Darfur. The regime continues in these monstrous crimes against humanity because it encounters no significant resistance or international willingness to halt such deliberate efforts at human destruction.
For the same reason Khartoum is actively engaged in ethnically targeted violence against non-Arab or African tribal populations, both by means of its own regular military forces and its brutal Arab militia proxies, the Janjaweed. A recent dispatch from the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks highlights in particular the threats against those few remaining rural populations:
"In North and South Darfur, a deliberate strategy---by government forces and proxy militias in particular---to target civilians in an effort to stamp out alleged support for enemy groups, has provoked further displacement. In South Darfur, thousands of people have fled the Shaeria area and villages around Gereida town." (UN IRIN [dateline: Nyala, South Darfur], March 9, 2006)
Such ongoing violence---the responsibility of the insurgency movements as well---has a devastating effect on humanitarian access:
"’Today, the humanitarian agencies in Darfur are reaching fewer people than they did when that ceasefire agreement was signed [April 2004]. The humanitarian situation is catastrophic,’ said Sam Ibok, head of the AU mediation team in Abuja." (Reuters, March 12, 2006) (It was Ibok who in January 2006 optimistically predicted that a peace agreement would be reached in mid-February)
As Salih Booker of Africa Action cogently observed after the issuing of the Addis Ababa Communiqué:
"By deferring to the Government of Sudan on the timing and the terms of a UN operation in Darfur, the African Union and the larger international community are essentially granting veto power to the very author of this genocide. It is deeply disturbing to consider the degree to which this dynamic, and Khartoum’s increasing audacity, have been facilitated by Washington’s relationship with the government of Sudan and by the successive failures of the international community to hold Khartoum accountable for the crisis in Darfur."
Africa Action went on to note that "the Communiqué from Friday’s AU meeting expressed support ’in principle’ for a transition from its own mission in Darfur to a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operation, essentially reiterating its January statement to the same effect, but agreeing on no firm plan for such a transition nor on immediate measures to protect the people of Darfur. For the last two years, the AU mission in Darfur has lacked the capacity, the troop strength and the mandate to stop the genocide, and there are no indications that this will change in the coming months." (Africa Action press release, Washington, DC, March 13, 2006)
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IN THE PRESENT MOMENT
Despite the overwhelming urgency in Darfur, a time-frame of months, extending even into next year, seems not particularly disconcerting to the Bush administration State Department. A March 10, 2006 dispatch by the Christian Science Monitor (dateline: Nyala, South Darfur) notes that Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer declared as recently as January 2006 that "she expected ’the situation in Darfur to be resolved by next year [2007]. I think you’ll see a UN peacekeeping force and resettlement’ of displaced villagers." It seems not to matter sufficiently to Ms. Frazer---then or now---that such an expansive time-frame inevitably encompasses massive human destruction and suffering. (We should recall that in November 2005 it was Ms. Frazer who "cautioned against dwelling too much on the current level of violence (in Darfur)" [Washington Post, November 4, 2005]---this as insecurity was rapidly accelerating and humanitarian access relentlessly contracting.)
What amounts to a factitious, expedient optimism on Frazer’s part has been one of the hallmarks of the Bush administration State Department in speaking about Darfur for the past two years. UN and humanitarian organizations, for example, have long stressed Khartoum’s genocidal clearances of the rural areas of Darfur, a process that a recent dispatch by UN IRIN suggests is largely completed. The dwindling rural populations that remain are at extremely acute risk and in desperate need of credible security:
"’We must be ready to have more strength on the ground, much stronger than we have now [with the African Union],’ [Gemmo Lodesani, humanitarian coordinator for North Sudan for the UN Mission in Sudan,] urged. Neither the Sudanese government nor the SLA or any other actors---the government militias, Arab militias, Chadian rebels and other splinter groups would ’comply with a piece of paper’ [negotiated in Abuja] he said."
"’The emptying of the countryside has been a slow process that lasted three years, with the result that we have now,’ Lodesani said. ’[Darfur is] eventually reaching the end of this process, because there is not too much left in the countryside to keep on emptying.’" (UN Integrated Regional Information Networks [dateline: Nyala, South Darfur], March 9, 2006)
On the other hand, the senior State Department official with full-time responsibilities for Sudan and Darfur, Michael Ranneberger, offered a rather different assessment last October---at once celebrating the effectiveness of the AU and the vibrancy of agricultural production in rural areas:
"Even now what you are seeing is not these systematic Janjaweed attacks against villages. You know, somebody said, It’s because all the villages were burned. Well, it’s not. You fly over Darfur, almost all...you see thousands of villages fully populated, farming going on, and everything else. So, it’s because of the presence of these African Union forces." (Michael Ranneberger, October 7, 2005 transcript from National Public Radio, "Morning Edition")
Notably, the Janjaweed had, in large numbers, attacked the completely undefended Aro Sharow camp for internally displaced persons in West Darfur two weeks prior to Mr. Ranneberger’s comments; subsequent attacks on villages and camps, as well against civilian targets in eastern Chad, have accelerated steadily. Mr. Ranneberger has not felt it necessary to offer a public correction or emendation of his October assessment.
A "NON-PERMISSIVE ENVIRONMENT": KHARTOUM’S TRUMP CARD
The disingenuous assessments by officials like Ranneberger and Frazer serve ultimately to forestall, deliberately, the need for immediate and robust action. The success of similar efforts, in many Western capitals, is evident in the fact that no international leader is prepared even to discuss forcibly halting genocide in Darfur---not the US (which has made an official genocide determination for Darfur), not the UN, not Europe (in September 2004 the Parliament of the European Union declared, by a vote of 566 to 6, that the realities in Darfur were "tantamount to genocide").
No one is willing to ask the obvious question: "what if Khartoum continues to resist all efforts to deploy a UN or other international protection force in Darfur?" The self-serving claim of "national sovereignty" by the National Islamic Front has paralyzed international will. The regime’s implied threat of creating a "non-permissive environment" for the deployment of civilian protection forces works as a trump card. As one UN diplomat had the honesty to admit (though only on condition of anonymity):
"Without government approval, the only way to send in a UN peacekeeping mission would be ’to shoot our way in, and what country would want to provide troops for that?’" (Reuters [dateline: United Nations, New York], March 14, 2006)
Unprepared to challenge Khartoum, the international community fails the "Rwanda test" as miserably as the African Union. It is easy for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to declare sanctimoniously: "’We cannot continue the situation in Darfur as it is now’" (Associated Press [dateline: Brussels], March 8, 2006). But what does this actually mean in the face of ongoing civilian destruction, dead-end peace talks in Abuja, and a genocidal regime that adamantly cleaves to an assertion of "national sovereignty"? Indeed, what was the point of the unanimous UN World Summit declaration (September 2005) concerning a "responsibility to protect" innocent civilian populations? Paragraph 139 of the Summit Outcome Document declares that the international community must be,
"prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the UN Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case by case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity and its implications, bearing in mind the principles of the Charter and international law."
Clearly this does not apply to Sudan and Darfur---or to Chad, where there are numerous reports of civilians being attacked by Khartoum’s Janjaweed militia in conjunction with the regime’s regular military forces (see Human Rights Watch, "Darfur Bleeds: Recent Cross-border Violence in Chad," February 2006, http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/chad0206/).
Kofi Annan declared in his January 25, 2006 op/ed in The Washington Post ("Darfur Descending") that a transition from the AU to the UN was "inevitable." This seems either foolish or expedient---and as is so often the case with Annan, it is difficult to know which. Annan certainly struck a different note in comments reported today by UN IRIN:
"’Although the Government of the Sudan is expressing reservations at the moment, we hope to gain its cooperation as we carry out the planning,’ Mr. Annan writes. ’In fact, Government cooperation will be a requirement, since the Security Council request to start planning for a possible transition stipulates, quite rightly, that we do so in cooperation and in close consultation with the parties to the Abuja peace talks.’" (UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, March 15, 2006)
But what if Khartoum refuses to meet this "requirement"? Will the genocide be allowed to continue? Will international deference continue as the regime’s genocidaires predictably and relentlessly assert the claim of "national sovereignty"? How many must die before the world says, "Enough!"? Extant data strongly suggest that the total number of dead is in excess of 400,000 (see my mortality analysis of August 31, 2005, http://www.sudanreeves.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=67)---perhaps well in excess. Will this number be allowed to grow to half a million? to 800,000? to 1 million? Is there some ghastly, unarticulated threshold of human destruction that will finally supersede Khartoum’s assertion of "national sovereignty"? Annan is not alone in refusing to answer this most urgent question.
HUMANITARIAN ABYSS
Despite the distorted version of Darfur’s realities with which Michael Ranneberger, Jendayi Frazer, and others in the Bush administration State Department have sought to mislead a powerful domestic political constituency, conditions in Darfur are still reported with credibility by a number of humanitarian organizations. And these realities are simply horrific. Agricultural production has collapsed in Darfur, leaving people utterly dependent on food aid. The end result---ration cuts for civilians in need---was very recently reported by the UN’s World Food Program:
"A ’critically slow’ response to appeals for emergency operations in Sudan has forced the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to reduce rations of pulses [greens and leguminous], sugar and salt for some 3.5 million beneficiaries in that country. While supplies of some commodities such as cereals, which form the major part of general food-distribution rations, have not yet been affected, complete breaks in the supply of other rations are now imminent, WFP said in statement released on Friday [March 10, 2006]. ’Ration cuts are a last resort, but we simply have no alternative,’ said Bradley Guerrant, WFP Sudan deputy country director. ’We are cutting amounts of these three items in general food distributions so that we can keep some supplies going for longer. And we need to set aside stocks for the highest priority groups."
"’In particular, we are earmarking remaining sugar for feeding centres across Sudan to make sure that malnourished children and pregnant and lactating mothers get this vital part of their diet," he added. Towards the end of February, WFP said it had received only 4 percent of the US $746 million it needed to feed more than six million people across Sudan in 2006. Even now, WFP has received only 15 percent of its target, leaving the agency critically short of funds."
"’[Cash is desperately needed] so that we can continue to move food stocks into place in Sudan, in advance of the rainy season,’ said Guerrant. Roads become impassable during the rainy season, which coincides with the ’hunger gap,’ or the period before the harvest, when needs peak. ’If we cannot truck in stocks before the rains start, we are forced to rely on much more expensive airdrops and airlifts,’ he added." (UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, March 13, 2006)
In a communication to senior aid officials at the UN, Jan Egeland noted (March 10, 2006) the scale of the broader shortfall in humanitarian funding for Darfur: of the $650 million that the United Nations believes it requires for 2006, only $130 million has been committed---less than 20 percent of what is needed. It is not at all clear where the more than $500 million in additional funds will come from. "These shortfalls are extremely troubling given the overwhelming needs and deteriorating conditions in many areas," wrote Egeland, adding that the financial commitments that have been made "are most welcome but are not nearly enough to maintain the largest humanitarian operation in the world." He went on to note that,
"A number of major agencies are warning of pipeline breaks, cuts in essential services, including health and water, and the closure of entire field offices. Yet again, we are rapidly running out of time to preposition relief supplies before the onset of the rainy season."
And most compellingly, we have the grim roster of those who can no longer be reached at all:
"UNICEF estimates that over 100,000 internally displaced persons and 71,000 conflict-affected people in host communities cannot be reached due to ongoing conflict in North Darfur. In West Darfur, the situation is worse, with more than 184,000 displaced people and about 209,000 members of host communities isolated by poor security." ("Rural populations at risk as Darfur violence escalates," UN Integrated Regional Information Networks [dateline: Nyala, South Darfur], March 9, 2006; the URL for this exceptionally important dispatch is http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52098&SelectRegion=East_Africa)
To this total of over half a million people beyond humanitarian reach because of Khartoum’s orchestrated, genocidal violence we must add hundreds of thousands more from South Darfur state.
WAITING FOR DEATH
What does it feel like to be in Darfur or eastern Chad, sensing impending destruction? What thoughts pass through the minds of those who have been abandoned to die from violence, malnutrition, or disease? We can’t know, but Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times---during his sixth visit to the region---recently offered as clear and compelling an answer as we are likely to receive (dateline: Koloy [Chad], March 12, 2006):
"Politely but insistently, the people in this town explained that they were about to be massacred. ’The janjaweed militias have already destroyed all the villages east of Koloy,’ Adam Omar, a local sheik, explained somberly. ’Any moment, they will attack us here.’ This remote market town of thatch-roof mud huts near the Chad-Sudan border is on the front line of the genocidal fury that Sudan has unleashed on several black African tribes. After killing several hundred thousand people in its own Darfur region, Sudan’s government is now sending its brutal janjaweed militias to kill the same tribes here in Chad."
Noting international paralysis, and that "the African Union can’t even muster the courage to call for immediate UN peacekeepers," Kristof grimly concludes: "So the people here are probably right to resign themselves to be slaughtered---if not sooner, then later."
Such resignation can certainly be found throughout Darfur---and increasingly eastern Chad, where many tens of thousands of people have been displaced or killed. We have no way of knowing because there is so little in the way of humanitarian presence.
But given how little the world cares about the lives that have already been lost, and those that are now doomed to destruction, numbers would seem to matter little. The disgraceful reporting on mortality in Darfur, with supposedly distinguished news organizations citing "180,000 deaths"---a figure promulgated first by the UN a full year ago, and representing even then only deaths from disease and malnutrition over the preceding 18 months---is emblematic. Darfuri lives are not worth protecting or evidently even counting---no matter that they have been engulfed in a holocaust, and remain ongoing victims of the ultimate human crime.
The AU decision in Addis Ababa marks no new abandonment, no new act of cowardice or shame; it merely serves to ratify all too fully the international acquiescence before genocide in Africa, "yet again."

Eric Reeves
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
Email: ereeves@smith.edu
Tel: 13-585-3326
Website: www.sudanreeves.org

UN /ONU :

USA :

USA Should use same scrutiny on Ethiopia as it does on Uganda
Scott A. Morgan / March 15, 2006
The Congressional Human Rights Caucus recently took steps to address a growing problem in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. The bi-partisan lobby had a two- day series of briefings on concerns regarding the situation in Northern Uganda. This crisis is a situation that has seen very little scrutiny but continues to fester as it has for almost 20 years.
The repercussions have been staggering. Several thousand have died as a result either from the violence or from disease and starvation. Over 1 million reside in camps for those that are Internally Displaced. And Children leave their homes to go sleep in schools to keep from being