NAIROBI, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- Somali pirates are holding an Indian dhow with 13 crew members after seizing it on Friday, a regional maritime official confirmed on Monday.

Andrew Mwangura, East Africa's Coordinator of Seafarers Assistance Program (SAP), said the gunmen seized MV Neseya off the coast of Kismayo in southern Somalia.

"The ill-fated dhow was taken on Dec. 18 at 1030 GMT some 170 nautical miles east northeast of Mombassa," Mwangura told Xinhua by telephone from Mombasa.

"The total crew comprises of 13 Indian nationals. No information on the attack or MV Neseya's present position, course and speed is available yet," he said, adding that eight to 10 pirates are estimated to be on board.

Piracy has become rampant off the coast of Africa, especially in the waters near Somalia, which has been without an effective government since 1991.

Ransoms started out in the tens of thousands of dollars and have since climbed into the millions. An estimated 25,000 ships annually cruise the Gulf of Aden, off Somalia's northern coast.

CAIRO, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday signed an agreement on setting up an Arab-Russian cooperation forum, Egypt's MENA news agency reported.

In statements on Monday, Lavrov made it clear that the agreement will further boost Arab-Russian relations. It aims at developing relations between Russia and the Arab League in all fields, starting from bilateral consultations on regional and international issues, he said.

Lavrov invited Moussa to visit Moscow to follow up the accord, which he said, was agreed upon during a visit paid to the league's headquarters by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in June.

NOUAKCHOTT, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Mauritanian authorities identify the lately abducted Italian couple as Sergio Seguella andhis Burkinabe wife Data Bazeri Silma, the latest victims of the alQaeda branch in north Africa AQMI.

The couple and their driver were abducted on Friday night near Kobonni, more than 1,500 km away from Nouakchott in the extreme east of Mauritania, when they wanted to cross the Malian border on their way to Burkina Faso in a Suzuki car, the authorities said.

The Italian tourists and their driver were intercepted by armed bandits at Mneicira, 18 km from Kobonni.

Although nobody has claimed responsibility for the abduction, the second in less than one month in Mauritania, the authorities point to AQMI for a role behind a series of kidnappings in recent years.

Th abduction came at a time when negotiations were in progress in the Malian desert with AQMI on the release of four Europeans, who were abducted last month in Mauritania and Mali, including three Spanish humanitarian aid workers and one French.

LUANDA, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) opened its 71st monitoring sub-commission meeting here on Monday to analyze the production quota set by the organization earlier this year in Vienna, Austria.

The sub-commission is expected to submit its report to OPEC's 155th extraordinary ministerial conference, which is scheduled for Tuesday in Luanda, Angola's official news agency Angop said.

OPEC members account for 40 percent of the world crude oil production, and 75 percent of the world's oil reserves, according to the latest OPEC data.

Angola currently holds the rotating chairmanship of OPEC, which was founded in 1960 in Baghdad, Iraq, to promote policies of economic growth and to defend member states' interests.

OPEC now groups Angola, Algeria, Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar.

NOUAKCHOTT, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- The European Union has decided to resume cooperation with Mauritania and is ready to release the aid of millions of dollars, according to a visiting official from the 27-nation bloc.

Stephano Manservisi, the director general in charge of development and relations with Africa-Carribean-Pacific countries, is heading a high-level mission in Nouakchott for the resumption of aid to the northwest African country.

Manservisi told reporters on Sunday that they were scheduled to meet with Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, as well as the representatives of the opposition and the civil society. The talks would lay foundations for the resumption of cooperation between Mauritania and the EU.

The cooperation involving 150 million euros (225 million U. S. dollars) was suspended following a military coup d'etat in Mauritania in August 2008. Ould Abdel Aziz was elected president in July to end the coup-triggered political crisis.

A EU delegation paid a visit to Mauritania on Oct. 4-7 to examining the resumption of aid.

20091221
africanews

Ethiopian troops have crossed back into Somalia, witnesses in strategic town of Beledweyn and Balanbale in central Somalia said. Ethiopian troops return comes as Islamist rebel group, Hisbul Islam, which controlling towns near at the border of Somalia and Ethiopia started operation in the area.
Ethiopian troops Photo: Mohammed Odowa
Residents in Beledweyn told AfricaNews that they saw convey of Ethiopian troops digging trenches in Kalabeyr, a town 22Km (14 miles) from the Somali border and Ethiopia. They said Ethiopian forces left the border town of Ferfer in Ethiopia and entered to Kalabeyr which links central and south regions.

Reports say former Somali government officials in the region are coming with Ethiopian troops. Ethiopian officials could not be reached for comment about the reports but Ethiopia denies frequently that its troops re-entered Somalia.

Ethiopian military crossing into Somalia have started to check and search vehicles moving in the area. Beledweyn resident Amino Ali told AfricaNews by phone that "They have crossed the border early on Saturday and they are in Kalabeyr now."

Another residents in Balanbale, a town on the Ethiopian border in Somalia's Galgadud region said that more than nine Ethiopian military cars have entered the town.

Residents said that Ethiopian troops have searched houses in the town.

Ethiopia entered Somalia in 2006 to help oust Islamist forces from the capital Mogadishu but withdrew under a UN-backed peace deal.

Ethiopia already made it clear that did still reserve the right to intervene in Somalia if its interests were directly threatened. Somali government has not commented about this.

20091221
africanews

Two Italians have been kidnapped in Mauritania, a security official. The Mauritanian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Italians - a man and his wife - were taken by gunmen from their 4-wheel drive vehicle.
mauritania
AFP report said police found the couple’s vehicle empty and riddled with bullet holes near the village of Kobeni in southern Mauritania.

The Italian man is in his 60s and his wife, originally from Burkina Faso, is in her late 30s.

This kidnapping comes three weeks after three Spanish aid workers were kidnapped in Mauritania and a Frenchman in Mali.

The North African branch of Al-Qaeda has said it is holding the Spanish trio, along with the Frenchman at an unknown location in the Sahara.

This terrorist group has transformed Mauritania, once known as a predominantly moderate Muslim nation, to a risky place for tourists.

20091221
africanews

At least three more people died in earthquakes that have hit the northern lakeshore district of Karonga, Malawi- bringing the figure to four. The fourth major earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale hit the district over the weekend, injuring about 256 people who were rushed to hospital with different degrees of injuries.
a town in Malawi
About 2,000 more people will now require more disaster aid as they join the 4,000 plus already affected on the onset of the quakes that started some weeks ago.

Government has since pledged and started to send in more aid and have opened a displaced camp where water and sanitation may be another health concern.

Meanwhile, the Camp Alive Opens Shows (CAOS) made of Lilongwe based concerned individuals, plans to hold an aftermath live entertainment (ALE) show to cheer the affected on 25th December at the district's main community ground.

"We are going to also donate Likuni Phala and other relief items pooled together from well-wishers. Our aim is to ensure that the affected are entertained over the festive season to bring about hope, compassion for the future," explained Ken Mwanyongo, CAOS leader.

Lying in the Great Rift Valley, Malawi is said to be prone to earthquakes and government has proposed to reallocate displaced people to other less prone areas. A statement said chiefs in the area will be consulted on the issue.

The Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR), meanwhile asked government to declare the district a disaster area so that international aid can start to pour in. Local organisations and individual well-wishers have since joined the government's Department of Disaster Preparedness and Relief in donating relief items such as cooking flour, blankets, dry relish and other assorted items.

The Malawi Defence Force (MDF) was the first to provide tents to temporarily house the victims.

20091221
africanews

The Senegalese military has announced yet another attack which is suspected to be the work of secessionist Movement of Democratic Forces (MFDC) rebels in it southern region of Casamance. The attacked that occurred in the village of Baraca Banao, some 20 kilometres east of the regional capital of Ziguinchor, left a government soldier dead.
Senegal map
Senegal’s MFDC rebels who have since adapted hit-and-run tactics have been associated with a number of isolated fatal attacks. Last week’s attack followed another one, 24 hours earlier, when a teacher died after armed men struck in the same Casamance region.

MFDC rebels took to the bush since 1982, demanding independence. They have signed a number of peace accords with the government in Dakar, the latest one being in 2004.

Six government soldiers died in what is the worst attack for a long time when the rebels attacked their vehicle near the border with Guinea-Bissau last October.

20091221
africanews

South Africa will start deploying HIV positive soldiers to peacekeeping operations, a defence ministry spokesperson said last week.
soldiers
Ministry of defence and military veterans’ spokesperson, Ndivhuwo Wa Ha Mabaya, said the department had drafted a framework for the way in which HIV positive soldiers should be deployed.

The framework was developed after the government lost a court battle in 2008 against a group of HIV positive soldiers, who claimed they were being discriminated against.

Mabaya said the Cabinet had approved the framework for the deployment of HIV positive troops at the end of October, and it was now implementing it.

"We are holding workshops with all the stakeholders like the soldiers, NGOs, doctors and our deployment partners (the armies of other governments) to implement it," he said.

Support roles

Defence and Military Veterans Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said at a meeting with soldiers at the Dunnottar Military Base near Springs in Gauteng last week, South Africa was the first country in the world which had "removed discrimination from our deployment policies".

"We should be proud of ourselves," she said.

Mabaya said the framework allowed for certain tasks that could be done by HIV positive soldiers when deployed that did not put them or their colleagues at risk. It also laid out a framework on how to care for HIV positive soldiers in deployment.

"They will not be deployed on the frontline in combat roles," said Mabaya.

"They will be deployed in support roles."

Mabaya said the framework was being studied by the Southern African Development Community, the African Union and the United Nations.

"We were consulting them while we developed the framework and they were never negative about it," he said.

"Zimbabwe already said they wanted our framework, as they had the same problem as ours."

The BBC reported earlier in December that 30% of the soldiers in the SA National Defence Force were infected with HIV.

The army has already deployed an HIV positive soldier to Sudan as part of peacekeeping operations in the troubled territory of Darfur, the BBC reported.

20091221
africanews

Three senior officials in the Gambian judiciary have been charged for allegedly stealing US$310,679.6117 in the Gambian judiciary.
gavel
The three, Amie Amina Saho Ceesay, former Sheriff of the High Court, Justice Nguie Mboob Janneh. Haruna Jaiteh former judicial secretary will appear before the Banjul Magistrate court on January 4th, 2010 to answer to theft charges. They all denied the allegations against them.

Justice Amina Saho-Ceesay, who was represented by Anthoman Gaye, is accused of stealing two million Dalasi ($77,000) and US$ 1000 between the year 2005 to 2009, at the Sheriff Division of the High Court, being the property of The Gambia government.

The court has ordered her to report to the police every Friday and all her traveling documents be held pending completion of the trial.

Justice Ngui Mboob-Janneh, the second to be arraigned, is accused of stealing D803, 000 ($31,000) and 900 pound sterling, between the periods 2005 to 2009, at the Sheriff Division.

She was subsequently granted a court bail on the grounds that she is pregnant, in the sum of D1.5m Dalasi ($57,600) with two Gambian sureties who must have a landed property within the Greater Banjul Area.

Haruna Jaiteh, the Judicial Secretary who was represented by A.A Bensuda, is also accused of stealing D1, 017,000 ($39,000) between 2005 and 2009, at the Sheriff Division. He was also remanded in custody.

It could be recalled that on Friday, October 23, three officials Haruna Jaiteh Nguie Mboob-Janneh and Amie Saho-Ceesay were suspended without pay pending the outcome of the investigations in alleged financial scam in the country’s judiciary.

20091221
africanews

Simon Pierre Bell is a happy man who needs to catch up on a lot of lost sleep. He has initiated the very first all-documentary film festival in the Cameroon capital Yaoundé, Images En Live. A dream, five years in the making.
Cameroon film festival Bell
Images En Live showed some 50 films between December 9 and 12. The fact that Bell and his group of co-organisers paid for most of it out of their own pockets is just the first of a couple of things that have made this a unique event.

Another things was that all the organisers were young filmmakers, largely unconnected with the grand cultural circuit that usually gets run out of diplomatic posts, UN agencies and local elites. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this but this circuit has a tendency not to look beyond its own ambit and, as a result, misses out on young new initiatives. Image En Live has helped fill this gap. These young organisers have the drive, energy and desire to show the world what they can do.

Third, most of the Cameroonian documentaries were utterly refreshing. Their message to the world was simple: “Just watch our films – and for once, just keep quiet.”

Mohamed Mbouombouo filmed his own neighbourhood La Briquiterie, which has a bad reputation (undeserved if you ask me). The one was called Mon Eldorado and just showed life in “La Brique”, as everyone calls the area. The second was more hard-hitting and tackled a controversial theme: state-ordered house demolitions. AD, it was called, after the ominous two letters that appear with a big red cross on each of the homes that will fall to the wreckers. AD means: à démolir.

Babette Koultchoumi is from the north of Cameroon and she made a very well-tuned documentary about how changes in the rules of land ownership affect women. The films is called Land is Food. Alright, you have just read these previous lines and what is your gut reaction?
Come on: be honest.
Your reaction is this: “The women will surely be worse off, as usual!”

Nope. Babette Koultchoumi explained to me after the film that, in fact, the loosening up and commercialization of the land had been a very good thing for the women in her village. Some of them now made more money than their husbands. Capitalism good for women? You read it here. That is why this first Images En Live was necessary.

There were more eye-openers. Awa Traoré recounted a very personal story about adoption, a common practice in Mali, where she shot her film. We see and hear mothers who have been adopting children, children who have been adopted. Awa even goes back to her old village and talk to a griot (the singer/storyteller who is the repository of tradition), who explains why this practice exists. Yaoundé resdent Félix Mbog-Len Mapout made a very touching and personal film about his polio, which condemns him to walk on crutches for the rest of his life. He defines himself as a film director first and handicapped a distant second.

So this was the refreshing thing that all these films had in common: there was no appeal to feel pity, no obvious thick layer of moral indignation (although AD came pretty close for obvious reasons), no dogma of any kind – and certainly no identity politics (migrant, feminist or otherwise). You are the public. You’re grown up. You can think for yourself.

What an absolute delight! There will be a second Images En Live, in December next year.

More on my blog called “Yoff Tales” (http://bramposthumus.wordpress.com) and very shortly on Radio Netherlands Worldwide/Africa.

20091221
africanews

A heavy fighting between Somali government and Islamist rebels has killed more than 15 people, mostly civilians, and wounded 45 others sources said on Monday. The fighting erupted after Islamist insurgents fired several rounds of mortar shells into a police compound, which was hosting the 66th police anniversary ceremony on Sunday.
Somalia fighters_Mohammed Odowa
15 people, including women, children and a police officer were killed in the fighting. The dead people are mostly civilians in main market of Bakara, human rights group in Somalia said on Monday.

Government and Al-shabaab rebel could not immediately be reached for comment.
Ongoing fighting in Somalia has killed about 19,000 civilians since the beginning of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes, triggering one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.

Somalia has not had an effective government since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

20091221
nytimes

OL PEJETA CONSERVANCY, Kenya (AP) -- A 38-year-old northern white rhino born in south Sudan ate African grasses for the first time in three decades Monday, the first full day on the continent for the world's last four northern white rhinos capable of breeding.

The rhinos' handlers and park officials hope the rhinos will bear young in their natural habitat and save their subspecies. But the four haven't reproduced in years, and a U.S. rhino expert said he believes the effort is futile -- suggesting that the northern white rhino is already effectively extinct.

The four rhinos landed in Kenya on Sunday after flying in from a zoo in the Czech Republic. They were transported in wooden crates that read ''Last Chance to Survive.'' Only eight northern whites are believed to remain.

''It makes no sense to move them at this point in time. It's way too little, too late,'' said Randy Rieches, curator of mammals for the San Diego Wild Animal Park, which has two northern whites. ''That's based on a lot of knowledge, a lot of husbandry and certainly a lot of reproductive background.''

As plans were made to move the rhinos, Rieches said he shared his opinions with officials at the Dvur Kralove Zoo and Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy, the game park where the four rhinos now reside.

The northern white rhino is the most highly endangered mega-vertebrate on earth. Risking the few that are left, even though they are not reproducing, while taking funding from other endangered rhinos was a bad idea, said Rieches, who sits on the board of the International Rhino Foundation.

Rhino handlers and park officials in Kenya dismissed Rieches' view, saying that even if chances of success are low, they have to try.

''I'd say of course there's a chance. What was the option? That they stay in the zoo and not breed?'' said Berry White, a woman known as the ''rhino whisperer'' who helped prep the mammals for their move. ''Yes, of course a lot of money was spent (moving the rhinos), but people wanted to spend money on this project.''

White said female rhinos can breed until they are 30. The two females moved to Kenya are 9 and 20 years old. Animal experts say the northern whites haven't bred in zoos because they form sibling relationships with the opposite sex.

''The girls have a lot of years left in them. One has bred already. Yes, some people would say it's a longshot but not necessarily. ... Let's hope in the next five years there's one or two calves, some buildup,'' White said.

Rob Brett, the director of Fauna and Flora International, which helped arrange and finance the rhinos' move, said the money donated for the project -- from the vice chairman of Goldman Sachs in Australia -- was not transferable, though Brett said if it had been his money he would have spent it to protect black rhinos in Zimbabwe.

The donor, Alastair Lucas, said he became involved with the northern white rhino project earlier this year after visiting Uganda and being told parks there no longer have rhinos. He declined to say how much he donated or the cost of moving the animals.

''It just seemed to me extraordinary that no one was picking this up and doing something,'' Lucas told The Associated Press on Sunday as he watched the rhinos unloaded into large pens. ''It seemed to me to be such an important project.

''From where I stand, in 20 years they die out. It seems to me better to give them one last chance,'' Lucas said.

Even if the two female northern whites do successfully breed, they may not produce a pure genetic offspring. Brett said that breeding with southern whites was ''inevitable,'' and that the goal simply was to pass on as many northern genes as possible. Northern whites are resistant to the tsetse fly and can survive where the fly lives; southern whites cannot.

The last northern white calf born was in 2000. The male and female in San Diego have never mated and there is no chance they can reproduce, Rieches said.

Rhinos operate on a three-year reproductive cycle and when they get out of sync, reproductive pathology and tumors begin, Rieches said.

''They feel that by locating them in another environment, they might start cycling again. That's a gamble at best. If you add in the reproductive pathology, I think you might get better odds in Las Vegas,'' Rieches said.

No officials at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy would disclose any financial figures behind the rhinos' arrival and upkeep, though Rieches said officials planned to spend $90,000 a year for security. Officials at Ol Pejeta said their security precautions are among the best in the world.

Rhino horns sell for more than gold on a per-weight basis, and have been the reason for a huge poaching problems against the species.

Noah Wekesa, Kenya's minister of forestry and wildlife, said during the rhinos' arrival on Sunday that Kenya has had ''an issue'' with poaching. In 1973, he said, Kenya had 20,000 black rhinos. By 1989 there were only 285. Today, the population is up again, with 609 black rhinos in Kenya. There are about 336 southern white rhinos, too.

The longevity record for a northern white rhino is 44 years and 10 months, Rieches said.

The oldest of the four rhinos now in Kenya, 38-year-old Sudan, is the only one of the four born in Africa. The other three were born in captivity. The rhinos will remain penned in the Kenyan park as they acclimate to the climate and vegetation. They will be given more room to roam in coming weeks and eventually released to the entire park.

''They're doing great,'' White said Monday morning outside of Sudan's pen, which had a patch of African grass growing in the middle of it. ''He's grazing now. He's grazing for the first time in 33 years.''

20091221
nytimes

BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) -- Disaster officials in Malawi are appealing for international help after a powerful earthquake killed at least three people and damaged thousands of homes.

Lilian Ng'oma, the Commissioner for Disaster Management Affairs, told The Associated Press Monday from northern Malawi that the situation was ''pathetic and sad,'' with thousands of homes uninhabitable following Sunday's 6.0-magnitude quake in the Karonga district.

The Malawi Red Cross Society and Ng'oma's department have provided some tents, but local official Gasten Macheka said many more are needed.

''We need at least 48,000 tents to cater for the 270, 000 people in the district,'' he said.

Macheka said 1,111 houses were destroyed by the quake and more than 3,565 were damaged and may collapse. People who have yet to get tents are staying in the open air while water is seen gushing from the ground from broken sewers.

In some areas there are no houses standing.

Macheka said at least three people were killed and 200 injured Sunday.

Karonga District health officer James Mpunga said close to 300 people were treated for varying degrees of injuries from broken bones to skin lacerations.

''We are still receiving more patients from outlaying areas,'' he said.

The Karonga district in northern Malawi has been hit by a series of earthquakes and aftershocks since the beginning of December. Tremors also shook the district Sunday night.

Parts of Malawi that lie in the Great Rift Valley are prone to quakes.

20091221
nytimes

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- Zimbabwe's rival leaders met Monday and announced they had reached two agreements, offering rare reason for hope after a year of impasse and disappointment.

The factions joined in a unity government said they were forming commissions to oversee human rights, the media and elections. Members of the coalition formed in February had agreed on the commissions, but deadlocked over their composition.

While Monday's agreement did not touch on the most contentious issues, it will be seen as an encouraging sign of progress by those who argue that Zimbabwe is best served by quiet if slow diplomacy.

A list of media commissioners released later included a former state broadcaster as chairman and the editor of a banned independent newspaper as his deputy. Consultations were still under way on the appointment of heads of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission.

Outstanding issues include disagreements over the appointment of provincial governors, the central bank chief and attorney general; charges from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party that supporters of President Robert Mugabe continue to abuse human rights; and charges from Mugabe's party that Tsvangirai's group has done too little to persuade the international community to lift sanctions against Mugabe and his top loyalists.

The treason trial of a top Tsvangirai aide also has bedeviled a coalition founded to rescue Zimbabwe from economic and political crisis.

But James Maridadi, spokesman for Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a longtime opposition leader, was upbeat Monday. He said the day's agreements came after Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, leader of a party closely allied to Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, met for three hours Monday, and that the three would meet again Wednesday to resolve other issues.

Ephraim Masawi, a spokesman for Mugabe's party, said his party was responding to Zimbabwe's neighbors, who have insisted ''that we have to work together with the MDC formations in the inclusive government. We hope that they will agree soon on the issue of the removal of sanctions as well.''

Tsvangirai had become so frustrated he temporarily withdrew from the unity government in October. He returned three weeks later after receiving assurances that South African President Jacob Zuma would intervene.

South African and other regional leaders had pushed for the coalition following a series of inconclusive elections marred by violence blamed on Mugabe's loyalists

Tsvangirai has said that Zuma's predecessor took too soft a line on Mugabe. Thabo Mbeki, now replaced by Zuma as regional point man on Zimbabwe, had argued that pushing Mugabe too hard could backfire.

In what was seen as a sign of stepped-up intervention, Zuma appointed two advisers and a special Zimbabwe envoy in November to work with politicians in Zimbabwe. But he has not publicly taken a harder line on Mugabe than did Mbeki.

20091221
nytimes

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Guinea's junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara bears direct responsibility for the September 28 killings by security forces of more than 150 pro-democracy marchers, according to a U.N. report on Monday.

Guinea, the world's top exporter of bauxite and a pivotal country for the security of West Africa, has been on the brink of chaos since the massacre and a botched assassination attempt against Camara on December 3 by his former aide de camp.

Camara, who has not been seen in public since he was rushed to Morocco for medical treatment after the attempt on his life, could face international prosecution for crimes against humanity if the report's findings are followed up.

"The commission considers there are sufficient grounds for presuming direct criminal responsibility by President Moussa Dadis Camara," said a copy of the report delivered to the U.N. Security Council and African regional bodies over the weekend.

"The commission recommends that the International Criminal Court be seized with respect to those persons on whom, according to this report's findings, weighs a strong suspicion of crimes against humanity," it added of violence including mass killings, rape and sexual mutilations of opposition supporters.

Diplomats in New York said the French delegation raised the Guinea report during closed-door consultations among the 15 Security Council members, who took no immediate action.

The diplomats said the council would return to the issue to consider possible action once the 60-page French-language report had been translated into other U.N. languages.

Guinean Communications Minister Idriss Cherif told Reuters he had not studied the report but complained of a "procedural fault in the manner in which the report has been communicated."

"I get the impression people want to speed things up as if it were a race against the clock. It is not normal," Cherif said by telephone.

SYSTEMATIC

Camara's absence from Guinea 18 days after suffering head injuries described by the junta as superficial has aroused speculation that his condition is worse than thought and that he is under Western-backed pressure to go into exile.

"He is still in hospital for his treatment. We have nothing more to say for now," Moroccan Foreign Minister Taief Fassi Fihri told Reuters in Rabat.

The U.N. inquiry, based on 687 interviews conducted by investigators in the capital Conakry and elsewhere in late November and early December, corroborated witness reports that more than 150 people were killed or went missing at the rally.

At least 109 girls and women were subjected to rape, sexual mutilation and sequestration for repeated rape, with hundreds more people subjected to torture and abuse.

The report termed the killings and rape as "systematic" and "organised," contradicting Camara's initial argument that unruly elements of the army were to blame.

Apart from Camara himself, the inquiry held as responsible his former aide and would-be assassin, Aboubacar "Toumba" Diakite, and another Camara ally, Claude Pivi.

It named Defence Minister Sekouba Konate, who has been in charge of the country since Camara's absence, as among several other figures who might be implicated in the violence but whose exact involvement should be investigated further.

Konate, a professional soldier seen as having few political ambitions, is believed by some in the West as more likely than Camara to allow a transition to civilian rule.

Konate has restored a degree of calm to Guinea and has vowed to clamp down on a culture of indiscipline in the army, but has so far made no public reference to civilian rule.

20091221
nytimes

UNITED NATIONS — A United Nations panel investigating the massacre and rape of unarmed protesters in Guinea three months ago said in a report released Monday that the nation’s military ruler and some of his adjutants should be referred to the International Criminal Court for “crimes against humanity.”

The 60-page report, compiled by three African legal experts, describes in gruesome detail the violence unleashed on what had been something of a festival of protest being held in a stadium in Conakry, the capital, on Sept. 28. The attacks left at least 156 people dead or missing and about 109 women raped or sexually abused.

Because some of the victims were found in mass graves, it is likely that the death toll was far higher, the report stated. The panel interviewed nearly 700 witnesses, some in Conakry and some who fled to Senegal for their safety, to create a portrait of a military run amok.

Soldiers, many from the Presidential Guard, burst into the stadium and fired at close range on the thousands of people who had gathered there in a carnival-like atmosphere, dancing and praying. Once the troops ran out of ammunition, they attacked the unarmed civilians with daggers, bayonets, bludgeons and even catapults, the report said. People scattered in every direction, and those who paused to help the wounded were gunned down.

The panic caused some people to suffocate in the crowds streaming for the exits, with the lack of oxygen exacerbated by tear gas. Some victims were trampled to death or electrocuted when they tried to climb over the fences; soldiers had attached electrical lines that they had downed to the metal fences, according to the report.

Women were a particular target. Soldiers shoved a gun inside one victim of a gang rape and pulled the trigger, killing her, the report said. Another had her throat slit when she lifted her blindfold. At least four women were abducted and held for days as sex slaves, the report said; they were drugged and photographed while being assaulted. France has asked that the Security Council take up the report, but Michel Kafango, the ambassador from Burkina Faso and the Council’s president this month, said that would have to wait until the report was translated from French.

The report described the attacks as “widespread and systematic,” which is the basis for crimes against humanity in international law. Because Guinea is a signatory to the International Criminal Court, the court does not have to await a referral from the Security Council, and the court’s prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has said he has already started an investigation.

In an unusual tactic, the report singled out three people as bearing direct responsibility for the violence, because the attacks could not have happened without their orders: Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara, the country’s leader; Lt. Aboubacar Chérif Diakité, known as Toumba, Captain Camara’s aide-de-camp and chief of the Presidential Guard; and a third officer, Moussa Thegboro Camara, who is in charge of the special services. The two aides were at the stadium during the massacre.

Lieutenant Diakité told the panel that he had gone to the stadium to ensure that opposition leaders were protected. He also said that he had not seen any violence, nor would anybody “even think of touching a woman,” the report quoted him as saying. But it also reported that a witness said Lieutenant Diakité had said at the stadium: “Nobody gets out of here alive. They all must be killed. They think there is democracy here.”

The demonstrators had gathered to denounce plans by the junta leader, Captain Camara, to run in presidential elections. The captain, who is 45, seized power last December in a military coup after the death of the nation’s longtime dictator, Lansana Conté. The instability plaguing the country became even more pronounced after Captain Camara was shot in the head this month and taken to Morocco for medical treatment. Lieutenant Diakité has admitted shooting the captain, saying that he suspected that Captain Camara was trying to make him the fall guy for the massacre and rapes.

Saidou Diallo, speaking for the mission of Guinea to the United Nations, said that his office had not yet seen the report and could not comment. The report said that the government in Conakry has acknowledged 63 deaths and 1,399 people wounded, and that local hospitals have confirmed that at least 33 women were raped. After the massacre, the authorities destroyed evidence, cleaned the stadium, denied treatment to victims, altered medical records and tried to intimidate witnesses, the report said.

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, said in a statement that it was the responsibility of Guinea’s government to protect the victims and other witnesses who testified to the three-member Commission of Inquiry. The members are Mohammed Bedjaoui, a former Algerian foreign minister and chief justice; Françoise N. Kayiramirwa, the minister of human rights in Burundi, among other posts; and Pramila Patten, a lawyer from Mauritius who specializes in women’s rights.

guardian

Alice Oriokot dreams of becoming a nurse. And the Guardian's Christmas 2009 appeal aims to offer her and others a chance to make their hopes a reality

During the two years Alice Oriokot was meant to be studying for her A-levels, she was banished from her boarding school on 10 separate occasions because her father could not pay the fees.

Naturally, the experience was humiliating. Every child is given a three-week grace period at the beginning of the term, when they can attend classes even when their fees have not been paid. After this, the school administrator will begin to chase them, demanding the money, and, if it is not forthcoming, he will send them home.

"It is terrible when you are sent home. You are traumatised," says Josephine Abalo, manager of the Ugandan charity the Mvule Trust, which the Guardian is supporting in its Christmas appeal. "The teacher's salary often depends on the fees that you pay. They say: 'Why are you here? Get out of class!'"

But far worse than the humiliation was the disastrous impact the exclusions had on Alice's academic chances. Every time she found herself on the bus, making the long journey home, she knew the prospect of passing her A-levels in physics, chemistry, biology and agriculture was getting slimmer and slimmer.

Each time she would have to wait two to three weeks at home, in the district of Kaberamaido in Teso, until her father – a low-paid primary school teacher, struggling to bring up 12 children – received his salary. She would copy her friends' notes and try to persuade the teachers to help but soon she began to find it hard to follow the lessons.

From early childhood, Alice has been hoping to train as a nurse and this should have been an eminently achievable ambition. Not only are there plenty of jobs available because hospitals are short-staffed, but she was academically gifted enough to make her way into college. She passed her O-levels with eight credits, a score that none of her seven older brothers and sisters had matched, and even now she laughs with delight at the memory of outranking the boys.

She gained the grades despite the fact that she was sheltering with her parents in a temporary camp for families displaced by the violent insurgency that swept through this part of Uganda six years ago, living in a hut where no one was permitted to light paraffin lamps at night, for fear of attracting the attention of enemy rebels.

Her teachers told her parents that she was talented, and her fellow pupils elected her head girl. For a while her prospects looked promising.

However, poverty intervened. Her final A-level grades were very poor – she failed biology and got only passes for the rest. Her father had hoped she would get a government scholarship to study further, but it was obvious that her results were not good enough. There was no chance to retake the exams, because by that point there were more, younger siblings to educate and her parents said her opportunity was gone.

"I was very disappointed when I saw the results. I knew my future was not going to be OK. I cried," she says, sitting the late afternoon by her mud-walled home, in a distant, rural region of Uganda. The family's hens are pecking at the purplish sorghum crop, laid out to dry on the swept mud yard. Alice's mother is listening, dressed in a washed-thin Unicef T-shirt (many people here wear T-shirts donated by aid agencies, a legacy of the fighting and natural disasters that have plagued the region). She remembers how she quarrelled with her daughter when the results came through, before reflecting that it would have been hard for her to excel, given how frequently she was made to leave class.

Alice, 20, is a good example of the kind of student the Mvule Trust hopes to help with its programme of scholarships: someone who is bright, motivated and ambitious, but who has been unable to fulfill their potential because they are too poor.

She searches in her house (three paces wide) to find her school books, stowed away since her plan to go to college was shelved, and unpacks them from a plastic first-aid bag donated by a UN relief organisation. "Reactions in which aldehydes and ketones differ," she has noted in diligent blue biro, above lines of chemical equations. "Structure and bonding of period (III) oxides". The A-level science curriculum has barely changed since the 1960s, when it was based on the UK model; standards are judged to be higher here than they would now be in the UK.

"I believe I would have succeeded if I had had the money," Alice says.

Alice had left home before dawn that morning to undertake the four-hour bicycle ride from their family home to Kaberamaido secondary school, where the scholarship interviews were held in the shade of tall neem trees. She made the journey without stopping. "You only feel the pain in your legs later, when you have rested," she says. "I felt happy. I knew I was going to get a chance."

Not many chances come along if you are a young woman in this impoverished stretch of north-east Uganda, which, over the past 20 years, has been beaten by rebel uprisings, banditry, flood and drought. When Alice heard at her church that scholarships were on offer, the Sunday previously, she clutched at what she saw as a way of fleeing the otherwise inescapable path towards marriage and a hand-to-mouth village existence, scratching at the fields for food.

A crowd of more than 100 people had gathered by the school playing fields, waiting for an interview. Some of the women were trembling when they sat down to explain their stories, some began to weep from the emotional exertion, aware that their future rested on their ability to show that they deserve support.

Alice was calmer than most, and impressed her interviewer with her determination to continue studying. "At school you can control your life. You are not wasting yourself," she said. She made it clear that she finds life back at home frustrating – she misses the chance to use her brain; she misses the friends she used to play netball and football with; she sees herself following in her mother's footsteps and is alarmed at the prospect. "My mother has a difficult life; she depends on only digging," she said.

Other girls in her village were pushed towards marriage, but her father believed in the importance of educating girls, and hoped she would go to college. However, on his salary of 200,000 Ugandan shillings (£65 a month) there was never "enough to feed us, to pay for all the things we need", she said.

Alice knows no one who owns a television, or a car, or even a motorbike, she said, and does not aspire to own anything like that herself. "As for now, there is nothing I need except for my studies. There would be no way I could become a nurse if I don't get a scholarship. The fee is too high."

"When I become a nurse, I will be helping the community. I want to help people with Aids," she said. Despite her poor A-level grades, there is a nursing college where Alice can be admitted on the basis of her good O-levels for a nursing certificate.

The interviewer smiled and made a positive note on her form. If money is raised by the Guardian appeal, Alice will be one of the first beneficiaries.

20091220
guardian

The UN has lent its support to government efforts to drive out rebels. But ordinary people are suffering as a result



Furaha, a 40 year-old mother, was working in her field when she was seized by a group of armed men and raped. For the next six months she served as their sex slave and was forced to sleep with around six men a day.

"One day they beat me so hard that I thought I was dead; they left me there and I don't know how long I was unconscious. The first thing I remember is the peacekeepers rescuing me."

Furaha's story shows why 10 years into its mission, the Democratic Republic of the Congo's UN peacekeeping force – better known by its French acronym Monuc – is as vital as ever. She literally owes them her life.

But the UN has taken a wrong turn and Monuc has let down the very people it was meant to help. This year a military strategy, planned by the Congolese government and backed by the UN, aimed to bring peace by aggressive action against a rebel group. But it has gone catastrophically awry.

Since January, 900,000 people have fled their homes and more than a thousand civilians have been killed. Homes have been burned to the ground and women and girls – some as young as four – have been brutally raped.

This violence is the direct result of the Congolese army's offensive against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a group formed by some of those responsible for the Rwandan genocide, who have hidden in Congo since 1994. The highest echelons of the UN security council have given this offensive their backing and the peacekeepers supported it by providing the Congolese army with food rations, fuel and transport, and occasionally fire-power.

On the face of it, support for removing rebels might not seem so bad. But the suffering the offensive has unleashed is disproportionate to any results it has achieved. As of October, for every rebel combatant disarmed during this offensive, one civilian was killed, an estimated seven women were raped, six houses were torched, and 900 people were forced to flee their homes, according to a group of 84 Congolese and international NGOs.

The UN should have realised that this outcome was likely. The Congolese army is poorly paid, undisciplined and known human rights abusers serve in the officer class. As a result, many units have treated civilians as if they were the enemy. Sections of the army have burned, looted and raped wherever they have been posted.

The FDLR has also wreaked havoc and has deliberately responded to this year's offensive with vicious reprisals against civilians. People in eastern Congo have told us that the operations have "woken a sleeping devil" and the FDLR are now more aggressive. Indeed a report by the UN's own independent specialists on Congo, the Group of Experts, said that the offensive had failed on its own terms: the FDLR has not been dismantled and is still a threat to civilians.

The "highest priority" of the peacekeepers according to their mandate is protecting civilians. This military misadventure, however well intended it may be, goes completely against that.

After many months of downplaying the stark humanitarian consequences, Alan Doss, the head of UN peacekeeping in Congo, has said that the operation will end on 31 December, to make way for a new phase of joint UN-Congolese operations. The UN is attempting to put in place better safeguards for civilian protection this time around. The people of eastern Congo will be waiting to see if they can make that happen.

Yet there are other ways to weaken the FDLR that are less harmful to civilians. Depleting their ranks through offers of resettlement is one. Likewise, members of the FDLR in Europe and beyond have kept the militia going with funding and advice on military tactics, and need to be clamped down on. Legal action is being taken against The FDLR's president in Germany but other members overseas are continuing their activities unhindered.

For the sake of Furaha and others like her, the UN security council must learn from the mistakes made this year and start charting a less destructive path to peace in Congo.