4 October 2009

Yaounde — Pauline Siembe, a Baka pygmy in South East Cameroon, comes out of her smoky hut licking her fingers after a meal of pounded yam and bush meat soup.

A bright smile lights her face, revealing an array of sharp-pointed teeth, intentionally sharpened to eat bush meat.

"It always feels good eating a meal like this," she remarks as she straps a basket on her shoulder and heads for the forest.

Her husband, Daniel Njanga, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, the same exhilaration visible as he emerges from the dwelling.

Still savouring the meal, Njanga says as I stretch out my hand to greet him: "This is what the government wants to deprive us of."

Taking on a more serious look, Njanga spits disdain for the government's methods of conserving the vast forest reserves of South East Cameroon, that straddle two of the country's "divisions", the Boumba and Ngoko and the Upper Nyong divisions, all in Cameroon's East Region, being part of the Congo Basin rain forest.

"This is our home and there is no point telling us that we should not access it," he tells IPS.

"If we are talking about conservation, then the Bakas are the best conservationists. We have been living here since time immemorial, and the forest has not disappeared. Those who now claim they are conserving the forest are the same people pillaging our forests. We see sawmills felling large portions of our forest every day. Is it not this same government that authorises the felling?" he asks.

Njanga is obviously angry that the forest has been gazetted into three national parks and 23 logging concessions, totalling some 760,000 hectares.

While logging concessions are designed to foster sustainable timber exploitation - in fact, operators are supposed to plant 10 trees for every one felled, although the provision is frequently violated - national parks create even stricter restrictions, as access is forbidden. These restrictions pose a threat to the Bakas, who now have to grapple with new challenges.

By the forestry laws of 1994, National Parks fall under the sphere of permanent forest domain. The law explicitly states: "Public access to state forests may be regulated or forbidden."

The more than 30,000 Baka pygmies who live in the region see these restrictions as an affront to their right of access to the forest they consider their natural home.

â-¨"Our lives are defined by this forest. We harvest fruits, wild tubers, honey and medicine from the forest. And we kill animals for our basic food needs. We destroy nothing. We get only what we need from the forest," Siembe told IPS.

Gilbert Ngwampiel, a Baka man in Ngoyla, near the Nki National Park, says: "If government says we should not hunt animals, it is a way of exterminating the Bakas. Eating bush meat makes Baka men fertile. Failing to eat meat means that the Baka man will not be able to impregnate his wife, and this is dangerous.

"Of course we want these animals to continue living here," Ngwampiel says when asked whether the Baka hunting techniques would not perhaps lead to the extinction of some species.

"We kill only enough animals to eat, and we don't kill all animals. We hunt only male animals, the females and the babes are left for posterity. Those who kill animals indiscriminately are those who want to go and sell, and they are not the Bakas - they are the Bantu," he told IPS.

He points out that the Bakas have their shrines and places of worship in the forest, and denying access to the forest is a clear violation of their right to freedom of worship.

"We can never stop worshipping the Jengi (the Baka spirit of the forest).The Jengi is the originator of all life. For life to continue, we must offer a yearly sacrifice of an elephant to Him. So, I can't understand how government tells us not to kill an elephant. How do we then survive?" he muses.

What the Bakas don't say is that they have to cut down trees to harvest honey, no matter the value and species of the tree, and their Jengi sacrifice is a threat to the dwindling numbers of elephants in the region.

Besides, the Bantu, according to Boumba and Ngoko divisional delegate for Forestry and Wildlife Pandong Eithel, supply the Bakas with guns and ammunition to hunt animals on a large scale, and later collect what has been brought in. "The rewards given to the Bakas are generally exploitative," he says.

Still, the concerns have pricked the conscience of the Cameroon government and its conservation partners, notably the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The two entities have already completed a study that recommends a shift in conservation paradigms.

"The intension is to put people at the centre of the conservation agenda. To find solutions that work for people," says Leonard Usongo, former WWF coordinator for the WWF-Jengi Conservation Project of South East Cameroon, and who supervised the study.

"We had to identify our conservation project with the culture of the Bakas. That is why we named the conservation project in SE Cameroon the Jengi Project, Jengi being the Baka word for spirit of the forest. We needed to strike a balance between conservation and local needs."

Olivier Tegomo, junior research assistant for WWF who was at the forefront of the study, said he worked closely with the Bakas to find out what the forest really represented for them.

"All this has to do with the notion of participatory forest management. We had to find out the types of products they get from the forest, where these products are concentrated, and how they could exploit those products without threatening the forest ecosystem. Along with the Bakas, we have come up with a participatory map that localises all their interests in the forest."

Conservators did sometimes poorly apply the 1994 forestry and wildlife laws, which "stipulate scrupulous respect for the rights of indigenous people to forest resources,", Eithel conceded to IPS.

"This participatory management approach will no doubt lead to a better application of that law, and help ensure respect for the Baka way of life, and their belief systems," he said.

Usongo says any conservation paradigm that does not take into consideration the socio-cultural needs of the people is built on the wrong premise.

"The solution that works is that which still allows the indigenous people access to forest products, although we have to encourage them to do so sustainably."

He says the WWF cannot stop the Bakas from sacrificing to Jengi, but adds "We are encouraging them to use less threatened species, instead of killing an elephant every year. He also says along with the administration, the WWF is encouraging the setting up of community farms for the Bakas to lure them away from resorting to the forest for all their food needs.

"We are also working to introduce them to pisciculture as a way of slowing down their continual dependence on bush meat for protein," he told IPS.

"It means restoring the Jengi - the spirit of the forest. It means balancing today's needs with tomorrow's demands," Usongo concludes.

But the government will still need to grapple with non-Baka people who border Cameroon's forest expanse, and who use most unorthodox and destructive methods of farming. Many use bush fires to clear the forest for farmland.

Statistics show that Cameroon loses 220,000 hectares of forest every year, farming constituting the highest element of deforestation.

allafrica

04 October 2009
Pope Benedict opened a synod of Roman Catholic bishops on Africa by denouncing the West’s materialism and lack of moral values, which he said were contaminating the world’s poorest continent like “toxic waste”.

Reuters - Pope Benedict opened a synod of Roman Catholic bishops on Africa by denouncing the West’s materialism and lack of moral values, which he said were contaminating the world’s poorest continent like “toxic waste”.

In his homily, the Pope compared Africa, which he visited earlier this year, to a spiritual “lung” at risk of being attacked by what he called the viruses of materialism and religious fundamentalism.

“There is absolutely no doubt that the so-called ‘First’ World has exported up to now and continues to export its spiritual toxic waste that contaminates the peoples of other continents, particularly those of Africa,” he said.

“In this sense colonialism, which is over at a political level, has never really entirely come to an end.”

Lamenting the exploitation of Africa’s vast resources, the pope also spoke out against religious fundamentalism, which he said was mixed with political and economic interests.

“Groups who follow various religious creeds are spreading throughout the continent of Africa ...teaching and practicing not love and respect for freedom, but intolerance and violence.”

In the 20th century, Africa’s Catholic population shot up from about 2 million in 1900 to about 140 million in 2000, making the continent ever more important to the Vatican as the number of practicing Catholics in the developed world declines.

In his Angelus blessing, the Pope called for political dialogue in Guinea, where at least 157 people were killed in a bloody crackdown on street protesters on Monday.

Oct 04 2009

Madagascar's cash-strapped government has opened the door for criminal syndicates to plunder the Indian Ocean island's precious natural resources, conservation groups said on Saturday.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Conservation International and Wild life Conservation Society said an inter-ministerial order issued last month granted an exceptional authorisation to export raw and semi-processed hard wood.

"It legalises the sale of illegally cut and collected wood onto the market; allows for the potential embezzlement of funds in the name of environmental protection and constitutes a legal incentive for further corruption in the forestry sector," the statement signed by the three groups said.

Eco-tourism is the backbone of Madagascar's $390-million-a-year tourism industry, which has been wrecked by months of political turmoil this year.

Conservationists say its biodiversity is being wiped out on a shocking level as gangs take advantage of a security vacuum to pillage rosewood and ebony from supposedly protected forests and trap exotic animals, mainly for Asia's pet market.

Isolated from land masses for more than 160-million years, the world's fourth largest island is a biodiversity "hotspot" home to hundreds of exotic species found only there.

Prime Minister Monja Roindefo denied the government was legitimising the plundering of forests, but refused to rule out issuing future licences.

"We have brought the logging under control. For the moment we don't foresee another order being issued," he told Reuters.

The September 21 government order authorised 13 operators to export 325 containers of timber, with the authorities taking a 72-million ariary tax on each container.

www.mg.co.za

By Tom Burgis in Lagos

Published: October 4 2009

Three militant commanders responsible for many of the attacks that have curtailed Nigeria’s oil production agreed on Sunday to lay down their weapons after accepting the government’s offer of amnesty at the 11th hour.

The gunmen’s emergence from their bases in the mangrove swamps of the Niger delta as Sunday’s deadline for a 60-day amnesty neared marks a victory for the efforts of Umaru Yar’Adua, president, to bring stability to the oil-rich region.

Pipeline bombings and wider unrest in sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest energy producer, the fifth biggest supplier of crude to the US, has at times reduced output by as much as 40 per cent, helping to drive oil prices to last year’s high of $147 a barrel.

Yet even as the rebel leaders who command thousands of foot soldiers said they would surrender their arms in exchange for an unconditional pardon, there were warnings that violence could return.

“There are still thousands of people willing to continue fighting in the creeks and only the actions of the government can win over our brothers still bent on fighting,” Farah Dagogo, one of the commanders, said in a statement.

Along with Government Ekpemupolo, known as Tompolo, and Ateke Tom, Mr Dagogo operated under an umbrella group called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta.

Some in Mend have rejected the amnesty, saying it does not address the delta’s grievances. Mend, which orchestrated a raid on Royal Dutch Shell’s deepwater Bonga field last year, told the Financial Times: “New deadly commanders are going to take over that are not known to the government.”

However, with its top commanders now retired, Mend’s capacity to strike is unclear. A ceasefire it declared before the amnesty has 11 days to run.

The delta states receive a greater share of national revenues than other parts of Nigeria. However, ­corruption and environ­mental degradation have left most inhabitants consigned to misery while a handful of politicians and militant leaders have made fortunes. A multi-billion-dollar trade in stolen oil has flourished.

Some militants who accepted the amnesty earlier have taken to the streets claiming they have not been paid a promised stipend.

The government plans to offer retired fighters vocational training but critics say the skills will be of little use without more job opportunities.

With the amnesty at an end, some delta leaders fear a repeat of May’s military offensive, which brought reprisals that knocked out almost all of Nigeria’s onshore production.

www.ft.com

MOGADISHU , Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- A spokesman for an Islamist faction in Somalia on Saturday said three aid workers kidnapped two months ago were released by their captors.

Mohamed Osman Arus, spokesman for the Islamist Hezbul Islam faction, said the humanitarian workers were released and flown out of the faction-controlled southern town of Luq.

"I can only tell that they (hostages) were released by their captors today and left the country safe and sound," Arus told Xinhua.

Arus denied his group was involved in the abduction of the three aid workers in a cross border raid into Kenya in July, but said the group "facilitated" the negotiations to release them.

The spokesman would not elaborate on whether a ransom was paid to secure their release.

The three hostages were identified as an American, a Zimbabwean and a Pakistani, soon after they were taken hostages in mid-July by a Somali militia group into the Kenyan border town of Mandera, where the three were said to be working for the French aid agency the Action Against Hunger (ACF).

Several other foreign and Somali hostages, including journalists and aid workers, are still being held in the war-torn Horn of Africa country by local armed groups, who demand payment of ransom for their release.

Somalia has been without a central government since the overthrow of the late Somali ruler Mohamed Siyad Barre in 1991.

(Repeats, without changes, to additional subscribers)

(Recasts with details from interview)

By Lesley Wroughton

ISTANBUL, Oct 3 (Reuters) - African economies should recover fairly quickly when the global economy gains strength and debt levels in the region are not troubling, the International Monetary Fund's top official for Africa said on Saturday.

In an interview with Reuters, IMF Director for Africa Antoinette Sayeh said that in countries where debt or high inflation are not a problem, fiscal and monetary policies should remain supportive.

To prevent a deterioration in debt levels, which have already risen in the region, fiscal policy will need to shift once a recovery has been established, she said.

"We need to be careful because we've already seen some deterioration of debt sustainability indicators in some countries," Sayeh said on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank meetings here.

"Some of the debt ratios are not looking as good as they did but we expect growth to resume in the next couple of years, so they have not deteriorated to levels that are worrying us," she said.

"We think countries at least for 2010 countries need to look at their budgets in the perspective of the recovery not yet fully underway."

01 October 2009
Ivorian prosecutor Raymond Tchimou (pictured) said Thursday that Guy-Andre Kieffer, a journalist who disappeared in 2004, is still alive. The statement followed new testimony claiming that Kieffer died at the hands of the first lady's entourage.

A man claiming he was a soldier in Ivory Coast’s army said Wednesday that the Franco-Canadian journalist Guy-Andre Kieffer, who went missing from the West African country in 2004, was killed by members of the first lady’s entourage in a botched interrogation.

But in apparent response to the new testimony, Ivorian state prosecutor Raymond Tchimou told the news agency AFP that the journalist had been taken out of the country and is still alive. Tchimou offered no other explanations or details on the journalists purported whereabouts.

In a press conference on Thursday, Alexis Gublin, lawyer of the missing journalist's brother called the Tchimou’s statements "unacceptable" and demanded evidence that would support the prosecutor's statement.

Guy-Andre Kieffer was last seen alive in April 2004, in the Ivorian capital, Abidjan. At the time, the journalist was investigating corruption in the cocoa industry. When he went missing, two French judges took on the case.

The judges have long suspected, based on the accounts of key witnesses, that people close to the president could be implicated in Kieffer's disappearance, a theory now strengthened by the latest testimony to be admitted into the docket.

Based on the former soldier’s testimony to the French judges, Kieffer was seized and held within the presidential compound in 2004, and then killed by accident.

“By word of mouth we learnt that [Kieffer] had been shot by accident,” the man stated. He said that the crime was perpetrated by the guards of first lady Simone Gbagbo, but that she herself had no knowledge of the incident.

Simone Gbagbo has always maintained she never saw Guy André Kieffer, a story she stuck to when she herself was questioned in the affair.

france24

03 October 2009
France has suspended the international arrest warrants it issued Friday for four Moroccans over the 1965 abduction of a high-profile opponent to Morocco's then King Hassan II, an event that has embarrassed the two nations for four decades.

France issued international arrest warrants for four Moroccans over the 1965 abduction of an opponent to Morocco's then King Hassan II on Friday, but later suspended them, citing a request for information from Interpol.

A French justice ministry spokesman said earlier on Friday that four arrest warrants were sent to Interpol, the international police organisation, and would be issued worldwide.

The head of Morocco's Royal Gendarmerie and a former intelligence chief were among the suspects being sought.

Mehdi ben Barka, a hero for the international left, was kidnapped in broad daylight in front of the smart Lipp restaurant in the heart of Paris and his fate remains unknown. French investigators believe he was tortured and killed.

The case has been a cause celebre for Moroccan advocates of greater political freedom in the kingdom, but it remains politically sensitive in Rabat, where the late Hassan's son Mohammed succeeded him as king in 1999.

Hours after the justice ministry announcement, the Paris prosecutor's office said it was suspending the issuance of the international arrest warrants because Interpol was seeking additional information from the judge overseeing the case.

"In effect, Interpol has requested more information so that the arrest warrants can be implemented. Without these precisions, they cannot be," the prosecutor's office said.

The information requested would allow the individuals targeted to be identified, it said.

But there were suspicions that the shifting stance might reflect efforts to avoid political strains given that the event has already embarrassed France and Morocco for decades.

Maurice Buttin, 80, the ben Barka family lawyer in France since 1965, said: "The prosecutor's office is blocking the situation again. This shows how things work in France."

Those targeted were: Hosni Benslimane, head of the powerful Adarak el Malaki, or Royal Gendarmerie, for more than four decades; Abdelkader Kadiri, a former head of intelligence; and Miloud Tounsi and Abdelhak Achaachi, two ex-agents.

A murder investigation into the case has been open in France since 1975 and detectives say they have evidence that the abduction was carried out by French criminals acting on orders from Moroccan intelligence officers.

During King Hassan's 38-year reign, dissidents were routinely jailed, tortured or killed.

Human rights activists accuse the French authorities of turning a blind eye to such abuses and of deliberately dragging their feet in the ben Barka affair to avoid damaging ties with Morocco, a former French colony.

The reform-minded King Mohammed is credited with turning Morocco into a more tolerant state, but the monarchy and the security services remain untouchable.

The four arrest warrants date back to 2007, when they were issued by a French investigating magistrate. The warrants immediately caused diplomatic tensions, with newly elected President Nicolas Sarkozy on a visit to Morocco at the time.

france24

03 October 2009
Six Senegalese soldiers have been killed in a rebel attack carried out by members of the Casamance Movement of Democratic Forces (MFDC), a former independence group, according to Senegalese military sources.

AFP - Six Senegalese soldiers have been killed in an attack apparently carried out by rebels from the Casamance Movement of Democratic Forces (MFDC), a former independence group, military sources said Saturday.

"Yesterday (Friday) ... a Senegalese army patrol returning to its base was attacked by armed elements supposedly belonging to the MFDC. There were six dead, four wounded and two missing," the source told AFP.

The attack, one of the most deadly in recent years, took place in the southern Casamance region about 120 kilometres (70 miles) east of the regional capital Ziguinchor.

Earlier this month, public officials in Casamance called for the reopening of talks between the Dakar government and the former rebels following the killing of a government soldier in an attack blamed on the MFDC.

The last talks between the Senegalese government and the MFDC, an ex-independence movement started in 1982 which waged a long battle against Dakar, were in February 2005, following a peace accord in December 2004.

But violence has again flared in the Casamance region, separated geographically from the rest of Senegal to the north by Gambia.

On August 21, a military official reported several clashes between the army and ex-rebels in Casamance.

Suspected MFDC members have also been blamed for killing three civilians in attacks on vehicles in the region in August and this week.

france24

03 October 2009
Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore has been given the job of 'facilitator' by the Economic Community of West African States to help ease tensions in Guinea after junta troops killed opposition demonstrators earlier in the week.

AFP - The Economic Community Of West African States has named Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore as "facilitator" to ease tensions in Guinea after junta troops there massacred opposition demonstrators.

"We came to see the president (Compaore) with a message from (Nigerian) President Umaru Yar'Adua, current ECOWAS chairman, who named President Compaore as facilitator in the Guinean crisis," ECOWAS president Mohamed Ibn Chambas told journalists.

Guinea has been in turmoil since Monday, when troops of Captain Moussa Dadis Camara's military junta opened fire on opposition demonstrators, killing 56 according to the junta and more than 150 according to the United Nations and a Guinean human rights organisation.

ECOWAS wants Compaore to "work on the Guinean file, see how he can help find ways to lower tensions, re-energise the transitional process in Guinea, resume dialogue between the authorities and (the opposition) and also see how we can move towards credible and transparent elections in Guinea," Chambas said.

The United Nations, European Union and African Union have already condemned the massacre in a Conakry stadium, while former colonial power France has withdrawn military cooperation and said it is considering other forms of cooperation.

Compaore, in power since 22 years, has previously mediated crises in Ivory Coast and Togo.

france24

3 October 2009

On the plains of Marsabit the heat is so intense the bush seems to shiver. The leafless scrub, bleached white by the sun, looks like a forest of fake Christmas trees. Carcasses of cattle and camels are strewn about the burnt red dirt in every direction. Siridwa Baseli walks out of the haze along a path of the dead and dying. He passes a skeletal cow that has given up and collapsed under a thorn tree. A nomad from the Rendille people, he is driving his herd in search of water.

He marks time in seasons but knows that it has not rained for three years: "Since it is not raining there is no pasture," he says. Only 40 of his herd of sheep and goats that once numbered 200 have survived. Those that remain are dying at a rate of 10 every day.

Already a herder before Kenya's independence he has never seen a drought like this.

independent

In an effort to clear up his name, the Lockerbie bomber, Libya's Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, claims that a key witness in his conviction was paid up to two million dollars in a deal approved by the US.

The Libyan published new documents in his website on Friday that showed the US Department of Justice was also involved.

Megrahi insists on saying that he was not guilty in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people.

Megrahi abandoned an appeal against his conviction for the bombing after Scotland freed him last month on compassionate grounds as he is terminally ill with prostate cancer.

Megrahi was convicted in January 2001 at an extraordinary Scottish court convened in the Netherlands. He mounted an unsuccessful appeal in 2002. In 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) sent his case for a subsequent appeal.

His lawyers said the documents released on the website were not produced at the trial but would have been used in an appeal, AFP reported.

According to the documents, the US Department of Justice was asked to pay two million dollars to Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who sold clothing found to have been in the suitcase that contained the bomb.

US authorities were also asked to pay Gauci's brother, Paul, one million dollars for his role in identifying the clothing, although he did not give evidence at the trial.

The previously secret payments were uncovered by the SCCRC, which investigates possible miscarriages of justice.

The commission found the information about the request for payments in the private diaries of detectives in the case, but not in their official notebooks.


presstv

03 Oct 2009

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir vows to hold a free election after the National Congress Party nominated him for the 2010 presidential elections.

The party's general conference "has decided to support the nomination of Omar Hassan al-Bashir as candidate for the presidential elections," the closing communiqué of the conference said on Saturday.

Bashir told the closing session of the conference that he was "committed to free and fair elections," Reuters reported.

Bashir's NCP party is the first major political party to officially nominate a candidate for president.

Earlier, over 20 Sudanese parties, along with the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), threatened to boycott the vote if the NCP did not push through promised reforms in two months.

These include legislation to ensure the independence of the media and reform the powerful national security forces.

The multi-party elections set for April 2010 will be the first in Sudan in 24 years.

The NCP decision comes after the Hague-based International Criminal Court last year issued an arrest warrant for Bashir on charges of war crimes against humanity in Darfur.

The United Nations says some 300,000 people have died in Darfur, with more than 2 million driven from their homes. Khartoum rejects that description and puts the death toll at 10,000.

presstv

A Hizbul Islam gunman is seen behind a heavy machine gun as he heads for Somalia's southern port of Kismayo on October 1.

03 Oct 2009
A senior Hizbul Islam member has been killed by unknown gunmen in the town of Hiiran, making Hizbul Islam fighters launch a house-to-house search for the killers.

At least six armed men gunned down Sheikh Aden Abdi, a top Hizbul Islam commander in the town of Hiiran on Friday, a Press TV correspondent reported.

The wife of and children of the slain fighter, who witnessed the crime said the gunmen came inside the house disguised as Hizbul Islam members. They said they had thought that the gunmen were his guards.

Meanwhile, Hizbul Islam has vowed retaliatory action against al-Shabaab fighters if the latter do not refrain from "killing Hizbul Islam commanders and do not vacate the town of Kismayo".

Hizbul Islam has given al-Shabaab a seven-day deadline to pull out of Kismayo.

According to the UN refugee agency, the number of civilian casualties is rising because of the latest upsurge in fighting in the troubled South Central region of Somalia. The UNHCR says the renewed fighting is sparking a new wave of displacement.

According to local humanitarian organizations in Somalia, in September alone, 145 people were killed and another 285 injured during heavy clashes in Kismayo, Beled Weyne and the capital, Mogadishu.

presstv

03 Oct 2009

Somali gunmen have released three aid workers who were captured in a cross-border raid in July in northern Kenya, a report says.

"They have just been released and taken to Nairobi," Sheikh Abdirisak, an official with Hizbul Islam, told Reuters Saturday.

He said the group came to Luq in southwestern Somalia several days ago and asked to use the airstrip. "The administration accepted their proposal and worked the security of the deal," he said.

It was not clear if a ransom had been paid for the release of the aid workers, taken from Kenya's remote Mandera province that borders Somalia and Ethiopia.

A witness confirmed the report. "I have seen with my own eyes those three aid workers being put on a plane heading to Kenya this morning," said Mohamed Ahmed, a member of a militia loyal to Hizbul Islam in Luq.

Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991 and 3.8 million people are in dire need of humanitarian food aid for survival.

Kidnappings for ransom have risen in recent years, with journalists and aid workers often targeted.

presstv

02 Oct 2009

Clashes between rival factions have resulted in the death of over 145 people and the injury of 280 more in various parts of war-torn Somalia last month, the UN reported.

The deaths have occurred mainly in Kismayo and Mogadishu in September alone, said UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic, a Press TV correspondent reported late on Friday.

Mahecic said civilians are bearing the brunt of the deadly civil conflict mostly in the south central region of the country, resulting in massive displacement of civilians in the last two months.

But the rate of displacement within Somalia has diminished over the last two months when compared to the months of May and June 2009, the spokesman said, and added that the 17,000 figure is still high for September alone, including 11,000 from the capital.

Rebel forces comprising of al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam launched a major offensive on May 7 against the embattled UN-backed transition government, which controls little more than a few blocks of Mogadishu.

However the two rebel groups have also been engaged in deadly infighting in recent days over the control of the southern port city of Kismayo, where more than 30 people have been reportedly killed.

Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991 and, almost half of its population, 3.8 million people, is in dire need of humanitarian food aid for survival.

presstv

02 Oct 2009

After a month of calm, Somali pirates hijack a Spanish fishing vessel with 36 crew members in the Indian Ocean, the EU anti-piracy mission says.

During early hours of Friday, the 35-meter Spanish tuna fishing vessel, Alakrana, was hijacked some 360 nautical miles off the east coast of Somalia, European Union's Operation Atalanta said in a statement on Friday.

A Press TV correspondent quoted the statement as saying that the pirates are heading the Alakrana towards Somali waters.

Andrew Mwangura, the East Africa Coordinator of Seafarers Assistance Program, who monitors maritime activities in the region also confirmed the hijacking, saying the crew consists of 16 Spaniards, eight Indonesians, four Ghanaians, three Senegalese, two from the Ivory Coast, two from Madagascar and one from the Seychelles.

Piracy along the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, is common place.

Dozens of multinational warships are currently patrolling the waters under a UN mandate to deter pirate attacks but the sea gangs sometimes carry out attacks right under the watchful eyes of international fleets.


presstv

The ASK camp in April 2008: After days of stalling, hundreds of people IDPs have begun leaving the camp after receiving cash handouts from the government (file photo)

NAIROBI, 2 October 2009 (IRIN) - After days of stalling, hundreds of people displaced by Kenya's post-election violence in early 2008 have begun leaving a camp in the western town of Eldoret after receiving cash handouts from the government.

Most of the estimated 2,700 internally displaced persons (IDPs) had, between 28 September and 1 October, declined to accept KSh35,000 [US$460] from the government to help them resettle. President Mwai Kibaki recently directed administrative officials and those in the Ministry of State for Special Programmes to ensure IDPs in camps were resettled within two weeks.

The IDPs, who have been living in the camp at the Eldoret showground of the Agricultural Society of Kenya (ASK), are among the last of hundreds of thousands of people displaced when violence erupted across the country following disputed presidential elections.

"At first, those who feared to return to their homes declined to receive the money being given out by the government. But this has now changed, a lot of people have agreed to dismantle their tents, get the money and hope that the government will consider them when the time comes to get land," Ndung'u Wanjohi, chairman of the camp, told IRIN on 2 October.

The government provided trucks to move those who dismantled their tents and took the money.

Wanjohi said those who had declined the cash were mostly former tenants in informal settlements in Eldoret town and those who lived in rural areas of Uasin Gishu district.

"Some of these people feel that they are not welcome in the areas they lived in before the violence; many others were tenants in slum areas like Langas and Maili Nne. They do not have the money to rent new premises so they were hoping the directive by Kibaki that land should be found for IDPs would apply to them," he said. "We hope such people will actually get land or they will be helped to rebuild their lives somehow."

Wanjohi said he expected the move out of the camp to be completed by 7 October - "that is when we will have a meeting with government officials to discuss the issues of those who might have been left out of the lists of those getting the money from the government".

Left off the list

However, Tabitha Wambui, 35, said she was among a group of IDPs who have been left off the government's lists because she was away from the camp when officials counted camp members.

"What happens to me and my four children now? I was in hospital caring for my sick child when the counting was done, how will I survive when the camp is closed yet I am not getting the money?"

Another IDP, Grace Wairimu, 60, said the government should give special consideration to women-headed households who were left out of the government lists because they were not in the camp during the headcount.

"For instance, I came to this camp in January 2008 with my five children; two of my daughters have their own children but we all ended up in one tent because they are unmarried. Can the government consider treating my daughters as heads of families in their own right and give each of them the KSh35,000; after all, we were all affected by the violence?" Wairimu asked.

She said she was taking care of several grandchildren as her daughters undertook petty trade in Eldoret town. "I missed out on being counted because I had taken one of the children to hospital."

Wanjohi estimated that more than 200 families had, since 30 September, received the cash handout from the government and had left the camp, leaving at least 300 families.

The district commissioner for Wareng, Alex Ngoiyo, said he expected the camp to close in a week's time. "Anyone who will be left here after we pay those registered will be a stranger and we will not allow them to be here at the showground."

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Three Luganda stations have been off air for more than a fortnight

NAIROBI/KAMPALA, 2 October 2009 (IRIN) - Criminal charges and the closure of several radio stations over alleged incitement to violence in Kampala have sparked a debate about the limits of free speech in Uganda.

The Uganda Broadcasting Council (UBC) silenced four Luganda* radio stations during three days of riots in September 2009 sparked by the government's refusal to allow the king of Buganda, Kabaka Ronald Mutebi, from travelling to a district within his kingdom.

UBC accused the broadcasters, one of which has since gone back on air, of "inciting violence and hatred" during the riots. According to the government, 20 rioters and seven bystanders died.

Criminal charges have been brought against several guests and members of the public who telephoned the stations, while a handful of radio presenters have been questioned by the police's Criminal Investigation Department.

Criticism of the UBC's decision was swift and harsh, with media rights groups saying the government was “not fooling anyone” with its sweeping measures to crack down on critical media.

Opinion in the country, however, is more divided; while some feel shutting down the stations was the desperate action of an unpopular government, others felt the tone of some of the programmes was indeed inflammatory.

He said, she said

"The stations were merely expressing their support for the Kabaka; one of these stations, CBS [Central Broadcasting Services], is owned by the Buganda Kingdom, so inevitably they will side with Buganda in any debate," said Ssemujju Nganda, a senior editor at The Observer, an independent newspaper. "The government knew this would always be the case when they gave them the licence to broadcast."

Nganda did, however, admit that in the heat of the moment there may have been “excesses” by radio presenters.

Police documents charging Elias Lukwago, Member of Parliament for Kampala Central, with inciting violence after a 9 September talk-show on Akaboozi Kubiri, accuse the MP of making statements implying that it would be "incumbent or desirable to do acts calculated to lead to the destruction or damage of property".

"Those of you who are working in markets, shopping arcades, canteens, restaurants, those of you seated idle on verandas and those of you who are tending their gardens, what have you done so far about all the challenges that have hit us before? Will you wait until you are hit directly?" reads part of an English translation of a police transcript of Lukwago's appearance on the show. "Are you waiting for His Majesty to be attacked and in his palace?"
''If there is anything they think was inciting [violence], then it was not by design''


According to Godfrey Mutabazi, chairman of the UBC, presenters, guests and talk-show callers were indeed inciting hatred among the Baganda, much of it directed towards people from western Uganda, who are perceived to have been favoured above other ethnic groups during the presidency of Yoweri Museveni, who hails from that region.

"Sometimes the messages are coded and other times they were blatantly inciting violence and hatred," he said. "I had no choice other than to suspend broadcasting by these radio stations – otherwise we could have been dealing with a situation like Rwanda, where Radio Mille Collines was able to incite thousands into ethnic violence that resulted in the genocide."

In addition, Mutabazi said, the stations were actively encouraging Baganda in general to defy the police's orders and travel to Kayunga.

"After the police advised the Kabaka and his supporters not to travel to Kayunga for security reasons, CBS became like a mobiliser, openly defying the police, urging supporters of the king to go against the police directive and head there anyway," he added.

The UBC was unable to provide IRIN with copies of transcripts from the broadcasts in question.

Denials

For their part, the stations' managers have vehemently denied any of the charges made against them. "We did not make any broadcast that could qualify as inciting violence; we were reporting events as they unfolded," said CBS chief executive officer Kaaya Kavuma. "We had reporters all over the place and they were telling us the reality on the ground; if that is inciting violence, then this is a matter of interpretation."

However, some members of Kampala's listening public disagree. "These radio stations are insulting even when there are no riots; during the violence the programmes definitely became more threatening to non-Baganda," said Joseph Tushabe, a shop owner from western Uganda in the capital. "I am sure some of the rioters were responding to the attitudes they heard on the radio."

However, according to Bogere Masembe, CEO of Ssuubi FM, there was no plan to incite violence. "If there was anything they think was inciting, then it was not by design," he said.

One thing most analysts agree on is that the UBC was excessive in its decision to take the stations off the airwaves completely.

Heavy-handedness

"Whatever the presenters said, there are ways of dealing with it within the law without using such arbitrary methods as closing stations down," Nganda said.

CBS's Kavuma accused the UBC of failing to follow the rule of law in the decision to close down the stations; the council, he said, broke into the station's transmission system with the aid of the Uganda People's Defence Forces. Ssuubi FM's Masembe said his station was attacked in a similar manner.

"The Broadcasting Council wrote to us two days after we were closed down; we were not given any hearing or a warning," he said. "When you break the law, there are institutions that are supposed to interpret the law; it was high-handedness."

"One of the complaints we keep hearing from government is that the presenters are not professional journalists, but you cannot criminalize lack of professionalism," said Peter Mwesige, an independent media consultant and one of the founders of Uganda's Daily Monitor newspaper.

"We don't see the UBC on a day-to-day basis regulating station programming; they seem to exclusively focus on sanctions," he added.

Mwesige noted, however, that there was a need for greater professionalism in political talk-radio in Uganda, as without it, broadcasts could turn dangerous.

"There is a legitimate case for greater professionalism, for proper research and better moderation of talk shows," he said. "But the way to do this is to engage with radio stations' management in order to achieve this, not to shut them down."

*Buganda is a kingdom in south-central Uganda inhabited by the Baganda people, who speak Luganda.

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The threat to boycott Sudan’s first elections in two decades was issued in Juba, capital of Southern Sudan, by some 20 political parties, which demanded changes to laws relating to civil liberties, such as press freedom, and democracy (file photo)

JUBA/NAIROBI, 2 October 2009 (IRIN) - A new boycott threat by several political parties in Sudan illustrates how next year’s elections, billed as a milestone in democratic transformation, in fact present considerable challenges and could destabilize the country and further undermine an already shaky peace deal between north and south.

The threat to boycott Sudan’s first elections in two decades was issued in Juba, capital of Southern Sudan, by some 20 political parties, which demanded changes to laws relating to civil liberties, such as press freedom, and democracy.

A few days earlier, the London-based African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies said there had been an “increasing crackdown on freedom of expression in Sudan, targeting public discussion of, and preparation for, the elections. Since the beginning of August, Sudanese authorities have systematically targeted any activities, symposia, public rallies or lectures related to the elections.”

Signatories to the Juba Declaration include the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which governs the semi-autonomous Southern Sudan and has been a partner in a fragile national government since a 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) put an end to 20 years of north-south war.

In the Juba Declaration, the parties also said they would stay away from the presidential, parliamentary and local polls unless a row over the results of a census – which affects electoral constituencies - was resolved.

The National Congress Party (NCP), led by President Omar el-Bashir, did not take up an invitation to participate in the talks.

The argument in favour

Although neither the SPLM nor the NCP was keen to include elections in the CPA negotiations, foreign sponsors of the peace process were convinced polls would help reverse the extreme centralization of power that has long been a major driver of conflict in Sudan.

The CPA originally scheduled elections for 2009, halfway though an interim period that culminates in an independence referendum in Southern Sudan in 2012. It was foreseen that the elections would also serve as “plebiscite on the CPA, engage political forces that were not included in the agreement and instil among the Sudanese population a sense of ownership of the peace process”, states Ticking the box - Elections in Sudan, a report by Jort Hemmer of the Netherlands Institute for International Relations’ Conflict Research Unit.

Opening the Juba conference, Southern Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, said: “I believe that the general elections, if properly conducted, shall be a critical impetus for change and empowerment of our people to choose their political leaders and elect their democratic institutions.

“If properly conducted... elections shall be a good opportunity for the Sudanese people to bring a real change through their free will as one major impetus to the process of democratic transformation,” he said, adding pointedly: “But those are two big ‘ifs’.”

Caveats

Kiir’s principal caveat concerns this year’s population census, whose results he described as “too flawed and lack[ing] the minimum acceptable level of credibility.

“Without the resolution of this issue… the election process, despite our preparedness for it, may be put in jeopardy.”

There are also concerns about the level of this “preparedness”. In late August, the Carter Center warned in a report of “serious concerns about slippage in the overall electoral calendar” as well as “delays in key operational, policy, and budgetary decisions; continued restrictions on civil liberties; and the lack of adequate reform legislation needed to fully protect the fundamental freedoms of Sudanese citizens”.

It said the “ambitious” election schedule would “only be viable” if swift steps were taken to ensure further delays are avoided.

US Special Envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration, has spoken of the many challenges for the electoral process. “Not only do all the legislative laws need to be passed, but there is also election training, voter education, the security that is involved in it, the ballot boxes, the monitoring - all those kind of issues are very, very difficult.”

In a country where many citizens have never voted in their lives, the complexity of the poll is likely to be bewildering. The election will determine the presidencies and legislatures of both the Government of National Unity and Southern Sudan, state governorships and state assemblies. Some victors will be chosen under a first-past-the-post system, others by proportional representation.

In a recent report, the Rift Valley Institute noted that the numerous elections and referendums held in Sudan since 1953 “have not so far produced the kind of stable yet dynamic government that the secret ballot is intended to encourage” largely because of “widespread and massive” fraud under authoritarian regimes and lack of necessary resources.

While the report argued that elections should take place in Sudan, it warned of a “strong possibility that the forthcoming election will suffer from a combination of all the weaknesses that have undermined previous elections. There is widespread public scepticism and suspicion of possible malpractice, based on people’s experience in previous authoritarian elections; and there are immense logistical challenges.

“The stakes are very high. If the election should lack credibility, it is hard to see how the Comprehensive Peace Agreement can survive,” it said.

In Ticking the Box, Hemmer wrote that “Sudan’s political context presents an extremely unfavourable environment for an open and honest competition for power.

“Contested elections that spark large-scale political violence and, in the worse case, constitute a prelude to a new war is a realistic scenario,” he added, concluding that Sudan “had much to lose and little to gain” from holding elections in 2010.

This sentiment is shared by Sudan analyst John Ashworth. “By having elections you could actually derail democracy because of the context – a ceasefire between two warring parties. It doesn’t make sense to disrupt that before the end of the interim period.”

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