Africa

Burundi AFP 21 Apr 2004 Burundi's last active rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), announced Wednesday it would immediately stop attacking government troops and their allies and that it was willing to consider holding peace talks.

Côte d'Ivoire AFP 2 Apr 2004 UN orders enquiry into Ivory Coast bloodshed / IRIN 2 Apr 2004 Government confirms paramilitary role in Abidjan unrest The government says 37 people were killed as the police and army fired live bullets at unarmed civilians on 25 March to disperse a banned opposition protest demonstration against Gbagbo's alleged unwillingness to implement a 15-month-old peace agreement aimed at ending Cote d'Ivoire's civil war. However, opposition parties claim 350 to 500 people were killed

DR Congo AFP 31 Mar 2004 8,000 Rwandan militia still in DR Congo: UN / SAPA 29 Apr 2004 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) troops have killed 39 Rwandan Hutu rebels in eastern DRC and "neutralised" two battalions of the feared Interahamwe militia, blamed for Rwanda's 1994 genocide, the United Nations mission said on Thursday.

Ethiopia IRIN 30 Mar 2004 Ethiopia: Parliament Votes for Independent Probe Into Violence in Gambella / Biddho.com 4 Apr 2004 Ethiopian PM´s Dossier: Meles Zenawi about Meles Zenawi´s downfall Meles Zenawi more and more contested ION News Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is now losing the authority that he had regained over the Tigray People's Liberation Front . . . In the federal parliament also, TPLF MPs no longer speak with a single voice. Last week, during a session chaired by the deputy speaker, Petros Olango, the TPLF MPs did not appreciate the report by Abay Tsehaye, minister of federal affairs, on the recent confrontations in Gambella (in the west of the country). / L’Organisation Mondiale contre la Torture 27 Apr 2004 Ethiopia: concerns about a Commission of Investigation attempting to cover up State involvement in acts of genocide / Reuters 29 Apr 2004 E Ethiopia's prime minister Thursday dismissed a report that said the army had helped kill more than 1,000 people in ethnic murders in the west of the country, calling it a "fiction" that had duped outsiders.

Kenya The Nation (Nairobi) 31 Mar 2004 Families of people who died in the infamous Wagalla massacre in Wajir, northern Kenya, 20 years ago are willing to have bodies exhumed for examination. They also want a truth commission established to investigate the atrocities allegedly committed by government officials between February 9 and 13, 1984.

Namibia Independent UK 3 Apr 2004 Mugabe aiding Namibia land grab . . . civic groups in Namibia have warned against Zimbabwe- style methods, which have destroyed its country's agriculture and reduced it to the status of beggar nation. However, with an election due next year, Namibia's white farmers fear that Mr Nujoma's ruling Swapo party might resort to the populist methods that have been pioneered by Mr Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

Rwanda Reuters 1Apr 2004 Westerners Shun 10th Anniversary Rwandan Genocide / Reuters 1 Apr 2004 Ex-Rwandan president Bizimungu goes on trial / Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne) 2 Apr 2004 Seven Heads of State to Attend Genocide Commemoration The leaders include Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Umar al-Bashir of Sudan, Idriss Deby of Tchad, Mwai Kibabi of Kenya, Yoersi Museveni of Uganda. Tanzania will be represented by its Prime Minister Frederick Sumaye and Burundi, by the Vice-President Alphonse Marie Kadege. Of the Western countries Belgium will send the most important delegation, led by the Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt. / IRIN 2 Apr 2004 Census finds 937,000 died in genocide / BBC 5 Apr 2004, Preventing another genocide By Alison De Forges / BBC 11 April, 2004 A military official said at least 16 rebels were killed attempting to attack a Tutsi village inside Rwanda's border.

Sudan BBC 1 Apr 2004 Sudan's Islamist party HQ closed / VOA 1 Apr 2004 Pentagon Closely Monitors Situation in Sudan’s Darfour Region / HRW 2 Apr 2004 Sudanese government and militia accused of war crimes UN News Centre 2 Apr 2004 . Jan Egeland, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefed the Council in New York on what he described as a growing humanitarian crisis in Darfur. "We have now seen an organized campaign being undertaken of forced depopulation of entire areas," he said, adding he could find no other words than ethnic cleansing to describe what has been happening. / HRW 2 Apr 2004 Sudan: Massive Atrocities in Darfur Almost One Million Civilians Forcibly Displaced in Government’s Scorched-Earth Campaign / IPS 2 Apr 2004 The Security Council threw its weight behind talks aimed at halting a year-old conflict in western Sudan, calling on the government and opposition groups to halt fighting for humanitarian reasons and to settle their dispute politically / BBC 6 Apr 2004 UN mission probes Darfur violence The government is accused of tolerating ethnic cleansing in Darfur The United Nations has launched a 10-day mission to investigate alleged human rights abuses by government-backed Arab militias in Darfur. UN spokeswoman Annick Stevenson said human rights experts had started interviewing refugees, mostly black Sudanese, who had fled to Chad. / NYT 6 Apr 2004 Remember Rwanda, but Take Action in Sudan By SAMANTHA POWER A radio exchange between a Sudanese ground commander and a pilot overhead (taped by a British journalist in February) captures the aims of the attackers: Commander: We've found people still in the village. Pilot: Are they with us or against us? Commander: They say they will work with us. Pilot: They're liars. Don't trust them. Get rid of them. / Reuters 21 Apr 2004 U.S. Forgoes Penalties on Sudan, Urges Negotiations Bush is ``especially concerned'' about the Sudanese government's actions in the western Darfur region. ``Although not directly related to the North-South talks, he urges the government to ensure the unrestricted freedom of movement for international aid agencies,'' the official said. / AFP 21 Apr 2004 Attacks in Sudan's Darfur may be crimes against humanity: UN mission / Reuters 22 Apr 2004 Rights Group Reports Massacre of 136 Men in Darfur Thu Apr 22, 2004 10:52 PM ET By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Arab militia and Sudanese government troops were responsible for the massacre of 136 African men in the Darfur region last month, Human Rights Watch charged on Thursday. / HRW 23 Apr 2004 Sudan: Government and Militias Conspire in Darfur Killings Major Massacre Shows State Complicity / WP 26 Apr 2004 Perhaps for the first time, United Nations Commission on Human Rights the commission has suppressed one of its own reports. The report, written by a team of U.N. human rights investigators -- and led by Bacre Waly Ndiaye, a Senagalese lawyer who warned of the potential for genocide in Rwanda a year before it happened -- was based on interviews with Sudanese refugees who had escaped across the border from Darfur, into Chad. / VOA 27 Apr 2004 Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail speaking to the VOA, denies accusations that genocide has occurred in the region.

Uganda newsday.com 4 Apr 2004 TERROR IN UGANDA Where kids are primary victims and victimizers The Lord's Resistance makes children kill their families and turns the abducted boys into soldiers and the girls into sex slaves

Americas

Argentina BBC 31 Mar 2004 On Monday, an Argentine court found two police officials guilty of arranging the theft of a baby from murdered detainees during the country's last military dictatorship, and then handing her over for adoption. Some 400 babies are believed to have been snatched in this way, and their identities suppressed. Of those, 77 have since been "discovered".

Brazil WP 14 Apr 2004 Young Brazilian Indians Find Suicide Only Way Out . . . According to news reports, more than 300 of the 30,000 Kaiowa Indians who live here in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul have taken their own lives since 1995; 54 did so last year alone, corresponding to a rate of 180 per 100,000. . . With a population of 180 million people and an area larger than the contiguous United States, Brazil has in its postwar development efforts squeezed its 300,000 native people into smaller and smaller reserves. . . . The unemployment rate on the reservation is more than 60 percent, said Luciano Arevalo. Drug and alcohol abuse is rampant and malnutrition common, said Andrea Depieri, a local police officer. Often left behind, adolescent girls and young women from the reservation have increasingly turned to prostitution to support themselves or their families, she said. "The reservations are like a vacuum," she said, "and the only thing that fills it is deprivation. . . . "It's like watching a genocide," Depieri said. "And until there is some real land reform here, the Kaiowa will continue to cut their children down from trees.

Canada Reuters 21 Apr 2004 The Canadian House of Commons voted 153-68 to support a motion declaring the events of 90 years ago as genocide, despite a plea from Foreign Minister Bill Graham not to aggravate NATO ally Turkey.

Guatemala UN News Centre 2 Apr 2004 Guatemala: UN hails Government's promise to halve army, military budget

United States St. George Daily Spectrum, UT 1 Apr 2004 Lee statue will go up, council says Council members vote to go ahead with the statue despite public outcry Lee is connected to an event in 1857 wherein Arkansas emigrants headed for California were attacked by Utah militiamen, a group comprising members from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others. More than 100 men, women and children died in what came to be known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Lee was the only person to ever be tried, convicted and executed for the massacre. / Bayside Times Ledger (NY) 1 Apr 2004 Queensboro exhibit shows century of global genocide / Hillsboro Argus, OR 1 Apr 2004 Dr. Sheridan Thiringer shared his thoughts with me upon his recent return from the First International Conference of the Institute for Action Against Hate at his alma mater, Gonzaga University / Wilmington Journal wilmingtonjournal.blackpressusa.com TULSA RIOT LAWSUIT DISMISSED, WEEK OF APRIL 1-APRIL 7, 2004 by CASH MICHAELS Acknowledging that the event was a “terrible devastation,” an Oklahoma federal judge reluctantly dismissed a lawsuit seeking reparations from the state, city of Tulsa and the Tulsa Police Department for the deadly 1921 race riots that claimed over 100 lives. / AFP 31 Mar 2004 Justice Dept backs girl's right to wear headscarf / Long Beach Press Telegram 3 Apr 2004 www.presstelegram.com Khmer Rouge tribunal sought L.B. lawmakers urge Bush to fund court that would try regime chiefs.

Asia-Pacific

Cambodia AFP 2 Apr 2004 In the first book written by a former Khmer Rouge leader on the regime’s brutal 1970s reign, Khieu Samphan styles himself as an intellectual and a patriot who knew nothing of the genocide being wrought.

China BBC 30 Mar 2004 Chinese security agents have detained the mothers of three students killed during the Tiananmen demonstrations 15 years ago. The three are all prominent members of the Tiananmen Mothers' Organisation. / www.chinaview.cn 30 Mar 2004 Progress in China's Human Rights Cause in 2003 / AP 30 Mar 2004 China Defends Human Rights Record / BBC 31 Mar 2004 US demands China release three Tiananmen relatives / UPI 2 Apr 2004 China has released three women arrested for seeking justice at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights for victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

India BBC 3 Apr 2004 Unique tribe on edge of extinction There is supposed to be no contact between Jarawa people and the so-called civilised settlers that have moved onto the Andamans in increasing numbers for the past 300 years. / Reuters 4 April 2004 . In its campaign for this month’s Indian elections, the BJP has put aside its Hindu revivalist rhetoric and is making a determined effort to reach out for the political middle ground and cement alliances with moderate, secular parties. Most of India’s 120 million Muslims are still deeply mistrustful of a party associated with the destruction of a 16th century mosque in the northern city of Ayodhya in 1992 and the controversial campaign to build a Hindu temple on the site. But some, it seems, are beginning to think the unthinkable. . .. Two years ago, the BJP state government in Gujarat was accused of complicity in the massacre of hundreds of Muslims in revenge for the torching of a train carrying Hindu pilgrims by suspected Muslim extremists.

Indonesia WP 31 Mar 2004 Democracy Seeks A Drill Sergeant Indonesians Let Down by Reforms Throng to Presidential Campaign of Indicted Ex-General. Despite being indicted for crimes against humanity by a U.N.-supported tribunal in East Timor -- a charge he denies -- Wiranto, 57, has emerged as one of the most visible challengers to President Megawati Sukarnoputri in elections scheduled for July. Last week, U.N. prosecutors at the special tribunal urged East Timor to seek an international arrest warrant for Wiranto. / Xinhua 1 Apr 2004 Human rights abuse in Indonesia to be brought to UN Four students of the University of Trisakti were shot dead on May 12, 1988, when they staged rally to protest the Suharto dictatorship, which fell that month after mounting protests. / BBC 2 Apr 2004 A self-confessed member of the group behind the Bali and Jakarta bombs has said his leaders received orders from Osama Bin Laden to attack Americans. The Bali attacks killed 202 people Another interviewee said he had recruited two alleged explosives experts being sought in connection with the Bali and Jakarta bombings and a third said he had helped provide explosives for the Christmas 2000 church attacks in Indonesia. / BBC 21 Apr 2004 Indonesia's former ruling party Golkar has chosen an alleged war criminal, General Wiranto, to run for president. He has been indicted for war crimes for his role in the crackdown on the independence movement in East Timor, but remains popular across Indonesia. / AFP 29 Apr 2004 Snipers spread terror Thursday in parts of Indonesia's Ambon but most of the city was calmer after four days of Muslim-Christian fighting which has killed at least 37 people. A banned parade by Christian separatists sparked off the bloodshed on Sunday in the eastern city, which is the Maluku provincial capital. The violence was the worst since a pact in February 2002 ended three years of religious battles in which some 5,000 people died.

Iraq BBC 4 Apr 2004 Coalition troops are reported to have opened fire on demonstrators in the Iraqi city of Najaf. At least three Iraqis were killed and dozens wounded after troops fired on a mass of people who were approaching their base, witnesses said. / KurdishMedia.com 31 March 2004 Turkmen is named as the Iraqi Defence Minister The representative of Turkmens in the Iraqi Governing Council, Songul Cabuk, is named as the Minister of Defence of Iraq . . She would be the first female who has taken the position of the defence minister in the entire Arab countries. Cabuk is well-known for her anti-Kurdish views / BBC 7 Apr 2004 US vows to wipe out cleric's army Sadr's Mehdi Army is thought to have about 10,000 members

Israel www.israaid.org.il 1 Arp 2004 IsraAID Commorates Rwandan Geoncide / www.maarivintl.com 1 Apr 2004 Israeli professor accuses Israel of genocide in European newspaper "The murder of Sheikh Yassin is part of an Israeli policy that can be described as symbolic genocide". This claim was made by Ben-Gurion University professor Lev Greenberg in a recent article published in the Belgian daily 'La Libre Belgique'.

Japan Mainichi Shimbun 7 Apr 2004 mdn.mainichi.co.jp Controversial visits to Yasukuni Shrine by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi infringed upon the constitutional separation of religion and state, a court ruled here on Wednesday. The Fukuoka District Court ruled on a suit filed by more than 200 people who claimed that they suffered mentally from Koizumi's pilgrimages to the shrine. / ABC Radio Australia News Japan's PM plans to continue controversial Yasakuni war shrine visits The Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, says he will continue to pay his respects at a controversial War Shrine, despite a court ruling that the visits are unconstitutional. Our Tokyo correspondent, Mark Simkin, reports that Mr Koizumi has called the ruling "irrational" and pledged to continue his controversial visits.

Nepal Deutsche Presse Agentur 1 Apr 2004 Maoists abduct over 1000 villagers in west Nepal Kathmandu / BBC 3 Apr 2004 It is the third day running that the capital has seen protests For the third day running the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu, is witnessing large pro-democracy demonstrations.

Sri Lanka AFP 31 Mar 2004 Army deployed as Tamils flee east Sri Lanka amid arson attacks, war fears / AFP 29 Apr 2004 Sri Lanka imposes regional curfew as ethnic riots kill two. Residents said two Tamil men of recent Indian origin were killed when police opened fire to stop mobs that attacked shops and vehicles late Wednesday in clashes triggered by a traffic accident.

Syria www.kurdmedia.com 3 Apr 2004 Kurdish leadership console of Western Kurdistan of Syria 02/04/2004 Kurdish Leadership Console (KLC) The Syrian regime and its security forces are still continuing their massacre of the Syrian Kurds and threatening Kurdish leaders. On Friday, March 26, 2004 The Syrian regime tortured five Kurdish soldiers in the Syrian army, killing one of them for attending the Kurdish celebration of Newroz and critically injuring the other four. Kurdish students are being expelled from the Universities and many Kurds along with other minorities are being arrested. / BBC 7 Apr 2004 The human rights organisation Amnesty International has called on Syria to release Kurds detained during last month's violent riots. "Hundreds" of Kurds are being held at unknown locations, incommunicado and without charge, Amnesty said.

Thailand BBC 29 Apr 2004 Thai troops are braced for new attacks after over 100 suspected militants were killed on Wednesday during fighting in the country's Muslim south. Top generals have warned of a new military campaign by Islamists, but the prime minister said the attacks were carried out by criminal gangs. The violence began before dawn on Wednesday as groups of young men launched apparently co-ordinated assaults on security posts throughout Yala, Pattani and Songkhla provinces. But the security forces, who had been tipped off, were lying in wait and responded with devastating fire power, losing only five of their own men.

Uzbekistan WP 31 Mar 2004 Two Dozen Killed in Wave Of Violence in Uzbekistan Bombings, Shootouts Claim Mostly Suspected Militants

Europe

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe 29 Apr 2004 www.osce.org OSCE Press Release : 'Berlin Declaration' sets out concrete measures to fight anti-Semitism

Azerbaijan www.azernews.net 1 Apr 2004 On March 31 the Azerbaijan people mark the Day of Genocide. This date has been observed since 1998, when President Aliyev issued an edict "On genocide of Azerbaijanis", the first document to give political and legal assessment to the atrocities perpetrated by Armenians in the name of their "great Armenia" obsession. On this date in March 1918, a group comprising Bolsheviks and Dashnaks, Armenian nationalist party, under the pretext of a "struggle against counter-revolutionaries", launched a hideous plan of cleansing Baku of Azerbaijanis.

Bosnia AP 1 Apr 2004 Thousands of Serbs protest NATO raid By SAMIR KRILIC ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER PALE, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Waving Serbian flags, 3,000 protesters denounced NATO on Thursday for a pre-dawn raid in search of war-crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic that wounded a priest and his son. Jeremija Starovlah, 52, a known Karadzic supporter, and his son Aleksandar, 28, were taken to the hospital in the northern city of Tuzla. Both were in critical condition with multiple fractures and head wounds, said Mirsada Praso, who heads the hospital's intensive care unit.

Denmark AP 1 Apr 2004 A man granted political asylum in Denmark has been charged with war crimes in the death of two policemen and the kidnapping of a government official in Uganda, the Danish war crimes prosecutor's office said Thursday.

Germany BBC 1 Apr 2004 The southern German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg has become the first in the country to ban teachers from wearing Islamic headscarves.

Netherlands www.expatica.com 2 Apr 2004 The commander of the Dutchbat UN battalion which surrendered to Serb forces in 1995 at Srebrenica, where 7,000 Muslim men and boys were executed, has fled the Netherlands because he feels threatened. Colonel Thom Karremans has fled to Spain / Radio Netherlands www.rnw.nl 2 Apr 2004 Last year, a study centre was set up in Amsterdam to glean more insight into the factors that can touch off mass killings. "Genocide can be defined as the effort to wipe out minorities as completely as possible. It requires mass involvement of ordinary people, who are needed to perform the actual killing." The words are from Johannes Houwink ten Cate, professor of history at the University of Amsterdam and the director of the Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Netherlands - ICTY Reuters 31 Mar 2004 The Hague War Crimes Tribunal Wednesday sentenced a former Bosnian Serb policeman to 17 years in jail for taking part in the 1992 massacre of more than 200 non-Serb men on the edge of Bosnian cliff. /Reuters 14 Apr 2004 MILOSEVIC WANTS 1,631 WITNESSES Mr. Milosevic has been given 150 court days to complete his defense.

Poland Reuters 14 Apr 2004 Polish Firebrand Praises Hitler's 'Early' Policies

Russia International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights 1 Apr 2004 Authorities severely intimidate remaining Chechen IDPs in the last two tent camps in Ingushetia / AFP 1 Apr 2004 One of last two Chechen refugee camps closes in neighboring republic / Radicalparty.org 2 Apr 2004 press release CHECHNYA: UMAR KHANBIEV AT THE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION ASKS FOR THE INTERVENTION OF THE UN

Serbia AP 31 Mar 2004 Serbian lawmakers on Tuesday awarded salaries, legal fees and other financial perks to former President Slobodan Milosevic and other Serbian war crimes suspects who are being tried by a United Nations tribunal in the Netherlands. It was adopted by a 141-to-35 vote in Parliament and illustrates the surge of nationalism in the Balkan republic. / BBC 31 March, 2004 Washington cuts off aid to Serbia The US wants Ratko Mladic handed to The Hague The US has suspended its aid to Serbia, saying Belgrade is not fully co- operating with the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. The decision means Washington will not disburse the last $25m of a $100m assistance package set up three years ago to help Serbia reform its economy.

Serbia - Kosovo AFP 31 Mar 2004 UN revises death toll from Kosovo violence down to 19 The victims include 11 Kosovo Albanians and eight Kosovo Serbs," UN police spokesperson Neeraj Singh told a news conference. / European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) 31 Mar 2004 The ERRC has gathered evidence that Roma and Ashkaelia have been subjected to very serious human rights violations during the wave of pogroms on minority communities carried out in the period March 17-21, 2004 throughout the province by ethnic Albanians. ERRC field investigation undertaken in recent days has documented that, in addition to the pogroms on ethnic Serb communities, several hundred Roma and Ashkaelia have been also targeted. At least 75 houses belonging to Romani and Ashkaeli families have been set on fire. OSCE 22 Apr 2004 OSCE free media representative finds Kosovo press coverage of March violence "reckless and sensationalist"

Slovenia On April 4, 2004 voters in a non-binding referendum upheld the 12-year-old policy creating 'erased residents' (izbrisani) in Slovenia. In 1992, eight month after declaring independence from Yugoslavia, the government of Slovenia deleted some 30,000 persons from civil registries. Some call this policy 'administrative ethnic cleansing' or 'soft genocide.'. / Ljubljana Life 20 Mar 2004 (Weekly Bulletin in English ) www.geocities.com/ljubljanalife/ by Brian J. Pozun Liberals urge boycott of Izbrisani referendum Anti-war protestors in Ljubljana were not the only ones this week to call for a boycott of the upcoming Izbrisani referendum / AP 4 Apr 2004 Slovenians vote against restoring rights of ethinic minorities / Slevenska Tiskovna Agencija (STA) Slovene Press Agency www.sta.si/en/ Polls Close in Referendum on the Erased Ljubljana, 04 April (STA) - Only 23.57 percent of some 1.6 million eligible voters turned out to vote at the polling stations by 4 PM. / BBC 2 Apr 2004 Mosque bid stirs feelings in Slovenia

United Kingdom Independent UK 2 Apr 2004 Digging deep: the British brothers who are building hope in Rwanda Mr James Smith and his brother Stephen - an English businessman who normally sells novelty cakes - are in charge of the frantic effort to build the first national genocide memorial through Aegis Trust, the genocide-prevention charity they founded. / News 24 SA 30 Mar 2004 Lloyd's of London, US bank FleetBoston Financial Corp and the RJ Reynolds tobacco company were expected to be named in a lawsuit that will allege they profited from the 17th-century slave trade, lawyer Edward Fagan said.

Global

Reuters 6 Apr 2004 UN Special Advisor for Genocide Prevention UN to unveil anti-genocide plan by Tuesday 06 April 2004 6:59 PM GMT Annan: The risk of genocide remains frighteningly real UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is to unveil a plan of action to prevent acts of genocide such as the one in Rwanda in which up to one million people died. Critics charge that international bodies, inlcuding the United Nations, still remain ill-equipped to detect, let alone deal with, wholesale ethnic violence and calculated massacres such as the one in Rwanda that stunned the world. / IPS 6 Apr 2004 Could U.N. 'Special Adviser' Prevent Future Genocide? Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Apr 6 (IPS) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will soon appoint a 'special adviser on the prevention of genocide', perhaps as early as next week. U.N. Spokesman Fred Eckhard says the new official will deal primarily with the prevention of genocide, the systematic and planned extermination of a national, racial or ethnic group. ''This is something the secretary-general feels very strongly about,'' Eckhard said, adding that Annan also intends to develop ''a plan of action'' to ensure that no mass slaughter of people will ever happen again. [ See UN Action Plan to Prevent Genocide ].

Africa

Angola

AFP 21 Apr 2004 DR Congo appeals to Angola over mass expulsions by Pedro Makuta Nkondo LUANDA, April 21 (AFP) - Democratic Republic of Congo's interior minister has told Angola that its mass expulsions of tens of thousands of Congolese was causing mayhem and appealed for cooperation. "The mass return of our compatriots caught us off guard," said DRC's Interior Minister Theophile Mbemba late Tuesday following talks with Angolan Foreign Minister Joao Miranda. "Congo does not have the necessary logistics to accomodate these people repatriated from Angola," said Mbemba. Angolan authorities have rounded up more than 60,000 foreigners, most of them Congolese and some west Africans, over the past four months during joint army and police operations to crack down on diamond trafficking by foreigners. The expulsions peaked in early April with a daily influx of about 2,500 people into regions of DRC, where water, food and housing are scarce, according to UN relief officials. Around 40,000 returnees have been registered in DRC since the beginning of April, the United Nations has said. DRC is still struggling to emerge from a five-year war, which drew in six other African nations at its height, including Angola, and claimed some 2.5 million lives, either directly in combat or through disease and hunger. The war, which crippled the vast central African country's economy and infrastructure, formally ended in April last year with the signing of a peace pact. The government of the DRC "has come to request our understanding so that these operations take place through bilateral cooperation to avoid constraints," said the Angolan foreign minister. UN emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland warned in New York on Monday that the mass expulsions could lead to a humanitarian crisis. "While a state has a legitimate right to control who lives or works within its borders, returns of migrant workers must be done without jeopardising people's physical safety and dignity," Egeland said. Mbemba said that 40,000 Congolese nationals had arrived in Western Kasai and an additional 18,000 in Bandundu, which both border Angola to the north, adding that "these numbers of people are not easy to accomodate." The crackdown centered on the northern and southern Lunda provinces as well as Malange and southern Kwanza. Some 1,000 Congolese have also been expelled from Cabinda and 2,000 others from Zaire province in the north for illegal entry into the country, the immigration and border control services said. A Roman Catholic priest from Cafumfu in northern Lunda province told Radio Ecclesia that the deportees were forced to walk dozens of kilometers to reach assembly points set up by the Angolan authorities. "Pregnant women gave birth along the way," the priest was quoted as saying. Radio Ecclesia, a Roman Catholic station, also said that several Congolese died in the rivers in northern Lunda. The foreign minister noted that "Angola had informed the ambassadors of the countries concerned that these foreigners were engaged in activities deemed harmful to the Angolan economy, notably diamond exploitation."

Burundi

IRIN 16 Apr 2004 Burundi: Meeting to honour unsung heroes, heroines opens BUJUMBURA, 16 April (IRIN) - A three-day meeting convened by the international NGO Search for Common Ground (SCG) opened on Friday in the Burundi capital, Bujumbura, to honour the nation's unsung heroes and heroines: ordinary Burundian who risked their lives to save others over the course of the country's decade-long civil war. The meeting is expected to celebrate the courage of at least 100 Burundians who risked their lives and those of their families to save people from ethnic communities different from their own. SCG said these heroes and heroines comprised ordinary people from different provinces, and of different religions and occupations. They include farmers, priests and nuns, who all shared their extraordinary courage during difficult times. Nyandwi Francois, who saved at least 30 Hutus in 1972, is one of these heroes. So is Anastasie Naburiri, who saved several Tutsi families from death in 1988 at Ntega in the northern province of Kirundo. Floride Gahimbare, who saved 17 Tutsis in 1993 at Rutegama in the central province of Muramvya, is another heroine. She still cries when she recalls her ordeal, but does not regret her deeds. "My brother was killed by a Tutsi while we were accompanying those we had saved to a military position, and my sisters despise me for that, accusing me of responsibility for his death," she said. Looking at the killings that have taken place in the Great Lakes region, "one would think residents are all killers with no respect of human values. This is totally false, as many people risked their lives to say no to violence," Lena Slachmuijlder, the director of Studio Ijambo, the co-conveners of the summit, said. "Such people can well be found in different ethnic groups in the region: Tutsi, Hutu, Hema, Lendu," she said. "That is why such heroes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda are also attending the meeting." The meeting aims to portray another face of the region, and especially to inspire the heroes and heroines to persevere in striving to achieve peace and reconciliation. The minister in charge of mobilisation for peace and reconciliation, Antoine Butoyi, who attended the meeting's inaugural ceremony, said the existence of such heroes and heroines in countries torn by recurrent ethnic violence was an indication that people could overcome their ethnic differences and fight poverty, their common enemy. The meeting is the first of its kind in Burundi. The heroes and heroines were identified through a radio programme, "Inkingi y' ubuntu", produced by Studio Ijambo, during which the heroes and heroines, those they saved, and their neighbours gave testimonies of their courage and humanity. During three-day event, the heroes and heroines will share their experiences in the company of representatives of different associations working for peace and reconciliation in Burundi.

AFP 21 Apr 2004 Burundi's last active rebel group announces truce BUJUMBURA, April 21 (AFP) - Burundi's last active rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), announced Wednesday it would immediately stop attacking government troops and their allies and that it was willing to consider holding peace talks. The central African country's power-sharing government immediately welcomed the move. The FNL's congress, meeting in Tanzania, "has just decided there will be an immediate halt to hostilities. We will not attack the army and the FDD (Forces for the Defence of Democracy, a former rebel group now allied to the government) but if they attack us, will we respond," FNL spokesman Pasteur Habimana told AFP. "The government salutes this development which is significant," said government spokesman Onesime Nduwimana. The government "can only rejoice and is waiting for the FNL to act on the decision. As for the government, it is always ready to negotiate with the FNL whenever they want," he added. If the FNL "has just stopped hostilities, it means the war will stop right away," he added. "Government troops are only defending themselves. If they are not attacked, they will not attack," he pledged. More than 300,000 people, mostly civilians, have died in Burundi since 1993 when a variety of armed groups drawn from the country's large Hutu majority, many of which split over subsequent years, took up arms against the Tutsi-led government. The FNL spokesman added that the rebel group would consult with the United Nations, the European Union and the United States to help facilitate possible peace talks. "We don't trust the government, but that doesn't mean we are refusing to talk to it," explained Augustin Ntawogeza, the head of the FNL's external relations. "As (President Domitien) Ndayizeye is incapable of stopping the war, because power has long been in the hands of a (Tutsi) clique, only the international community can oblige him to stop hostilities," he said. "The FNL doesn't want the war, it wants it to stop," he added. On March 26, Habimana said FNL leader Rwasa Agathon had made a "first contact" with South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, the chief mediator in Burundi's peace process and that the telephone discussion had gone well. "The issue of negotiations was not brought up", said the spokesman. The FNL is estimated to have some 3,000 men under arms. The rebel group had until recently refused even to meet the current power-sharing administration, a coalition of 17 parties, both Hutu and Tutsi, saying it was only worth talking to the Tutsi leaders of the army who, according to the rebels, wield true power in the country. But it changed its tune early this year and met in the Netherlands with Ndayizeye -- himself a Hutu but whom the FNL has accused of being a lackey of the Tutsis. A month later, however, the FNL refused to hold a second meeting with Ndayizeye, saying he had not held up his end of the deal the rebels insist was struck in the Netherlands.

Côte d'Ivoire

ICRC 30 Mar 2004 ICRC News 04/45 Côte d'Ivoire: action to help victims of the demonstrations The Red Cross has taken speedy action to cope with emergencies arising from the violence which has rocked the economic capital, Abidjan, since 25 March, concentrating on evacuating the injured and visiting persons arrested after the demonstrations. The fighting in the streets has left many wounded. The 80 first-aiders from the Red Cross Society of Côte d’Ivoire deployed in various neighbourhoods of Abidjan have transported 116 people to the town’s various hospitals, which have received donations of emergency medical supplies in order to boost their capacity. On 27 March, the ICRC began to visit premises under the control of the police and gendarmerie in order to check on the conditions of detention and treatment of persons arrested since the start of the events. These visits will continue over the next few days in accordance with standard ICRC procedure. Since the flare-up of the crisis in Côte d'Ivoire, the ICRC has visited more than 500 detainees held in connection with the conflict on both sides of the ceasefire line, with a view to safeguarding their physical and mental integrity at all stages of their imprisonment. The ICRC is deeply concerned about the indiscriminate nature of the violence triggered by the demonstrations on 25 March and emphasizes that civilians, the wounded and persons deprived of their freedom must be treated humanely in all circumstances.

AFP 2 Apr 2004 UN orders enquiry into Ivory Coast bloodshed GENEVA, April 2 (AFP) - The United Nations will launch an enquiry into the deadly violence in Ivory Coast during an anti-government protest last week, spokesman said Friday. "The allegations speak of summary and extra-judicial executions, rape and sexual violence, arbitrary arrests and detention among other reported abuses," said Jose Diaz, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR). Diaz told journalists that "ground work" had started to set up an international commission of inquiry to look into "allegations of grave human rights violations" during and after the demonstrations in Abidjan on March 25. A spokesman for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said the commission should begin its work as soon as possible. "The secretary general expects all Ivorian authorities and political forces to extend all the necessary cooperation to this commission," the spokesman said. France said Wednesday it had approached the UNHCR about the clashes, which left 37 people dead according to police in Ivory Coast. The political opposition in the troubled former French colony has said up to 500 people died when the army followed presidential orders and cracked down on the demonstration, called in defiance of a presidential ban on public protests. Ivory Coast's security minister said Thursday there was "incontestable evidence" that atrocities were committed after the anti-government protest, but blamed them on "parallel forces." The commission is likely to be formed by three internationally recognised experts, Diaz said.

IRIN 2 Apr 2004 Government confirms paramilitary role in Abidjan unrest ABIDJAN, 2 April (IRIN) - The Ivorian government has accused "parallel forces in army clothing" of committing atrocities during last week's banned opposition march and said these shadowy gunmen were continuing to terrorise residents in Abidjan. The admission by Internal Security Minister Martin Bleou, added weight to reports by diplomats and relief workers that private militia groups supporting President Laurent Gbagbo were responsible for many of the killings in last week's orgy of political violence in Cote d'Ivoire's main city. Bleou said on state television on Thursday night that his ministry had received numerous "credible eye witness reports" that "individuals or parallel forces in army clothing carrying automatic weapons or kalashnikovs" had been "terrorizing" many of Abidjan's three million inhabitants. The minister, who formerly headed a local human rights movement, stopped short of explicitly accusing these militias of last week's killings. The government says 37 people were killed as the police and army fired live bullets at unarmed civilians on 25 March to disperse a banned opposition protest demonstration against Gbagbo's alleged unwillingness to implement a 15-month-old peace agreement aimed at ending Cote d'Ivoire's civil war. However, opposition parties claim 350 to 500 people were killed during two days of street clashes and raids by armed men on the houses of suspected opposition supporters in Abidjan's poorest suburbs. The independent Ivorian Human Rights Movement (MIDH) has estimated that over 200 were killed and 400 wounded. Bleou, who formerly headed another group, the Ivorian League of Human Rights (LIDHO), denied opposition allegations that many of those killed last week had been secretly buried in mass graves. On Thursday the minister visited two of the alleged sites - one of which was a refuse tip located near an army barracks - but he said afterwards he had found no evidence of mass killing. In October 2000, a mass grave containing nearly 60 bodies was discovered in the working class suburb of Yopougon following an outbreak of election violence. Gbagbo had been sworn in as president two days earlier. Although calm has returned to Abidjan by day, residents of the the low-income suburb of Abobo, told IRIN that the suburb was still being terrorized by armed men wearing military camouflage who come late at night in army vehicles. Abobo and Yopougon were the main epicentres of last week's clashes, during which many suspected opponents of the government were taken away by armed men who broke into their homes. Several residents of Abobo told IRIN that they now operated an informal alarm system to alert their neighbours whenever these sinister vehicles started to prowl. "They come at night... they banged on our door but when we turned on the lights they left... we can then raised the alarm by banging on our pots and pans... soon the entire neighbourhood was banging. It lasted from midnight until five in the morning," Coulibaly, a plumber, said. He said such scenes were regularly repeated throughout Abobo. It is a religiously and ethnically mixed neighbourhood, which is home to many immigrants from neighbouring West African countries and a stronghold of the opposition Rally for the Republic (RDR) opposition party led by former prime minister Alassane Ouattara. Coulibaly said there was a general belief that the night-time prowlers in Abobo were not members of the "regular armed forces," but he added: "we don't know, so we have to remain prudent." The United Nations is readying an international inquiry team to investigate the latest events. But a Dakar-based Pan-African rights organization, RADDHO, has gone further, calling for the establishment of an international tribunal to prosecute crimes and abuses committed since 2000, the year of Gbagbo's election. "We call for an international tribunal because the Ivorian judicial system doesn't work. It is incapable of investigating or prosecuting those responsible and cannot even identify those involved," Alioune Tine, the secretary general of RADDHO, told IRIN on Friday. Tine said an international court could help end the cycle of political violence and human rights abuse which have taken place since 2000. "That's how things started in Rwanda", Tine warned, predicting that presidential elections in due in October 2005 would spell further trouble. On Sunday, the UN will formally establish a peacekeeping mission in Cote d'Ivoire, the UN Operation in Cote d'Ivoire, which is generally known by its French acronym ONUCI. This will eventually deploy 6,240 international peacekeepers across the country to maintain security and supervise the eventual disarmament of rebel forces which have occupied the north of the country since the civil war broke out in September 2002. General Abdoulaye Fall of Senegal has been appointed commander of the international force. He currently heads a 1,300-strong West African peacekeeping force, which from Sunday will become part ONUCI. A further 4,000 French peacekeepers will remain in the country outside the UN command structure, but they will act as a rapid intervention force to support ONUCI in the vent of further trouble arising. The UN peacekeepers are arriving in a country whose broad-based government of national reconciliation has virtually collapsed, leaving power entirely in the hands of Gbagbo and his Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party. The coalition government, which included rebel and opposition representatives, was formed a year ago, but over the past month 26 of its 41 ministers have withdrawn. Most of them left in protest at last week's killings. Negotiations on how to resume a dialogue between Gbagbo and the opposition and put implementation of the January 2003 peace agreement back on track, remain at an impasse. On Wednesday, the rebel movement and the four political parties who called last week's ill-fated protest demonstration, said they would only resume talks with the president after he scrapped a decree banning public demonstrations and acknowledged their "constitutional right" to protest.

DR Congo

AFP 31 Mar 2004 8,000 Rwandan militia still in DR Congo: UN KINSHASA, March 31 (AFP) - Up to 8,000 Rwandans who fought in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in what has been termed Africa's world war are still in the vast country, UN officials said here Wednesday. There were also up to 2,000 Ugandan and 1,500 Burundian former fighters in the DRC, said the director of the disarmament and repatriation programme for the UN mission to the DRC, Peter Swarbrick. Most of the ex-fighters live in desperate conditions, and many have family with them, he said, adding that this means there are still up to 40,000 people to repatriate. "The will exists (for them to return home), especially for the troops, but it seems that their officers are putting pressure on them to stay," he said. According to official statistics, 10,468 people, including 7,086 ex-militiamen, left the DRC between January 2003 and March 31, 2004. A peace deal and the formation of a transitional government last year appeared to signal the end of a five-year conflict in the DRC which pitted government forces, backed by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, against rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda.

BBC 13 April, 2004 Congo massacre probe stepped up Some 10,000 UN peacekeepers are in DR Congo The United Nations says it will send more investigators to the Democratic Republic of Congo after bodies were found near a reported massacre site. Mission spokeswoman Jacqueline Chenard said the corpses were found in a muddy area near the village of Lukweti in the north east province of North Kivu. Ms Chenard said last month 25 bodies were found in the area. In March some 150 homes were burned down by rebels in Lukweti following three days of fighting. Peace accord The UN says the rebels involved in the attack were identified as those involved in Rwanda's ethnic violence 10 years ago. The DR Congo is recovering from five years of war, which ended with a peace deal in 2002. Some 10,000 United Nations peacekeepers are in DR Congo to monitor a peace accord.

SAPA 29 Apr 2004 DRC army 'neutralises' militia April 29 2004 at 01:48PM Kinshasa - Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) troops have killed 39 Rwandan Hutu rebels in eastern DRC and "neutralised" two battalions of the feared Interahamwe militia, blamed for Rwanda's 1994 genocide, the United Nations mission said on Thursday. Citing DRC's military command in the volatile east of the country, near the border with Rwanda, UN mission spokesperson Abou Thiam said that three DRC soldiers were killed in the clashes in Sud-Kivu province, along with the 39 Hutu guerillas. Eight Burundians were taken prisoner and handed over to the UN mission, Monuc, said Thiam. They will be repatriated. "According to figures given by the commander of the 10th military region, two battalions of Interahamwe were neutralised at DRC's eastern borders" said Thiam. It was South African peacekeepers who identified the soldiers as Rwandans Rwanda deployed troops in DRC in 1996 and 1998, justifying the move with the need to neutralise the security threat posed by Hutu rebels accused of carrying out much of Rwanda's 1994 genocide. In 1998, DRC plunged into a five-year civil war that, at its height, drew in more than half a dozen African countries. After a series of peace talks, the war formally ended in April last year, having claimed about 2.5 million lives in the vast central African country, both directly in combat and through disease and hunger. The last Rwandan soldier left DRC in October 2002, in line with the terms of a peace pact signed between the two countries. But Monuc said in a statement last week that it had "noted the presence on April 21 of Rwandan troops with the FDR (Rwandan Defence Forces) insignia in the Bunagana sector on DRC territory." 'It's been a long time, at least six months' Last week's report gave little detail on the alleged Rwandan presence in DRC, except to say the Rwandan soldiers numbered about 400. It was South African peacekeepers who identified the soldiers as Rwandans, UN officials said, based on the fact that they were speaking Kinyarwanda, had new vehicles - without number plates - and were well equipped. Kinyarwanda is one of Rwanda's official languages but is also spoken by the large majority of inhabitants of eastern DRC. Rwanda has denied sending troops to DRC, and people in Bunagana have said they have not seen any Rwandan soldiers there "for a long time." "It's been a long time, at least six months but possibly a lot longer, since there have been Rwandan soldiers here," Bunanga primary school teacher Eliab Buyange said. "I can't remember the date that they left, but it was a long time ago, more than a year, in any case," said customs official Ngaruye Munyantore. Foreigners in Bunagana on April 21 - the day of the alleged sighting of Rwandan troops there - have said, on condition of anonymity, that they saw "UN soldiers surrounded by locals" on that day, and that the general mood was relaxed. Monuc said Wednesday that the Rwandan forces had since left the DRC. "The Rwandan troops who were in Bunagana, a town in Nord-Kivu situated some six kilometres from the DRC-Rwanda-Uganda border, are no longer present on Congolese territory," said Monuc's military spokesperson Abou Thiam, citing a UN team. The UN mission has called on the DRC and Rwanda to "co-operate and hold direct talks because the common objective is to resolve the question of (Hutu rebels) as agreed in November 2003", when the leaders of both countries agreed at talks in Pretoria to repatriate Rwandan Hutus from the east of the DRC within a year. - Sapa-AFP . www.monuc.org

Ethiopia

IRIN 30 Mar 2004 Ethiopia: Parliament Votes for Independent Probe Into Violence in Gambella UN Integrated Regional Information Networks NEWS March 30, 2004 Posted to the web March 30, 2004 Addis Ababa The Ethiopian parliament has decided that an independent body be set up to investigate reports of violence between different ethnic groups in the western Gambella region, in which hundreds of people are believed to have been killed. The parliament, in a meeting on Thursday, resolved that the independent body would be charged with establishing the real causes of the violence and what role the government was playing to quell it. In a separate statement issued from Brussels the same day, the EU expressed concern over "sporadic but persistent" fighting in western Ethiopia. "While noting the actions taken by the government of Ethiopia to stabilise the area, the European Union emphasises the need for government security forces and the military to act in an impartial and lawful manner if tensions between the various ethnic groups in the region are to be reduced," it said. "The European Union calls for a public and independent inquiry into suggestions of involvement by members of the Ethiopian military in violence directed against innocent civilians," the statement added. Earlier this month, the government apologised to local tribes for its inadequate response to prevent a massacre in early December that led to the eruption of the violence. The troubles were sparked by the murders of eight government refugee workers when their vehicle was attacked in the area. The bodies of the men, which were badly mutilated, were paraded around Gambella town, provoking reprisal attacks on Anyuaks, a local ethnic group who were blamed for the killings. The federal authorities have started examining evidence related to the killings with the aim of ensuring that suspected instigators can be tried. Some 37 people have been identified. Forty others, suspected of involvement in clashes at a gold mine in Dima in the Gambella region on 30 January, in which up to 200 people were killed, have also been seized. The government is now training some 300 indigenous police officers to help it stabilise the situation and prevent further outbreaks of violence. The authorities are also looking to traditional elders for help in restoring calm. Gambella is ethnically diverse, being home to members of the Nuer, Anyuak, Majenger, Opou and Komo ethnic groups. It is also inhabited by groups belonging to other Ethiopian tribes, such as the Amhara, Oromo and Tigray, who are locally known as highlanders. The EU expressed support for calls on the government to work with traditional leaders, NGOs and local church groups to "heal" ethnic rifts so as to "establish trust and stability" in the region. .

Biddho.com 4 Apr 2004 Ethiopian PM´s Dossier: Meles Zenawi about Meles Zenawi´s downfall Meles Zenawi more and more contested ION News Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is now losing the authority that he had regained over the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF, hard line core of the EPRDF in power in Addis Ababa) when he excluded dissidents led by Tewolde Wolde Mariam in 2001. Once again, critics of Meles Zenawi and his supporters are making themselves heard within the TPLF party, making the Prime Minister ever more aggressive against his detractors, whoever they may be. This emerging political crisis is pushing TPLF dissidents to improve their methods of propaganda (ION 1080) and to strengthen their contacts with the Tigray population, Tigrayan expatriates abroad and their sympathizers in the armed forces. The perspective of a coup that might oust Meles Zenawi from power has become the subject of debate in certain Tigrayan dissident circles. MELES ZENAWI AGGRESSIVE While he can count on the loyalty of men like Seyoum Mesfin (minister of foreign affairs) or Samora Yunis (chief of staff of the Ethiopian army) the Prime Minster is very wary of other Tigrayan executives. During an EPRDF seminar at the beginning of February, he criticized several ministers for their ineffectiveness (Adisu Legesse, Tefera Walwa), and also attacked the mayor of Addis Ababa Arkebe Oqubay, saying that he had done nothing and had lost sight of the TPLF aim of "revolutionary democracy." Zenawi is annoyed that Oqubay does not submit to his diktats and that he is beginning to become popular within the TPLF, particularly in Addis Ababa. The Prime Minister feels so misunderstood that he used a ploy to defend his policies: he published a long text in English on the web site Aiga1992.org under a pseudonym which was later published in Amharic by Abyotawi Democracy, the organ of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. REVOLT IN TIGRAI The peaceful protest demonstration by the inhabitants of Aby Adi (Tigray) at the beginning of March was a warning shot across the bows of the Prime Minister. A TPLF delegation led by Tsegai Berhe, president of the Tigrai Regional State, recently came to this town to ask its inhabitants to be patient in their basic demands (electricity, access to running water, accessible roads). Some tens of intelligence and defense ministry agents were set up in the town to prevent other protests and to catch the leaders as soon as they get the order. Meles Zenawi must handle this affair prudently if he is not to give a handle to TPLF dissidents with which to criticize him. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the Tigrai small towns are threatening to take more concrete action. The government has just refused residents of Maichew and Samre the authorization to organize a peaceful protest this week. THE GAMBELLA DEBATE In the federal parliament also, TPLF MPs no longer speak with a single voice. Last week, during a session chaired by the deputy speaker, Petros Olango, the TPLF MPs did not appreciate the report by Abay Tsehaye, minister of federal affairs, on the recent confrontations in Gambella (in the west of the country). Tsehaye, who is a former TPLF dissident but now a loyal follower of the Prime Minister, considered that the violence was due to anti-government forces, whereas MPs from the Gambella region accused the Ethiopian army of being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians. The parliamentary Legal and Administrative Affairs Standing Committee, chaired by Asmelash Woldeselassie, a TPLF dignitary, was mandated to solve this difference of opinion. To the great displeasure of Abay Tsehaye, this committee proposed the setting up of a "neutral" commission to investigate the causes of the violence and the role of the government forces. TPLF MPs protested against this proposal, which was very similar to one made a week earlier by the opposition MPs, including Beyene Petros and which had been rejected by parliament. The debate is continuing now on the problem of how to judge the "neutrality" of such a commission and how it should be composed.

L’Organisation Mondiale contre la Torture 27 Apr 2004 (OMCT, Geneva) Ethiopia: concerns about a Commission of Investigation attempting to cover up State involvement in acts of genocide PRESS RELEASE Ethiopia: concerns about a Commission of Investigation attempting to cover up State involvement in acts of genocide For the attention of the Press Geneva, April 27th, 2004 Following its press release on April 13th, 2004, the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) again wishes to highlight the ongoing crimes against humanity and acts of genocide being perpetrated by the Ethiopian Armed Forces and “highlander” militias against the Anuak (or Anywaa) indigenous ethnic group in rural areas of Gambella, Ethiopia. It has been estimated that during the period spanning December 13th, 2003 to March 31st, 2004, the total number of persons killed had reached 1’137, and the killings have reportedly continued since then. The massive targeting of a specific ethnic group, with the clear intent of destroying a part or the entirety of the group, bears all the hallmarks of acts of genocide and crimes against humanity. Although OMCT welcomes the steps that have been taken in order to form a Commission of Investigation - which was established following a ruling by the Ethiopian Parliament on April 12th, 2004 - serious doubts as to its impartiality and effectiveness have been raised by local and international NGOs. It is believed that both the selection of the Commissioners, and the restricted scope of the investigation that they are tasked with carrying out, will ensure that this Commission of Investigation is ineffective and that impunity will reign. The neutrality of its Chairperson, Ato Kemal Bediri, who is the Minister of Justice and the Chairman of the National Election Board, has been seriously questioned by local NGOs, as he is accountable for many of the violations that have been taking place, according to our sources. They claim that the chairperson will attempt to cover up the involvement of the Ethiopian Armed Forces in the ongoing atrocities that are being perpetrated against the Anuak people. The scope of the investigation is allegedly going to be limited so as not to cover the period during which the Ethiopian Armed Forces intervened in the Gambella region. During this period, which lasted from mid-December to some time in late January, according to our sources, the worst atrocities were committed, including massacres of hundreds of civilians, the bombardment and destruction of villages, leading to thousands of refugees fleeing to the Pochalla refugee camp in Southern Sudan. The investigation will also reportedly not involve the refugees in Pochalla or those in the Ifo refugee camp in Kenya. In addition, the few Anuak persons who remain in Gambella town are allegedly being threatened in order to ensure that they do not implicate the Ethiopian military in the various acts of genocide in the region. There are therefore significant concerns that this Commission will not be impartial or effective, raising the obvious need for an independent international investigation into these acts of genocide and crimes against humanity. The International Secretariat of OMCT condemns the widespread and targeted killing of civilians, mass rapes, burning of homes and crops and other acts being perpetrated against the Anuak people, and calls on the Ethiopian Government to take all measures necessary to ensure that these are halted immediately, and to invite a United Nations independent investigation team to the Gambella region, in order for them to carry out an unrestricted investigation into these atrocities. OMCT calls upon the United Nations to send a top-level investigation team to the region, as a matter of utmost urgency, as the nature of the situation requires immediate action. It is essential that this international investigation is unrestricted in terms of its mandate, its timeframe, the geographical areas it is able to access, including the refugee camps in Pochalla and Ifo, and that it is allowed to investigate any and all allegations of acts of genocide and crimes against humanity. OMCT issued a press release on April 13th, 2004 concerning the attempted elimination of the Anuak people, which provides further details on the situation for your reference. Click here For more information contact OMCT at: omct@omct.org.

Eternal Vigilance is Cost of Preventing Future Rwandas United States Department of State (Washington, DC) NEWS April 26, 2004 Posted to the web April 27, 2004 By Bruce Greenberg Washington, DC Panelists cite similarities between Rwanda, Sudan to Congress Two weeks after the world came together in Kigali, Rwanda, to observe the 10th anniversary of the genocide that tore Rwanda apart in April 1994, a congressional committee was told that the tragedy could have been prevented if the international community had acted on the advance warning it received by sending an unequivocal warning to the Rwandan government that violence would not be tolerated. According to Louise Mushikiwabo, a young Tutsi woman now living in the United States, who lost her mother, brother, sister-in-law, niece and two nephews to rampaging Hutu militias, those who planned the genocide were intelligent and world-savvy and would have taken heed of the international community's words, even if action was not immediately forthcoming. Mushikiwabo, who is international coordinator of Remembering Rwanda, a worldwide movement to sustain both the memory and the lessons of the Rwandan genocide, joined humanitarian activists Alison Des Forges of the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch and Samantha Power of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in testifying at an April 22 hearing of the House Subcommittee on Africa. Chairman Edward R. Royce (Republican of California) opened the hearing on the Rwandan genocide and possible lessons learned by stating: "The pressing issue today is whether the world is better prepared to respond to genocidal killing in Africa, or elsewhere. Ten years ago, the system failed miserably in responding to the decimation of the Rwandan people." Samantha Power voiced her fear that "in 10 years we'll be sitting on a similar panel discussing Sudan's genocide" and drew parallels between the international and U.S. responses to what happened in Rwanda 10 years ago and what is happening now in response to the atrocities being committed in Sudan. "The U.S. response then and now was not forthcoming," according to Power. "With regard to Rwanda, the U.S. was recovering from a failed mission in Somalia; today we are being distracted by the war on terrorism. ... We [the United States] just don't want to do what is required to suppress atrocities. "In the case of Sudan," she said, "the U.S. is reluctant to jeopardize a peace settlement by directly intervening in the Darfur region [where ethnic cleansing of black African Christians and animists is being waged by Muslim militias], just as we didn't destroy the Rwandan hate radio stations [that were calling for Tutsi deaths] because of fears of violating so-called national sovereignty." Today, Power insisted, we can prevent Sudan from turning into another Rwanda by marshalling the international community into action: The United Nations needs to deploy its crisis intervention forces rather than mere fact-finders, and the International War Crimes Tribunal must examine now what is happening in Darfur. The U.S. Congress, she declared, can be a major contributor by holding public hearings, allocating funding for U.N. peacekeeping and influencing the foreign affairs community to focus on this issue. That such actions put pressure on Khartoum was evident earlier this month, she said, when the Sudanese government announced a humanitarian cease-fire within 24 hours of President Bush's denunciation of the government's support of the militias in Darfur. For Alison Des Forges, the Rwandan genocide was more than an "eruption of enormous violence." It was a crime that sprang from an internal history of ethnic disparity, inequality and jealousy in which the Hutu majority finally reacted to its years as victims of subjugation and discrimination by the ruling Tutsi minority. According to Des Forges, the United States and the international community share responsibility for failing to prevent the bloodbath, principally in not silencing the hate radio in Kigali, which gave the Hutu government a tacit green light to continue the genocide campaign. Even though national and international leaders have acknowledged their shame at having failed to stop the slaughter, Des Forges said, it is time to "renew our commitment to halting future genocides. ... We must stop genocides before they become such. "We must react promptly and firmly to preparations for the mass slaughter of civilians. We must be prepared to silence these media if that will forestall or prevent the deaths of innocents through incitement of the population at large. We can impose arms embargoes and other forms of restrictive containment on genocidal governments. And, lastly, we should be prepared to intervene with armed force. In Rwanda, intervention would have required greater force than was initially deployed, and would have saved more lives. And intervention at any point ultimately limits the number killed." For these witnesses, the effects of the Rwandan genocide are present today in the form of guilt, retribution and the need for justice and closure. Of great concern is the current lack of AIDS anti-viral medications to treat those women who were raped during the genocide. Mushikiwabo stated that the Rwandan government today simply does not have such resources. "What is outrageous," she said, "is that detainees suspected of perpetrating these monstrous atrocities 10 years ago have access to the latest retroviral treatments, while their surviving rape victims are getting very little medical attention. This is a question of fairness and urgency. These women need our help, and I urge this congressional panel to send the proper signal at this time." (The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov.) .

Reuters 29 Apr 2004 Ethiopian PM: Report of army killings 'fiction' ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (Reuters) -- Ethiopia's prime minister Thursday dismissed a report that said the army had helped kill more than 1,000 people in ethnic murders in the west of the country, calling it a "fiction" that had duped outsiders. The Swiss-based World Organization Against Torture, or OMCT [www.omct.org ] , said an estimated 1,137 people had been killed between December 13, 2003 and March 31 in the Gambella region. The OMCT said Ethiopian security forces had backed highlander militias in a campaign of systematic killings and mass rapes of the 100,000-strong Anuak community, driving thousands of refugees into neighboring Sudan. "People are fabricating things and others are swallowing it without chewing," Meles Zenawi told Reuters in an interview. "I don't know how they get these figures. It's a fiction." The OMCT says reports showed between December 13 and 15, uniformed Ethiopian troops worked alongside highlanders to kill 424 Anuaks in towns including Gambella, the region's capital. "The massive targeting of a specific ethnic group, with the clear intent of destroying a part or the entirety of the group, bears all the hallmarks of acts of genocide and crimes against humanity," the OMCT said in its statement Tuesday. Meles put the toll from the various clashes in the region at 200 at most and said the only people who had been killed by the military in the area were armed Anuak insurgents who had staged cross-border raids from Sudan. "I don't know this organization," Meles said, referring to the OMCT. "I know that it is lying." "Without the intervention of the army, the killings would have continued indefinitely," Meles said. The government says the trigger for the killings was an ambush of a vehicle carrying U.N. and Ethiopian government officials earlier in December that was blamed on Anuaks. The OMCT says troops used the incident to incite violence by highlanders, who it said reportedly mutilated bodies while chanting: "Today is the day of killing Anuaks." "Schools have reportedly been emptied of schoolgirls, who have then been gang raped," OMCT said in one of its statements. "In one case in Pinyudo, assailants allegedly shouted 'We are going to kill your men and the next generation of Anuaks will be produced by us'." .

Kenya

The Nation (Nairobi) 31 Mar 2004 New Push to Probe Massacre Nairobi Families of people who died in the infamous Wagalla massacre in Wajir, northern Kenya, 20 years ago are willing to have bodies exhumed for examination. They also want a truth commission established to investigate the atrocities allegedly committed by government officials between February 9 and 13, 1984. A four-member fact-finding mission found that the families of the victims and survivors needed counselling to help them psychologically get over the trauma. The Independent Medico-Legal Unit and Truth Be Told non-governmental organisation, based in North Eastern Province, organised the mission to find out the affected community's psychological needs and preparedness for possible exhumation by Argentinian forensic experts. Dr Willy Legg and Mr Jameson Moyo from Zimbabwe were briefing the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights members Khelef Khalifa and Fatuma Ibrahim in Nairobi at the weekend. Ms Dinah Kituyi, a counsellor at the Nairobi-based Independent Medico-Legal Unit, who accompanied the fact-finding team, said some victims and witnesses to the massacre were still traumatised by the experience and were keen to tell the world their plight. "It's raw anger and pain that 20 years after the incredible atrocities by state security, people have been denied a chance to speak about what they went through." Ms Kituyi added that they complained that the government had not given them a chance to speak about the brutality in the hands of military and police agents during the three-day operation to flush out the so-called shifta bandits. Dr Legg asked why the world made a fuss out of plane crashes yet ignored the deaths of an estimated 5,000 people. "Psychological trauma is more terrifying as it's difficult to repair broken hearts," he said, adding that it was important that the survivors, victims and their families were helped through the healing by counselling. He said forensic experts would find the truth about how the victims died. "Bones tell the truth whether victims hands were tied at the back, they were strangled at the neck or were shot while running away." He said even the perpetrators were equally traumatised and needed counselling, citing an example in Zimbabwe where a culprit wanted to meet the family of a victim but the government denied him a chance for fear of exposure. Ms Ibrahim said although Islam did not encourage exhumation of bodies, the report had shown that residents were willing to do anything to get justice. "They know that if they fail to get justice in this regime, there might be no other chance for them," she said. Mr Khalifa said the government was willing to set up a commission of inquiry on the Wagalla Massacre but was considering possible costs of compensation and other factors. He warned that if the government took too long, the case could end up at the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Mr Khalifa said the exhumation was not about flouting religious beliefs but seeking justice, truth and healing. Mr Ali Mohammed Yusuf, a teacher during the massacre, told the commissioners that there was pent up anger among Wajir residents because government officials denied the injured treatment. "People want a chance to speak about what they went through, their anger, helplessness and hopes. It's like opening a pressure cooker that can burst in your face," Mr Yusuf said. The residents told the task force on establishment of a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission last July that an independent inquiry should be established to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of the massacre. They also requested that the Wagalla airstrip be revived to honour the victims and to benefit the community. The airstrip was the scene of the massacre. It has not been used since the tragedy. They also demanded that the Government arrests and prosecutes some people who are still in the system and in Parliament who played a major role in the atrocities.

Namibia

Independent UK 3 Apr 2004 Mugabe aiding Namibia land grab By Basildon Peta, Southern Africa Correspondent 03 April 2004 Namibia has enlisted the help of Robert Mugabe's land "experts" as it intensifies its own land seizure programme. The news has further unsettled the white farmers and severely dented investor confidence in southern Africa. Namibia's President Sam Nujoma is a staunch ally of Mr Mugabe, perhaps his only one after Libyan leader Mummar Gaddafi cut off fuel supplies to Zimbabwe last year because of bad debts. Col Gaddafi called Mr Mugabe a "bad customer". Seemingly following his hero's example, Mr Nujoma ordered eight large scale commercial farms to be seized for black resettlement last month. He then signed a memorandum of understanding with Mr Mugabe which will see six Zimbabwean land evaluators being deployed to Windhoek tomorrow to advise on Namibia's expropriation drive. This latest development has alarmed Namibian farmers, particularly since Zimbabwe's land reforms have been condemned by the United Nations and cited by some as the best example of how not to conduct such a programme. "It is a big joke that any self respecting government could ever want to learn anything from Zimbabwe," said a Namibian farmer, who wished to remain anonymous. "It's hard to imagine what helpful advice we will get from Mr Mugabe's men to enhance the land reform experience here." Namibia's Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Ndali-Che Kamati, was quoted by the official Herald newspaper as saying that, apart from evaluating seized farms for the purposes of paying compensation, the Zimbabwean team would also offer training services. Mr Kamati said: "We need expertise to help us determine the level of compensation we will pay for the farms that we have acquired. In this regard, we believe Zimbabwean professionals can really help us with issues of compensation." Zimbabwe, unlike Namibia, has refused to pay compensation for any of the land seized from farmers on the grounds that it was stolen from its rightful owners. Zimbabwe said it would only pay compensation for such improvements as houses and boreholes, although most farmers whose land has been seized have not received a penny. Others who had started moving their equipment off the land to stop it from being stolen or looted by government supporters were stopped by a new law that was brought in, banning the removal of equipment from seized farms. The requirement to serve legal notices on farmers before seizures has also been rescinded, which means that an announcement in the government gazette is now sufficient for seizure to take place. The Namibian Agricultural Union (NAU) says it is doing all it can to persuade President Nujoma's government to introduce just and sustainable land reforms in the country. About 75 per cent of prime farm land in Namibia is white owned, and there is almost universal African consensus that the country, a former German colony of about 1.8 million people, needs land reform to redress imbalances created by colonial era dispossessions. But civic groups in Namibia have warned against Zimbabwe- style methods, which have destroyed its country's agriculture and reduced it to the status of beggar nation. However, with an election due next year, Namibia's white farmers fear that Mr Nujoma's ruling Swapo party might resort to the populist methods that have been pioneered by Mr Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Indeed, Mr Nujoma hinted this week that he might change the constitution to seek an illegal fourth term in office, just as he did in 1999 when he defied a constitutional provision on two term limits to run for an illegal third term. He has already started building a new presidential house, said to be worth £15m, showing he plans to stick around for a while longer yet.

Nigeria

Vanguard 7 Apr 2004 www.vanguardngr.com Rwanda holds big ceremony to mark 1994 genocide Davina Berghaus Wednesday, April 07, 2004 KIGALI, —Rwanda was gearing up Tuesday for a major ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of the genocide which began on April 7, 1994, and ended 100 days later with up to a million people dead. On the eve of the commemoration’s highlight on Wednesday, to be hosted by President Paul Kagame in Kigali’s national stadium in the presence of numerous officials from around the world, several preliminary events were scheduled. Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian commander of the UN peacekeeping force deployed in Rwanda in 1994, which was unable to halt the slaughter, told a conference on the genocide that the international community was “criminally responsible” for having abandoned the tiny central African state. “There is no country today, 10 years later, which can wash its hands of Rwandan blood just by saying sorry,” said the retired general. Dallaire accused the United Nations, and specifically the United States, France and Britain, of failing to give his peacekeeping mission the muscle to intervene. A well-planned campaign by the Hutu government of the time to wipe out Rwanda’s Tutsi minority was set in motion by the shooting down, on the night of April 6, 1994, of President Juvenal Habyarimana. The killings began in the capital but quickly spread to other parts of the country. Nevertheless, on April 21, the UN scaled down the peacekeeping mission from 5,500 men to less than 300. The genocide -- the word was deliberately avoided by the world’s powers at the time -- was finally halted in mid-July when Tutsi rebels led by Kagame took power. Also Tuesday, Kagame was due to meet Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium, Rwanda’s former colonial power. “This is an emotional moment for me,” said Verhofstadt, who leads a 200-strong Belgian delegation, as he disembarked from a military plane at Kigali airport. Other high-ranking Belgian officials attending the commemoration ceremonies are Foreign Minister Louis Michel, Defence Minister Andre Flahaut, and Cooperation Minister Marc Verwilghen. The families of 10 Belgian peacekeepers killed on April 7, 1994 were, expected to gather at a memorial erected in their honour in Kigali. The peacekeepers had been guarding then prime minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, who was also killed. Later Tuesday, lower-level delegations from France and the UN were expected to arrive. Many Rwandans and UN workers based in the country have expressed bitterness over the failure of France, the United States and the United Nations to send highest ranking officials to the commemoration. The anniversary is also being marked outside Rwanda. The African Union, which is headquartered in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, began three days of commemorative events on Monday. “We in the AU are preparing all mechanisms to see that such a heinous act of murder won’t happen again in the continent,” AU Deputy Commissioner Dolly Joiner said. Ethiopian President Girma Woldegiorgis will address the nation and African diplomats in Addis Ababa and call on every citizen of Africa to be vigilant that such an act should never happen again, she added. A series of events has also been organised in Tanzania to honour the victims of the genocide. In France, where a minute’s silence will be observed as the main ceremony takes place in Kigali, a Franco-Rwandan federation held a very different commemoration on Tuesday. Police said the group gathered on the Esplanade des droits de l’Homme, a large open-air square close to the Eiffel Tower, to mark the anniversary of Habyarimana’s assassination. Habyarimana’s government and close family are widely accused of taking part in planning the organised killing that began after his death. A Rwanda specialist and French academic, Jean-Pierre Chretien, told AFP that he regarded Tuesday’s public commemoration of Habyarimana’s death as “an insult to the memory of the victims.”

Rwanda

Reuters 1Apr 2004 Westerners Shun 10th Anniversary Rwandan Genocide By REUTERS Filed at 11:30 a.m. ET KIGALI (Reuters) - Western leaders were conspicuously absent from a list of foreign dignitaries scheduled to attend memorial ceremonies in Kigali next week marking the tenth anniversary of Rwanda's 1994 genocide. Some 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates were shot, hacked and clubbed to death in 1994 by Hutu extremists during 100 days of butchery that was initially ignored by world leaders. With the exception of Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, only African leaders have so far confirmed they would attend memorial events planned for April 7, when the tiny central African country will remember its legions of dead. Among those confirmed to attend is Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, whose government was recently accused by a senior U.N. official of carrying out systematic killings of villagers in ethnic attacks reminiscent of the Rwandan genocide. ``We invited the whole world and anyone who wants to share our reflections, we invite them to be here,'' Robert Bayigamba, Rwanda's Minister for Youth, Sports and Culture, told journalists at a news conference in response to questions about Omar al-Bashir's expected presence at the anniversary. ANNAN - ``I COULD HAVE DONE MORE'' U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who was head of peacekeeping operations at the world body during the 1994 massacres, will not attend Rwanda's memorial, said Bayigamba, whose ministry is overseeing next week's events. Annan last week accepted institutional and personal blame for not doing more to prevent the Rwandan slaughter, saying, ``I realized after the genocide that there was more that I could and should have done to sound the alarm and rally support.'' Heads of state expected to visit Kigali on April 7 include South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, Kenya's Mwai Kibaki, Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, Chad's Idriss Deby. The list would be updated if other dignitaries confirmed they were coming, Bayigamba added. The United States, which has come under fire this week for avoiding the use of the word ``genocide'' for fear it would spark a call for action Clinton administration officials were loathe to take, will be represented by Pierre-Richard Prosper, the U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes. France has yet to announce who it will send to Rwanda following weeks of heightened tensions between the two countries over each other's role in the genocide. Rwandan President Paul Kagame has accused France of ``direct'' involvement in the genocide in response to a French judge's report blaming him for ordering the downing of a plane carrying former President Juvenal Habyarimana which triggered the genocide. Relations between France and Rwanda's Tutsi-led government have been strained ever since.

BBC 1 April, 2004 New genocide 'would not be stopped' Kofi Annan has said he wished he had done more in 1994 International bodies would still be unable to deal with genocide in Africa were another Rwandan-type conflict to begin today, a spokesman for Rwanda's Human Rights Commission has said. There is general agreement that international organisations were slow to react to the genocide, which began 10 years ago. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan last week said he realised after the genocide that "there was more that I could and should have done." But Tom Ndahiro of the Rwandan Human Rights Commission said he remained "sceptical" that world authorities would act differently and faster to a similar situation today. "I agree with anybody who says the world has not learnt a lesson," he told BBC World Service Africa Live programme. "The reason I say that is for what happened between April and July 1994 the signs were clear. When the genocide was unleashed against Tutsis, the diplomats in the United Nations, especially the powerful nations, acknowledged that a crime of genocide was going on in Rwanda. "[But] the genocide leaders were accommodated in various countries and could maintain their hate propaganda, passing their messages, without anybody saying, 'please stop - what you did is enough'." Interests As well as the UN, Mr Ndahiro added that he felt the Organisation of African Unity (OU) - now replaced by the African Union - was also to blame. It had failed to prevent the genocide leaders from leaving Rwanda and continuing their violent message, he said. The best thing to happen for Rwanda would be the South Africa version of truth and reconciliation Freeman Tettey, Ghana Rwanda: What lessons learnt? Eric, a survivor of the genocide, said he agreed with Mr Ndahiro's comments. He also criticised France for its "negative role in the genocide," and he added that he felt individual countries would also be restricted from acting quickly. "I don't think that they can do much, because they have their interests that they are fighting for," he said. "Those interests I don't think today have changed. "They neglected the genocide, they left it happening... the UN army commander in Rwanda used to give a full report of what we happening. "They left it happening. I do not think they would do anything today." But Desmond Ojako, a spokesman for the African Union and its predecessor the OAU, said he felt the pan-African organisation had acted as well as it could in 1994. "I must disagree that the then-OAU didn't do it's own bit," he told Africa Live. "It must be recalled that the resolution of serious conflicts of that nature is the sole duty of the Peace and Security Council of the United Nations." He argued that the OAU had deployed two operations, Enmog 1 and Enmog 2, in Rwanda before the UN and that they had been relatively successful in keeping the peace. "It was when we left Rwanda that the genocide was committed," he added. 'Worse than terrorism' And he stressed that the AU was now capable of using its knowledge of what happened in Rwanda to prevent it recurring. "Anyone saying that we cannot do anything, we have not learnt any lessons - that person is joking," he said. It is estimated 800,000 died in the genocide "We have a brand new organisation that is less than two years old, that has already done so much to make sure that such a thing does not repeat again. "We have said that the failure of the international community to prevent and punish genocide will never happen again. "To this effect we have done a lot of things - Africa has realised that genocide is a criminal violation, worse than terrorism." Specifically, he pointed out that an AU Peace and Security Council was set up two weeks ago with elected members. It replaced the AU's central organ for conflict prevention, management and resolution. Mr Ojako said this Council would be "better equipped to stop genocide being committed again in Africa." "Every institution needed to stop genocide is right now in place here," he added.

Reuters 1 Apr 2004 Ex-Rwandan president Bizimungu goes on trial Thu 1 April, 2004 17:41 KIGALI (Reuters) - Former Rwandan president Pasteur Bizimungu has gone on trial on charges of trying to set up an armed militia group seen as a threat to national security in a country still traumatised by the 1994 genocide. The trial of Bizimungu, who was arrested more than a year-and-a-half ago, was delayed by an unsuccessful appeal to Rwanda's Supreme Court seeking the dismissal of charges that also included illegal possession of firearms. If convicted, the former president could face up to 20 years in prison, the Rwandan state attorney general Emmanuel Rukangira said. Bizimungu denied all the charges. "My lord these are politically motivated charges of which I plead innocent," he said. The hearing adjourned until April 20. An ethnic Hutu, Bizimungu was appointed president when the ruling Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) took power after the 1994 genocide by Hutus in which 800,000 people were slaughtered, most of them Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus. He resigned in March 2000 after a fall out with top RPF members and was replaced by President Paul Kagame. The prosecution accused Bizimungu and a former minister Charles Ntakirutinka of inciting civil disobedience and spreading partisan politics aimed at dividing Rwandans along ethnic lines. The former president has also been charged with diverting at least $100,000 given by a regional political body to his personal account in a local bank.

Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne) 2 Apr 2004 Seven Heads of State to Attend Genocide Commemoration Seven heads of state and government have confirmed their presence at the ceremony to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the genocide, on April 7th, the Hirondelle News Agency has learnt. The leaders include Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Umar al-Bashir of Sudan, Idriss Deby of Tchad, Mwai Kibabi of Kenya, Yoersi Museveni of Uganda. Tanzania will be represented by its Prime Minister Frederick Sumaye and Burundi, by the Vice-President Alphonse Marie Kadege. Of the Western countries Belgium will send the most important delegation, led by the Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt. France will be represented at the ministerial level. The Minister for Youth Sports and culture, Robert Bayigamba also announced that the UN Secretary General, Kofi Anan, will not come to Kigali. However, Kofi Anan has called on the whole world to observe a minute of silence at 12.00 noon on 7th April in memory of the genocide victims. The commemoration programme indicates that an international conference on the genocide will be held from 4 to 6 April and the memorial in Kigali will be inaugurated on April 7. A ceremony to pay tribute to the victims will also take place on April 7th at the Kigali Amahoro National Stadium in the presence of a big crowd. There will also be the inauguration in Kigali of a memorial for the 10 Belgian peacekeepers killed when the genocide began. On the evening of the 7th, 10 steles will be erected at the "Kigali Camp" where the Belgian troops were killed in a more private ceremony to which Belgian officials and families of the dead will attend. The Rwandan Minister for Youth Sport and Culture also said onRadio Rwanda that a total of 7 million US dollars from donor countries will be spent in the genocide commemoration ceremonies. Most of the money will be directed towards genocide memorial sites. The Belgian ambassador to Rwanda, Marck Vedapt has, on its part, donated 1.5 million euros for the genocide ceremonies.

Reuters 2 Apr 2004 Rwanda Resigned as West Skips Genocide Anniversary By Finbarr O'Reilly KIGALI (Reuters) - Rwanda said on Friday it was disappointed that Western leaders would not attend memorial ceremonies in Kigali next week to mark the tenth anniversary of the country's genocide. World leaders initially downplayed the 1994 slaughter of some 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates killed by Hutu extremists who mostly hacked and bludgeoned their victims to death with machetes, spiked clubs and garden tools. Government officials and organizers of memorial events planned for the April 7 anniversary said they were dismayed that Western leaders had again turned their backs on the tiny central African country as it remembers its legions of dead. "I'm not surprised and I don't think many people here would be because the general feeling in Rwanda is that (the West) has not learned lessons from what happened here," said Alfred Ndahiro, an advisor to President Paul Kagame. "We learned our lesson that we have to fend for ourselves, which is obviously still the case," Ndahiro added. Kagame's Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front ended the genocide in July 1994 after ousting the extremist Hutu regime that had carefully planned and then carried out the mass killings while the world delayed taking decisive action. "The lack of interest now just highlights that the genocide in Rwanda is still not really taken seriously," said Stephen Smith, director of Aegis Trust, a British-based genocide prevention organization. Aegis Trust will open a multimillion-dollar genocide museum in Kigali on April 7 with memorial speeches and a minute of silence to be held at the site, located next to mass tombs containing the remains of hundreds of thousands of dead. "There's been a lot of talk about regret over not doing enough to stop the genocide, but it has not transferred into action or foreign policy," Smith told Reuters in Kigali. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who was head of peacekeeping operations at the world body during the 1994 massacres, recently accepted institutional and personal blame for not doing more to prevent Rwanda's 100 days of slaughter. Annan, however, will not participate in the Kigali ceremonies, organizers said. He was snubbed by Kagame during a visit in 1998, though relations have subsequently improved. With the exception of Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, only African leaders have so far confirmed they would attend Rwanda's memorial events with a handful of Western countries sending low-level delegations.

IRIN 2 Apr 2004 Census finds 937,000 died in genocide KIGALI, 2 Apr 2004 (IRIN) - A census carried out by Rwanda's Ministry of Youth, Culture and Sports found that 937,000 Tutsi and politically moderate Hutus died during the 1994 genocide, an official announced on Thursday. "These are the people who died during the 100 days [April-June 1994] of mayhem and who we were able to find out their names, age and their places of birth," Robert Bayigamba, the minister for youth, culture and sports, said at a news conference in the capital, Kigali. He said the death toll could increase when the Gacaca justice system becomes fully operational as many perpetrators of the genocide were expected to testify about the people they killed. The Gacaca trials, based on traditional communal justice, are expected to begin later this year. The genocide death toll has often been conflicting, with various organisations quoting figures between 500,000 and one million. "We shall come up with the exact figure after the Gacaca courts complete their work," he said. Meanwhile, the Rwandan government wants former first lady Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana arrested for her alleged role in planning the execution of the genocide, an official told IRIN on Friday. The government maintains that Habyarimana, along with her two brothers, Selaphe Rwabugumba and Protais Zigiranyirazo, were "key masterminds" of the genocide and must be brought to justice either in Rwanda or at the Tanzania-based UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). "We have sent out a formal request to Interpol to have these people arrested and brought to justice for crimes of genocide," Emmanuel Rukangira, a state attorney, said. Rwanda claims Habyarimana now lives in France while her brothers are in Belgium. "They were key members of the Akazu clan," Rukangira said. The Akazu, or the "inner circle", comprised close relatives of Agathe and Juvenal Habyarimana and their allies. The Akazu allegedly orchestrated the genocide. Some members of the Akazu, like Zigiranyirazo and Col. Theoneste Bagasora, are already facing trial at the ICTR. Rwanda recently announced that it was preparing a list of 300 suspected masterminds of the genocide who are still at large and living in Europe, North America and Australia. "It is high time that these people who have been trotting around the world were brought to justice," Rukangira said. Regarding plans for the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the genocide, Bayigamba said at least six heads of state and other high-ranking government representatives, were expected in Kigali on 7 April for the occasion. He said Rwandans would begin a week of mourning on Monday, during which remains of some genocide victims would be buried in dignity and flags will fly at half-staff. "We commemorate the genocide to give honour and dignity to the victims of genocide, reflect on the past and strive to move to a better future," he added.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution 3 Apr 2004 ajc.com Ethnic atrocities have left scars in Rwanda 10 years later, country appears peaceful -- on the surface By CRAIG NELSON The Published on: 04/03/04 NYAMATA, Rwanda -- The leader of the mob thrust a hoe into Marcellin Kwibuka's hand. "Kill her," the man ordered. Kwibuka is a Hutu. The woman lying at his feet was an ethnic Tutsi. She was also his wife. The decision forced upon Kwibuka: Kill her and save himself and their children, or all would die. Kwibuka's harrowing choice during Rwanda's season of blood 10 years ago set an almost unimaginable standard for human cruelty, even by Rwanda's ignominious yardstick. In 1994, the government of this tiny Central African nation, led by extremist ethnic Hutus, set out to exterminate the minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus. About 800,000 people died in 100 days in one of the most ferocious mass slaughters in history. No outside nations stepped in to halt the carnage. Under a government amnesty last year, more than 23,000 confessed killers were freed and returned to their towns and villages to live alongside the survivors of the killings and rapes. Today, Africa's most Christian country appears peaceful on the surface. As Rwanda prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of its unimaginable bloodletting Wednesday, it has made more progress than most could have imagined, refusing, in the words of Tutsi President Paul Kagame, "to be held hostage" by grief and mistrust. But peel away the layers of the lives of people like Kwibuka and there is tension, anger and grief as they struggle to cope with what happened 10 years ago. When the genocide broke out, Rwanda was a country of 7.7 million people, 85 percent Hutu and 12 percent Tutsi. Tutsis had been in power until three years before independence in 1962, when the Tutsi king died and Hutus rebelled with the connivance of Belgian colonial administrators. Hundreds of thousands of Tutsis fled into exile, until a 1990 invasion from Uganda by a Tutsi-led rebel army culminated in negotiations for a power-sharing agreement. The often tense politics did not keep Rwandans like Kwibuka, a Hutu, and Françoise, a Tutsi, from marrying or owning businesses or worshipping together. But by April 1994, as power sharing appeared imminent, extremist Hutus and state-run radio inflamed ethnic fears of a Tutsi takeover. And on April 14, 1994, a mob of more than 100 people gathered in front of Kwibuka's house. "They had machetes and clubs, some studded with nails called nta mpongano, which means 'no pity,' " he says. "I met the militia leader, Samuel Nikobali, at my door." "We'vecome for your animal," Nikobali said. "Which animal?" asked Kwibuka. "Your wife." 'Tutsis . . . will perish' The trigger for the slaughter of the Tutsis came with the mysterious shootdown of a plane carrying President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu. Blame was placed upon the Tutsis, and within hours, a well-laid plan for genocide was implemented. Within a week Rwandan government soldiers had killed 10 Belgian peacekeepers, and all but a handful of U.N. peacekeepers were withdrawn. In the United States, the Clinton administration was wary of African entanglements after losing Army Rangers while supporting U.N. efforts in Somalia the year before. For the next 100 days, the killers did their work as the radio blared, "All Tutsis will perish. . . . Slowly, slowly, slowly, we will kill them like rats." Death came to Kwibuka's front door immediately. Françoise's name, like that of each of the estimated 930,000 Tutsis living in Rwanda, was on a liquidation list. Even so, Kwibuka had hoped Françoise might be spared because he was a Hutu and the owner of a popular restaurant. But as the mob clamored for blood in front of his mud home, it was plain none of that mattered. On April 10, policemen, local councilmen and members of a feared Hutu militia had come to Kwibuka's farm in search of Françoise, 24. Three times she hid as Kwibuka paid off her pursuers with cash and told them she had fled to a nearby town. But on April 14, the mob would not be turned away. "Whether we find her today or not, we're going to kill you. We aren't taking your money anymore," Kwibuka recalls the militia leader saying. "When she heard them threaten me, she came out of the banana trees and said, 'Don't kill him. It's me you're after.' The crowd parted as she walked over and stood beside me. . . . Angered that I'd lied to them, they hit me on the head with a club." As he recalls how Françoise volunteered to die, he turns away to dab his eyes with a handkerchief. Kwibuka says Françoise calmly asked if she could speak to her children a last time. Inside her home, she took the hands of 4-year-old Dunyi and 2-year-old Janet to say goodbye. She asked Claudette, Kwibuka's 12-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, to look after the children. In her husband's ear she whispered, "I'm going to die now." 'Kill me here' When they returned outside, they were marched behind the house. "Kill me here," Françoise told the militia leader Nikobali as she began to pray. One man asked if she was finished praying, then struck a glancing blow at her head with a machete, knocking her to the ground. Before more machetes could rain down, Nikobali screamed, "Stop!" "Kwibuka must kill her himself," he said as he handed the husband a machete. "Either help us, or we will kill you and your children and burn your house." "My arm was numb and I dropped it," Kwibuka said. "I thought about all the hardships we had gone through together and the kind of death she was going to suffer at my hands. I heard someone yell, 'Go get the children and burn the house.' "By that time, Françoise was pleading with me. 'Why are you taking so long? . . . Do it. God knows it's not you who's killing me. I won't live if you die.' " "Suddenly, I got the strength to go through with it," Kwibuka remembers. "They handed me a hoe and she turned face-down on the ground. As she prayed, I hit her once on the left side of the head. 'Hit her again,' people screamed. I hit her again, and she was dead." Kwibuka winces when he recalls looking up from Françoise's body and seeing their children watching. He had not realized that they had followed their parents outside. Later his 4-year-old son kept repeating, "Dad killed Mom." Freedom, forgiveness After the gang moved on to kill the Tutsi wife of another Hutu man, Kwibuka buried Françoise near the house with the help of Hutu neighbors. But he was immediately forced to go hunt down other Tutsis, he says. He says he killed no one, but in February 1995 — nearly seven months after a Tutsi rebel force ended the genocide and took control of the country — he was arrested, confessed to killing Françoise, and was jailed with up to 120,000 other suspected perpetrators of genocide. Kwibuka's land and property were seized. Claudette, along with his other children and tens of thousands of other Rwandans, drifted from one family member to another. Last year, after nine years in jail, Kwibuka was freed under a government amnesty. He and his children were reunited and returned to the family farm. "[The children] understand that I was forced to do what I did and had no choice," he says. If they hold their mother's death against him, they do not tell him. Kwibuka says he is at peace. "She prayed for me before I did it," he says. "I'm sure she has forgiven me."

Reuters 4 Apr 2004 Rwanda's Kagame Scolds Outside World Over Genocide By REUTERS Filed at 5:17 p.m. ET KIGALI (Reuters) - Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Sunday accused the outside world of deliberately failing to prevent genocide, opening a week to mark the tenth anniversary of the killing of some 800,000 fellow countrymen. The United Nations, the United States and European countries have all faced criticism for failing to intervene during the three-month genocide in Rwanda, which ended in July 1994 when Kagame seized the capital at the head of a rebel army. ``We should always bear in mind that genocide, wherever it happens, represents the international community's failure, which I would in fact characterize as deliberate, as convenient failure,'' Kagame told the start of a genocide conference. ``How could a million lives of the Rwandan people be regarded as so insignificant by anyone in terms of strategic or national interest?'' he told the meeting at a hotel used 10 years ago as a base by military planners directing the massacres. ``Do the powerful nations have a hidden agenda? I would hate to believe that this agenda is dictated by racist considerations or the color of the skin, I hope it is not true,'' he said. Speakers opening the three-day conference said the world had compounded its lack of intervention to stop the slaughter by failing to help the survivors, many of whom were infected with AIDS by the militiamen who raped them during the massacres. ``The international community still continues after the genocide to display total indifference to the survivors' unspeakable moral and physical suffering,'' said Francois Garambe, chairman of the Ibuka genocide survivors group. Stephen Smith, director of Aegis Trust, a British-based charity dedicated to preventing genocide, said the world's failure in Rwanda had left the country with a terrible legacy of trauma which should encourage preventive action in future. ``In this city, you know, there are still more nightmares than dreams, because you know personally, that just 10 years ago, someone hacked your father to death, sliced through your brother, raped your mother,'' he told several hundred delegates. ``Never forget Rwanda, let it be a dangerous, unsettling, unnerving memory,'' he said. ``A VERY GOOD MAN'' Sunday, a Rwandan cabinet minister said a 2001 census showed there were 937,000 victims of the genocide, reviving a debate over the death toll which has seen conflicting numbers of deaths proposed ranging from 500,000 to one million. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, created by the United Nations to prosecute perpetators, estimates that ``some 800,000 Rwandans were killed'' between April and July 1994. Rwanda's genocide began after a plane carrying the Rwandan and Burundian presidents was shot down on April 6, 1994, triggering an attempt by Hutu extremists to exterminate their opponents to preserve the Hutus' decades-long dominance. The conference ahead of a formal memorial ceremony on Wednesday will draw participants from around the world, including Canadian former lieutenant-general Romeo Dallaire who led a U.N. force in Rwanda during the killings. He has been haunted by guilt over his failure to save more lives. Kagame paid tribute to Dallaire in his speech as a ``very good man,'' and revealed for the first time that he had considered seizing the weapons of Dallaire's force to use in his military campaign but had decided against the idea. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who was head of peacekeeping at the world body during 1994, accepted institutional and personal blame last month for not doing more to prevent the Rwandan slaughter. Declassified documents revealed last week that U.S. intelligence officials were using the word ``genocide'' in Rwanda even as officials in former U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration avoided the word in public for fear it would spark calls for action. Kagame has accused France of ``direct'' involvement in the genocide, saying it provided weapons to the killers.

VOA 4 Apr 2004 Conference Seeks Ways to Prevent Repeat of Rwanda Genocide Alisha Ryu Kigali, Rwanda 0In the Rwandan capital, Kigali, a three-day conference, aimed at finding ways to prevent a repeat of the horrific 1994 genocide in that country, opened on Sunday. The conference launches more than a week of official events to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the genocide that left more than 800,000 people dead in 100 days. A gathering of several hundred diplomats, Rwandan government officials, academics from the United States and Europe, and aid agency representatives listened solemnly, as genocide survivor, Fredrick Gachondo, 32, opened the conference at Kigali's new Intercontinental Hotel. The ethnic Tutsi Rwandan told the audience the story of how he was hunted down by a mob of ethnic Hutu extremists on April 12, 1994. Mr. Gachondo says he was hiding behind a house when several Hutu militiamen, carrying spears and machetes, came looking for him. He says he knew all of them. They were once his friends and neighbors, but that didn't seem to matter. Mr. Gachondo says the militiamen stabbed and cut him over and over again. Then, they robbed him of his money and left him to bleed to death. Ten years ago on April 7, Hutu extremists began a bloody, government-orchestrated campaign to exterminate their long-time Tutsi rivals. By the time a Tutsi-led rebel army ended the genocide in July, hundreds of thousands of Tutsis, as well as politically moderate Hutus, had been massacred throughout Rwanda. With the help of historians, psychologists, sociologists and other experts scheduled to speak, conference organizers say the three-day gathering will seek to understand the root causes of the 1994 genocide and how to prevent it from happening again. Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who led the army that stopped the genocide, says the need to find a solution is urgent. He warns the hatred that sparked the killings of Tutsis continues to pose a threat to the country's attempts to form a cohesive, peaceful society. "The forces and the ideologues responsible for the genocide in our country have been defeated. They have not been destroyed. They still exist. Now, the big question is how can we uproot these forces of evil and ensure they are no longer a menace to our societies?," he said. Another topic of discussion during the conference is likely to focus on how to get the international community more involved in efforts to prevent genocide in Rwanda and elsewhere in the world. On Sunday, President Kagame strongly condemned the United Nations and individual Western nations for failing to intervene in 1994, charging that racism may have played a part in their decision to ignore the Rwandan pleas for help. Late last month, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who was in charge of peacekeeping for the world body in 1994, accepted institutional and personal responsibility for not doing more to stop the slaughter.

Xinhua 5 Apr 2004 Rwandan president calls for genocide-preventing mechanism Rwandan President Paul Kagame Sunday urged the international community to establish an effective mechanism to prevent reoccurrence of horrible killings like the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Opening an international conference on the genocide, Kagame said that establishing such an effective mechanism will help avoidmore losses of innocent lives and more bloodshed. The conference is part of the commemoration week launched by the Rwandan government to commemorate those dead in the genocide 10 years ago. The 10th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide that claimed about one million lives in three months falls on Wednesday. Kagame said that the international community failed Rwanda whenit was plunged into a frenzy of hatred and killings from April to July 1994. He questioned whether the lack of a mandate for using force by the United Nations peacekeepers could exempt the international community's obligation to stop inhuman crimes. "What are their arms for? If they cannot stop killings, why arethey in this country? How about giving their weapons to us so thatwe can use them to protect our people?" asked the president. Some 2,500 blue helmets were stationed in the tiny African country to monitor the implementation of a peace accord signed late 1993 by the then Hutu government and the Tutsi-dominated Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) led by Kagame. They refrained from being drawn into the killings of Tutsis andmoderate Hutus and clashes between the Hutu army and the RPF forces when a terrible massacre swept the country after the assassination of then Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana in a missile attack on his plane on April 6, 1994. The genocide destroyed so many Rwandan families and threw the survivors into sadness, loneliness and poverty, Kagame said, adding that the 1994 tragedy is a failure of the international community. "The last 10 years are years of deep reflection of the genocideand its consequences," he said. As for the government's efforts to heal wounds of the nation, Kagame said that reconciliation has taken root in the Rwandan society and people have come to the knowledge that they must love each other and unit to rebuild the country into a new one. About 500 representatives, including officials, diplomats, nongovernmental organization workers as well as scholars attended the conference at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Kigali, which will last for three days. Some participants, when speaking at the opening ceremony, called on the international community and the Rwandan people to draw lessons from the genocide in order to prevent it from replaying. A survivor narrated how he survived from the mass killing and what had happened around him during those bloody days. The one-week commemoration will reach its climax on Wednesday at the official ceremony at the Amahoro Stadium of Kigali.

BBC 5 Apr 2004 Preventing another genocide By Alison De Forges Human Rights Watch A decade since the Rwandan genocide, leaders of national governments and international institutions have acknowledged the shame of having failed to stop the slaughter of the Tutsi population. 'Hate media' played a key role in the genocide At the 2004 Stockholm International Forum, "Preventing Genocide: Threats and Responsibilities," many renewed their commitment to halting any future genocide. Honouring that pledge will require not just greater political will than seen in the past but also developing a strategy built on the lessons of 1994. The genocide in Rwanda began suddenly after the killing of the president, but the attitudes and practices that made it possible developed over a period of years. Tutsi massacres For decades the government had practiced discrimination against Tutsi, the people who would be targeted during the genocide. The post-independence government categorized citizens by ethnicity and, continuing a practice of the Belgian colonial regime, required all adults to carry documents identifying their ethnic group. These identity documents were used to select Tutsi for slaughter during the genocide. During the three years before the 1994 genocide, government officials, soldiers, national police, and leaders of political parties incited and directed 16 massacres of Tutsi, each of which killed hundreds of unarmed civilians. The army also killed hundreds of Hima, a people related to Tutsi, during a military operation in 1990. Killers and other assailants went unpunished if their victims were Tutsi or members of parties opposed to the authorities. Hate media For three years before the genocide, newspapers like Kangura had identified Tutsi as "enemies of the nation," to be scorned and feared. A private radio, supported by many influential government, military, and political figures, broadcast the same message with increasing virulence and effect in the nine months before the genocide was launched. Lack of accurate information of what was happening on the ground also fuelled the killings Alison De Forges But no one intervened to actually stop the calls to hatred or to promote the broadcast of countervailing messages of tolerance. Silencing the radio broadcasts would not only have ended this particularly effective form of incitement and the delivery of specific orders. It would have showed that the international community rejected the legitimacy of the genocidal message and those who were delivering it. Conflicting reports One other way to prevent genocide is to be alert to impact of negative models in nearby regions. In late 1993 and early 1994 tens of thousands of Hutu and Tutsi were slain in neighbouring Burundi. These killings, skilfully exploited by Rwandan propagandists, significantly increased tensions in Rwanda. Both the slaughter and the absence of international reaction to it encouraged the planners of genocide to proceed with the attempt to eliminate Tutsi in Rwanda. Rwanda may start an inquiry to probe the role of foreigners on the genocide Lack of accurate information of what was happening on the ground also fuelled the killings. In 1994 the governments most involved in Rwanda - France, Belgium, and the United States - had substantial information about the situation on the ground but they shared this information with only a few others. Non-permanent members of the Security Council - with the exception of Rwanda, depended for information on the UN secretariat. From the field, the head of the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda, General Romeo Dallaire, and the representative of the Secretary-General, Jacques-Roger Booh- Booh, sent very different descriptions of events to the secretariat in New York. In preparing briefings for the Security Council, the secretariat favoured Mr Booh-Booh's interpretation, which gave no sense of the systematic and ethnically based nature of the killing. Relying initially on this information, the non-permanent members agreed to withdraw most of the peacekeepers. Lack of support There was equally a need to identify and support opponents of the genocide. At the start a vast number of Rwandans opposed the genocide. When potential leaders of resistance, including military officers, appealed for foreign support in the first days of the killings, they were refused. Instead of supporting these resisters, the Security Council undermined them by reducing the already inadequate number of peacekeepers. Faced with this overwhelming pressure and feeling abandoned by the international community, the resisters either went into hiding or became active participants in the genocide. Foreign aid Rwandan government officials, military officers, and political leaders who directed the genocide claimed to be legitimate authorities giving appropriate orders for the self-defence of the population. This pretext of legitimacy made it easier for them to persuade people to violate usual moral and legal prohibitions. By remaining silent the international community appeared to acquiesce in these claims to legitimacy. States and other international actors must send clear condemnations of the genocidal government combined with the announcement that direct foreign assistance would forever be denied to the government. Policy change Imposing an arms embargo on the genocidal government can also effectively prevent similar incidents. Many civilian killers used machetes or homemade weapons. But soldiers, national police, and thousands of militia used firearms in launching attacks on churches, schools, hospitals and other sites where thousands of Tutsi had gathered. The UN Security Council established an arms embargo, but only late in the genocide. Had the embargo been imposed earlier, the killers would have had fewer arms at their disposal and would have been less effective in their attacks. Lack of support led some resisters to join in the killings Some governments, particularly France and several African governments, continued to support the Rwandan government throughout the genocide. This limited the impact of condemnation by those other governments that did finally take a stand against the slaughter. The United States and the United Kingdom, failed to press the French effectively enough to produce a change in policy. Genocides are complex phenomena, each with its own peculiar configuration and dynamics. These lessons will not provide the full answer to stopping the next genocide, but they provide a starting point for those who are determined to act in defence of our common humanity. Reuters Rwanda marks genocide with many leading perpetrators still at large April 6, 2004 Kigali: Rwandans confront the challenges of hunting down and punishing the perpetrators of its genocide during a week of reflection that began yesterday to mark the 10th anniversary of the slaughter of about 800 000 people. Seeking justice for genocide victims has proved one of the toughest challenges for Rwanda, burdened by more than 80 000 prisoners accused of crimes during the 1994 massacres and the knowledge that many top suspects are still at large. "The forces and ideologues responsible for the genocide in our country have been defeated; they have not been destroyed. They still exist," said Rwandan President Paul Kagame. "The real question is: how can we uproot these forces of evil and ensure that they are no longer a menace to our societies?" Participants are due to discuss justice and reconciliation before a memorial ceremony tomorrow to bury some victims found in a tomb housing the remains of about 250 000 people. Many Rwandans believe justice is an essential part of the painful process of reconciliation, serving both to acknowledge suffering and perhaps reveal the fate of individuals who disappeared during the 100-day frenzy. "After a genocide, after a mass killing, establishing the truth is extremely important," said Ervin Staub, a psychology professor from the University of Massachusetts and a Holocaust survivor. One of the most pressing issues is how to deal with about 80 000 suspects held in overcrowded Rwandan jails, whose trials for their suspected role as rank-and- file killers rather than organisers will take decades to resolve using normal courts. Rwanda has introduced a system of village courts to speed up the process, training local judges and asking neighbours to act as informal juries. The system has accelerated the process of sifting through the legions of suspects, but human rights groups have warned of the dangers of false accusations. Progress in finding more senior suspects accused of masterminding the killings has also been slow.

New Zealand Herald 6 Apr 2004 nzherlad.co.nz Turning a blind eye to genocide 06.04.2004 Ten years ago 1.3 million Rwandans were slaughtered as the international community stood by. LIZ MACINTYRE remembers As the world marks the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, questions are still being asked: How could it happen? And why was the international community so reluctant to call genocide by its name? All around the Gisozi Memorial Site, the busy capital city of Kigali is humming. Cranes work on building sites, vehicles roar, people walk and ride to and from work, the market and school, and the Rwandan flag flutters in the breeze. The Memorial Site, built on the side of a hill, is a still point, peaceful in spite of the soldier with machinegun guarding the gate. The modern building is the resting place of over 250,000 people killed in the frenzied 100 days of killing in 1994 that we now call the Rwandan Genocide. Some are interred in family lots in coffins, stacked in burial vaults. They have been identified, and their burial has a semblance of order. Others have their anonymous bones displayed behind glass doors, mute testament to the slaughter. Why? That was one of the comments in the visitors' book. Indeed, it is hard to fathom why. Even the survivors and the ones still awaiting trial find it difficult to explain. Put simply, it was the culmination of decades of ethnic division and persecution of a minority group, the Tutsis, by the Hutus. There are many reasons given: the influence of colonisation, with the Belgians deciding to back the majority Hutus decades ago; the French desire for the French language to predominate over English, spoken by the Tutsis; ethnic jealousy of one race towards another considered more beautiful, more graceful and perhaps more successful. The flashpoint was the assassination of the long-standing Hutu dictator, President Juvenal Habyarimana, who had long preached hatred of the former ruling tribe, the Tutsis. Alphonsine Murebwayire, the co-ordinator of the Memorial Site project, explains clearly, from her point of viewas a Tutsi survivor. "In 1959 true persecution of the Tutsi started, and my people spent 30 years in exile. Then occurred regular mass killings in '63, '67, '73, '91 and '94, which was the final plan for the extermination of the Tutsi people." That is how the Tutsis remember their recent history - as a series of little genocides, and they recite the years by heart. Final plan: final solution. The language of this genocide is chillingly similar to that of Nazi Germany, as was the process: years of preaching hatred, racial jealousy, propaganda and the final solution - extermination. For the Hitler Youth, Rwanda had the Interahamwe, and for propaganda there was state-owned Rwandan Radio and newspapers. Murebwayire continues with her history lesson: the root cause of the genocide goes back to colonial times where the colonial powers adopted a policy of dividing the people to rule over the ethnic groups. After the persecution in 1959, when thousands of Tutsis fled into Uganda, they were not allowed back, and negotiations with President Habyarimana failed. So, they started to fight, and their relatives back in Rwanda began to be killed in retribution. By then the exiled Tutsis had formed their own army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a threat to the Hutu Government. In 1994, when the final solution began, the Tutsi and Hutu moderates sought refuge in hotels, hospitals, schools, and churches, and the leaders collaborated with the killers and betrayed them. Then the people were finished off with traditional weapons, knives and machetes, and there were killings and tortures, rapes of women and young girls, babies ripped from the wombs of pregnant Tutsi women. All this occurred within a very limited period - 1.2 million people within 100 days. Murebwayire recites this calmly and without emotion, as if the facts are awful enough. Rwanda is still coming to terms with the role of the churches in the genocide. One church in Nyarubuye, in eastern Rwanda, was the scene of systematic slaughter over a number of days - the Tutsi seeking shelter had been betrayed by the clergy. The dead still lie in the church, bundles of bones and cloth. The scene is repeated in many churches throughout Rwanda. Murebwayire turns to the purposes of the memorial: to give a decent burial to the murdered, to fight the ideology of genocide, not only in Rwanda but in the world at large, to educate the children and help a new generation to understand what happened, so that it does not happen again. We go down into the memorial building, into a labyrinth of quiet corridors and circular foyers where on shelf upon shelf, the skulls, arm bones, leg bones and clothes and jewellery of the victims are neatly stacked behind glass doors. If these bones could talk, these gaping brown skulls, these thin long bones, what would they say? They all have their stories. Some tell of violent death by beatings to the skull. Some have neat holes where a hammer dealt a death blow; others a splintering crack from an axe or machete; still others were stove in by rifle butts. This was primitive killing hand to hand, person to person, neighbour against neighbour and family members against each other. Those in mixed marriages were told to kill their Tutsi wives and children. Uncles killed their nieces and nephews without mercy, having loved them all their lives, up till the moment of madness. Their clothes lie piled beneath the bones, and the scraps of beaded jewellery, metal bracelets, precious possessions, ID cards with Tutsi under ethnic group, mute testimony to a country's shame. It is a relief to leave them there, and ascend to the bright sunshine and the activity of the day. But the Rwandans are right to build a memorial. There are other genocide memorials around the world, including the United States Holocaust Memorial in Washington, opened in 1993, just a year before the Rwanda genocide. They sell buttons there for US$1 apiece, with the words "Remember" and "Never Again". They were selling them while the genocide was going on in Rwanda. As the 10th anniversary is marked tomorrow, we will see interviews with Major General Romeo Dallaire, Canadian commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda at the time of the killings. He tried from January 1994 to alert the UN that extermination of the Tutsis was imminent, but his urgent faxes did not filter through to the UN Secretariat or the Security Council. He needed more troops and weapons. He reckoned 5000 troops and permission to use force would defeat the Hutus, and set the peace process in train. He was refused, and after Belgian UN troops were killed, his force was slashed by 90 per cent, leaving only 270 troops with a mandate basically to sit and watch the slaughter. It was only when the New Zealand Ambassador to the Security Council, Colin Keating, and the Ambassadors of Spain and Czechoslovakia began to agitate for the killings to be recognised as genocide, and for the return of UN troops, that the Security Council prepared to vote for 5500 troops. By then it was May, and most of the killings had been done. The sticking point seems to have been the reluctance of world powers to call the systematic killings and extermination of Tutsis genocide. If the killings were called intertribal skirmishes, or even civil war, it meant the international community did not have to become involved. It was an African problem, one of many African problems. Once it was recognised as genocide, the wheels of the UN started to turn, and troops were sent into Rwanda, more in fact than Dallaire had requested. But by then, of course, it was too late. * Liz MacIntyre is communications manager for World Vision New Zealand. She visited Rwanda last year. .

Reuters 7 Apr 2004 Rwanda Pauses to Remember Its Massacres By REUTERS Filed at 5:59 a.m. ET KIGALI (Reuters) - With Western leaders conspicuous by their absence, Rwanda marked the 10th anniversary of its genocide on Wednesday as bewildered and angry as ever at the world's failure to stop one of the 20th century's great crimes. ``We will see each other again in heaven,'' a choir sang under hot, sunny skies at a memorial site as a crowd of barefoot Rwandans in tattered clothes watched from a hilltop as African presidents arrived in gleaming four-wheel-drive vehicles. Women in traditional dress held up portraits of lost loved ones, some of the 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates killed amid dithering by Western nations who were preoccupied by other crises and unwilling to put their troops in harm's way. ``It will take eternity for the detestable and guilty indifference of the international community to be forgotten,'' said Louis Michel, foreign minister of the former colonial power Belgium, which lost 10 peacekeeping troops to Hutu killers on April 7, prompting Brussels to withdraw its other soldiers. Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who has repeatedly criticized the outside world for failing to intervene to stop the 100-day slaughter, lit an eternal flame at the memorial site as workers buried 15 coffins in a mass grave nearby. Human rights groups say it will be impossible to ensure such genocides never recur as long as powerful nations remain apathetic about impoverished countries in turmoil. ``The risk of genocide remains frighteningly real,'' U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement. ``The world must...act decisively to stop it when prevention fails.'' For many ordinary Rwandans, most of whom scratch a living as peasant farmers in one of the world's poorest countries, the legacy of trauma and grief wrought by the genocide is far from healed. Many women were infected with AIDS during mass rapes, and thousands of children were orphaned. ``It's a day of tragedy, it's the day of the start of the killing,'' said Desire Katabirwa, 50, a business consultant. ``Reconciliation is a process that happens slowly. I hope that it will not take long, but it may need years.'' The streets clinging to Kigali's many hillsides were quieter than usual, with shops closed and many people choosing to stay at home or head for memorial services at the Amahoro stadium. The United States, Belgium, France and Britain were singled out for blame by participants at a genocide conference in Kigali this week. Annan, head of U.N. peacekeeping during the genocide and a Nobel peace prize winner, has also come under fire. ``I would like to say very clearly here that I consider that this is a disgrace that he had the Nobel peace prize,'' Belgian senator Alain Destexhe told the conference. Among the guests were Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and senior officials from Burundi and Tanzania. The site at Gisozi on one of Kigali's hillsides consists of mass graves containing the remains of an estimated 250,000 people killed in the city, as well as a museum with graphic displays and video presentations of the events of 1994. Rwanda's ambassador to Kenya, Seth Kimanzi, appealed for the hunt to be stepped up for some 300 planners of the genocide, who he said were suspected to be hiding in South Africa, Indian Ocean islands, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

News 24 SA 7 Apr 2004 Kigali plays the blame game As Rwanda prepared to mark the 10th anniversary of a genocide that claimed up to a million lives, accusations about responsibility for the slaughter abounded in Kigali on Tuesday. France, Belgium, the United States, Britain the United Nations and the Roman Catholic church all came under fire for allegedly contributing to or failing to prevent the 100-day orgy of ethnic bloodshed. Ten years later, there is no question that in the case of Rwanda in 1994 the outside world failed to honour its pledge of "never again" made after the Nazi Holocaust, and acrimony still surrounds the specific actions and inactions of individual members of the international community. This was the central theme of a conference of Rwandan and foreign experts held this week in Kigali, which ended on Tuesday, the eve of the main commemorative events in the capital. Delegates agreed that Rwanda should set up "an independent commission of enquiry" into the role of France, which was a close ally of the Hutu regime that planned and carried out the genocide. Recent weeks have seen volleys of accusations about the genocide fly between Paris and Kigali. Conference delegates also called on "the United Nations, responsible states actively complicit or complicit through silence... to pay reparations." They also said the UN Security Council should adopt a resolution "that explicitly recognises and unequivocally condemns the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda". Louis Michel, the foreign minister of Belgium, Rwanda's former colonial power, called on "countries that bear a responsibility for this odious crime" to apologise, as Belgium did in 2000. Detestable indifference "It is all too clear that the Belgian authorities of the time did not do enough to avoid the worst, and it will take forever for the international community to forget its detestable indifference," said Michel. Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general who commanded UN peacekeeping troops deployed in Rwanda in 1994, denounced the "criminal responsibility" of the international community during the conference. He singled out Security Council permanent members France, Britain and the United States for not giving the peacekeeping mission the means to halt the genocide. Speaking to Belgian television, Michel lambasted Dallaire for his "insulting" words, those of one who "personifies cowardice in the light of the responsibilities he didn't assume." Gerry Caplan, a Canadian academic, waded in with charges that the Catholic church, Belgium, the United States, Britain and above France all had a lot to answer for. "The French government waited until 1995 before apologising for France's role in deporting Jews to Germany. "Perhaps we'll have to wait another 50 years for the French to apologise for the genocide," Caplan told the conference. Unlike France, the UN, the United States and Belgium have all made some kind of declaration of contrition with regard to the events of 1994 in Rwanda.

BBC 11 April, 2004 Hutus 'attacked Rwanda village' By Robert Walker BBC correspondent in Kigali Remnants of Hutu militias crossed into DR Congo after the genocide Rwanda's army says it has repulsed an attack by Hutu rebels from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. A military official said at least 16 rebels were killed attempting to attack a Tutsi village inside Rwanda's border. Rwanda is currently commemorating the 10th anniversary of the genocide in which some 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis, were killed by Hutu militias. Remnants of the militias regrouped after the genocide in Congo, from where they continue to operate. Details about the rebel attack, which occurred late on Thursday night, are only now emerging. The head of Rwanda's armed forces, Major General James Kabarebe, told the BBC a force of some 250 Hutu rebels crossed into north-west Rwanda with the aim of killing Tutsis. But he said they were intercepted by the Rwandan army, and at least 16 rebels were killed. Wounded General Kabarebe said the insurgents then fled back into DR Congo, carrying a number of wounded with them. The attack appears timed to coincide with commemorations marking the 10th anniversary of the genocide, and it is seen as an indication of the rebels' intention to fight on. Last year their military leader surrendered and returned to Rwanda, raising hopes that others would follow. But instead, a more hardline leadership has now taken command. The Rwandan government estimates there are still up to 20,000 rebels. They include members of the extremist Hutu militias who fled to Congo after participating in the genocide. Previous attempts by the rebels to infiltrate Rwanda were crushed by the Rwandan army, but human rights groups reported widespread army abuses against civilians in the process.

VOA 29 Apr 2004 Children's Summit Opens In Kigali Joe De Capua Washington De Capua interview on Rwandan children's summit[Download] (MP3) De Capua interview on Rwanda children's summit.[Stream] (MP3) In the Rwandan capital, Kigali, a two-day children’s summit got underway Thursday. Two hundred fifty children from around the country are meeting to discuss their experiences ten years after the genocide. They range in age from 10 to 16. The summit is being sponsored by UNICEF and the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. Bintou Keita is the UNICEF representative in Rwanda. From Kigali, she spoke to English to Africa Joe De Capua about the children’s summit. She says, “The purpose of all of this is to listen to children, what they experienced during the genocide, what are the consequences for them today? And what are their views on the way the country is implementing the Convention for Child Rights? And also how the process for unity, peace and reconciliation is going on for them and their families, communities and schools?” She says the children will also present a vision of the Rwanda they wish to live in. Ms. Keita talks about the goals of the summit. She says, “It’s a renewed commitment from all the stakeholders. So we need everybody on board from the government, the donor community, the children themselves.” She says the summit precedes the National Summit for Adults On Unity and Reconciliation, which is to be held in about two weeks. Click above links to download or listen to interview with Bintou Keita.

South Africa

News 24 SA 30 Mar 2004 Companies sued for 'genocide' New York - Lloyd's of London, US bank FleetBoston Financial Corp and the RJ Reynolds tobacco company were expected to be named in a lawsuit that will allege they profited from the 17th-century slave trade, lawyer Edward Fagan said. "We are suing them for genocide," Fagan asserted. The US lawyer is well-known for taking on controversial cases. Fagan forced Swiss banks into a $1.25bn dollar settlement on behalf of Nazi victims in 1998, but was dumped last year by South African apartheid victims who had sought to sue large companies. African slaves His latest case will seek damages on the behalf of a group of descendents of African slaves brought to the United States in the 17th and 18th centuries, he explained. "They (Lloyd's, FleetBoston and Reynolds) basically sought to destroy the communities, the people, the language, the culture of persons that were to become slaves," Fagan said. He declined to provide more information on the allegations to be made against the three companies, or what sums the lawsuit would seek. Lloyd's is the world's biggest insurance market, while RJ Reynolds is the second-largest tobacco-maker in America. Fagan said Lloyd's insured slave ships and provided cover for merchants transporting slaves and goods between Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean. RJ Reynolds declined to comment on Monday, saying it had not seen the lawsuit. Edited by Duane Heath .

Sudan

NYT 31 Mar 2004 OP-ED COLUMNIST Starved for Safety By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF ADRÉ, Chad — So why is Africa such a mess? To answer that question, let me tell you about a 34-year-old man who limped over to me at this oasis in eastern Chad. "My name is Moussa Tamadji Yodi," he said in elegant French, "and I'm a teacher. . . . I just crossed the border yesterday from Sudan. I was beaten up and lost everything." Mr. Yodi, a college graduate, speaks French, Arabic, English and two African languages. During the decades of Chad's civil war, he fled across the border into the Darfur region of Sudan to seek refuge. Now Darfur has erupted into its own civil war and genocide. Mr. Yodi told how a government-backed Arab militia had stopped his truck — the equivalent of a public bus — and forced everyone off. The troops let some people go, robbed and beat others, and shot one young man in the head, probably because he was from the Zaghawa tribe, which the Arab militias are trying to wipe out. "Nobody reacted," Mr. Yodi said. "We were all afraid." So now Mr. Yodi is a refugee for a second time, fleeing another civil war. And that is a window into Africa's central problem: insecurity. There is no formula for economic development. But three factors seem crucial: security, market-oriented policies and good governance. Botswana is the only African country that has enjoyed all three in the last 40 years, and it has been one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. And when these conditions applied, Uganda, Ghana, Mozambique and Rwanda boomed. But the African leaders who cared the most about their people, like Julius Nyerere of Tanzania or Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, tended to adopt quasi-socialist policies that hurt their people. In recent decades, Africans did much better ruled with capitalism than with compassion. These days, African economic policies are more market-oriented, and governance is improving. The big civil wars are winding down. All this leaves me guardedly optimistic. Yet Africa's biggest problem is still security. The end of the cold war has seen a surge in civil conflict, partly because great powers no longer stabilize client states. One-fifth of Africans live in nations shaken by recent wars. My Times colleague Howard French forcefully scolds the West in his new book, "A Continent for the Taking," for deliberately looking away from eruptions of unspeakable violence. One lesson of the last dozen years is that instead of being purely reactive, helpfully bulldozing mass graves after massacres, African and Western leaders should try much harder to stop civil wars as they start. The world is now facing a critical test of that principle in the Darfur region of Sudan, where Arab militias are killing and driving out darker-skinned African tribespeople. While the world now marks the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide and solemnly asserts that this must never happen again, it is. Some 1,000 people are dying each week in Sudan, and 110,000 refugees, like Mr. Yodi, have poured into Chad. Worse off are the 600,000 refugees within Sudan, who face hunger and disease after being driven away from their villages by the Arab militias. "They come with camels, with guns, and they ask for the men," Mr. Yodi said. "Then they kill the men and rape the women and steal everything." One of their objectives, he added, "is to wipe out blacks." This is not a case when we can claim, as the world did after the Armenian, Jewish and Cambodian genocides, that we didn't know how bad it was. Sudan's refugees tell of mass killings and rapes, of women branded, of children killed, of villages burned — yet Sudan's government just stiffed new peace talks that began last night in Chad. So far the U.N. Security Council hasn't even gotten around to discussing the genocide. And while President Bush, to his credit, raised the issue privately in a telephone conversation last week with the president of Sudan, he has not said a peep about it publicly. It's time for Mr. Bush to speak out forcefully against the slaughter. This is not just a moral test of whether the world will tolerate another genocide. It's also a practical test of the ability of African and Western governments alike to respond to incipient civil wars while they can still be suppressed. Africa's future depends on the outcome, and for now it's a test we're all failing.

baltimoresun.com 1 Apr 2004 Another chance to combat genocide ANOTHER AFRICAN genocide is gathering pace in the far western Darfur region of Sudan just as the grim 10th anniversary of the slaying of perhaps 800,000 people in Rwanda is being commemorated. The United States, the United Nations and the rest of the international community failed to halt the slaughter by Hutu militants of Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus in Rwanda in April 1994. It was an unforgivable moral failure. And yet a lesson has not been learned. Despite the current vast civilian destruction in Darfur that is directed against African tribal groups of the region, the world is unprepared to intervene. About 6 million people live in Darfur, half of whom are affected by the war. The National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum, which came to power in a military coup in 1989 (deposing an elected government and aborting a nascent peace agreement with southern Sudan), has been conducting war in Darfur by the most brutal means imaginable over the past 14 months. It is systematically bombing African villages and refugees, attacking undefended noncombatants, blowing up vital water wells and severely impeding humanitarian access to more than 800,000 internally displaced people. The civil war in Darfur is not directly related to the catastrophic 20-year conflict in southern Sudan, which the National Islamic Front pursued when it came to power. Rather, it is the regime's brutal military response to an insurgency by the African tribal groups, which have been denied a fair share of national resources and political power. They are unprotected from raids by marauding Arab militias. An end to the north-south conflict may be in sight, in large measure because of belated international pressure and diplomatic engagement. But even with the culmination of precarious negotiations under way in Kenya since July 2002, Khartoum has simultaneously accelerated its racist military campaign against the long-aggrieved people of Darfur. Despite urgent warnings from U.N. officials and human rights organizations, despite the clear prospect of accelerating human destruction with a terrible racial animus, there is no prospect of international intervention. So the world again may be reduced to impotent hand-wringing as tens of thousands of Africans die in a new genocide. Increasingly, this genocidal destruction is being wrought by militias of nomadic Arab groups in Darfur (the "Janjaweed," or warriors on horseback) - allied with and directly supported by Khartoum. The deep racial and ethnic animus in the savage attacks on African tribal groups (chiefly the Fur, the Massaleit and Zaghawa) has been made clear by the United Nations, Amnesty International, the International Crisis Group and myriad news reports from the long border between Sudan and Chad, where another 135,000 civilians have fled. Though the phrase of choice has been "ethnic cleansing," a senior U.N. official recently noted that the appropriate point of reference is the Rwandan genocide. Mukesh Kapila, U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Sudan until yesterday, has been remarkably forthright about the realities of Darfur. Mr. Kapila, who was present at the Rwandan genocide, told reporters March 19: "[War in Darfur is] more than a conflict, it's an organized attempt to do away with one set of people. ... The only difference between Rwanda and Darfur is the numbers involved of dead, tortured and raped. ... This is ethnic cleansing, this is the world's greatest humanitarian crisis, and I don't know why the world isn't doing more about it." Is the international community prepared to do more than speak about the human catastrophe in Darfur, to do more than accept the very limited humanitarian access Khartoum chooses to permit? If the resolve exists, urgent planning and preparations must begin immediately. A cross-border operation from Chad is the most practicable. Permission will be required from Chad, but France has immense leverage with the weak Chadian government of Idriss Deby. Havens must be militarily secured within Darfur for displaced civilians, already suffering from what Doctors Without Borders describes as "catastrophic mortality rates." Corridors for humanitarian aid within Darfur must be militarily secured for desperately needed food, shelter, medical supplies and the means to restore water supplies. Such an operation would be difficult, would require close cooperation among the United Nations, the United States, France and other European countries and would demand resources. But as challenging as such humanitarian intervention would be, the alternative is too appalling: unconstrained genocide. Some will argue that peace talks are the appropriate goal - and they are if Khartoum is willing to negotiate. But the regime's negotiating record is one of shameful obduracy, deliberate stalling and outright duplicity. If we wait until we know whether it will be different this time, the people of Darfur - presently dying at a rate of more than 1,000 a week - will likely pay a terrible price for our unwarranted optimism. Ten years from now we may have another grim anniversary to mark. Eric Reeves is a professor at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., and has written and testified extensively on Sudan.

BBC 1 Apr 2004 Sudan's Islamist party HQ closed Turabi was released from detention last October Sudanese authorities are reported to have shut down the headquarters of the party of the main opposition Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi. Mr Turabi was detained along with several opposition politicians and army officers over an alleged plot to overthrow President Omar al-Bashir. He has denied his party - the Popular Congress Party (PCP) - was involved. The government said the group had been "planning acts of subversion" at a number of strategic establishments. Defence Minister Bakri Hassan Salih alleged that the officers had been planning the coup since the middle of last year, assisted by the PCP. Officials have also accused the alleged coup-plotters of links with rebels in the western province of Darfur. On Wednesday talks between the government and the Darfur rebels got under way. Although the government delegation and a number of rebel representatives failed to appear at the opening ceremony in the Chadian capital, Ndjamena, on Tuesday, the opposing sides are now involved in indirect talks. Tension Mr Turabi told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme before his arrest said there had been "tension within the army" but there had not been an attempt to overthrow the government. He said he felt the government was trying to aggravate the situation to prepare the ground for his arrest and to ban the PCP completely. The opposition leader is a former ally of Mr Bashir, who came to power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989. Mr Turabi was previously detained in 2001 after a power struggle with Mr Bashir - and was released from house arrest in October last year. Darfur The BBC's Alfred Taban in Khartoum says the city's former governor, Badr-Eldin Taha has gone into hiding, accused of supporting the Darfur rebels. Thousands have been displaced by the fighting in Darfur Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced, with more than 100,000 fleeing across the border into Chad. The Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) rebels say the government has been oppressing blacks in favour of Arabs. The United Nations humanitarian co-ordinator for Sudan, Mukesh Kapila, said that government-backed Arab militias have been systematically raping and killing in Darfur. The fighting in the west of Sudan has intensified as government peace talks to resolve the 20-year war with southern rebels near an end. The UN is concerned this conflict could undermine the talks which are taking place in Kenya.

VOA 1 Apr 2004 Pentagon Closely Monitors Situation in Sudan’s Darfour Region Alex Belida, Voice of America, April 1, 2004 U.S. defense officials are closely monitoring developments in Sudan's troubled Darfur region but say there are no plans at present for any military response to the humanitarian crisis there. The situation in Sudan's western Darfur region has been called the worst humanitarian crisis in the world by senior U.N. officials and possibly a case of genocide comparable in character, if not scale, to the Rwanda bloodshed of 10 years ago. Pentagon officials are monitoring the situation closely. But they tell VOA the secretary of defense has not been requested to prepare any military response. U.S. military personnel have had considerable experience in the past decade responding to humanitarian crises, including deployments in Somalia and Rwanda. But defense officials note they have a lot of other missions at the present time, a clear reference to the military's multiple engagements worldwide, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti. An estimated 10,000 people have died in a year of fighting between Sudanese government-backed Arab militias and rebels in the Darfur region. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced from their homes, many of them fleeing into neighboring Chad. The U.S. State Department has blamed much of the crisis on the Arab militias, who it says have attacked and burned undefended villages, murdered and raped inhabitants and displaced survivors, even though most of the region's mainly black African residents are Muslim. Peace talks are under way in Chad between Sudanese officials and representatives of rebel groups. International observers are on hand, including U.S. officials. The U.S. government has been working closely with other countries to push diplomatically for a peace settlement. At the same time, relief organizations, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, are trying to provide humanitarian assistance to the hundreds of thousands affected by the fighting. The State Department announced a $9 million emergency aid package for Darfur refugees in Chad in late February.

HRW 2 Apr 2004 Sudanese government and militia accused of war crimes 02.04.2004 4.22 pm NEW YORK - Sudan's government and Arab militias are waging a joint "scorched-earth" campaign of murder, rape and looting of non-Arab ethnic communities in western Sudan, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday. "The government's campaign of terror has already forcibly displaced one million innocent civilians, and the numbers are increasing by the day," said Georgette Gagnon, deputy director for the Africa division of the New York-based rights group. A civil war has raged in the south of the giant northeast African country for two decades, claiming more than two million victims. The southern war pits mainly Christian animist south against the Islamic government in Khartoum. Washington fears that Sudan, destabilised by two decades of civil war, is a haven for Islamic militants. Sudan is on the US list of states suspected of supporting terrorism. The rights group's report on the Darfur region said most of the displaced civilians were moved to towns and camps where they were further victimized. Rebel groups, who began an uprising in February 2003, accuse Khartoum of neglecting Darfur and backing Arab militias, but the government says both the militias and the rebels are outlaws. "In a scorched-earth campaign, government forces and Arab militias are killing, raping and looting African civilians that share the same ethnicities as rebel forces," the group said in a statement that accompanied the report, "Darfur in Flames: Atrocities in Western Sudan." The report accused the military of indiscriminate bombing of civilians and said government troops and militias are destroying villages of ethnic Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa. Sudan's two main rebel organisations, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, draw members from those ethnic groups. Human Rights Watch said Sudan's government has recruited and armed more than 20,000 militiamen of Arab descent and operates jointly with a militia known as "janjaweed." Arab and African communities in Darfur have clashed for decades over land and resources. The report was published as Khartoum announced the start of peace talks in Chad with mediators trying to end the fighting between government troops and rebels. A UN official said last month that pro-government militiamen were carrying out a Rwanda-style genocide in the region. Khartoum has rejected the allegation. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement issued in Chad on Wednesday that he was "very disturbed" by the conflict in Darfur and offered UN help in ending it. Separately, the Sudanese government is involved in peace talks with another rebel group in the south of the vast African country, seeking to end a 20-year-old civil war there.

UN News Centre 2 Apr 2004 Sudan: Envoy warns of ethnic cleansing as Security Council calls for ceasefire – As the Security Council today called for a ceasefire to the conflict engulfing the Darfur region in western Sudan, a senior United Nations humanitarian official said a coordinated, "scorched-earth" campaign of ethnic cleansing was taking place there. Jan Egeland, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefed the Council in New York on what he described as a growing humanitarian crisis in Darfur. UN agencies estimate that some 750,000 Sudanese have become internally displaced in Darfur since fighting erupted early last year between the Sudanese Government, allied militias and rebel groups. Another 110,000 people have fled into neighbouring Chad. Mr. Egeland later told reporters that field staff from UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were receiving credible reports almost daily about "widespread atrocities and grave violations of human rights" of civilians. "We have now seen an organized campaign being undertaken of forced depopulation of entire areas," he said, adding he could find no other words than ethnic cleansing to describe what has been happening. Mr. Egeland said reports showed that the Janjaweed militias were "primarily responsible" and the targets of the campaign are the region's black African population, especially the Fur, Zaghawas and Massalit ethnic communities. "Scorched-earth tactics are being employed throughout Darfur, including the deliberate destruction of schools, wells, seeds and food supplies, making whole towns and villages uninhabitable." He said reports indicated that at least 212 civilians were killed last month in Darfur, but he said this was a conservative estimate because the UN does not have unrestricted access to the region. The envoy said stopping the attacks against civilians must be the priority, and he called on the Sudanese Government to commit to disarming the Janjaweed militias and dissuade them from targeting civilians. The Security Council, in a statement read out by this month's President, Ambassador Gunter Pleuger of Germany, expressed its deepest concern about the "massive humanitarian crisis" in Darfur and called on all parties to the conflict to protect civilians and reach a ceasefire. The Council also called for all parties to allow humanitarian agencies full and unimpeded access to Darfur. The UN and NGOs are largely confined to the provincial capitals of Darfur because of the security situation. Peace talks are currently taking place in N'Djamena, the Chadian capital, between the Sudanese Government and two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). But Mr. Egeland said he was concerned that no substantive progress has yet been made, and that the discussions so far have merely been "talks about talks." Mr. Egeland also said the UN has had to drastically increase the size of its appeal for funds to help the people affected by the conflict in Darfur. Last September it asked for $23 million, but he said the crisis has grown so much that a "minimum" of $115 million is now required to respond. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) today issued a separate appeal for Sudanese refugees living in Chad since the conflict broke out. OCHA said it needs $30 million this year to provide food, water and other assistance to the refugees. In another development, a spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said it was preparing to send a fact-finding mission to Darfur "in the coming days." The mission would interview refugees in Chad and try to gain access to Darfur. The Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights, Bertrand Ramcharan, said he was alarmed about the human rights situation, calling for all parties to stop the violence immediately. Mr. Ramcharan said he was extremely concerned about reports that militia groups such as the Janjaweed and Muraheleen were heavily involved in the violence. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), meanwhile, announced it has now transferred more than 20,000 people away from their temporary shelters along the border zone to five safer camps in Chad's interior. The camps were set up to protect the refugees, who had been the subject of cross-border raids from armed militias. UNHCR said it is now looking for sites to set up more camps inside Chad as demand is outstripping the facilities currently available. Three of the five existing camps are expected to reach maximum capacity within 10 days. The agency is rushing to relocate as many people as possible ahead of the start of the rainy season next month.

IPS 2 Apr 2004 Sudan Genocide Echoes Rwanda, Experts Say Jim Lobe WASHINGTON, Apr 2 (IPS) - The United Nations and aid and human rights groups are warning that the international community is about to witness a genocidal massacre on the scale of the Rwanda ethnic slayings that killed up to 800,000 people exactly one decade ago. In a report released Friday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged that the East African nation's National Islamic Front (NIF) administration is complicit in crimes against humanity committed by government-backed Arab militias in Darfur in the country's west. The report, 'Darfur in Flames: Atrocities in Western Sudan', accuses Khartoum of recruiting and arming over 20,000 Muslim militiamen, called ”Janjaweed”, or ”men on horseback”, to carry out attacks on civilians from the Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups who, while also Islamic, are of African origin and make up the majority of the region's settled population. Government forces and militias have also carried out joint attacks against the civilian population, systematically destroying villages, the report said, adding that the military has also engaged in indiscriminate and massive bombing of civilian targets. About one million people have been uprooted since fighting began 14 months ago. More than 800,000 of them remain displaced within Sudan, while about 110,000 have fled across the border into neighbouring Chad, one of the world's poorest countries. ”The Sudanese military and government-backed militias are committing massive human rights violations daily in Darfur,” said Georgette Gagnon, deputy director of HRW's Africa division. ”The government's campaign of terror has already forcibly displaced one million innocent civilians, and the numbers are increasing by the day.” New York-based HRW called on Khartoum to immediately disarm and disband the militias and to allow humanitarian groups free access to provide relief to needy people, who have been all but blocked from receiving aid to date. The government, which declared a ceasefire to be in effect last month, is reportedly continuing offensive operations. Even as U.S.-backed peace talks between the government and a southern rebel group to end a 21-year-old civil war continue in Kenya, the situation in Darfur has grown into a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions, according to other observers, including Amnesty International, relief organisations and key United Nations agencies that monitor the region. ”The only difference between Rwanda and Darfur now is the numbers involved,” U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan Mukesh Kapila told the U.N. Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) last week referring to the genocide in Rwanda that broke out exactly 10 years ago next week and killed between 500,000 and 800,000 people, the vast majority of them members of the Tutsi ethnic group. ”This is more than just a conflict,” said Kapila who was in Rwanda at the time of the genocide. ”It is an organised attempt to do away with a group of people,” a description that comes remarkably close to the words of the 1948 Genocide Convention, as noted by Sudan activist, Smith College Professor Eric Reeves. ”Another African genocide is gathering pace in the far western Darfur region”, Reeves wrote in the 'Baltimore Sun' on Thursday. The current conflict dates back to early 2003, when two loosely allied rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), attacked government military installations to protest continuing raids by the Janjaweed against their communities, as well as Khartoum's failure to invest in the region's economic development. The two groups were also concerned that any peace agreement reached between the government and the southern Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement/Army (SPLA) could effectively sideline the interests of non-Arab populations. The government responded by greatly increasing its support for the Janjaweed and by carrying out its own offensives, sometimes alongside the militias, against the region's settled population. As described in another report issued last week by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG), ”Militia attacks and a scorched-earth government offensive have led to massive displacement, indiscriminate killings, looting and mass rape”. In its report, HRW said several thousand Fur, Zaghawa and Masaalit civilians have been killed, while the Janjaweed have ”routinely raped women and girls, abducted children, and looted tens of thousands of head of cattle and other property”. Hundreds of villages have been burned, while water sources and other agricultural infrastructure have been destroyed, threatening the region's basic food production even if the fighting stopped now and the displaced were able to return home. ”The militias are not only killing individuals, they are decimating the livelihoods of tens of thousands of families,” said Gagnon. ”The people being targeted are the farmers of the regions, and unless these abuses are stopped and people receive humanitarian relief, we could see famine in a few months' time.” The report detailed how government forces have permitted the Janjaweed to operate with total impunity, even failing to protect unarmed civilians when they have appealed to the army and police to protect their villages when an attack was imminent. The military and Janjaweed have also obstructed the flight of civilians who have tried to escape to Chad, and even carried out bombing and other raids on the other side of the border. The military's tactics were very similar to those it has used, also with the help of Arab militias, against the southern civilian population, added the report, although the Darfur campaign has been carried out with more rapid displacement and devastation than in the south. In its study the ICG warned that the campaign risks inflicting irreparable damage on the existing ethnic balance of the seven million people who live in Darfur, and indirectly threatens the regimes in both Chad and Sudan due to its potential to inspire other latent or active insurgencies in both countries, particularly if the current peace talks in Kenya between Khartoum and the SPLA/M fail or stalemate. Khartoum has agreed to peace talks in Chad over the situation in Darfur but wants them confined strictly to humanitarian issues. According to the ICG, however, the current conflict raises important political issues that that must be addressed and should include, as in the Kenya talks, a wider circle of outside actors, including the United Nations, the European Union (EU), and the United States. HRW also called for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to ask the High Commission on Human Rights to immediately dispatch a mission to Darfur so that it can report back to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights before its current annual session adjourns Apr. 23. The commission, argues HRW, should appoint a special rapporteur to monitor the situation in Darfur, and press all sides to abide by international human rights law.

HRW 2 Apr 2004 Sudan: Massive Atrocities in Darfur Almost One Million Civilians Forcibly Displaced in Government’s Scorched-Earth Campaign (New York, April 2, 2004) — The Sudanese government is complicit in crimes against humanity committed by government-backed militias in Darfur, Human Rights Watch said today in a new report. In a scorched-earth campaign, government forces and Arab militias are killing, raping and looting African civilians that share the same ethnicities as rebel forces in this western region of Sudan. The report, “Darfur in Flames: Atrocities in Western Sudan,” describes a government strategy of forced displacement targeting civilians of the non-Arab ethnic communities from which the two main rebel groups—the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)—are mainly drawn. Human Rights Watch found that the military is indiscriminately bombing civilians, while both government forces and militias are systematically destroying villages and conducting brutal raids against the Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups. “The Sudanese military and government-backed militias are committing massive human rights violations daily in the western region of Darfur,” said Georgette Gagnon, deputy director for the Africa division of Human Rights Watch. “The government’s campaign of terror has already forcibly displaced one million innocent civilians, and the numbers are increasing by the day.” Human Rights Watch called on the government of Sudan to immediately disarm and disband the militias, and allow international humanitarian groups access to provide relief to the displaced persons. The government has recruited and armed over 20,000 militiamen of Arab descent and operates jointly with these militias, known as “janjaweed,” in attacks on civilians from the Fur, Masaalit, and Zaghawa ethnic groups. In the past year, nearly one million civilians have fled their rural villages. Most are displaced into towns and camps where they continue to be murdered, raped and looted by the militias. Although Arab and African communities in Darfur for decades have intermittently clashed over land and scarce resources, the current conflict began 14 months ago when two new rebel groups emerged. The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) demanded that the Sudanese government stop arming the Arab groups in Darfur and address longstanding grievances over underdevelopment in the region. In response, the government launched a massive bombing campaign which, combined with the raids of the marauding militias, have forced more than 800,000 people from their homes and sent an additional 110,000 people into neighboring Chad. In a scorched-earth campaign, government forces and militias have killed several thousand Fur, Zaghawa and Masaalit civilians, routinely raped women and girls, abducted children, and looted tens of thousands of head of cattle and other property. In many areas of Darfur, they have deliberately burned hundreds of villages and destroyed water sources and other infrastructure, making it much harder for the former residents to return. “The militias are not only killing individuals, they are decimating the livelihoods of tens of thousands of families,” Gagnon said. “The people being targeted are the farmers of the region, and unless these abuses are stopped and people receive humanitarian relief, we could see famine in a few months’ time.” U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan should request the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights to immediately dispatch a mission of inquiry to investigate the situation in Darfur, Human Rights Watch said. The mission should report back to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, currently meeting in Geneva, before the end of its session on April 23. Human Rights Watch urged the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to adopt a resolution—under item 9—to appoint a special rapporteur for human rights in Sudan. The report describes how government forces allow the janjaweed to operate with full impunity. Government forces fail to protect civilians even when these unarmed people have appealed to the military and police forces, warning that their villages were about to be attacked. Government forces and janjaweed have also obstructed the flight of civilians escaping to Chad. “The Khartoum government has tried to repress this rebellion with lightning speed in hope that the international community wouldn’t have time to mobilize and press the government to halt its devastation of Darfur,” added Gagnon, “But the Sudanese government will still have to answer for crimes against humanity that cannot be ignored.” The Sudan peace talks in Kenya convened by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an intergovernmental body of East African countries, are limited to the two main parties to the 20-year conflict in Southern Sudan. The peace talks do not include Darfur or the Darfurian rebels. Taking advantage of the internationally regulated ceasefire in the south, the Sudanese government has shifted its attack helicopters and other heavy weapons, purchased with oil revenue from the south, to the western region of Darfur. The government’s indiscriminate bombing, scorched-earth military campaign, and denial of access to humanitarian assistance in Darfur reflects the same deadly strategy employed in the south, with yet more rapid dislocation and devastation than witnessed or experienced there. See http://hrw.org/reports/2004/sudan0404/ [49 pages] .

IPS 2 Apr 2004 Coup Plot Threatens Peace Talks Moyiga Nduru PRETORIA, Apr 2 (IPS) - The arrests of army officers for allegedly attempting to overthrow the government of President Omar Hassan al Bashir in Sudan have caused a wave of panic over the future of peace talks underway in neighbouring Kenya. Ten middle-ranking army officers, along with Islamic opposition leader Hassan Abdullah al Turabi, have been detained this week on suspicion of plotting to topple the government. The coup plot, led by a colonel, comes at a time when the Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) are about to clinch a deal to end Sudan's 20-year-old conflict. Despite the widespread concern among Sudanese, the SPLA does not believe that a coup, or a change of government in Khartoum, will derail the peace talks. ''The peace process is irreversible. We have reached a point of no return. A lot of countries are involved in it. So a bunch of coup makers cannot just reverse the process,'' Barnabas Marial Benjamin, the SPLA representative in Southern Africa, told IPS in Pretoria this week. Benjamin, who was visiting the South African capital along with three other SPLA officials this week, was referring to the United States, Britain and Norway, which are pushing for a deal to be signed as soon as possible. ''Any change of government in Khartoum will not affect the gains we have realised in Kenya. We have already signed a number of protocols like wealth sharing and security arrangements with the government. This is not going to change. No southerner is going to renegotiate these protocols from the scratch,'' David Deng, who is in charge of public service in the rebel Movement, told IPS. More than two million people, mostly civilians, have died since the SPLA took up arms to fight for autonomy or independence for the people of the south in May 1983, according to human rights groups. The police arrested 72-year-old Islamic leader Turabi on Wednesday, just three days after the 10 army officers were picked up. The government said the coup plotters hail from the strife-torn western region of Darfur, where two rebel groups launched a guerrilla war against the government last year. More than 5,000 people, mostly of African descent, have been killed, around 800,000 have been internally displaced, and over 110,000 have trekked across the border into Chad, according to the United Nations. The conflict in Darfur, an independent kingdom annexed to Sudan in 1917, started as a low-key ethnic dispute between migrant Arab nomads and indigenous African farmers over grazing lands in the drought-prone region in the 1970s. By last year, the tension had turned into a full-fledged civil war. Last month, Turabi criticised government policy in Darfur. He said the fighting in Darfur should not have been separated from the efforts to end the conflict in South Sudan. Turabi, the brain behind the 1989 military coup which brought Bashir to power, has fallen out with the Sudanese leader. He was freed in October 2003 after spending nearly three years under house arrest. Despite the arrests, some southerners have remained sceptical of the alleged coup plot. ''There was never an attempted military coup d'etat, in particular one that is spearheaded by officers from Darfur. These officers know they will not be accepted by all the (army) units unless there are northerners (Arabs) involved, said Elias Nyamlell Wakoson, a professor of literature at Grayson College in Texas, the United States, in an document he distributed to South Sudanese. ''Since the escalation of the armed conflict in Darfur, the Bashir junta would have placed all the senior officers from Darfur under strict surveillance, including officers supporting Hassan Abdullah al Turabi,'' he said in the document, a copy of which was received by IPS. Wakoson, who comes from South Sudan, believes Khartoum is looking for a pretext to derail the peace talks. ''The Bashir regime has reached a point where it has had enough of the SPLA, and it wants to bail out of the peace talks through a staged coup. Once they bail out, the successor of the present military government will come with its own agenda and demand that the whole game of negotiation with the SPLA start from zero,'' he wrote. ''If this is not what is happening, then it is another of the political games to divert the attention of the domestic constituency from the peace talks in Kenya and turn it on Darfur. It obviously is a mobilisation strategy to find pretext to intensify the genocide in Darfur,'' Wakoson wrote. Mukesh Kapila, the outgoing U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, has described the fighting in Darfur as 'ethnic cleansing', and compared it with the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. ''The only difference between Rwanda and Darfur now is the numbers involved,'' he told the U.N. Integrated Regional Information Networks on Mar. 22. Up to a million Tutsi and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by a Hutu militia, known as Interahamwe, or those who fight together in Kinyarwanda, in 1994. Kapila was in Rwanda at the time of the massacre. The Sudanese army has been unhappy with a clause in the protocol that provides for the south the right to secede after the proposed six-year transitional period, which begins after the signing of the peace agreement. Egypt, too, is worried. Helmi Sharawy, director of the Arab and African Centre in Cairo, says he prefers the south to remain within a united Sudan. ''Starting development from the scratch will be difficult. The south will benefit more if it remains within a united Sudan,'' he told IPS in Pretoria last week. Egypt is concerned over the Nile water, its lifeline, which flows through south Sudan from Lake Victoria in East Africa. Egypt is uncomfortable with competition over the use of the water, especially by countries that it has no influence or control over. Some think tanks have adopted a more pragmatic approach on the possibility of Sudan's disintegration. ''If the people of South Sudan decide to vote for independence, then that's it. Personally, I believe in a voluntary choice of association. You can't force someone to live with you if he or she doesn't like it,'' Taju el-Din Abdel Rahim, secretary general of the Pan-African Movement, told IPS. But the Sudanese army may beg to differ. It has intervened in every political dispute, through coups, since independence from Britain in 1956.

AP 3 Apr 2004 U.N. Security council urges Sudan cease-fire By BARBARA BORST Associated Press UNITED NATIONS — The Security Council threw its weight behind talks aimed at halting a year-old conflict in western Sudan, calling on the government and opposition groups to halt fighting for humanitarian reasons and to settle their dispute politically. The conflict in the Darfur region has driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in a campaign one U.N. official said was "ethnic cleansing." "Every effort has to be made to find a settlement to the conflict, " Germany's Ambassador Gunter Pleuger, the current council president, told journalists after the council unanimously passed the statement Friday The conflict is "one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, which unfortunately also happens to be one of the most forgotten and neglected humanitarian crises," Jan Egeland, undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told journalists after he addressed the council. Egeland said some 750,000 people have been displaced inside Sudan and tens of thousands of others have sought refuge in Chad. He said that 212 civilians reportedly had been killed in March but that he didn't have figures for those killed earlier because aid workers had been unable to enter the area. "What we see is ... the systematic depopulation of areas. People are not necessarily killed then. They are moved away," Egeland said at a news conference. "I would say it is ethnic cleansing, but not genocide." Sudanese forces are killing, raping and forcing civilians from their homes in an effort to suppress an insurgency in western Sudan, an international human rights group said Friday, accusing the government of "crimes against humanity." While government troops have participated in the fighting in the western Darfur region, allied Arab militia have carried out the bulk of the attacks against the region's inhabitants, Muslims of African descent, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report. Humanitarian workers have reached only about a third of the needy inside Sudan because of violence and restrictions Sudan's government has placed on access, Egeland said. Most of the attacks have been committed by a militia group, reportedly with government participation including aerial bombardment, Egeland said, adding that the government was doing little to stop it. "Therefore, it seems that it's being condoned," he said. Sudan's U.N. Ambassador Elfatih Mohamed Erwa said Egeland's figures on refugees were inflated and that his claim that the numbers come from staff on the scene contradicts his statement that access is limited. He didn't offer his own numbers. Erwa said the council's statement would encourage progress at the cease-fire talks in N'djamena, Chad. The talks are being sponsored by neighboring Chad and the African Union, with support from the United States, the European Union and the United Nations. U.N. humanitarian agencies are appealing for $115 million for people in the Darfur region and another $30 million for refugees in Chad, Egeland said. The conflict began in February 2003, when two rebel groups - the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement - took up arms, saying they were fighting for a share of power and wealth in Africa's largest country. The insurgency in Darfur intensified as peace talks between the government and a separate group of southern rebels fighting a 21-year-long civil war have inched toward their conclusion. Those talks are being held in Kenya.

Reuters 6 Apr 20004 Sudan says arrested officers reluctant over orders By Nima Elbagir KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A group of mainly Sudanese air force officers showed reluctance to follow orders to carry out aerial bombardments before their arrests for plotting against the state, a Sudanese official said on Monday. President adviser Qutbi al-Mahdi did not say where the officers had been ordered to bomb, but witnesses have said government planes have in recent weeks raided several civilian areas in Sudan's war-torn western region of Darfur. A senior military official previously said the group, now numbering 11 after another colonel was arrested on Sunday, mainly came from Darfur. He also said they received funds from rebels in the remote west of Africa's largest country. The military official, who had asked not to be named, said the men were plotting a coup, aiming to assassinate high-level officials and blow up economic targets. "Whenever they were given orders regarding bombardments of a given area they used delaying tactics with a lot of excuses... In the end they were arrested for the sabotage attempt," Mahdi said, adding they sometimes said planes were not ready. Earlier this month, the United Nations appealed to the world to end what it said was an organised campaign of ethnic cleansing of black Africans by Arab militias in western Sudan and accused the government of doing little to stop it. In his first reference to the arrests, most of which were made at the end of March, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said in a speech on Monday: "While we are exerting efforts to solve the conflict in Darfur, a faction objected and wanted to revive the fighting in Darfur." Rebels in the west, who took up arms against the government more than year ago, accuse Khartoum of neglecting the region and of arming Arab militias to attack African villages. The government calls the militias outlaws. The Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the two rebel groups in the area, began peace talks with the government in Chad on March 30. A government official said on Monday the talks were heading for an impasse over rebel demands for an international presence to monitor a ceasefire, which he said Khartoum would not accept. JEM had earlier said it planned to quit the talks from Monday after saying Chad authorities had refused to grant its political delegation entry visas. But the government official and an SLM official said JEM was still present on Monday. JEM officials were not available for comment. ((Reporting by Nima Elbagir, Writing by Edmund Blair))

BBC 6 Apr 2004 UN mission probes Darfur violence The government is accused of tolerating ethnic cleansing in Darfur The United Nations has launched a 10-day mission to investigate alleged human rights abuses by government-backed Arab militias in Darfur. UN spokeswoman Annick Stevenson said human rights experts had started interviewing refugees, mostly black Sudanese, who had fled to Chad. She said the team would go to Sudan if allowed by the government. Darfur rebel groups and the Sudanese government are holding talks in Chad, with international observers present. The two delegations had a brief face-to-face meeting - their first - in the Chadian foreign ministry on Tuesday, and direct talks are expected to continue. Reuters reports that the rebels from the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) insisted on the presence of international mediators. But the government says Darfur is a regional conflict and does not want to internationalise it. Race against time The fighting in Darfur, western Sudan, has been raging for more than a year. Last week, UN emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland accused the government in Khartoum of tolerating "ethnic cleansing" by Arab militias. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced, with more than 100,000 fleeing across the border into Chad. The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, says it is now a race against time to move the refugees further inland before the rainy season begins in a few weeks. Speaking in Geneva, the agency's emergency coordinator for Chad, Yvan Sturm, said so far only around 22,000 refugees had been moved to safety and that aid workers faced major logistical problems moving the rest. The UN is struggling with sand storms, no shade and no water. But in just two months time the transport trucks will be immobilised, stuck on muddy, unsurfaced roads, when the rainy season begins. The UNHCR wants to move 65,000 refugees hundreds of kilometres inland - away from the Sudanese border - before that happens. Mr Egeland said the UN was getting daily reports of atrocities from Darfur. He said it appeared to be an organised campaign of ethnic cleansing, with villages looted and burnt down and food and seed supplies destroyed in a "scorched earth" policy. Mr Egeland said the international community should put pressure on Sudan to rein in the Arab militias. But the Sudanese government has denied the allegations.

NYT 6 Apr 2004 OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Remember Rwanda, but Take Action in Sudan By SAMANTHA POWER Ten years ago this week, Rwandan Hutu extremists embarked on a genocidal campaign in which they murdered some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus  a genocide more efficient than that of the Nazis. On this anniversary, Western and United Nations leaders are expressing their remorse and pledging their resolve to prevent future humanitarian catastrophes. But as they do so, the Sudanese government is teaming up with Arab Muslim militias in a campaign of ethnic slaughter and deportation that has already left nearly a million Africans displaced and more than 30,000 dead. Again, the United States and its allies are bystanders to slaughter, seemingly no more prepared to prevent genocide than they were a decade ago. The horrors in the Darfur region of Sudan are not "like" Rwanda, any more than those in Rwanda were "like" those ordered by Hitler. The Arab-dominated government in Khartoum has armed nomadic Arab herdsmen, or Janjaweed, against rival African tribes. The government is using aerial bombardment to strafe villages and terrorize civilians into flight. And it is denying humanitarian access to some 700,000 people who are trapped in Darfur. The Arab Muslim marauders and their government sponsors do not yet seem intent on exterminating every last African Muslim in their midst. But they do seem determined to wipe out black life in the region. The only difference between Rwanda and Darfur, said Mukesh Kapila, the former United Nations' humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, "is the numbers of dead, murdered, tortured, raped." A radio exchange between a Sudanese ground commander and a pilot overhead (taped by a British journalist in February) captures the aims of the attackers: Commander: We've found people still in the village. Pilot: Are they with us or against us? Commander: They say they will work with us. Pilot: They're liars. Don't trust them. Get rid of them. And later: Pilot: Now the village is empty and secure for you. Any village you pass through you must burn. That way, when the villagers come back they'll have a surprise waiting for them. The lessons of Rwanda are many. The first is that those intent on wiping out an inconvenient minority have a habit of denying journalists and aid workers access and of pursuing bad-faith negotiations. Thus far the Sudanese government has pursued both approaches, and Western officials have been far too trusting of their assurances. A second lesson is that outside powers cannot wait for confirmation of genocide before they act. In 1994 the Clinton administration spent more time maneuvering to avoid using the term "genocide" than it did using its resources to save lives. In May 1994, an internal Pentagon memo warned against using the term "genocide" because it could commit the United States "to actually do something." In the case of Sudan, American officials need not focus on whether the killings meet the definition of genocide set by the 1948 Genocide Convention; they should focus instead on trying to stop them. A third lesson is that even when the United States decides not to respond militarily, American leadership is indispensable. This is especially true because Europe continues to avoid intervening in violent humanitarian crises. And it remains true despite the Bush administration's unpopularity abroad. The United States often takes an all-or-nothing approach: if it doesn't send troops, it tends to foreclose other policy options. In Sudan, this tendency has been compounded by the administration's reluctance to risk undermining the peace process it has spearheaded between Sudan's government and the rebels in the south. While President Bush is understandably eager to show he can make peace as well as war, he must stand up to Sudan's government during these difficult negotiations. After all, regimes that resort to ethnic killing and deportation as a tool of statecraft rarely keep their word. An important predictor of Sudan's reliability as an ally in the war on terrorism and as a party to the American- brokered peace accord is its treatment of African Muslims in Darfur. What would standing up to Sudan entail? The administration has several options. On the economic and diplomatic front, the United States has already demonstrated its clout in Sudan, which is desperate to see American sanctions lifted. So far, Secretary of State Colin Powell has rightly described the humanitarian crisis as a "catastrophe." But the White House and the Pentagon have been mostly mute. President Bush must use American leverage to demand that the government in Khartoum cease its aerial attacks, terminate its arms supplies to the Janjaweed and punish those militia accused of looting, rape and murder. The president made a phone call last week to Sudan's president, Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir, but one ritual conversation hardly counts as pressure. Mr. Bush should keep calling until humanitarian workers and investigators are permitted free movement in the region, a no-fly zone is declared and the killings are stopped, and he should dispatch Mr. Powell to the Chad-Sudan border to signal America's resolve. The Bush administration can't do this alone. Ten thousand international peacekeepers are needed in Darfur. President Bush will have to press Sudan to agree to a United Nations mission  and he will also need United Nations member states to sign on. The Europeans can help by urging the Security Council to refer the killings to the newly created International Criminal Court. Though the United States has been hostile to the court, this is one move it should not veto, as an investigation by the court could deter future massacres. President Clinton has said that one of the greatest mistakes of his presidency was not doing more to prevent the Rwandan genocide. When he visited Rwanda in 1998, he tried to explain America's failure to respond: "It may seem strange to you here, especially the many of you who lost members of your family, but all over the world there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day after day, who did not fully appreciate the depth and the speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror." Today, roughly 1,000 miles north of Rwanda, tens of thousands of Africans are herded onto death marches, and Western leaders are again sitting in offices. How sad it is that it doesn't even seem strange. Samantha Power is the author of "A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," which won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction.

Daily Star (Lebanon) 14 Apr 2004 www.dailystar.com.lb Khartoum blocks UN team from probing Darfur atrocities- Government-backed militia reportedly breaks cease-fire Kofi Annan raises possibility of Rwanda-like genocide in progress, urges decisive international action including potential military intervention Compiled by Daily Star staff Wednesday, April 14, 2004 The Sudanese government is preventing a UN human rights team from entering the country to probe reports of widespread atrocities in the western Darfur region, the United Nations said Tuesday. The team has been in neighboring Chad for the past week, interviewing Sudanese refugees who fled across the border to escape alleged ethnic cleansing in Darfur. But talks with the government in Khartoum on access to strife-torn western Sudan are "in suspension," UN human rights spokesman Jose Diaz said in Geneva. "If we can't get authorization they might have to come back," Diaz told journalists. "Right now it looks as if it won't be at this time." Diaz told AFP there had been no statement by Sudanese authorities allowing the human rights team into the area following a cease-fire agreed with Darfur rebels last week, despite promises of safe passage for international aid. "We haven't had that kind of indication yet," Diaz said. Raising the possibility of a genocide similar to the one in Rwanda, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week urged the international community to consider decisive measures, including military action, if Khartoum fails to swiftly allow aid and human rights workers into the area. Sudanese government-backed militia fighting a rebellion have been killing civilians from local ethnic groups and systematically forcing them out of their homes, according to human rights groups and UN aid workers who witnessed some attacks there. A cease-fire was agreed last week between the warring sides. The European Union's top military official Gustav Hagglund said Tuesday that EU-led forces could intervene in Sudan's troubled western region of Darfur. "Sudan is on the list of the UN (for some form of peacekeeping mission)," Hagglund, the first chairman of the EU's military committee, told London's Financial Times newspaper. "There is no reason why the EU could not go to, for instance, Sudan," he said. "I see it to be very possible." Hagglund said any EU mission would be mandated by the United Nations. The US said Monday it believes the Sudanese government and Khartoum-backed militias are in violation of a cease-fire in Darfur and called for the truce's immediate implementation. The year-old war in Darfur has displaced about 670,000 people inside Sudan since it erupted in February 2003 and forced about 100,000 others to flee to neighboring Chad. "At this point, we have not seen a significant change on the ground in Darfur following (Thursday's) agreement," spokesman Richard Boucher said. "Early reporting indicates some diminution in the fighting following the cease-fire going into effect, but we do still have reports that the government-supported Arab militias are attacking parts of western and southern Darfur." "There are, also, reports of continuing aerial bombardment, such as at Anka, northwest of Khartoum, this morning," Boucher told reporters. He added that Washington understood the pro-government militias had yet to depart from positions near camps filled with internally displaced persons and were effectively preventing these people from returning to their homes. "We expect the parties to abide by the cease-fire," Boucher said. The US assessment appeared to be at odds with accounts from both Khartoum and the rebel Justice and Equality Movement. - Agencies

NYT 14 Apr 2004 OP-ED COLUMNIST Cruel Choices By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF I can't get the kaleidoscope of genocide out of my head since my trip last month to the Sudan-Chad border: the fresh graves, especially the extra-small mounds for children; the piles of branches on graves to keep wild animals from digging up corpses; the tales of women being first raped and then branded on the hand to stigmatize them forever; the isolated peasants, unfamiliar with electricity, who suddenly encounter the 21st century as helicopters machine-gun their children. Then there were the choices faced by the Sudanese refugees I interviewed. For example, who should fetch water from the wells? The Arab Janjaweed militia, armed by Sudan's government, shoots tribal African men and teenage boys who show up at the wells, and rapes women who go. So parents described an anguished choice: Should they risk their 7- or 8-year-old children by sending them to wells a mile away, knowing that the children have the best prospect of returning? And what should parents do when the Janjaweed seize their children, or gang-rape their daughters? Should they resist, knowing they will then be shot at once in front of their children? Or what about the parents described by Human Rights Watch who were allowed by the militia to choose how their children would die: burned alive or shot to death? Some 1,000 people in Sudan's Darfur region are still dying each week. But at least the world has finally begun to pay attention — and it's striking how a hint of concern in the West has persuaded Sudan to reach a cease-fire there. President Bush finally found his voice last week, protesting the "atrocities" in Darfur. More forcefully, Kofi Annan warned on the day commemorating the Rwandan genocide that reports about brutalities in Darfur "leave me with a deep sense of foreboding. . . . The international community cannot stand idle." So far in Darfur, thousands have been killed, and about one million black Africans have been driven from their homes by the lighter-skinned Arabs in the Janjaweed. Vast sections of Darfur, a region the size of France, have been burned and emptied. The Janjaweed have also destroyed wells, or fouled them by dumping corpses into them, to keep villagers from ever returning. "You can drive for 100 kilometers and see nobody, no civilian," said Dr. Mercedes Tatay, a physician with Doctors Without Borders who has just spent a month in Darfur. "You pass through large villages, completely burned or still burning, and you see nobody." In the refugee camps in Darfur, malnutrition and measles are claiming the survivors, especially young children. Roger Winter, assistant administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, estimates that even if the fighting stops today, at least 100,000 are still likely to die in coming months — of disease, malnutrition and other ailments. Yet Sudan is still curbing access to Darfur by the U.N. and aid groups. I'm not suggesting an invasion of Sudan. But it's a fallacy to think that just because we can't do everything to stop genocide, we shouldn't do anything. One of the lessons of the last week is how little it took — from Washington, the U.N. and the African Union — to nudge Sudan into accepting a cease-fire and pledging access for humanitarian workers. Now we need more arm-twisting to get Sudan to comply with the cease-fire (it marked the first day, Monday, by bombing the town of Anka). The Sudanese government is testing us, but so far the State Department has shown a commendable willingness to stand up to it. We can save many tens of thousands of lives in the coming weeks — but only if Mr. Bush and Mr. Annan speak out more boldly, if the U.N. Security Council insists on humanitarian access to Darfur and if the aid community mounts a huge effort before the rainy season makes roads impassible beginning in late May. In the last 100 years, the United States has reacted to one genocide after another — Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Bosnians — by making excuses at the time, and then saying, too late, "Oh, if only we had known!" Well, this time we know what is happening in Darfur: 110,000 refugees have escaped into Chad and testify to the atrocities. How many more parents will be forced to choose whether their children are shot or burned to death before we get serious?

Sudan News Agency 18 Apr 2004 SUNA www.fananews.com/sudan/larchive.htm EUROPEAN UNION DENIES EXISTENCE OF PLAN FOR INTERVENTION IN DARFUR EUROPEAN UNION DENIES EXISTENCE OF PLAN FOR INTERVENTION IN DARFUR Brussels, April 18 (SUNA)- The European Union (EU) denied existence of a concrete plan for intervention in Darfur. A press statement issued from the Office of the High Commissioner of the European Union for Foreign Policy Javier Solana said there was no concrete act and there were no talks or preparations on the possibility of sending a military mission to Sudan. The statement denied a statement attributed to official of the military committee of the EU, General Gustav Haglund, which he made to the Financial Times newspaper on April 12 on the possibility of the EU intervention in Darfur. Acting Sudanese Charge d'Affaires in Brussels Mohammed Yousif Hassan explained that he had contacted the office of Javier Solana and expressed to him that the Sudanese government was displeased of the statement, which did not commensurate with the continuous cooperation between Sudan and EU. The statement also ignored the peace agreement concluded recently in Ndjamena and Sudan's commitment to its implementation and readiness to accept African Union monitoring for the cease-fire between the two parties. The Acting Charge d'Affaires added that the spokeswoman of Solana Office apologized of the statement and the negative indicators it caused, saying that General Gustav Haglund was speaking only on behalf of himself as his assignment in the EU military force had expired two weeks ago. She said the Commission did not discuss or decide anything about intervention in Sudan. BT/BT

IRIN 20 Apr 2004 Sudanese Militia Vow to Fight Lra Rebels Kampala A south Sudanese militia group has vowed to wage all out-war against Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in apparent retaliation for LRA attacks against civilians inside Sudan. In a statement issued over the weekend, the Equatoria Defence Force (EDF), a militia group formerly allied to the LRA and the Sudanese government, promised to "take the war against LRA rebels in South Sudan to all their hideouts". "We shall smoke LRA rebels in their holes and they will be killed like rats when they run out", said the statement signed by the EDF Secretary General Charles Kisanga. Kisanga asked Uganda to help his militia against the LRA. "EDF is appealing to the Ugandan government to help us get rid of this brutal terrorist guerrilla force," he said. "It has been years since UPDF [the Ugandan army] started pursuing LRA in south Sudan, but Uganda can rest assured that EDF has the capacity to do this job in a much shorter time and at a lesser cost if we are afforded the facilities we need to get the job done". For 18 years since northern Uganda's insurgency began, the LRA and its leader Joseph Kony have mainly operated out of the regions of Sudan bordering Uganda. After launching attacks against the Ugandan army or civilians in the north, the rebels often retreat back to Sudan where they keep their supplies, according to former LRA captives and other sources. But they have also attacked villages in south Sudan, as they do in Uganda, to loot food and abduct children for forcible recruitment. In June 2002 the Uganda government launched Operation Iron Fist, a military effort to rout the rebels, following an agreement with Khartoum that permitted the Ugandan army to enter southern Sudan. The agreement strictly forbids the UPDF from fighting against Kony alongside Sudanese rebel groups. The EDF statement followed an interview alleged to have been conducted with Kony by a Sudanese magazine in which he threatened members of the EDF and South Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and promised to burn villages in south Sudan. "I want to tell the Sudanese lords to keep away from us because if they attack us as they have done this month [March], we will fight and set their villages on fire," Kony was quoted as saying by the magazine, which is published in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. SPLM/A spokesman in Kampala George Machar told IRIN the EDF and SPLM/A were "now in regular joint operations against Kony" and were "days away" from signing an agreement which would merge the two former enemies into a single force under SPLM/A control. "We are together targeting the LRA. It is our duty to our people to destroy these guys wherever we find them," he said. "We really want them wiped out once and for all". Machar reiterated that once the peace process between Khartoum and the SPLM/A was in place, and the SPLM/A was part of the government, Kony would no longer be able to use southern Sudan as a rear base for the LRA rebellion.

Reuters 20 Apr 2004 Ceasefire means little to displaced in W. Sudan By Nima Elbagir SISSI, Sudan, April 20 (Reuters) - A ceasefire in the vast Darfur region of western Sudan means little to the people at Sissi camp, where displaced villagers said on Tuesday they face daily harassment and threats from Arab militiamen. More than 4,000 people have taken refuge in the hilly scrubland at Sissi but armed militiamen on camels have ringed the camp, picking off women who go out to forage and challenging their menfolk to come out and fight, the residents said. The militias, known as Janjaweed, remain on the offensive in the region -- on the road from Sissi to the state capital Geneina on Tuesday they set fire to huts in one settlement, driving the local people into one of the larger buildings. The camp offers minimal security to some of the estimated 700,000 people displaced in Darfur by 14 months of conflict between government forces and Darfur rebels, in parallel with a longer struggle between Arabs and Africans over land and water. The United Nations has described it as one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, despite the ceasefire agreed in the Chadian capital N'Djamena 12 days ago. "The ceasefire is just talk. These people (the Janjaweed) respect nothing and no one can take their guns," said Abbaker Mursal, 51, the head of the displaced people's committee. Mursal drew a circle in the sand to show the camp itself, then another ring around it. "This is the Janjaweed circle that imprisons us... If they catch you on the outskirts of the camp, they will kill you," he told Reuters. Mariam Mohammad Ishaq, 40, told how Janjaweed militiamen broke her leg on Monday when she went out to collect grass for her donkey. "The Janjaweed caught me. They asked 'Where are your men, why are they hiding behind women? Let them come so we can kill them'." Ishaq was lying on a grass mat, nursing her swollen leg. Hawa Adam said she and a group of women had a similar experience two days ago. "They pointed a gun in my face and said 'Where are your men?' We said we don't know so they beat us and used (raped) one of the women and said that from now on the women should not go outside the camp," she said. The harassment poses a dilemma for the men in the camp, who need the grass and firewood but dare not collect it themselves. "We don't know what to do. It burns us but we know if we go out they will kill us. We know they want to provoke us into coming out," said Mohammed Adam, a 35-year-old displaced person. Khamis, another man, said the residents of the camp wanted to move somewhere safer but in the chaotic conditions of Darfur it is unlikely they will find protection soon. A Swiss non-governmental organisation has a clinic in the camp, 45 km (30 miles) southeast of Geneina, and the U.N. Chidren's Fund UNICEF has set up some hand pumps at wells. The camp grew up around a small Sudanese government military checkpoint, which is unable to provide security.

Reuters 21 Apr 2004 U.S. Forgoes Penalties on Sudan, Urges Negotiations WASHINGTON President Bush urged the Sudanese government and southern rebels on Wednesday to continue negotiations to end a 21-year civil war, opting for now not to impose any new economic penalties on Khartoum, administration officials said. ``I hereby determine and certify that the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement are negotiating in good faith and that negotiations should continue,'' Bush said in a statement. Under the Sudan Peace Act, Bush was required to report to the U.S. Congress on whether the government and the rebels were negotiating in ``good faith'' to end a civil war that has killed some 2 million people. If Bush had found the government was not doing so, he could have punished it by moving to block oil revenues and loans through international financial institutions, seeking a U.N. arms embargo and downgrading diplomatic ties. A senior administration official said no penalties were imposed by Bush, but that Washington was ``concerned about the difficult and stagnant pace of the talks and minimalist approach taken by both sides.'' The State Department has said it would be ``foolhardy'' to expect a quick peace deal to end the conflict, which broadly pits the Islamist government in Khartoum against the mainly animist or Christian south. The State Department said peace talks in Naivasha, Kenya, were snagged over issues including whether Islamic sharia law should be imposed in the capital, governorships of the southern Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains regions and power-sharing. ``We believe an agreement is likely,'' the senior administration official said. Bush is ``especially concerned'' about the Sudanese government's actions in the western Darfur region. ``Although not directly related to the North-South talks, he urges the government to ensure the unrestricted freedom of movement for international aid agencies,'' the official said. ``The government is also responsible to ensure that there are no attacks or harassment of any kind against civilians by local militias,'' the official added. Arab militias, looting and burning African villages in Darfur, have driven some 75,000 people from their homes. Human rights groups speak of killings, rapes and arbitrary arrests and have accused government forces of complicity.

AFP 21 Apr 2004 Attacks in Sudan's Darfur may be crimes against humanity: UN mission GENEVA, April 21 (AFP) - Refugees who fled western Sudan's Darfur region have given consistent accounts of attacks by Sudanese troops and government-backed militia on civilians which may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, according to a UN draft report obtained Wednesday. The draft report by a United Nations human rights mission, which has just flown to Sudan to continue its delayed investigation, called for an international inquiry into the allegations. "The mission was able to identify disturbing patterns of massive human rights violations in Darfur, many of which may constitute war crimes and/or crimes against humanity," the report obtained by AFP concluded. "An international commission of inquiry is required given the gravity of human rights violations in Darfur," it added. The mission, which interviewed some of the estimated 110,000 refugees in neighbouring Chad earlier this month, also exposed a worryingly high proportion - about 80 percent -- of women and children among the refugees. "The mission was not able to establish a clear reason for the gender imbalance," the report said, raising the possibility that men had stayed behind in Darfur to tend to livestock or take part in the rebellion there. However it added: "It is also possible that men have been more acutely targeted by the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed militia allied to it." "There was a remarkable consistency in the witness testimony received by the mission in all places visited," the report said, insisting that it need to continue its investigation inside Darfur. It put together a pattern of air raids, ground attacks by militia or soldiers with indiscriminate killings of civilians, multiple rape, and pillaging, from the separate accounts. The UN has postponed releasing the document to the UN Human Rights Commission, which is currently meeting here, until the team finishes its second trip to the region in Sudan, officials said. Khartoum had initially blocked the five-person mission from entering Darfur but the government reversed its decision late on Monday. The mission spent more than a week in neighbouring Chad earlier this month interviewing Sudanese refugees who escaped alleged ethnic cleansing by Arab militia in Darfur.

AFP 22 Apr 2004 African Union asks for 10 million dollars for Sudan's troubled Darfur ADDIS ABABA, April 22 (AFP) - The African Union (AU) has appealed for 10 million dollars (8.5 million eurus) to fund a ceasefire observer mission and the immediate humanitarian needs of people in Sudan's western Darfur region, an AU official said Thursday. "We have requested our partners to finance our plan of action for the implementation of the Sudanese peace agreement in the Darfur region which will be for the observer mission and ceasefire commission to be set up," Ki Doulaye Corentin, the head of AU's conflict management office, told AFP. "The current estimate we have is 10 million dollars," he added. The appeal was made following three days of meeting between AU officials and representatives from western donors in Addis Ababa this week. The war in Darfur has claimed some 10,000 lives in little more than one year and the UN has said that the conflict has caused what is currently the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world. Khartoum and rebels fighting it in Darfur signed a temporary ceasefire two weeks ago. The truce deal contained provisions for a mechanism to monitor the ceasefire. According to Corentin, the African Union and its partners had agreed to send an advance team to Khartoum and Darfur soon. The team, which will comprise both civilians and military officials, will identify areas where the ceasefire commission and the observer team will be stationed.

Reuters 22 Apr 2004 Rights Group Reports Massacre of 136 Men in Darfur Thu Apr 22, 2004 10:52 PM ET By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Arab militia and Sudanese government troops were responsible for the massacre of 136 African men in the Darfur region last month, Human Rights Watch charged on Thursday. The New York-based rights group said it had documented dozens of attacks by Arab militias, known as janjaweed, during a month of research in western Sudan. It said that all but two of the attacks against black Africans were carried out in conjunction with government forces. "The janjaweed are no longer simply militias supported by the Sudanese government," Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch's executive director, said in a statement. "These militias work in unison with government troops, with total impunity for their massive crimes. Human Rights Watch said the 136 men, all members of the Fur ethnic group aged between 20 and 60, were rounded up on March 5 in two sweeps in Darfur's Garsila and Mugjir areas. They were then taken in army trucks to nearby valleys where they were made to kneel before being killed with a bullet in the back of the neck, Human Rights Watch said. "Operations carried out by the janjaweed often enjoy air support from the government of Sudan, both aerial bombardment before operations and helicopter reconnaissance afterwards to ensure the area is empty," Human Rights Watch said. "In many villages, regular troops and janjaweed forces establish a joint presence -- often in the local police station -- before going out to burn and pillage," the group said. The United Nations estimates that close to 1 million people have been affected by the conflict, with some 750,000 forced out of their homes and tens of thousands having fled to Chad. The Khartoum government denies backing for the militia. Peace talks are due to start Saturday in the N'Djamena, Chad. People from the Garsila area said they woke up on March 5 to find an area encompassing 32 villages surrounded by government troops and janjaweed. The fighters then entered the villages and began questioning the men. That same night, according to local people, 72 men were loaded into army trucks and driven to a valley where all but one were executed. The survivor, who had been left for dead, returned to report the massacre, Human Rights Watch said. Another 65 men were reported to have been executed in a similar operation in the Mugjir area, east of Garsila. Details were not available because there were no survivors, Human Rights Watch said.

HRW Sudan: Government and Militias Conspire in Darfur Killings Major Massacre Shows State Complicity (New York, April 23, 2004) - In a joint operation in the Darfur region of Sudan, government troops working with Arab militias detained 136 African men whom the militias massacred hours later, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch has documented dozens of attacks by Arab militias, known as janjaweed, in almost a month of research inside Darfur. All but two of the attacks were carried out in conjunction with government forces. "The janjaweed are no longer simply militias supported by the Sudanese government," said Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. "These militias work in unison with government troops, with total impunity for their massive crimes." The 136 men, all members of the Fur ethnic group aged between 20 and 60, were rounded up in early March in two separate sweeps in the Garsila and Mugjir areas in Wadi Saleh. They were then taken in army lorries to nearby valleys where they were made to kneel before being killed with a bullet in the back of the neck. Most of those killed had sought refuge in the Garsila and Mugjir areas after their villages were burned and pillaged by government troops and janjaweed militiamen under the command of Ali Kwoshib, janjaweed commander in the Jebel Marra area. Human Rights Watch said many janjaweed fighters are organized into battalions that have the same structure as those in the government army. They use the same weapons as regular soldiers and their leaders wear stripes on their uniforms that are identical to those of the regular army. An increasing number of janjaweed fighters wear the same uniforms as government soldiers. The only difference is that the janjaweed uniforms have a breast pocket badge depicting an armed man on horseback. Operations carried out by the janjaweed often enjoy air support from the government of Sudan, both aerial bombardment before operations and helicopter reconnaissance afterwards to ensure the area is empty. In many villages, regular troops and janjaweed forces establish a joint presence—often in the local police station—before going out to burn and pillage. On the same day as the two massacres, March 5, nine Fur omdas (chiefs) who had been arrested a week earlier were shot dead in government prisons in Garsila and Mugjir. Their families reported their deaths after being told to collect their bodies for burial. Villagers from the Garsila area told Human Rights Watch that they woke up on March 5 to find an area encompassing 32 villages surrounded by government troops and janjaweed. The government and militia forces then entered the villages and began asking men where they came from. One hundred and four individuals—most of them people who had been displaced from villages in the Zamey area south of Deleig—were taken to the government prison in Deleig, northeast of Garsila. That same night, according to local people, 72 of the 104 were loaded into army trucks and driven two kilometers to a valley where they were executed. Human Rights Watch said that thirty-two of the men also rounded up in the Garsila sweep are still in detention, believed to be at risk of torture and death. Among the other 72, there was one survivor: a man left for dead. He crawled back to Deleig after the massacre, reaching the village in the early hours of March 6, when he alerted local people to the killings. One of those he spoke to told Human Rights Watch the government and janjaweed forces appeared to be targeting the populations of villages that had been destroyed in an orgy of burning that began after Ali Kwoshib established a janjaweed base in Garsila in July 2003. The survivor, who is recovering in Deleig and cannot be named, said he and the others selected for execution were taken to the valley in army trucks and cars, "with janjaweed on horses" accompanying the government forces. Another 65 men were reportedly executed in a similar operation in the Mugjir area some 80 kilometers east of Garsila. Details of this killing are not available because there were no survivors. The Wadi Saleh massacres conform to a well-established pattern of joint operations by government and janjaweed forces. Until early this year, the janjaweed had the support but not the active participation of the government army in their operations. In recent months, however, the vast majority of the attacks against the African population of Darfur have been joint attacks by the regular army and the militias. As Sheikh Abdullah Mohammed Hussein, the headman of Terbeba village, said after a joint government-janjaweed attack that killed 31 people and wounded 12 in Terbeba, "They come together, they fight together and they leave together." "It is imperative that all janjaweed forces withdraw from villages they have occupied and any barracks or garrisons nearby," said Roth. "Unless this happens, refugees and displaced people will never return to their farms and villages, whether there is a ceasefire in place or not." .

NYT Magazine 25 Apr 2004 [Text with large photo] Attacked, Expelled, Ignored Text by NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF The Darfur region of western Sudan is one of the most remote and inhospitable places on earth, which makes it an ideal place to get away with ethnic cleansing. Since late last year, an Arab militia called the Janjaweed has killed thousands of darker-skinned non-Arabs and driven about one million from their homes. Most of the refugees are still in Sudan, many of them in squalid camps, the children dying of malnutrition and measles. An additional 110,000 refugees have crossed into Chad. Even there they are not safe: the Janjaweed regularly raid across the border. The killing here is not about religion, as it is elsewhere in Sudan. It is largely about race and ethnicity -- and the age-old tension between nomadic herdsmen and settled farmers. A low-level rebellion began in Darfur a year ago, backed by some of the local tribespeople. The government responded by arming the Janjaweed, paying them and giving them helicopter support in scorched-earth operations intended to empty the countryside. After President Bush, Kofi Annan and others spoke out earlier this month against the ethnic cleansing, Sudan agreed to a cease-fire in Darfur and promised humanitarian access to the victims. But the State Department has suggested that Sudan breached the cease-fire on its first day, and the United States Agency for International Development says that even in the best of circumstances -- even if the fighting stops -- 100,000 people in Darfur will die of disease and malnutrition. Meanwhile, the world seemed to spend more time observing the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide and solemnly vowing ''never again'' than actually doing something to prevent a recurrence in Darfur.

WP 26 Apr 2004 Editorial: Stalling in Sudan . . . Monday, April 26, 2004; Page A22 TWO WEEKS AGO, Sudan's government agreed to a humanitarian cease-fire in Darfur, a region in the western part of the country. The cease-fire was necessary because of the government's own actions: It has carried out aerial bombings of civilians and armed a militia that has terrorized villages, burning crops, raping women and flailing men with studded whips. As many as 1 million people have been chased from their homes and have no food stocks to support themselves. Doctors Without Borders, an intrepid charity that has 30 foreign staffers in Darfur, reports that malnutrition among children is rising precipitously. The aim of the cease-fire is to allow food deliveries before the rainy season makes roads impassable, probably six weeks from now. If the world misses that window, mass starvation becomes probable. The cease-fire, however, has not been honored. Sudan's Islamic and Arab government has a long history of denying humanitarian access to civilians as part of its long war with Christian and animist Africans in the south. It is applying those same tactics to Darfur, whose people, though Islamic, share the southerners' aspiration for regional autonomy. A senior United Nations official who was supposed to visit Darfur under the terms of the cease-fire has been denied a visa. A U.N. delegation was delayed at the border. Exiles from the region claim that the government's purpose in stalling humanitarian visits is to cover up evidence of its atrocities. It is attempting to conceal mass graves, collecting bodies from the sites of known atrocities and hiding them elsewhere. It is removing militia leaders so that U.N. inspection teams won't question them and issuing death certificates in their names so that nobody will seek them out elsewhere. It's bad enough that evidence is being destroyed while the cease-fire is not implemented. It's worse that a million people are running out of food. Outsiders led by Kenya, Norway, Britain and the United States have been successfully mediating a peace deal in the long-running north-south conflict. A final breakthrough may be announced in the next week or two. Although this progress owes much to international pressure -- and in particular, the Sudanese government's fear that, after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration was serious about punishing rogue states -- the United States and its allies seem reluctant to apply more pressure on the Darfur issue. They have yet to ask for a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing coercive force, for example, even though U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has spoken of the destruction of Darfur's villages in the same context as the Rwandan genocide. They worry that excessive pressure will cause Sudan's government to pull out of talks with the south or that Sudan will refuse to permit U.N.-authorized monitors to implement an eventual north-south deal. But Sudan should not be allowed to get away with denying U.N. officials visas and refusing to live up to its cease-fire promises. If it can do that with impunity, it will assume that it has no need to live up to any promises it makes in a north-south settlement.

WP 26 Apr 2004; Page A22 Editorial: . . . And in Geneva AS WE WROTE last week, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has not exactly distinguished itself during this year's annual session in Geneva. Now, the commission meeting that will be remembered for the Cuban diplomat who punched a human rights activist will stand out for another reason as well: Perhaps for the first time, the commission has suppressed one of its own reports. The report, written by a team of U.N. human rights investigators -- and led by Bacre Waly Ndiaye, a Senagalese lawyer who warned of the potential for genocide in Rwanda a year before it happened -- was based on interviews with Sudanese refugees who had escaped across the border from Darfur, into Chad. Leaked versions of the report show that the authors did not mince words. They write of Khartoum's "reign of terror" in Darfur and speak of rape, torture, and arson. But just before the report was due to be released and discussed in Geneva, Sudan suddenly announced that it would allow the team into the country. The acting high commissioner on human rights, Bertrand Ramcharan, immediately agreed to suspend publication of the report, which he (and official U.N. Web sites) have said contains only "allegations" of human rights abuse. Mr. Ramcharan, in other words, agreed to play the Sudanese government's game, not only bargaining access for silence but also using the term "allegations" to describe the work of his own team of human rights investigators, thereby playing down its significance. The immediate effect was to turn what seemed to be a likely commission vote in favor of sending a permanent rapporteur into Sudan -- the harshest sanction the commission can make -- into a delayed vote, as well as triggering revisions to the declaration on Sudan and spurring a muddled argument about the leaked report. The result was a weakened resolution despite U.S. efforts to strengthen it. It's a poor end to another weak session of the Human Rights Commission, one that bodes ill for the commission's future ability to influence events in Sudan or anywhere else.

www.blackcommentator.com April 2004 Genocide in Africa - Again "At what point do we ask the uncomfortable question, why does the U.S. seem to consider it acceptable for such genocidal acts to occur in Africa?" It was a rhetorical question, posed by Africa Action Executive Director Salih Booker on April 7 as the world marked the tenth anniversary of the genocide that left at least 800,000 Rwandans dead. Two week’s later, President George Bush answered Booker’s question in the usual manner: the U.S. has more pressing business at hand than ending a genocide-in-progress, this time in the western region of Sudan. While U.S. diplomats feigned outrage at the UN Human Rights Commission's weak response (“grave concern”) to massive ethnic cleansing of Black Africans in Darfur – the committee could not bring itself to even whisper the terms “rape” or “forced removals” – Bush last week vouched for the Khartoum government’s good faith in ending a much longer campaign of genocide against Blacks. As Newsweek reported: President George W. Bush certified, as required every six months under the 2002 Sudan Peace Act, that the Islamist regime in Khartoum is negotiating in good faith for an end to Sudan's other civil war: the decades-old rebellion in southern Sudan. If the president had withheld his signature, he could have unleashed severe economic sanctions against Khartoum. But a southern peace framework seems tantalizingly close, so policymakers faced a tough choice. "It's frustrating," says a senior State Department official, "but given all the progress, we couldn't say they weren't cooperating." What tantalizes the U.S. is Sudanese oil reserves, which are at issue in negotiations between non-Muslim Black southerners and the Arabized rulers in Khartoum. American and European companies are anxious to return to their operations in the oil-rich Abyei region, abandoned during the North-South war that claimed two million lives. Stability in Abyei weighs far more heavily than the lives of one million Blacks in oil-poor Darfur, victims of Khartoum’s “strategy of ethnic-based murder, rape and forcible displacement,” according to a Human Rights Watch report. In a Euro-American dominated world, Sudan’s rulers are permitted to launch a second genocidal race war, so long as they allow oil to flow from the scene of the first holocaust. Declan Walsh, Africa correspondent for the UK’s Independent, describes ethnic cleansing in Darfur: The first sign is the ominous drone of a plane. Ageing Russian Antonovs sweep over the remote Sudanese village, dispatching their deadly payload of crude barrel bombs. They explode among the straw-roofed huts, sending terrified families scurrying for safety – but there is none. Next comes the Janjaweed, a fearsome Arab militia mounted on camels and horses, and armed with AK-47 rifles and whips. They murder the men and boys of fighting age, gang-rape the women – sometimes in front of their families – and burn the houses. The villagers' cattle are stolen, their modest possessions carted off. Under cover of ending the southern genocide, Khartoum unleashes ethnic cleansing in the West – with impunity. Although both sides in the Darfur conflict are Muslims, there is no doubt this is a race war. As the Independent’s Walsh reported: “One 18-year-old woman told Human Rights Watch (HRW) that her attacker stuck a knife into her vagina, saying: ‘You get this because you are black.’" The UN Human Rights Commission ignored both the HRW report and its own investigators, who concluded that Khartoum has engaged in “crimes against humanity” in Darfur. Apparently, it is a far worse crime to leave oil in the ground, in Abyei. American diplomats scored easy propaganda points by voting for stronger UN language on Darfur while their President withheld sanctions that might have actually forced Khartoum to abandon its newest genocidal campaign. Europeans, finding few excuses for doing nothing to stop genocide in the present, pretended to make big plans for the future. According to the EU Observer: While EU and UN diplomats discuss the possibility of an EU-led peacekeeping mission to the Sudan region of Darfur, the European development commissioner has warned against hasty decisions. Speaking to journalists on Wednesday (28 April), Poul Nielson urged "not to let things happen without professional, well-analyzed co-ordination." The Dane went on to state that time was needed for "collective analysis" between the EU member states in order to ensure a mission with "maximum authority." He suggested that a possible mission might fail under disagreements between EU member states. "If one man can fix a tire in 10 minutes this does not mean that 10 men can fix a tire in 1 minute," he said…. As an alternative, the Commissioner said he favors a peace-keeping mission under the umbrella of the African Union, which enjoys EU financial aid worth 250 million euro to conduct its own peace-keeping operations. The Europeans issued a statement on the crisis that scrupulously avoids asking anyone in particular to stop killing anybody: The European Commission today launched a strong appeal to warring parties in the Darfur region of Western Sudan to secure "safe humanitarian access" so that the enormous needs of the population can be properly addressed. The Commission also announced that ECHO was preparing a new €10 million humanitarian aid decision to assist the victims of the conflict that has claimed thousands of lives and resulted in huge population displacements. The proposed decision will shortly be submitted to the Member States. Speaking at the launch of the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid Office Annual Review ("ECHO 2003"), Poul Nielson, Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, highlighted the "tragic situation" in Darfur. Threats to the "humanitarian space" is the central theme of ECHO's Annual Review this year. Having done their bit to save humanitarian “space,” if not the human beings themselves, the EU got on with the business of…business. African states make up 14 of the 53 members of the UN Human Rights Commission, 50 of whom voted for the toothless resolution on Darfur. Two abstained; only the U.S. called for stronger language. Clearly, the African Union (AU) is seeking unity, above all else. The AU expressed “concern” over violations of a (clearly non-existent) ceasefire in Darfur, and announced it would send a team of military observers to the region. The U.S. offered to help the AU with unspecified “logistical support” – as well it might, since American Special Forces, Marines and contract mercenaries now operate in nearly every country of the Sahel. The European edition of Stars and Stripes reported: Late last year, soldiers from the 10th Special Forces Group began training military forces in Mali, Mauritania, Chad and Niger under the Pan-Sahel Initiative, a $7 million State Department program designed to help the security forces of those impoverished nations defend against terrorists. The extent of recent American military penetration of Africa just below the Sahara can be glimpsed from the accompanying Stars and Stripes interview with Army Col. Vic Nelson, the Department of Defense’s country director for West Africa: The whole reason [for the Pan-Sahel Initiative] is regional cooperation, so that the terrorists can’t use these artificial state borders at the seams, against us. "Aha! I’m in Algeria! Aha! I’m in Mali! Aha! I’m in Algeria!" [Including more states] would foster regional cooperation, which is what this is all about. The policy is, helping Africa build the capacity to enable them to deal with these problems as a force multiplier for our own forces in the global war on terror. Well, what does it mean, that buzzword? That means, if they can do it, we don’t have to do it. And they want to do it, they want to help us and be partners in the global war on terror. They have needs, training and equipment needs. As a force multiplier, if I don’t have to put a battalion of U.S. guys down, but I have a battalion of Chadians, well, then good, a force multiplier. At least 110,000 survivors of the ethnic cleansing in Darfur have fled across the border to Chad. The U.S. goal in the Sahel, says Col. Nelson, is to establish direct ties (“mil-to-mil”) with African militaries: It’s important to have U.S. military trainers to establish the mil-to-mil relationship; to foster cooperation among the militaries, both bilaterally and regionally, and in my experience, you don’t get as much bang for the buck using contractors, because you don’t establish the mil-to-mil relationship. You can’t. They’re not military. They don’t have contractor generals. American military tentacles now stretch across the Sahelian belt of Africa, from Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden to the Atlantic. They are there for the oil, and to cultivate relationships with the generals, and would-be generals – men whose purchase can yield more barrels for the buck than negotiations with governments beholden to fractious civil societies. In 1994, Canadian General Romeo Dallaire tried desperately to convince the United Nations to reinforce his peacekeeping mission in Rwanda. President Bill Clinton’s administration used every device to sabotage an international rescue effort. (See Paul Street, April 15.) Last week, Dallaire testified before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Africa: "Rwanda simply had no strategic value in its geography or in its resources. As [one country's] interlocutor, who came in to do an assessment whether or not to send troops to support me, said, 'The only thing you've got here in Rwanda is a lot of people – and too much of [them].' "That was not sufficient to influence that power and many others to actually come in and stop what had become the start of a genocide within a civil war." Dallaire fears "the nature of the political interplay in the world has not fundamentally changed" in the last decade. Let’s revisit Salih Booker’s rhetorical question, and put it slightly differently: At what point will the U.S. commit itself to effectively oppose genocide in Africa? Answer: When acts of genocide impair US ability to extract what it wants from the continent. In the case of Sudan, stability in the oil fields takes precedence over the lives of Darfur’s one million displaced and hunted persons. www.africaaction.org

VOA 27 Apr 2004 Darfur: Roots Of Conflict Joe De Capua Washington 27 Apr 2004, 16:38 UTC De Capua report on Darfur[Download] (MP3) De Capua report on Darfur[Stream] (MP3) Humanitarian agencies are gearing up for large-scale operations in western Sudan’s Darfur region, where conflict has displaced about one million people. Since the 1980’s the region has been subjected to conflict, drought, and political marginalization. Darfur – the name can be broken down into two words. Dar, an Arabic word for homeland - and Fur, referring to the Fur people. But the name belies the rich ethnic complexity of the region. More than a dozen Arab and non-Arab peoples call it home. And there’s a long history of racial mixing. Dr. Ali Ali-Dinar was born in Darfur. He’s currently director of outreach at the African Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also founder of the Darfur Information Center. He says there are misconceptions about the region because news reports center on the Arab “janjaweed” militias attacking villages of non-Arabs. He says, "If you put this thing in color wise – it’s not like when you say janjaweed and when you say black Africans – this is not like blacks against whites. Color has nothing to do with that. It’s how the people identify themselves as Arabs. It’s very difficult to differentiate from the locals and I think that is very important to emphasize. It’s how they perceive themselves. And they could just be Arabs and they could just be non-Arabs, you see. People all belong to different ethnicities. But they were grouped all together as Arabs, you see. For the Arabs, Arabic is their main tongue. Other groups, they have languages and some of these languages just disappeared. So, Arabic became their main tongue now." Darfur has a population of about six million. According to the United Nations, at least one million of them have been displaced in the latest conflict. Dr. Ali-Dinar says the seeds of conflict can be found in both climate and politics. Climatic conditions include drought and desertification. "Part of these reasons could be because of the climatic conditions which change, which push some groups to areas which historically are not theirs. And that just brought a lot of violence for people defending their land. Part of it also because of political marginalization of the region. So, some people think that one of the ways of getting power is raising the ethnicity card," he says. He says what’s new in the latest conflict is the Sudanese government arming some of the Arab groups. Some of them became known as the janjaweed militias, who have been blamed by displaced people and humanitarian groups for burning and looting villages as well as rape. These militias – very mobile, riding horses and camels - have been used to battle anti-government rebels in Darfur. Dr. Ali-Dinar says these militias were originally very poor. But with government support they now have wealth by local standards. He says he fears they will find it difficult to give up their new lifestyle. Another factor making this conflict worse than those of the past is the availability of weapons. "The flood of arms coming from different places - from Libya, from Chad – small arms, trading in arms. Small conflicts in the past used to be resolved amicably. Now people tend to use guns," he says. Historians say conflicts of the 1950’s through the 1970’s were small-scale and centered on land, water and animals. The conflicts sharply intensified in the 1980’s, with thousands of lives lost. Drought was a driving factor, as groups literally sought greener pastures. Also, conflict in neighboring Chad brought armed groups into Darfur. Now, as the Sudanese government negotiates a peace deal to end a long war in the south, it has used militias to deal with rebels in the west. The rebels – the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement - say Khartoum has neglected Africans and favored Arabs. Humanitarian groups hope that a temporary ceasefire will hold, to allow a massive humanitarian operation to get underway. They say many civilians have been caught in the crossfire – even deliberately targeted as they fled across the border into eastern Chad. Dr. Ali-Dinar says without peacekeeping troops or ceasefire monitors, it may be difficult to enforce. About 100-thousand Darfur refugees are in Chad. About a third of them so far have been moved to camps run by the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR. The Sudanese government has denied accusations that it’s blocking humanitarian aid. Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail says he recently led a delegation of UN and humanitarian agencies to Darfur. He says they agreed there is an emergency situation there. Dr. Ismail, speaking to the VOA, denies accusations that genocide has occurred in the region. He says, "I would like to assure you that all those who have been killed in Darfur from the militia, from the rebels, from the government soldiers, from civilians who’ve been caught in fighting – it will not reach one thousand." The foreign minister also denies the Sudanese government is targeting non-Arabs. He says the government has a policy of controlling and eventually disarming the militias. However, he says for peace to take hold it’s important for the rebels to disarm as well. He also says jobs must be found for them; otherwise they will be reluctant to give up their weapons.

Tanzania

UN News Centre 2 Apr 2004 Minor damage reported after fire hits UN war crimes tribunal for Rwanda A small fire broke out at the United Nations war crimes tribunal for Rwanda early today, but there were no injuries and damage was minimal, a spokesperson for the UN said. The spokesperson, Marie Okabe, said security staff for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and local fire authorities in Arusha, Tanzania, where the ICTR is based, acted quickly to contain the fire this morning. Damage was limited to office documents and equipment. Ms. Okabe said initial investigations pointed to an electrical problem as the cause of the fire, but a thorough probe would continue. Court proceedings have been adjourned until Monday. The ICTR was set up by the UN Security Council to hear cases relating to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when some 800,000 Tutsis and "moderate" Hutus were killed in less than three months.

Uganda

newsday.com 4 Apr 2004 TERROR IN UGANDA Where kids are primary victims and victimizers The Lord's Resistance makes children kill their families and turns the abducted boys into soldiers and the girls into sex slaves BY SAMSON MULUGETA AFRICA CORRESPONDENT April 4, 2004 LIRA, Uganda - Morris Ocen was playing in the narrow alleys of his village near this northern town when the crackle of automatic gunfire sent him scurrying to his family's mud and grass hut. A voice ordered the 10-year-old to come out, and the frightened boy emerged to face a rebel commander who gave him an ultimatum: He could set his family's hut on fire - with his mother and three siblings inside - or accept the blow of a machete poised over his neck. Morris glanced at the hacked bodies of friends who had refused or were too slow to follow orders. "I set the fire," Morris whispered. "They forced me," he said, staring at the ground. "They were killing the other boys." Morris' mother died, along with his sister and two brothers, one of them a baby. They were victims of one of Africa's longest-running conflicts, a war in which children like Morris are the primary victims and victimizers. The Feb. 4 massacre of 52 people at the Abia camp for the displaced, where Morris and his family lived, was the work of the Lord's Resistance Army. The LRA, a cult-like group, has terrorized northern Uganda for 18 years, filling its ranks with children it has abducted. Three weeks after the attack on Abia, the LRA killed 230 people in the nearby village of Barlonyo. A deadly conflict At Lira's overflowing hospital, the markings on the bodies of survivors from Abia and Barlonyo bore witness to the ferocity of the attacks. Alex Ekwaro, 8, sat mute in the garden, a bandage covering a machete wound on the top of his shaven head. His sister, Eunice, 18, said Alex had not uttered a word since the attack on Barlonyo, where he witnessed his mother's murder. Those with life-threatening injuries, such as Cosima Omodo, 70, lay on beds in the dimly lit wards of the hospital. Burns covered nearly half Omodo's face, hands and feet. "They burned my house and threw me in," said Omodo, a farmer from Barlonyo. "They left because they thought I was dead." "If their difference is with the government, why are they attacking people like us?" asked Omodo, shaking his head. Northern Uganda's grinding conflict has led to the deaths of tens of thousands, the displacement of 1.2 million people, and, according to UNICEF, the abduction of 30,000 children. Nevertheless, "The world doesn't care about this war," said Father Carlos Rodriguez, a Spanish Catholic priest who has ministered in the region for 15 years. "There are no pressing economic or commercial interests here in northern Uganda." The war is driven largely by the zeal of LRA founder Joseph Kony and by his logic of survival. To prevent Kony's guerrillas from seizing food or children from northern villages, Uganda's government has ordered villagers to abandon their homes and gather in centralized camps such as Abia. Kony has said civilians who obey must be killed because they have sided with the government. Kony has built bases and found support in neighboring Sudan, which has used his fighters against Sudanese rebels fighting for independence. Since emerging from the dictatorships of Idi Amin and Milton Obote in the 1970s and '80s, Uganda has been considered an economic and political bright spot in Africa. But the conflict in the north, which Ugandans call "the Kony war," has marred the government's reputation and left vast regions, and families, devastated. At Abia, villagers were not immediately alarmed when the rebels arrived as the sun dipped low on the horizon, because the men wore military uniforms. They appeared friendly and even sat with villagers to watch a soccer game between local teams. Without warning, according to witnesses, the strangers shouted that they were rebels and began firing automatic weapons and hacking and clubbing the villagers. Children as soldiers After forcing Morris to torch his family home, the fighters took him when they fled into the bush. He escaped the next day when government soldiers ambushed the rebels. His father escaped death because he was absent during the rebels' raid, having traveled to a nearby town to sell bicycle parts. More than 300,000 children are used as soldiers across the globe, according to the United Nations. What makes Kony's group unique among the world's insurgent groups is its almost complete reliance on abducted children. LRA commanders force abducted children to kill their friends and families, terrorizing them into accepting their fate. Some of the top commanders were abducted into the movement's ranks as children. "It's a hostage drama," said Els De Temmerman, the Belgian director of the Rachele Rehabilitation Center in Lira, where Morris is receiving counseling. "It is children carrying guns and firing at those trying to rescue them. It's one of the most difficult situations you can imagine." Kony doesn't just take boys. Thousands of girls are abducted and used as sex slaves. Palma Acieng, 22, was among 130 girls kidnapped from a boarding school in 1996. Before escaping two years ago, Acieng was given to a commander known as Tolbert as his sixth wife. "He came with a pistol one night and said he would shoot me if I didn't sleep with him," said Acieng, as the son she bore in captivity played underfoot. Tolbert was an abducted child who rose to command one of Kony's five brigades, said Acieng, a soft-spoken woman. Kony has become a mythical bogeyman across Uganda. Many, including religious leaders, believe his claim that he is possessed by spirits who guide and protect him. Sense of shame A primary school dropout in his early 40s, Kony became leader of a group of rebels from the Acholi ethnic group in the mid-1980s, taking over from a relative, Alice Lakwena. She also claimed to be ruled by spirits. Kony and Lakwena attracted adherents by promising power and privilege to the Acholis, the dominant northern tribe. Ugandans refer to Kony as a "ghost" or "joki" - witch doctor in the local language. Few know his history or the motivation for his rebellion. Virtually no video footage of Kony exists. Imprinted on the public's mind is the image of a decade-old photograph of a dreadlocked Kony that is used by the newspapers here almost daily. The attacks on the young by the LRA have aroused a widespread sense of shame and frustration, but the government of President Yoweri Museveni has been unable to end them. Several members of parliament have urged Museveni to hire private Western security firms to track down Kony. Museveni has rejected the idea. With the exception of a 1994 effort to talk to the rebels, Museveni has sought a military solution, but corruption in the Ugandan military, Sudan's support for Kony and the slavish devotion of many Kony fighters keep the LRA alive. In recent months, government forces have killed several rebel commanders. In response the LRA has escalated attacks on civilians. Kony has banned the use of bicycles, upon which rural people depend heavily, because he fears villagers will use them to alert government soldiers. Borrowing from Islam, he has banned work on Friday and the eating of pork. The punishment for violations is death or mutilation. LRA decisions emanate from instructions Kony claims to receive while in trances. "One day we were in the bush and the spirits came to him after we crossed a river," said Betty Eceng, who said she was Kony's 47th wife before she escaped two years ago. "He sat under a tree talking. His eyes rolled back and all you could see are the whites. Everybody stayed away from him." Kony tape records his statements while in a trance and replays them after he emerges from it, said Eceng, 22. "The voices tell him, 'Kill all the people in such-and-such village.' Or so-and-so is plotting against you,'" said Eceng. "He sits and laughs at what he is hearing. Then he gives the orders." Kony uses the Bible to justify many actions. His many wives, believed to number 67, are allowed, he says, because King Solomon had more than 600. "He is an expert at mind control and manipulation," said Father Carlos, who spoke to Kony on the phone for over an hour last year but has not met him. "He can swing from a cool, friendly guy to a shouting and threatening person in a second." Some rescued LRA children insist on calling Kony "father" and want to return to him, the priest said. Not Morris. When his father visited him at the Rachele Rehabilitation Center this month, Morris became excited, but feared his father would blame him for the family's death, said Christine Awere, a counselor. "When the father came and I tried to explain that the child was not guilty, he stopped me," Awere said. "He said he knew it wasn't his son's fault. Morris was very happy."

IRIN 21 Apr 2004 - Official rejects ICG report on northern crisis KAMPALA, 21 April (IRIN) - Uganda has strongly denied allegations in a report by an international think-tank that the war in the northern region is being manipulated to bolster military capabilities to prop up President Yoweri Museveni's regime. The 41-page report, published by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) on 14 April, accused the president of using the war to maintain close personal links between himself, the government and the army, and of giving top government jobs to officers loyal to himself in order to "protect [his] own power base". A Ugandan official expressed fury over the report. "Rubbish is too good a word for this report. I have no vocabulary to describe it," the defence ministry spokesman, Maj Shaban Bantariza, told IRIN on Wednesday. He went on to describe the report as an "insult" to the president and the army. "These ones [ICG] are dealing in rumours," he said. "We have soldiers losing their lives, people dying and living in IDP [internally displaced persons] camps. Which kind of president deliberately allows this to happen? This is just wrong." According to the ICG, the conflict "provides a crisis environment that enables the government to justify measures that would be unacceptable in different circumstances, such as the continued presence of many former and current army personnel within its ranks". It added that "this close nexus between political and military considerations impedes sound policy". Saying that the government's aim to "combat terrorism" in the form of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group could be used to justify draconian actions by the security services, the report accused the government of "defining terrorism broadly" as "a potent tool to stifle criticism and intimidate opponents". The government, it added, was making dubious links between the LRA and political opponents in order to justify threatening would-be opposition parties. The report also touches on military spending. "The war in the north makes it easy to reject calls to reduce defence spending. Museveni frequently criticises donor requirements to hold defence expenditure at the current [Uganda] shs 300 billion (US $166 million) or 2 percent of Gross Domestic Product," it said. "In 2003, a 23-percent cut had to be made in the non-budgetary items of most ministries in order to cover increased defence spending," it added. The ICG said the president's frequent visits to the north to oversee military operations were " a sign [that] there are problems Museveni feels he must address personally, showing a lack of confidence in his commanders. It also indicates unwillingness to acknowledge the distinctions between strategic and tactical levels of command." Bantariza dismissed criticism of Museveni's involvement in military operations in the north. "Have any of these ICG [researchers] been a commander-in-chief of an army anywhere in the world?" he asked. "Museveni has been for 18 years, so he might know more than them."

Americas

Argentina

BBC 31 Mar 2004 'I was one of Argentina's stolen babies' By Elliott Gotkine BBC correspondent in Buenos Aires Horacio's "parents", Lina and Adriano, were aware of his origins On Monday, an Argentine court found two police officials guilty of arranging the theft of a baby from murdered detainees during the country's last military dictatorship, and then handing her over for adoption. Some 400 babies are believed to have been snatched in this way, and their identities suppressed. Of those, 77 have since been "discovered". One of these was Horacio Pietragalla Corti. Cesar Sebastian Castillo was born on 22 May 1977. His parents, Lina and Adriano, were humble, countryside folk. His mother worked as a domestic servant for a military official, and his father was a carpenter. But on 4 April last year, Cesar realised that none of this was true. For a start, his name was not Cesar; it was Horacio Pietragalla Corti. His real birthday is 11 March, 1976. And the couple that had raised him as their own for the best part of 27 years are not his real parents. "It has been a year since I discovered my identity," Horacio, who now works in the press office of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, one of Argentina's leading human rights groups, told BBC News Online. "I'm still reconstructing it. It's something that I don't think will ever end. It's something eternal." Abducted So far, the two-metre-tall (6ft 5in) Horacio has been able to establish most of the facts relating to his abduction. Even Horacio's birth date was changed "My father had to travel to the city of Cordoba, 700km (435 miles) north-west of Buenos Aires, when my mother was pregnant," he recounts. "He disappeared there, in Cordoba. My mother didn't hear any news from him. So she went underground, changed her name and moved house. "I was born in a clinic where she could have me without having to register me. Five months later, a military operation was carried out there. "This was 5 August, 1976. When they killed my mother, they took me to another clinic. "Two days later, they took me away. On the same day, my maternal grandmother discovered where I was. But by the time she arrived, I was no longer there. I was there for two days and they kidnapped me." Horacio was taken on the orders of one Lt Col Hernan Tefzlaff. The officer's brother-in-law wanted to adopt a boy, but when his wife got wind of the scheme, she refused to accept the kidnapped child. Lina - Mr Tefzlaff's domestic servant - overhead what was going on and offered to raise the boy, whom she baptised Cesar. Mr Tefzlaff was his godfather. 'Very important news' As he grew up, Horacio began to notice that his physical appearance bore scant resemblance to that of his "parents". I have more photos than living people to enjoy Horacio Corti At the same time, the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo began publicising the fate of the disappeared and their kidnapped children. But it was not until around five years ago, when Horacio met his current girlfriend, that serious doubts about his identity began to emerge. Three years into their relationship, his girlfriend was chatting with his mother, who told her: "The day I die, you'll receive some very important news." Horacio's girlfriend told him what his mother had said. A little later, he contacted the Commission for Identity Rights in Argentina. He took a DNA test, and it was confirmed that he was the child of two of the disappeared. On the very same day, he met members of his biological family for the first time. "The meeting was very tough," he recalled as he lit up a cigarette and inhaled deeply. "I was really hoping to meet my grandparents. Unfortunately, by then, all of them had died. And this is one of the things that hurts and upsets me the most. I have more photos than living people to enjoy." 'Mixed feelings' Horacio was the 75th abducted child to have his identity returned. The man responsible for suppressing it, Lt Col Tefzlaff, was found guilty of the same crime over the identity of a kidnapped girl he raised as his own daughter. He was sentenced to six years in prison. He died in jail last year. As for his adoptive parents, Horacio has mixed feelings. On the one hand, he feels guilty that they are being tried for their role in suppressing his identity. "But when I think about everything I lost because of them," he says, "the balance is redressed." The last time he spoke to Lina and Adriano was three weeks ago, though in the long-term he does not see himself keeping in touch with them. At the same time, he hopes to become ever closer to his real family. He has already managed to hold a funeral for his father, whose remains were returned to Horacio four months after he discovered his identity. For a man who has been through such a traumatic experience, Horacio, with his droopy eyes and intense gaze, does not appear to hold much bitterness towards the people who murdered his parents and then snatched him from his cradle. Instead, he looks forward to the rest of his life, marriage and, he hopes, children, as well as eventually being reunited with his parents when he leaves this world. "One day, I will meet them," he says.

NYT 26 Apr 2004 Back in Argentina, Priest Faces 'Dirty War' Charges By LARRY ROHTER LA PLATA, Argentina - The parishioners in the coastal village in Chile knew their priest simply as the Rev. Christián González. Only his accent gave away that he was an Argentine. So it came as a shock to them when he traveled back to Argentina last year and had to face charges here for crimes dating to the military dictatorship of the 1970's. Under his real name, Christián von Wernich, he is accused of 19 counts of murder and 33 of abduction and torture. Father von Wernich, 65, has emerged as a potent symbol of the institutional atrocities of the period, when the junta chased down leftist opponents, sometimes winning the support of the Roman Catholic Church's hierarchy for its goals. He has attracted particular attention because he combines both elements: he was a priest who also worked for the government, as a chaplain for the feared Buenos Aires provincial police. That trauma of three decades ago is being re-examined now that President Néstor Kirchner has ended a long amnesty that protected people responsible for the abuses. Father von Wernich was indicted in September and is fighting the charges, on both constitutional and religious grounds. But that has not stopped the case from provoking protest in both Argentina and Chile, which suffered under its own dictatorship, over the past role of the church and whether religious leaders conspired to hide a priest accused of taking part in the abuses of the "Dirty War." "There were other clergy who supported or blessed the dictatorship and the repressive measures it employed," said Marta Vedio, a lawyer with the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, the group that has been leading the investigation that led to the priest's indictment here in La Plata. "But for a priest to have participated directly and so intensely in repression and torture, that strikes hard in a society that still regards itself as essentially Roman Catholic." The Vatican has not directly addressed questions about the church's conduct during the dictatorship. During his visits to Argentina, Pope John Paul II has made only vague statements that could be interpreted as something of an indirect apology for that behavior. Regarding Father von Wernich, local church officials in Argentina and Chile have been largely silent. The Rev. Jorge Oesterheld, a spokesman for the Argentine Conference of Bishops, said that while the case was painful because it involves "shameful and lamentable acts," the Argentine church "has no jurisdiction over this matter." It is a diocesan matter, he said. The bishop of the priest's home diocese in Argentina, Msgr. Martín Elizalde, in a public statement issued shortly after Father González was exposed last May, dismissed suggestions of improper behavior in how the diocese handled the priest. The church has no responsibility, he said, "since when he went to Chile, there were no charges pending against him." Such denials have disillusioned Catholic faithful in both countries, particularly since Father von Wernich's links to the dictatorship had been well established by the time he dropped out of sight in 1996, only to reappear seven years later with a different name in Chile under circumstances that the church authorities refuse to explain. "The policy of the church has consistently been silence, silence, silence," Hernán Brienza, author of "Cursed Art Thou: The Church and Illegal Repression," said in an interview. "There was obviously an agreement to protect von Wernich from public opinion in Argentina by sending him to Chile, a place where no one knew who he was. But we do not know how or when he became González." Mr. Brienza helped expose the priest's new identity last year, as part of an investigative team formed by two magazines. For a decade after Argentina's democracy was restored in 1983, Father von Wernich was the target of protest marches that forced the church hierarchy to move him from one parish to another. Former political prisoners testified in chilling detail to official commissions of the priest's treacherous modus operandi in the aid of the military junta. After they had been subjected to days of intense torture, the prisoners recounted, Father von Wernich would appear offering spiritual consolation. But at the same time he would seek information and urge detainees to "get right with God" by acknowledging their political activities and by identifying comrades still at large. "Once I heard Christian von Wernich reply to a prisoner who pleaded with him not to die that 'the life of men depends on God and your collaboration,' " a former prisoner, Luis Velasco, testified at a court hearing. "I also heard him defend and justify torture, recognizing that at times he had been present. When he referred to an operation, he would say, 'When we did that operation. . . .' " The most serious of the accusations against Father von Wernich stem from the execution in 1977 of seven young people, all political prisoners who belonged to left-wing groups. The killings, it is now charged, were part of a police plan to extort money from the prisoners' parents, by suggesting that a bribe would free their children. Figuring that a priest would naturally inspire trust, agents sent Father von Wernich to collect $1,500 from the parents of each of the prisoners. As proof that they were still alive, he delivered letters written by the detainees. Once the money was collected, the prisoners were taken from a clandestine detention center and killed. One was pregnant. According to the testimony of Julio Alberto Emmed, a former police officer who admitted his involvement in the incident and said he was coming forward as an act of penance, Father von Wernich himself witnessed at least three of the killings. Mr. Emmed said the prisoners had been put in a car and told that they were being taken to the airport before being released. Instead, they were beaten unconscious, he said. "The priest was in the vehicle with me," he recalled in sworn testimony, saying that because one of the prisoners was whipped with a pistol, "various wounds resulted, with an abundant flow of blood over the priest, the driver and the two of us at the prisoner's side." Near the airport, the car swerved to an empty field, Mr. Emmed testified. Father von Wernich watched as the police officers and a police doctor completed their gruesome task. "The three subversives were still alive, and their bodies were removed from the car and thrown onto the grass," Mr. Emmed said. "The doctor injected each one twice, straight into the heart with a reddish liquid that was poisonous." When one of the victims showed signs of life, she was shot in the head, he said. Afterward, those involved, including Father von Wernich, went to a celebratory barbecue "where we also changed our clothes because they were stained with blood," Mr. Emmed said. Seeing that Mr. Emmed was distraught at what they had just done, Father von Wernich sought to console him. "What you have done was necessary for the good of the fatherland," Mr. Emmed said the priest had told him. "You have no reason to feel badly. You carried out a patriotic act, and God knows that what we are doing is for the benefit of the country." In Chile, where he served in the seaside resort village of El Quisco, the impact of his case has been nearly as traumatic as in Argentina. During the long dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Cardinal Raúl Silva Enríquez of Santiago played an important role in defending human rights, so the accusations of the church's complicity in harboring Father von Wernich has come as a shock. "I'm a Christian, and I cannot judge, because we are all sinners," one of his former parishioners, Isabel Beltrán de Avalos, said before a Sunday morning Mass early in Lent at the St. John the Evangelist church in El Quisco situated on the Street of the Tranquil Wolves. Learning of the charges against him "has caused a revulsion within me so great that I stayed away from Mass for nearly a year and have only returned now at Lent," she said. Father von Wernich was "so charming and so charismatic that it was hard to believe all the things that they were saying about him," Mrs. Avalos added. "I had neighbors and colleagues from work who were taken away and never seen again when the military seized power, and I don't want that to happen ever again. We can't tolerate a thing like that." From his jail cell, Father von Wernich is fighting the charges against him and has asked judges to free him from what he claims is an "illegal detention." At a hearing, the priest acknowledged that he had been a regular visitor at the clandestine detention centers of the police, but he refused to provide details of his conversations with prisoners. To do so, he said, would be a breach of his holy orders, because it would "violate the secrecy of the confessional."

Brazil

WP 14 Apr 2004 Young Brazilian Indians Find Suicide Only Way Out By Jon Jeter Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, April 14, 2004; Page A22 DOURADOS, Brazil -- Later, Jaqueline Arevalo's grandfather would remember how content she was. He said he had not seen her so demonstrably happy in months. She chased playfully after her baby brother, hummed while washing the dishes, chatted about having lunch with the family later that day. And then shortly before noon one day last month, Jaqueline climbed onto her bed, tied one end of a red, nylon cord around a wooden ceiling beam and the other around her neck, and jumped. She was 13, a quiet girl with waist-length hair and diamond-black eyes who gave up on her life before she had even shed her baby fat. Hers was the third suicide this year on this reservation of 4,500 Kaiowa Indians. All of them were teenagers, and were guns and not garrotes the weapon of choice in these parts, almost everyone here says the number would be far higher. The day after Jaqueline's death, her 17-year-old boyfriend tried unsuccessfully to kill himself. Her 14-year-old sister had tried a week earlier. "It is a curse to have to cut your children down," said Luciano Arevalo, Jaqueline's uncle and head of the Bororo reservation here. "We are living in a time of a great plague." Here on the plains of central Brazil, suicide bewitches the young and the poor, who see in the lives that stretch ahead of them nothing but grief and unbearable pain. According to news reports, more than 300 of the 30,000 Kaiowa Indians who live here in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul have taken their own lives since 1995; 54 did so last year alone, corresponding to a rate of 180 per 100,000. Brazil's death rate is 6.5 per 100,000, according to the World Health Organization. The Kaiowa often attribute the suicides to a dark magic, a spell that finds its voice in a rustling wind that counts off the days you have to live. But tribal leaders, anthropologists, police and a broad collection of experts say that this reservation and others owe their despair to the perfect noose formed by landlessness, displacement and unrelenting poverty. With a population of 180 million people and an area larger than the contiguous United States, Brazil has in its postwar development efforts squeezed its 300,000 native people into smaller and smaller reserves. The 30,000 Kaiowa who live in Mato Grosso do Sul occupy slightly more than 100,000 acres of arable land -- far too little, on average, for even viable smallholder farms. Unable to live off the soil, the traditionally agrarian Kaiowa work at the alcohol distilleries and sugar cane refineries that line the state's two-lane highways like grazing elephants. It is backbreaking work that pays little and requires workers -- usually teenage boys and young men -- to leave the reservation for months at a time, living in hostels far from home and from everything they know. For much of the year, women greatly outnumber men on the reservations, straining relationships, budgets and families that are historically close-knit, officials, journalists and residents said. Men find it hard to adjust, shuttling between two demanding, very different worlds. The unemployment rate on the reservation is more than 60 percent, said Luciano Arevalo. Drug and alcohol abuse is rampant and malnutrition common, said Andrea Depieri, a local police officer. Often left behind, adolescent girls and young women from the reservation have increasingly turned to prostitution to support themselves or their families, she said. "The reservations are like a vacuum," she said, "and the only thing that fills it is deprivation. People are just lost." Two years ago police discovered a suicide note written in the sand near the feet of a 15-year-old boy who worked in an alcohol distillery. It read simply: "There is no place for me." Friends and families say that Jaqueline did not leave a suicide note. But they trace the disintegration of her young life back to the breakup with her boyfriend, Waldir Ferreira, three months ago. With no one in her immediate family holding down a full-time job, she moved in with her boyfriend and his family in August of last year. They divided Ferreira's $65 monthly paycheck among the nine of them. When he returned from a two-month stint working at a sugar cane refinery, he accused her of dating another youth while he was away. They argued over money. Jaqueline moved in with an aunt. "I was far away," Ferreira said. "When I came home I heard things from a cousin and she got mad that I listened to him instead of her." Her grandfather, Maximo Arevalo, said Jaqueline told relatives that Ferreira had kicked her out of his parents' home following a squabble over $60 he had given her for food and clothes. "His family was complaining that he was giving too much money to her and not enough to them," Arevalo said. "Everyone could see she was unhappy. She had stopped going to school and she complained to her mother that she didn't have money, that she wanted money to help her family buy food and clothes for herself. It is very difficult here for young people." Antonio Brand, a history professor at Dom Bosco Catholic University in nearby Campo Grande, said efforts to redistribute land to Brazil's indigenous people have proceeded slowly. Since 1988, Brand said, federal laws have allowed indigenous groups to reclaim land if they can prove that it was formerly occupied by native peoples. But wealthy landowners have challenged their claims in court. In 16 years, indigenous groups have won control of about 42,000 acres of territory across the nation, he said. In December, hundreds of Guarani Indians seized portions of 15 farms in the southern portion of this state -- posting signs that read "Our Place" -- before government negotiators intervened and reached a compromise for the squatters to vacate 12 of the farms. And last year, three Kaiowa Indians threatened suicide if the government did not accelerate the redistribution of land to families on their reservation. The men later hanged themselves simultaneously. "There is this tragic trajectory that begins with the loss of land," Brand said. "And then the physical space and the metaphysical space become quite intertwined. Without their land, where can the indigenous people of Brazil find their space in the world? Certainly not as manual laborers working far from home for very little pay in a refinery. There's no future. People lose themselves in alcohol and in drugs. "Then they go get a rope." A recent memorial service for Jaqueline at a schoolhouse here quickly turned into a political rally, with angry Kaiowa speakers pleading with a contingent of police officers in attendance for social and economic reforms. "We need jobs. We need wages," Maximo Arevalo told an audience of more than 200 people. "This is why our children are committing suicide." For more than 50 years, the Argentine-owned Mate Laranjeiras company leased nearly 15 million acres of land in Mato Grosso do Sul to make the herbal tea that is popular in neighboring Argentina. When the company's lease expired in the 1940s, Brazil's president at the time, the nationalist Getulio Vargas, decided to redistribute the land to white settlers from the northeastern part of the country. Settlers and wealthy landowners continued their encroachment onto Indian lands until the 1988 Brazilian constitution expanded land rights for the country's native people, who make up less than 1 percent of the country's population. But Indian efforts to reclaim lost land have resulted in armed standoffs between militias hired by landowners and throngs of Indian protesters, particularly since December. The ebb and flow of suicides here in this state coincides with the frustration of the Kaiowa's efforts to reclaim land, said Josandro Depieri, a local journalist who estimates that he has covered at least 150 suicides in and around the Bororo reservation over the past 12 years. "It's like watching a genocide," Depieri said. "And until there is some real land reform here, the Kaiowa will continue to cut their children down from trees. There are these storms raging inside the young people, and it only subsides in the hours before they decide to take their lives. Their families always say that there was this calm, this peacefulness in them just before they kill themselves." Waldir Ferreira's father cut him down from a tree when he discovered the 17-year-old hanging the day after Jaqueline's death. The fall saved his life but broke his left leg. "I don't remember it," Ferreira said as he sat with his leg in a cast in front of his family's home. "I just remember that I was upset after Jackie's wake and someone gave me something to drink to calm me down." Jaqueline, he said, was a level-headed girl who rarely lost her temper and loved children. He was swimming in a pond when she caught his eye, and he caught hers. The two flirted. She moved in two months later, a common arrangement on the reservations, where teenagers are recognized as adults. Jaqueline, Ferreira said, was driven to suicide by evil spells cast on her by women in the neighborhood who were envious of her. Similarly, he said, someone must have cast a spell on him, but he was fortunate enough to survive it. "I am going to church tomorrow so that I can rid myself of this curse," he said. He did all he could for Jaqueline, he said. But it was difficult trying to support her, his parents and six siblings on his meager salary. He had never been away from the reservation until he went to work cutting sugar cane at the refinery two years ago. "It's just so far away," he said of his job at a mill nearly 90 miles away. The hard work broke his body. The separation from his family "broke my spirit," he said. But once he cleanses himself of his curse, and his leg heals, he said, he plans to search for another job, this time closer to home. "I'm not going to try to kill myself again," he said. "You'll see. I am just going to work hard, harder than I did before. I'm going to find a way for my family to get out of this situation. "Anything to end this suffering."

Canada

Reuters 21 Apr 2004 Canadian Parliament Recognizes Armenian Genocide By REUTERS Filed at 9:06 p.m. ET OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian Parliament on Wednesday ignored long-standing government policy and angered Turkey by formally declaring that Ottoman Turks committed genocide against Armenians in 1915. The House of Commons voted 153-68 to support a motion declaring the events of 90 years ago as genocide, despite a plea from Foreign Minister Bill Graham not to aggravate NATO ally Turkey. Armenians say some 1.5 million of their people were deliberately slaughtered by Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923. Turkey denies the charges of genocide, saying the Armenians were among the many victims of a partisan war raging during World War One as the Ottoman Empire collapsed. Graham quickly issued a statement after the vote stressing the motion would not alter Ottawa's official policy, which is that while the events of 1915 were a tragedy, they did not constitute genocide. Our ``position on this issue ... has not changed. Canada has had friendly and cooperative relations with Turkey and Armenia for many years. The Canadian government is committed to make these relationships even stronger in the future,'' he said. But the result looked certain to harm ties with Turkey and represented a sound defeat for the government, which had instructed Cabinet members to vote ``no.'' Before the vote, Graham sent a letter to Liberal lawmakers saying he was ``deeply concerned that it (the motion) could have far-reaching negative consequences'' for Turkey and the region. ``We must recognize we must have good relations with our NATO colleague in Turkey ... (which) is a very important NATO ally that we work with closely in many areas, including Afghanistan,'' he told reporters. Despite his efforts, no less than 75 Liberal legislators voted for the resolution. In recent years, parliaments in more than a dozen countries -- including France, Russia and Switzerland -- have adopted similar motions. Ankara has fought hard to block attempts to press for international recognition of the events as a genocide. ``Certainly, relations with Canada will suffer as the result of adopting such a motion,'' Turkish Embassy counselor Fazli Corman told Reuters, citing the example of Canadian companies seeking to sign contracts in Turkey. France's parliament backed the Armenian case in 2001, prompting Turkey to freeze official visits to France and temporarily block French companies from entering lucrative defense contracts. The U.S. Congress dropped a similar resolution in 2000 after the White House warned it would harm U.S. security interests in the Middle East.

Canadian Press 29 Apr 2004 Senate passes gay hate-crimes bill April 29, 2004 By Sue Bailey OTTAWA (CP) The Senate passed legislation yesterday to extend hate-crime protection to homosexuals, but MP Svend Robinson, the bill’s sponsor, wasn’t around to celebrate his hard-fought victory. The openly-gay New Democrat was in self-imposed exile in Vancouver as his private member’s bill jumped the last major hurdle to becoming law. Senators voted 59-11 to pass the bill as applause echoed through the ornate red chamber. It now requires only royal assent. It was a rare feat for an opposition MP but a mixed triumph. Robinson took a medical leave from his parliamentary duties this month after admitting he stole an expensive ring. A special prosecutor in B.C. is reviewing whether he should be charged. “It’s a real mixture of sadness and happiness,” said New Democrat MP Libby Davies, a close friend of Robinson’s. “It’s sort of bittersweet that he’s put so much into it and he’s not able to be there at the Senate to see it go through.” Davies, who represents Vancouver East, planned to call Robinson right after the vote. “It’s a real test to his commitment and hard work,” Davies said, noting it’s “nearly impossible” to pass a private member’s bill. Robinson is getting undisclosed medical care and is declining interview requests, Davies said. “He has a lot to go through, including a possible court case. But right now his focus is on getting the help he needs.” Robinson, a 25-year veteran of federal politics, had worked since 1981 to add gays and lesbians to a list of groups legally protected from incitement of hatred and genocide under the Criminal Code. The bill cleared the House of Commons last September after raucous debate. At the time, the former Canadian Alliance—now part of the Conservative party—and some Liberals fought the bill over fears that freedom of speech and religion would suffer. Opponents raised concerns the bill could be used even against religious leaders who preach against homosexuality from the pulpit. They also attacked the logic of singling out certain groups for specific protection, arguing that violence against all people should be prosecuted equally. Supporters dismissed such claims, citing the frequency with which gays and lesbians—particularly homosexual men—are targeted. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Professional Police Association supported the bill. Police so far have been powerless to prosecute the likes of Rev. Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kan., who runs a website that declares God hates homosexuals. Supporters of Phelps have entered Canada twice in the last five years to hold anti-gay rallies.

Guatemala

UN News Centre 2 Apr 2004 Guatemala: UN hails Government's promise to halve army, military budget 2 April 2004 – The UN Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA) has welcomed the country's decision to reduce its army and military budget by half. MINUGUA hailed the drastic cut, announced yesterday by President Oscar Berger, as the most significant change for the Guatemalan Army in decades, and one fully in keeping with the spirit of the 1996 Peace Accords. The initiative reflects changes which have taken place in recent years both nationally, with the end of the internal armed conflict, and globally, with the increase in threats posed by terrorism and drug trafficking requiring an adapted military response, the Mission said. It will also serve to reduce Guatemala's army to a size comparable to those of other Central American nations. In addition, the 50 per cent reduction in the Guatemala's military budget will allow funds to be freed up for priority social needs such as education, health and public security, MINUGUA said.

Haiti

Philadelphia Inquirer 4 Apr 2004 Haiti-born writer drafted as pundit "The Dew Breaker," Edwidge Danticat's tale of a former torturer, came out just as Aristide was ousted. By Eils Lotozo Inquirer Staff Writer When Edwidge Danticat went on Radio Times on WHYY-FM (90.9) the other day to talk about her new novel, The Dew Breaker, callers didn't want to discuss plot or character. They had bigger questions for the Haitian-born writer. Like: "Is there hope for Haiti?" The Dew Breaker, about a circle of people who share a connection to a torturer in Haiti's former Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier regime, had the strange fortune of being released just as an armed revolt forced Haitian President Jean-Bertrande Aristide from office. Now, as Danticat crisscrosses the United States talking about her book, she finds herself pressed reluctantly into service as a pundit. "I find it difficult being a spokesperson," said the shy, soft-spoken, 35-year-old novelist, who gave a reading at the main branch of the Free Library. "I don't think in an op-ed way. I don't always have an immediate response. My work is my soapbox. What I hope is that people will read that and then want to find out more about Haiti." Few writers have done more to share Haiti's tragic story than Danticat, who lives in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood with her husband, Faidherbe Boyer, who runs a Creole translation business. She was just 25 when her debut novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, about four generations of women struggling to build better lives for themselves in Haiti and New York, became an Oprah Book Club selection. Her short-story collection Krik? Krak!, which also focused on Haiti and its emigres, was a National Book Award finalist. The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner, gave a fictionalized account of the 1937 massacre of thousands of Haitians living on the other side of the island of Hispaniola, in the Dominican Republic. Danticat's own life reflects the upheavals that have been a constant in Haiti, where 31 coups over two centuries, an interventionist U.S. policy, and nearly three decades under the brutal dictatorships of Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, have helped turn the country into the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. Danticat was a toddler when her parents left her and her younger brother with family in Port-au-Prince to emigrate to New York, where her father drove a cab and her mother worked in a textile factory. Danticat was 12 when her parents finally brought their children to Brooklyn; in the interim, they'd had two American-born sons. "We had to reconstruct ourselves as a family," said Danticat, whose visit to Philadelphia included a talk and book-signing for a group of Bartram High School students at a Southwest Philadelphia library branch. "That's a common experience for immigrant families." Danticat learned English by watching Sesame Street, and from her younger brothers. But for years she barely spoke above a whisper, so embarrassed was she by her Creole accent - whose island lilt she has now mostly lost. While her parents' fierce emphasis on education propelled her through Barnard and on to graduate school at Brown, it was the storytelling tradition she grew up with in Haiti - especially the tales told by her grandmother, a displaced countrywoman who lived past 100 - that inspired Danticat to become a writer. The Dew Breaker has garnered some of her most rapturous reviews to date. Booklist called it a "masterful depiction of the emotional and spiritual reverberations of tyranny and displacement." New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani praised Danticat's "fierce, elliptical artistry." The book takes as its title Danticat's translation of a Creole term for enforcers in tontons macoute, Duvalier's dreaded private militia. Her Dew Breaker has left his murderous past for a quiet life as a barber and devoted husband and father in Brooklyn, N.Y. In his neighborhood are people who bear the scars of his earlier career - a man whose parents he killed, a woman driven mad by memories of her torture - men and women, Danticat writes, "whose tremendous agonies filled every blank space in their lives." "What I was interested in," Danticat said, "was how this man could be all these things to his family and also this other person who did terrible things." Whether redemption is possible for such people, they are a fact of life in the Haitian emigre community, said Danticat, whose book includes a cameo by a real-life killer named Emmanuel Constant. Constant ran a CIA-backed paramilitary unit that has been implicated in the killing of thousands of Aristide supporters after a 1991 military coup sent the president into his first exile. After Aristide regained power, Constant fled to Brooklyn, where he sold real estate. "There were whispers and finally there were pickets in front of his office," Danticat said. She said Brooklyn also became home to a woman who ran the female branch of the tontons macoute. "It's amazing, but the people do not assault them," she said. Danticat, who visits family in Haiti four or five times a year, hoped this year's book tour would give her a chance to talk about Haiti's bicentennial. The world's first black republic, the nation was created out of a successful slave revolt in 1804. "But that has been overshadowed," said Danticat, who visited Haiti in January, as rebel forces were beginning their violent campaign. "Even when we were there, it was hard to know what was going on," she said. "Radio is big there, but it is so polarized. One station would say one thing, and the other would say the opposite." Now she tries to follow developments in Haiti however she can. "I read everything, but I read it with a grain of salt. And I talk to family members, but sometimes I know things before they do, because they don't have electricity all the time." Whatever happens politically in Haiti, Danticat will never stop writing about the land that formed her, in whose difficult history, struggling people, and "gorgeously vivid" Creole language she finds constant inspiration. She dreams of returning to Haiti some day to live, if not forever, then "for a time, to see what I can do." So, is there hope for Haiti? "These are times that try hope," Danticat said. "We've never had a chance to mourn. We are always moving from one crisis to another. It's difficult to build a country under those circumstances." But Danticat, whose conversation is peppered with Creole proverbs, has faith in the tenacity of her countrymen, in their ability always to find a way. "There is a saying," she said. " 'The people beat water to make butter.' "

NYT 23 Apr 2004 Top Rebel, a Convicted Killer, Surrenders to Police in Haiti By LYDIA POLGREEN Published: April 23, 2004 PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, April 22 — A rebel leader who is also a convicted murderer gave himself up to the police on Thursday in an elaborately choreographed surrender. The leader, Louis-Jodel Chamblain, turned himself in after weeks of speculation about how firmly the United States-backed interim government would deal with rebel chiefs linked to atrocities. Proclaiming his innocence and predicting he would be acquitted in a new trial, Mr. Chamblain told reporters that his surrender signified his confidence in the new government. "I make myself a prisoner so that Haiti can have a chance for the real democracy I have been fighting for," he said at a news conference at a hotel in Pétionville, a hillside suburb of the capital. "That is why today I am sacrificing myself." Mr. Chamblain, who helped force Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president, from power in February, was a founder of the Haitian Front for Advancement and Progress, or Fraph, an instrument of terror wielded by the military junta that took over Haiti in 1991. The group killed thousands over the next three years, according to human rights organizations and the Haitian government. Mr. Chamblain was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for the murder of Antoine Izméry, an important Aristide supporter, in 1993 and for his role in a massacre of Aristide supporters in Raboteau, a slum in the port city of Gonaïves. Under Haitian law, he is entitled to a new trial now that he has returned to Haiti. Mr. Chamblain, along with another rebel leader, Guy Philippe, crossed the border from the Dominican Republic in February to lead a ragtag army of former soldiers and gang members that rose up against Mr. Aristide in Gonaïves, a historic city in Haiti's fertile Artibonite Valley that throughout Haitian history has given rise to revolutionary foment. Mr. Aristide fled Haiti on Feb. 29 as rebels pressed on toward the capital and the United States told him it could no longer ensure his safety. He is now in exile in Jamaica. Justice Minister Bernard Gousse, who escorted Mr. Chamblain to jail, praised the rebel leader's willingness to turn himself in. "This is a very good and noble decision on his part," Mr. Gousse said. He said Mr. Chamblain's fate would be determined by the judicial system. "We told him justice has to be served, and he has understood." But supporters of Mr. Aristide and members of his Lavalas party criticized the interim government for waiting more than a month to arrest Mr. Chamblain and for treating him delicately even as former Aristide ministers were thrown in jail. Several officials of Mr. Aristide's government have been told they may not leave the county and Jocelerme Privert, the former interior minister, was jailed and accused of corruption and political violence. Yvon Neptune, prime minister under Mr. Aristide, said the interim government should have been just as zealous in pursuing convicted killers like Mr. Chamblain as it was in investigating Lavalas leaders. "There is a flagrant contradiction," Mr. Neptune said in a telephone interview from a secret hideout. "Those in power are trying to absolve Chamblain for what he has done. It is well known and it has been documented that those guys have killed thousands of people during the coup d'état of 1991."

Mexico

Reuters 22 Apr 2004 'Smoking Gun' in Mexico Massacre Eludes Prosecutor Thu Apr 22, 2004 07:30 PM ET By Lorraine Orlandi MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - No "smoking gun" has surfaced in the probe of a 1968 massacre seen as emblematic of past repression in Mexico, but a special prosecutor said on Thursday he was confident of bringing the case to trial. "There is no smoking gun, no one irrefutable proof," said Ignacio Carrillo, who is under a Supreme Court mandate to investigate the tragedy at Mexico City's Tlatelolco Plaza. "But that in no way means we cannot overcome the difficulties and assign blame." He suggested loyalists to the former ruling party who were still working for government agencies may be protecting suspects in investigations into Mexico's "dirty war." Carrillo was named in 2002 by President Vicente Fox to investigate the massacre, an incident that remains veiled in mystery, along with hundreds of disappearances during a government crackdown against leftists from the 1960s to the 1980s. Witnesses reported hundreds were shot dead at Tlatelolco by federal troops in action against student protesters 10 days before the 1968 Olympic games opened here. Government officials at the time said only around 30 people died. Carrillo said his investigation was hampered by a lack of official documentation concerning the bloodbath, by the passage of time and deaths of many of those involved. "Mexican society knows what happened. Public prosecutors know what happened but they also have to prove it," he said. Former President Luis Echeverria is a target of Carrillo's probe. He was interior minister and in charge of federal police at the time of the Tlatelolco massacre and president from 1970 to 1976. Asked about charges against Echeverria, Carrillo said only that "no one is excluded" from the probe. Carrillo's broader probe of the brutal campaign against dissidents has faced a series of obstacles ranging from deaths of witnesses and suspects to legal barriers and a lack of resources. Only one of the six arrest warrants for related crimes has been carried out, months after they were issued. Carrillo called on the entire state apparatus to get serious about the work. He noted that among the fugitive former police officers and state officials is an ex-secret police officer who has repeatedly been interviewed by media. "He has mocked the Mexican state with two videos, and we cannot get him," Carrillo said. "How did they get him for the videos?" He said federal officials had worked in good faith but at lower levels an entrenched power structure remained from the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, that was defeated by Fox and is blamed for past repression. "They contribute to this climate of impunity," he said. State security forces under the PRI are widely blamed for a brutal campaign against dissidents that left hundreds dead or missing. Carrillo said he was told on Thursday that Mexico's attorney general was replacing officers assigned to the arrest warrants in the hope of getting results. So far, the only suspect arrested is Miguel Nazar Haro, 79, the former head of Mexico's secret police, who is awaiting trial in two cases of leftist rebels who disappeared during the 1970s. He was captured in February after two months on the run, and his health has deteriorated. Four others remain at large and a fifth, a former Guerrero state police chief, died before being caught after he was reportedly seen in the protection of state police officers.

United States

St. George Daily Spectrum, UT 1 Apr 2004 www.thespectrum.com Lee statue will go up, council says Council members vote to go ahead with the statue despite public outcry By Rachel Olsen WASHINGTON CITY -- Washington City ultimately decided Wednesday night to "stick to (their) guns," as Councilman Roger Bundy put it, regarding the issue of the John D. Lee statue. Council members met in a special meeting to discuss the emotions surrounding the erection of the statue in Monument Plaza, and hashed out the different responses Mayor Terrill Clove and other council members have received. "We made the decision about the monument, not about John D. Lee and the Mountain Meadows Massacre," Clove said. Washington City officials intended for Lee's statue to be erected last year, when four other statues and cameos of city pioneers were dedicated. However, due to the controversy surrounding the issue, Clove said they decided to hold off on including Lee. Lee is connected to an event in 1857 wherein Arkansas emigrants headed for California were attacked by Utah militiamen, a group comprising members from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others. More than 100 men, women and children died in what came to be known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Lee was the only person to ever be tried, convicted and executed for the massacre. Council members opted to call the meeting after receiving calls and letters in opposition and support of the statue, in addition to The Spectrum's letters to the editor, entries in the Vent and an editorial. Additional yet-unpublished input has also been received by The Spectrum, most of it in opposition to the statue. Most letters come from descendants of the emigrants killed and members of the various Mountain Meadows Massacre organizations, including the Mountain Meadows Massacre Descendants, Mountain Meadows Association and Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation. Many of the letters draw comparisons between the Massacre and other terrorist acts such as the Oklahoma City bombing. However, the Washington City Council members said their decision to erect the statue was based on the memory of what Lee did for the city they now live in. "None of us wanted a controversy," Clove said. Councilwoman Jean Arbuckle said, although she felt turmoil coming into the meeting, she left feeling more comfortable after other members shared their feelings. Besides the contributions made by Lee to the city, council members based their decision on the fact that the controversy might never go away and on the responses from those in support of the Lee statue. "But you don't want to be paying homage to a likeness of that," said Councilman Steve VanDerHeyden, the only member of the council in favor of holding off on the erection of the statue. The statue of Lee, along with 26 additional cameos, will join the previous four statues and 24 cameos at a dedication to be held at 9 a.m. May 7. See www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com OR http://www.lib.utah.edu/spc/mss/accn2023/2023.html OR http://www.lib.utah.edu/spc/mss/accn1253/1253.html

Bayside NY Times Ledger 1 Apr 2004 Queensboro exhibit shows century of global genocide By Ayala Ben-Yehuda 04/01/2004 Bayside High School student Jenny Mathew reads about the Warsaw ghetto at Queensborough Community College’s genocide exhibit. In 1904 about 65,000 Herero cattle herders in Southwest Africa were wiped out after rebelling against their German colonial rulers. Women and children were driven into the desert and died of thirst and starvation, decimating the Herero population. In 1994 Beatha Uwazaninka had to flee her home in Rwanda when several of her family members were murdered during a genocide in which 800,000 people were slaughtered in the space of 100 days. These stories of mass murder 90 years apart from each other are on display at “ 1900-2000: A Genocidal Century,” the newest exhibit at Queensborough Community College’s Holocaust Resource Center and Archives. “As a college student, I didn’t know about all the genocides that were happening,” said Sarah Roberts, assistant director for operations at the center. “More and more schools are getting more involved with teaching about genocide and what’s happening today in the world,” Roberts said. “It’s really scary out there.” The exhibit opened Feb. 23 and runs until the end of this year. It features wall text by the Holocaust center’s director, William Shulman, defining genocide and describing its use against Armenians in 1915 at the hands of the Turks, Stalin’s starvation of Ukrainians, the Holocaust as well as mass killings in Cambodia in the 1970s and more recent ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Rwanda in the 1990s. A chart on the wall depicts lesser-known genocides such as the Guatemalan army’ s killing of 200,000 Mayans from the 1950s to the 1980s and the murder of a million Ibos and other ethnic groups in Nigeria since 1966. School groups in Queens have been coming to the exhibit and watching films on refugees and the Rwandan genocide, said Roberts, whose Holocaust center is sending mailings about it to schools all over New York City as well as to churches and synagogues. Roberts said so far no one who had suffered under one of the genocides in the exhibit had come up to her during a visit to the center, but said “I’m hoping I do get that reaction.” Arthur Flug, a former teacher and chief of staff to Councilman David Weprin (D- Hollis) and U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Bayside), became the center’s educational outreach director two weeks ago. “The Holocaust has implications that go beyond the Jewish community,” said Flug, such as ethnic discrimination and brutality — themes all too common to the human experience around the world. The college will mark the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide with a Genocide Awareness Day on Wednesday, April 28. Scheduled to speak are Jerry Fowler, director of the Committee on Conscience from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and abolitionist Maria Sliwa, who will address modern-day slavery in Sudan. The Genocide Awareness Day and the exhibit are open to the public. For more information, call 718-281-5770. Queensborough Community College's Holocaust Resource Center & Archives

Hillsboro Argus, OR 1 Apr 2004 Hatred impacts our lives and our society 04/01/04 What is hate? It is a psychological state of mind. Hate is a spectrum of behavior or attitude. It can be active or passive. It is the systematic degradation, dehumanization and demoralization of another. This is destructive and needs to be studied and exposed for the common good. Tuality's Dr. Sheridan Thiringer shared his thoughts with me upon his recent return from the First International Conference of the Institute for Action Against Hate at his alma mater, Gonzaga University, where the above definition was offered. Conference presenters and audience came from a broad spectrum - academia, criminal justice, journalism, the legal profession, mental health, sociology, political activism, etc. This conference was another step toward the creation of an academic field of Hate Studies. There have been some heinous acts of hatred in history -- the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust in Europe, the genocide in our own country, when our ancestors did their best to wipe out the Native American population and destroy their culture. The "three D's" listed in the definition above were very evident in the practice of slavery in America. It seems to me that the roots of today's racial tension go back to that dark period in our history. Several years ago a young African man was beaten to death here in Portland. More recently there was another beating death, I believe in Wyoming, of a gay college student. Much as we might like to, I doubt we can ever forget the nightmare of the African American man who was chained behind a pickup and dragged to his death by two white men. I would add to the list of hate crimes the murders of doctors who performed abortions. Even though most of us are not direct victims of these kinds of hate crimes, the mere fact of their commission impacts our lives and our society. Why do we hate? The attitudes and behavior are learned from parents and peers. They can stem from a traumatic experience which may cause us to hate the perpretrator, and then globalize that hatred to extend to an entire ethnic population. Another facet of hatred has to do with the fear based need to feel superior, and therefore more powerful than another. I believe that greed also contributes to hate. Intolerance, lack of understanding or being unwilling to understand and accept those who are different from us is a part of hatred. Poverty and ignorance are breeding grounds for hatred. Prejudice and discrimination are elements of hatred. James Waller, PhD, delivered a paper at the Institute for Action Against Hate Conference entitled "Our Ancestral Shadow: Hate and Human Nature in Evolutionary Psychology," in which he stated that human behavior is driven by a set of adaptations that were designed by natural selection to solve adaptive problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Dr. Waller described two sets of adaptations in intergroup relations faced by those ancestors. The first fostered cooperative, caring, nonviolent relations - love of kin, preferential altruism, reciprocal altruism, enduring alliances, compassion. The second fostered competitive, hateful and violent relations - ethnocentrism (the emotional attitude that one's own ethnic group, nation or culture is superior to all others,) xenophobia (fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything foreign or strange,) desire for social dominance. As we consider hate, I suggest we ask ourselves which set of adaptations we are using today. How tolerant and accepting are we toward those of different ethnic origin, or with different beliefs and values? How important is it that things be done our way, or the way we've always done them? Is there a better way? Ask these questions now in terms of the tremendous, sweeping social changes in this country over the past four decades, and recognize that we are seeing another move for social change today in the controversy surrounding gay marriage. We are seeing again the polarization and strong emotions that arise when different belief systems and values clash. Conservatives are resisting change, citing the sanctity of the institution of marriage, although it has been badly damaged by our divorce rate, clinging to the belief that marriage must be between one man and one woman. On the opposing side, advocates for gay marriage are citing prejudice and discrimination and demanding equal ri ghts. When one group is determined to force their beliefs and values upon another group, there's going to be a resounding crash! Do you see hatred in this clash, dehumanization, a desire for power over others ? Dream with me for a bit, and imagine what the world might be like if we were able to raise a generation of children, all over the world, that was not taught to hate, that felt safe enough to listen and learn. Can we teach children about the destructive nature of hatred, teach them listening skills and foster the willingness if not to agree with others, then at least to understand and accept the value of differences. The Gonzaga Institute for Action Against Hate was founded in 1997 by Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. guweb2.gonzaga.edu/againsthate/

Wilmington Journal wilmingtonjournal.blackpressusa.com TULSA RIOT LAWSUIT DISMISSED, WEEK OF APRIL 1-APRIL 7, 2004 by CASH MICHAELS Acknowledging that the event was a “terrible devastation,” an Oklahoma federal judge reluctantly dismissed a lawsuit seeking reparations from the state, city of Tulsa and the Tulsa Police Department for the deadly 1921 race riots that claimed over 100 lives. The ruling could reverberate all the way to Wilmington, where the 1898 race riot by angry whites against African Americans, still looms large over a century after it happened. A state-appointed commission, in addition to several individual efforts, is still compiling evidence regarding lives allegedly lost, and property and businesses allegedly stolen in the aftermath of the white insurrection in this North Carolina port city. Two hundred survivors and descendants of the Tulsa riots, also started by angry whites, had hoped to successfully prove that government officials were complicit in allowing the bloodshed to occur. For two days, the prosperous Tulsa Black community of Greenwood, also known as “Black Wall Street,” was ravaged by violence. Between 100 and 300 were reportedly killed, and over 1250 homes and businesses were destroyed. In 2001, the Oklahoma Legislature, acting on an investigation by an appointed commission, accepted “moral responsibility on behalf of the state and its citizens,” but refused to pay any reparations to either the survivors, or the descendants of those who were killed. The plaintiffs, represented by a battery of attorneys, filed suit against the state, city and Tulsa Police Department, claiming that since government had now acknowledged “moral responsibility” it should compensate the affected Black families. But on March 26, U.S. District Court Judge James O. Ellison, making clear that he agreed with the spirit of the suit, reluctantly dismissed the litigation based on a technicality - it should have been filed within two years after the fact. The plaintiffs, he said, waited too long Lawyers for the plaintiffs had insisted that the lawsuit could only be filed after the commission completed its report in 2001 because the full story of the riots was not known prior to that investigation. But Judge Ellison rejected that reasoning, adding that he took “no comfort or satisfaction in this result,’ and suggested that the government shouldn’t either. Regarding the tragedy, Judge Ellison called it “the worst civil disturbance since the Civil War.” Ironically, attorneys for the government asked that that attorneys for the plaintiffs be punished because they filed the suit well beyond the two-year deadline. But Judge Ellison dismissed that motion, saying that it displayed “a contentious attitude” that “has been destructive and wasteful of judicial resources.” Ellison added that that attitude “only fuels the belief that the state and city are ignoring their moral responsibility for the riot. Such conduct is unfortunate.” Harvard University Law Professor Charles Ogletree, Jr., who headed up the legal team for the Tulsa survivors, assured that the decision would be appealed. “This is not the final word from us,” Prof. Ogletree vowed. “This 20th century travesty deserves a 21st century solution. This has always been viewed as a marathon, not a sprint. There is a lot of fight left in our clients.” The federal ruling may no make it more difficult for plaintiffs to legally get reparations from local, state, and even the federal government for historic acts of racial bigotry. Lawsuits filed against private companies for profiting from the African slave trade have so far no proven successful, despite compelling evidence that the exploitation of Black labor centuries ago clearly helped to build many of today’s top railroad and insurance companies. On March 29, eight descendants of slaves filed a $1 billion federal lawsuit in New York seeking reparations from several U.S. and British corporations for their role in the slave trade. In this case, DNA is being used to link the descendants to their ancestors. Named in the suit are Lloyd’s of London, Fleet Boston and R. J. Reynolds. They are being cited for “aiding and abetting the commission of genocide” against African slaves who “were kidnapped, tortured and shipped in chains to the United States."

WP 3 Apr 2004 Ideas About Christ's Death Surveyed Growing Minority: Jews Responsible By Alan Cooperman Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, April 3, 2004; Page A03 The percentage of Americans who say Jews were responsible for Christ's death is rising, particularly among blacks and young people, according to a nationwide poll taken since the release of Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ." The poll released yesterday by the Pew Research Center in Washington is the first statistical evidence that the movie's box-office success may be associated with an increase in anti-Jewish feeling, although social scientists cautioned that cause and effect are not clear. In the March 17 to 21 telephone survey of 1,703 randomly selected adults, 26 percent said Jews were responsible for Christ's death, up from 19 percent in an ABC News poll that asked the same question in 1997. The increase was especially pronounced among two groups. The portion of people younger than 30 who say Jews were responsible for killing Jesus has approximately tripled, from 10 percent in 1997 to 34 percent today. The portion of African Americans who hold that view has doubled, from 21 percent to 42 percent. Pew pollster Andrew Kohut noted that the survey's question -- "Do you feel the Jews were responsible for Christ's death or not?" -- is a potential indicator or "marker" of anti-Jewish sentiment but not a clear demonstration of it. Many Christians believe that Jewish leaders in Jerusalem urged Roman authorities to crucify Jesus but that all of humanity, not today's Jewish population, carries enduring guilt. An ABC News/Prime Time poll, released Feb. 15, found that 8 percent of Americans thought that "all Jews today" bear responsibility for Christ's death, while 80 percent rejected that view. "Does this poll necessarily mean there is a rise in anti-Semitism, or will be?" Kohut asked. "Those are different issues, but it's certainly not a good sign that a growing number of people think this. How bad it is and what it will grow into are still things to be found out." Pew research director Michael Dimock said there are several possible reasons why African Americans and people younger than 30 are more likely to say Jews were responsible. "Historically, you often find that blacks and young people give somewhat higher 'unfavorable' ratings to Jews than the general public does. In addition, blacks tend to be more religious and more likely to say the Bible should be taken literally," Dimock said. "So I wouldn't attribute it all to anti-Semitism. I think there are a lot of other factors there." The Pew poll found a statistical link between Gibson's movie and belief that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. But the correlation is not simply that a relatively large proportion of those who have seen the movie -- 36 percent -- hold Jews responsible. That view is also somewhat more common among those who plan to see the movie -- 29 percent -- than in the general public. Thus, researchers said, it is unclear whether the movie and its attendant publicity are causing a change in attitudes, reflecting a change, or both. Despite predictions that the movie would spark violence against Jews, the Anti- Defamation League reported in March that the number of anti-Semitic incidents across the country in 2003 remained the same as in 2002. Moreover, some previous opinion surveys have indicated that "The Passion of the Christ" is improving, not harming, Christian-Jewish relations. In a March 5 to March 9 survey of 1,003 adults nationwide, San Francisco-based pollster Gary Tobin found that 83 percent said the film had no impact on their view of contemporary Jews. Two percent said the movie had made them "more likely" to blame Jews, but 9 percent said it had made them less likely to do so. "The film and, perhaps even more, the discussions about the film are having something of a positive effect, which is good news," Tobin concluded. While attitudes toward Jewish responsibility are changing, the Pew poll found that Americans' views of the Crucifixion generally are not. Forty percent say the Bible is the literal word of God, about the same proportion as in 1996. Ninety-two percent believe that Jesus died on the cross, and 83 percent believe that Jesus rose from the dead -- both essentially unchanged since 1997.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette, PA 4 Apr 2004 www.post-gazette.com Behind the birth of Tiger Force David Hackworth, U.S. commander noted in battle and later as writer, forged unit now under investigation Sunday, April 04, 2004 By Joe Mahr, Block News Alliance A day after enemy soldiers had nearly overrun his base camp, the commander of one of the most battered and bloodied battalions in Vietnam prepared his elite platoon to hunt down their attackers. In a 1966 pep talk laced with obscenities, the commander said he wanted 40 "hard-charging" men, and anyone who couldn't be "hard-charging" would be kicked off the special team. The men did not let their commander down as they took the fight to the enemy, endured heavy casualties, and earned a coveted mention in a presidential unit citation. But, within a year, that elite platoon known as Tiger Force would go on to hunt more than the enemy. Some soldiers would turn their rifles on hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children in what became the longest known string of atrocities by a U.S. battle unit in Vietnam -- crimes that would be hidden by the Army for more than 36 years until revealed last fall by The Blade of Toledo, Ohio, in its series, "Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths." Tiger Force's founder, David Hackworth, would go on to fame himself. He would become the Army's youngest colonel in Vietnam at age 40, collecting an impressive array of battle decorations but also breaking rules as he saw fit -- once running a brothel for his troops and smuggling gambling winnings out of Vietnam. He would speak out against the Army leaders who ran the war, but then rely on them to let him retire and avoid a court-martial. Decades later, he would become a best-selling author, war correspondent, and syndicated columnist to 10 million readers a week -- with supporters lauding him as courageous whistleblower as critics questioned his integrity. A rags-to-riches writer who now lives in a wealthy Connecticut enclave, Hackworth remains as outspoken as ever -- bashing the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war and saying "war is an atrocity." But the 73-year-old is leery to talk about the shadow that's been cast over the once-celebrated unit he helped create. A man who repeatedly touted Tiger Force as a model for fighting guerilla wars is unwilling to speculate about what caused the unit to spin violently out of control -- leading to a series of war crimes in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in 1967, whose revelation has prompted the Army to open a rare review of a long-closed case. Promoted out of Vietnam before the platoon began its string of atrocities, he now says he had no idea the unit he once considered "my boys" had later committed crimes that became one of America's dark secrets of the war. Task Force Hackworth On Feb. 7, 1966, the 35-year-old Army major was given control of a task force -- named after him -- to rescue a company of soldiers pinned down by the enemy. It was the first time he would orchestrate a battle in Vietnam, and the natural career progression of a Southern Californian orphan who had already turned heads in the Army. Raised by a grandmother and foster parents, he sneaked into the Army in 1946 at age 15, survived four battle wounds in Korea, and earned a Silver Star there for heroics. The gangly grunt had impressed commanders so much that they awarded him a battlefield commission to second lieutenant and gave him control of his own commando unit. Four months before the formation of his task force, Hackworth, then a major, had become the second in command of the 101st Airborne's 1st battalion/ 327th Infantry Regiment. A month later he helped create Tiger Force -- modeled after his commando unit in Korea. It was a new kind of war, where large units were sitting ducks, and Tiger Force would be a new kind of unit, one that would break into small teams and head deep into dangerous territory to "out-guerilla" the guerilla fighters. And it would be the emergency responders to help out bigger units in trouble. Hackworth called on his emergency responders that February afternoon at My Cahn. It would become the young unit's bloodiest battle to date -- helping create the heroic image of the Tigers, as well as lead to some sore feelings years later among former soldiers of the platoon. He ordered Tiger Force's commander, 1st Lt. Jim Gardner, to attack across a river into what he thought was a small unit of enemy soldiers. The Tigers affixed bayonets on the ends of their automatic rifles, forded a river, and charged the North Vietnamese. The mission did not go as planned. The communists had plenty of manpower -- concealed in well-defended positions -- and began mowing down some Tigers and pinning down others. Hackworth radioed to the lieutenant, demanding more action. Moments later, Gardner was killed after hurling grenades into enemy bunkers before the rest of the team made it back to U.S. positions. Years later, it would lead to feelings of guilt for Hackworth, who would write in his best-selling 1989 autobiography, "About Face," that "when someone dies for you ... it's the worst of all crosses a combat leader has to bear." By the time the battle was over, nearly every member of Tiger Force had been killed or wounded. Gardner was awarded posthumously the military's highest award, the Medal of Honor. Hackworth, uninjured in the battle, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross -- the Army's second highest honor -- for putting himself in harm's way as he planned and oversaw the battle. Just how many Tiger Force soldiers deserved awards, and didn't get them, has been a sore subject for decades. Military author Robert Lynn, who wrote about the battle in a 1990 article in Vietnam magazine, said former platoon soldiers he interviewed then were still upset. "When these awards and decorations were made only to individuals that were in Hackworth's circle, the other members of Tiger Force felt shafted and cheated," Lynn recalled recently. In an e-mail to The Blade last week, Hackworth said his subordinates, not he, would have been responsible for submitting award notifications through the chain of command. "One thing I can tell you about awards is that the system is terribly unfair and frequently heroes go unrecognized because the paperwork is lost or their actions did not have the proper witnesses." The new Tigers After the battle at My Cahn, fresh faces seeking adventure rushed to fill the slots of soldiers who died, were injured, or completed their one-year tours. And Hackworth continued shepherding the unit. By June, 1966, he had become the commander of the 1st battalion/327th infantry before a major battle near Dak To, when the enemy overran the U.S. base camp. Hackworth recalled last week that the night of the attack the Tiger Force commander had disobeyed an order to set up an ambush of retreating enemy soldiers -- prompting Hackworth to relieve him and setting the stage for his fight-or-get-out pep talk the next day. That was the day Washington Post reporter Ward Just came to see the respected battalion. Just quickly grew to admire the major. "He was always looking for a fresh solution," recalled Just, now an author. Tiger Force was considered a new way to defeat the Vietnamese, and Just wrote about the pep talk and the unit's battlefield heroics in his 1967 book, "To What End." He would also mention in his book something one of the troops had told him: that a Tiger Force soldier regularly cut the ears off enemy dead and mailed them to his girlfriend, a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions. More than three decades later, Hackworth said last week, he had never heard of the allegation and suspects the story was "a 19-year-old's bravado for the ears of a Washington reporter." Weeks after the famed battle at Dak To, Hackworth was promoted to lieutenant colonel and started a job in the Pentagon's personnel section. Tiger Force would go through a succession of commanders and soldiers. By May, 1967, the documented string of war crimes would begin with a soldier cutting the ears off a dead enemy soldier. The carnage evolved into soldiers targeting unarmed men, women, and children. According to U.S. Army investigative records and Blade interviews with dozens of former Tiger Force soldiers, members of the platoon are estimated to have killed hundreds of non-combatants. Hackworth won't speculate on the causes of the downward spiral of the unit. "If you were not there," he said recently, "you simply cannot judge." But he has seen war crimes firsthand. When he was a sergeant in Korea, one of his soldiers executed four prisoners after making them dig their own graves. Hackworth kicked the man out of his unit but didn't pursue charges, saying in "About Face" that no one reported war crimes in Korea because "all of us had seen too many atrocities, and what is war anyway but one raging atrocity?" Still, he has been willing to criticize those involved in the Vietnam War's most notorious atrocity, at My Lai, and the cover-up that ensued. He has said the March, 1968, massacre that killed more than 500 villagers was an indictment of an Army leadership corps that consistently rotated itself to pad officers' resumes -- and cared more about protecting their jobs than righting wrongs. Last December Hackworth told the New York Times that the Vietnam War was an atrocity from the get-go" and "there were hundreds of My Lais." It was a controversial statement. Academics have long disputed just how many unknown atrocities occurred in Vietnam, but most scholars agree that the majority of soldiers in Vietnam did not commit them. And no other single event of the war has surfaced to compare to the 4 1/2-hour rampage that occurred in the cluster of villages commonly known as My Lai. When asked what he meant about there being hundreds of My Lais, the retired colonel said last week that he was using a broad definition of war crimes. "Every U.S. bomb or rocket that struck a city or a village killing non-combatants was a war crime," he said. "Who investigated this?" The Tiger Force case would be investigated longer than any other unit in the Vietnam War -- from 1971 to 1975. But, like all of the battalion commanders who'd left before 1967, Hackworth would not be among those questioned. Still, just as the Tiger Force case began, the colonel squared off with Army investigators about his own problems. He had spoken out against the war in June, 1971, prompting the Army to look into his background. They discovered a host of rules violations but did not court-martial him -- instead letting him quietly retire to Australia, where he would run a restaurant, protest against nuclear war and be awarded a United Nations Medal of Peace. Hackworth wouldn't gain public prominence again back home until "About Face" was published in 1989 and he returned to America a celebrated war hero. 'Hack's' new wars His dark hair has gone white. He's been slowed by age. The gangly teenager who wanted only to be a career soldier has now spent more years out of the Army than in it. But Col. Hackworth remains engaged in thoughts of war. From his home in upscale Greenwich, Conn., he writes a weekly syndicated column and operates a Web site -- www.hackworth.com -- for supporters to offer tips, learn his views, and buy his books. The man who prefers to be called "Hack" may not want to talk about the troubles of his former unit, but he is quick to lament the loss of life in the latest U.S. war. "Who's writing about the thousands of Iraqi civilian dead and wounded as [a] result of U.S. firepower during and after our operations in Iraq?" he said last week. With a second Distinguished Service Cross and nine more Silver Stars, Hackworth has the credentials to write about war, even as he has repeatedly fought questions over his integrity in the past decade. In 1996, as a Newsweek columnist, he readied a story about how the Navy's top admiral wore two unearned awards for valor -- prompting the admiral to shoot himself even though he insisted he had made an honest mistake. After Hackworth insisted "there's no greater disgrace than wearing unearned valor awards," the U.S. Army Ranger Association complained that Hackworth was falsely claiming to have earned a "Ranger Tab," -- the decoration commonly given to those who graduate from elite Ranger special forces training. The Army concluded that the colonel's military personnel records mistakenly showed he'd earned the award when there wasn't proof he had completed the training. He insists he earned the award and has witnesses to prove it. But six years later the Ranger Association still believes Hackworth's explanation "is simply not a credible story," according to association executive vice president Steve Maguire. Hackworth has been able to win some of the skirmishes over his reputation. A former Army peer once accused him of making a major blunder in a key Vietnam battle, but a December book cleared the colonel and pinned the blame on someone else. Still, detractors remain. Some shake their heads at Hackworth's outspoken bias against homosexuals -- he once said there were no "greater liars or greater deceivers than gays." Others complain he exaggerates problems to woo sympathy and supporters. A 1996 article in Slate called him a "major embarrassment" to journalism. Hackworth remains undeterred. He remains a popular TV military analyst and outspoken on the Iraq war, at one point calling Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld an "arrogant asshole." More than 30 years after he left the battlefields of Vietnam, the war hero insists he's still looking out for the grunts who got stuck fighting a poorly planned war with substandard supplies. "I am 73," he said, "and over the years I have seen too many soldiers pay a dear price for military incompetency." The Block News Alliance consists of the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio, which are owned by Block Communications Inc. Joe Mahr is a reporter for The Blade and can be reached at jmahr@theblade.com or 419-724-6180.). Special Report Read the Toledo Blade series about Vietnam War atrocities committed by the Tiger Force. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03296/233481.stm

AFP 31 Mar 2004 Justice Dept backs girl's right to wear headscarf WASHINGTON - The US Justice Department has filed a suit against the Oklahoma education authorities in support of a Muslim girl who was twice suspended from school for wearing her religious headscarf, or hijab, to class. In a complaint filed in US district court, the department argued that the Muskogee Public School District's dress code, which the girl fell foul of, amounted to religious discrimination. Advertisement 'We certainly respect local school systems' authority to set dress standards, and otherwise regulate their students, but such rules cannot come at the cost of constitutional liberties,' Assistant Attorney-General Alexander Acosta said in a statement. 'Religious discrimination has no place in American schools.' The authorities at Benjamin Franklin Science Academy in Muskogee, Oklahoma, suspended Nashala Hearn, 11, twice last year for violating the headwear ban. The decision made headlines, and the school authorities eventually allowed the African-American Muslim to return to class wearing her hijab last October. But the school district stood firm on its dress code policy, which bans students from wearing hats, caps, bandanas, jacket hoods or any other type of headwear in school buildings. [ See Germany]

Armenian National Committee of America 4 Apr 2004 PRESS RELEASE anca.org MONTANA GOVERNOR COMMEMORATES THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE Montana becomes 32nd State to Recognize the Armenian Genocide WASHINGTON, DC — Montana today became the 32nd U.S. state to recognize the Armenian Genocide, joining with the Armenian American community and all people of good conscience in honoring the victims of this crime against humanity, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA). Republican Governor Judy Martz, in a letter of recognition sent to the ANCA, stated that she was "pleased to recognize your achievements to bring awareness and recognition to the one and one-half million Christian Armenian men, women and children who were victims of the brutal genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Turkish Government from 1915 to 1923." She went on to explain that recognition of the 89th anniversary of the genocide is "crucial to guarding against repetition of future genocides." Montana joins 31 states that have already recognized the Armenian Genocide through Governor proclamations or adoption of State resolutions, including: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. Commenting on Gov. Martz’ statement, Montana resident and lifelong ANC activist Yedvart Tchakerian stated “I am proud of Gov. Martz’ principled stand recognizing the Armenian Genocide and joining with our community in this solemn remembrance. I can only hope that our legislators in Washington will take similar action through passage of the Genocide Resolution in the House and Senate.” Armenian American activist Bob Semonian, a long-time friend of the Montana Governor, played a key role in bringing this matter to her attention. The complete text of the letter of recognition is provided below. TEXT OF MONTANA GOVERNOR'S STATEMENT April 2004 On behalf of citizens of the State of Montana, I am pleased to recognize your achievements to bring awareness and recognition to the one and one-half million Christian Armenian men, women and children who were victims of the brutal genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Turkish Government from 1915 to 1923. The Armenian genocide and massacres of Armenian people have been recognized as an attempt to eliminate all traces of a thriving and noble civilization over 3,000 years old. Recognition of the eighty-ninth anniversary of this genocide is crucial to guarding against the repetition of future genocide and educating people about the atrocities connected to these horrific events. I urge recognition of their plight on April 24th, 2004, which is nationally recognized as a Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923. Sincerely [signed] JUDY MARTZ Governor

Armenian National Committee of America 4 Apr 2004 PRESS RELEASE anca.org OVER 110 MEMBERS OF CONGRESS COHOST ANCA ARMENIAN GENOCIDE OBSERVANCE ON CAPITOL HILL WASHINGTON, DC – The list of cohosts for the ANCA Armenian Genocide Observance on Capitol Hill topped 110 this week, with Members of Congress representing larger Armenian American constituencies in California and Massachusetts joining those from smaller communities in Kansas, Mississippi and Washington in marking this solemn occasion. The event, now in its 10th year, will take place at the historic Cannon Caucus room on Wednesday, April 28th from 5:30pm to 8:30pm. The Senate co-hosts include Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA), Government Affairs Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-ME), Agriculture Committee Chairman Thad Cochran (R-MS), Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA), Armed Services Committee Ranking Democrat Carl Levin (D-MI), and Senate Banking Committee Ranking Democrat Paul Sarbanes (D-MD). In the House, co-hosts include Congressional Genocide Resolution lead cosponsors George Radanovich (R-CA), Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chairs Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Joe Knollenberg (R-MI). The ANCA's Annual Capitol Hill Observance provides Members of Congress the opportunity to commemorate the Armenian Genocide with members of the Armenian American community. This year, the ANCA will be honoring New York Times Best Selling Author Peter Balakian, who, over the past decade, has emerged as an exceptionally powerful, eloquent, and effective voice against Armenian Genocide denial, most recently through the publication of "The Burning Tigris," his landmark study of the U.S. humanitarian response to the Armenian Genocide.

Armenian National Committee of America 4 Apr 2004 PRESS RELEASE anca.org ANCA ISSUES REPORT CARD ON THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION Review Reveals Largely Negative Policies on Broad Range of Issues of Concern to Armenian Americans WASHINGTON, DC - The 2004 Armenian American Presidential Report Card, issued today by the Armenian National Committee Of America (ANCA), gave the George W. Bush Administration low marks for its record of broken promises, neglect, and opposition to more than a dozen issues of concern to Armenian American voters. The ANCA Report Card covers fifteen broad policy areas, beginning with the President's broken campaign pledge to recognize the Armenian Genocide, and extending through more than three years of policy toward Armenia, the Caucasus, and the surrounding region. While highlighting certain areas in which the Bush Administration has taken positive steps, the Report Card, on balance, reveals an Administration that has fallen far short of the Armenian American community's expectations. "Armenian Americans were profoundly disappointed by President Bush's decision - only three months after taking office - to abandon his campaign pledge to properly recognize the Armenian Genocide," said ANCA Chairman Ken Hachikian. "Since then, sadly, the record shows that the President has broken other commitments to our community - most notably to maintain parity in U.S. military aid to Armenia and Azerbaijan - and has actively opposed key issues of concern to Armenian Americans." The Armenian American Presidential Report Card is provided below: The Armenian American Presidential Report Card 1) Broken campaign pledge to recognize the Armenian Genocide Almost immediately after taking office, President Bush abandoned his campaign pledge to recognize the Armenian Genocide. This promise, which he made in February of 2000 as Texas Governor, was widely distributed among Armenian Americans prior to the hotly contested Michigan primary. It read, in part, as follows: "The twentieth century was marred by wars of unimaginable brutality, mass murder and genocide. History records that the Armenians were the first people of the last century to have endured these cruelties. The Armenians were subjected to a genocidal campaign that defies comprehension and commands all decent people to remember and acknowledge the facts and lessons of an awful crime in a century of bloody crimes against humanity. If elected President, I would ensure that our nation properly recognizes the tragic suffering of the Armenian people." Rather than honor this promise, the President has, in his annual April 24th statements, used evasive and euphemistic terminology to avoid describing Ottoman Turkey's systematic and deliberate destruction of the Armenian people by its proper name - the Armenian Genocide. 2) Opposition to the Congressional Genocide Resolution The Bush Administration is actively blocking the adoption of the Genocide Resolution in both the House and Senate. This legislation (S.Res.164 and H.Res.193) specifically cites the Armenian Genocide and formally commemorates the 15th anniversary of United States implementation of the U.N. Genocide Convention. The Genocide Resolution is supported by a broad based coalition of over one hundred organizations, including American Values, the NAACP, National Council of Churches, Sons of Italy, International Campaign for Tibet, National Council of La Raza, and the Union of Orthodox Rabbis. 3) Failure to condemn Turkey's denial of the Armenian Genocide The Bush Administration has failed to condemn Turkey's recent escalation of its campaign to deny the Armenian Genocide. Notably, the Administration has remained silent in the face of the decree issued in April of 2003 by Turkey's Education Minister, Huseyin Celik, requiring that all students in Turkey's schools be instructed in the denial of the Armenian Genocide. The State Department's 2003 human rights report on Turkey uses the historically inaccurate and highly offensive phrase "alleged genocide" to mischaracterize the Armenian Genocide. In addition, despite repeated protests, the Bush Administration's State Department continues to host a website on Armenian history that fails to make even a single mention of the Genocide. (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5275.htm) 4) The Waiver of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act The Bush Administration, in 2001, aggressively pressured Congress into granting the President the authority to waive Section 907, a provision of law that bars aid to the government of Azerbaijan until it lifts its blockades of Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh. President Bush has subsequently used this authority to provide direct aid, including military assistance, to the government of Azerbaijan, despite their continued violation of the provisions of this law. 5) Reduction in aid to Armenia In the face of the devastating, multi-billion dollar impact of the Turkish and Azerbaijani blockades on the Armenian economy, President Bush has, in each of the past three years, proposed to Congress that humanitarian and developmental aid to Armenia be reduced. 6) Abandonment of the Military Aid Parity Agreement The Bush Administration abandoned its November 2001 agreement with Congress and the Armenian American community to maintain even levels of military aid to Armenia and Azerbaijan. Instead, the Administration, in its fiscal year 2005 foreign aid bill, proposes sending four times more Foreign Military Financing to Azerbaijan ($8 million) than to Armenia ($2 million). This action tilts the military balance in favor of Azerbaijan, rewards Azerbaijan's increasingly violent threats of renewed aggression, and undermines the role of the U.S. as an impartial mediator of the Nagorno Karabagh talks. 7) Mistaken Listing of Armenia as a Terrorist Country The Bush Administration, through Attorney General John Ashcroft, sought, unsuccessfully, in December of 2002 to place Armenia on an Immigration and Naturalization Service watch list for terrorist countries. This obvious error was reversed only after a nation-wide protest campaign. Neither the White House nor the Department of Justice has apologized for the offense caused by this mistake. 8) Neglect of U.S.-Armenia relations While the Bush Administration has maintained a formal dialogue with Armenia on economic issues through the bi-annual meetings of the U.S.-Armenia Task Force, it has, as a matter of substance, failed to take any meaningful action to materially promote U.S.-Armenia economic ties. Specifically, the Administration has not provided leadership on legislation, spearheaded by Congressional Republicans and currently before Congress, to grant Armenia permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status. Nor has the Administration initiated any steps toward the negotiation of a Tax Treaty, Social Security Agreement, Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, or other bilateral agreements to foster increased U.S.-Armenia commercial relations. The President neither visited Armenia nor did he invite the President of Armenia to visit the United States. 9) Failure to maintain a balanced policy on Nagorno Karabagh The Bush Administration, to its credit, took an early initiative to help resolve the Nagorno Karabagh issue in the form of the Key West summit meeting in 2001 between Secretary of State Powell and the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan. After Azerbaijan's failure to honor its Key West commitments, however, the Administration failed to hold Azerbaijan accountable for unilaterally stalling the Nagorno Karabagh peace process. 10) Increased grants, loans and military transfers to Turkey The Bush Administration has effectively abandoned America's responsibility to link aid, loans, and arms transfers to Turkey's adherence to basic standards for human rights and international conduct. The most notable example was the $8 billion loan package provided to Turkey in 2003 despite Turkey's refusal to allow U.S. forces to open a northern front during the war in Iraq. 11) Taxpayer financing of the Baku-Ceyhan bypass of Armenia The Bush Administration is supporting American taxpayer subsidies for the politically motivated Baku-Ceyhan pipeline route that, at the insistence of Turkey and Azerbaijan, bypasses Armenia. 12) Refusal to pressure Turkey and Azerbaijan to end their blockades The Bush Administration has not forcefully condemned the Turkish and Azerbaijani blockades as clear violations of international law, nor, outside of occasional public statements, has it taken any meaningful steps to pressure the Turkish or Azerbaijani governments to end their illegal border closures. 13) Lobbying for Turkish membership in the European Union The Bush Administration has aggressively pressured European governments to accept Turkey into the European Union, despite Turkey's consistent failure to meet European conditions for membership, on issues ranging from the blockade of Armenia and the Armenian Genocide to the occupation of Cyprus and human rights. 14) Down-grading relations with the Armenian American community Breaking with the tradition of the last several Administrations, the Bush White House failed to reach out in any meaningful way to our nation's one and a half million citizens of Armenian heritage. While the State Department, Pentagon and National Security Council maintained their long-standing policy-level dialogue with the Armenian American community leadership, the White House itself essentially neglected Armenian Americans as a political constituency. Perhaps the most telling example of this is that, during the course of the past three years, despite repeated requests, the President did not hold any community-wide meetings with the leadership of the Armenian American community, nor did his Secretary of State or National Security Advisor. 15) Armenian American appointments The President appointed Joe Bogosian to an important Deputy Assistant Secretary position at the Commerce Department, John Jamian to a key maritime position in the Department of Transportation, and Samuel Der-Yeghiayan as a Federal Judge in the Northern District of Illinois.

Long Beach Press Telegram 3 Apr 2004 www.presstelegram.com Khmer Rouge tribunal sought L.B. lawmakers urge Bush to fund court that would try regime chiefs. By Michelle Knueppel Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- Long Beach lawmakers are pressing President Bush to help fund a tribunal to prosecute surviving leaders of Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime. Democrat Rep. Juanita Millender- McDonald and Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who together represent one of the country's largest Cambodian communities, said justice for Khmer Rouge survivors is long overdue. "People who commit mass murder should not be allowed to walk away and live a life of luxury after the dirty deed is done,' Rohrabacher said. He likened the Khmer Rouge killings to the Holocaust, calling it "one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century.' Under the Khmer Rouge, which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, more than 1.7 million Cambodians were killed, according to a statement released by Millender-McDonald. After the regime fell, many leaders went unpunished. In a letter to colleagues this week, Millender-McDonald wrote that supporting the resolution would "let survivors of the genocide know that their suffering has been acknowledged and taken seriously by the international community.' So far, only Rep. Tom Lantos, D- San Mateo, the leading Democrat on the House International Relations Committee and founder of the congressional Human Rights Caucus, has endorsed the resolution. But it has garnered strong support from Cambodian groups in the United States, who say the tribunal will give them a long-awaited sense of justice. "The Cambodian people have been traumatized,' said Mabbeskal Man, president of the World Cambodian Congress for Progress and Democracy, a lobbying group based in New York. Man, a Cambodian who lived through the Khmer Rouge regime, said his parents and nine brothers and sisters were killed during the genocide. "We deserve justice, just like everybody else,' Man said. A tribunal "would make the Cambodian people gain back their trust. If you let the Cambodian people alone to deal with this problem, I fear they cannot do it. They are powerless.' But several roadblocks stand in the way of establishing a tribunal, including getting full cooperation from the Cambodian government. Another problem could be getting cooperation from Congress. "It's hard to get the attention of my fellow members,' Rohrabacher acknowledged. But he said that if he can get their attention, he expects many to support it. The federal costs to fund the tribunal would be "reasonable,' Rohrabacher said. "We're not talking about something that will cost tens of millions of dollars.' But, Rohrabacher said, if for some reason the tribunal is not established before the Khmer Rouge leaders die, many of whom are already in their 70s, "they will burn in Hell and get their just rewards there.' Long Beach is home to one of the nation's largest Cambodian communities. According to the 2000 Census, more than 70,000 Cambodians live in California. Of those, about 17,000 live in Long Beach. [ Support US Legislation on Cambodia Genocide Trials  Read the House Concurrent Resolution 399 (March 25, 2004) Urging the President to provide encouragement and support for the ratification, establishment, and financing of a tribunal for the prosecution of surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime. ]

www.state.gov 8 Apr 2004 Press Statement Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman Washington, DC April 8, 2004 International Roma Day April 8th marks International Roma Day. The United States takes this opportunity to call attention to call for respect for the human rights of Roma. Roma are the largest minority in Europe, where they often face violence, police brutality and systematic discrimination in education, employment, and housing, particularly in post-communist countries. The United States views the persecution of Roma as a continuing problem and is committed to protecting and promoting their human rights. We have a monitoring and advocacy role through intergovernmental organizations and NGOs that work to improve the human rights of Romani minorities across Europe. The United States calls on all governments to put an end to the human rights abuses faced by the Romani minorities within their borders. We encourage all those who value democratic principles to stand up against all forms of intolerance and hatred towards minorities, including Roma, and to work to create tolerant and pluralistic societies. 2004/384 [End]

NYT 10 Apr 2004 When U.S. Aided Insurgents, Did It Breed Future Terrorists? By HUGH EAKIN In the varied explanations for the 9/11 attacks and the rise in terrorism, two themes keep recurring. One is that Islamic culture itself is to blame, leading to a clash of civilizations, or, as more nuanced versions have it, a struggle between secular-minded and fundamentalist Muslims that has resulted in extremist violence against the West. The second is that terrorism is a feature of the post-cold-war landscape, belonging to an era in which international relations are no longer defined by the titanic confrontation between two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. But in the eyes of Mahmood Mamdani, a Uganda-born political scientist and cultural anthropologist at Columbia University, both those assumptions are wrong. Not only does he argue that terrorism does not necessarily have anything to do with Islamic culture; he also insists that the spread of terror as a tactic is largely an outgrowth of American cold war foreign policy. After Vietnam, he argues, the American government shifted from a strategy of direct intervention in the fight against global Communism to one of supporting new forms of low-level insurgency by private armed groups. "In practice," Mr. Mamdani has written, "it translated into a United States decision to harness, or even to cultivate, terrorism in the struggle against regimes it considered pro-Soviet." The real culprit of 9/11, in other words, is not Islam but rather non-state violence in general, during the final stages of the stand-off with the Soviet Union. Using third and fourth parties, the C.I.A. supported terrorist and proto-terrorist movements in Indochina, Latin America, Africa and, of course, Afghanistan, he argues in his new book, "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror" (Pantheon). "The real damage the C.I.A. did was not the providing of arms and money," he writes, " but the privatization of information about how to produce and spread violence — the formation of private militias — capable of creating terror." The best-known C.I.A.-trained terrorist, he notes dryly, is Osama bin Laden. Other recent accounts have examined the ways in which American support for the mujahedeen in the 1980's helped pave the way for Islamic terrorism in the 90's. But Mr. Mamdani posits a new — and far more controversial — thesis by connecting the violent strain of Islam to a broader American strategy. "Mahmood's argument is that terrorism is a defining characteristic of the last phase of the cold war," said Robert Meister, a political scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who has followed Mr. Mamdani's work for three decades. He added, "It was a characteristic that took on, especially in Africa, a logic of its own, a logic that eventually broke free of the geopolitics that started it." In a telephone interview from Kampala, Uganda, where he has a second home, Mr. Mamdani explained, "What I have in mind is the policy of proxy war." As his book recounts, the African continent became a major front in the cold war after the rapid decolonization of the 1960's and 70's gave rise to a number of nationalist movements influenced by Marxist-Leninist principles. For the United States, caught in the wave of antiwar feeling set off by Vietnam, the only way to roll back this process was to give indirect support to violent new right-wing groups. Mr. Mamdani asserts, for example, that the United States policy of constructive engagement with apartheid in South Africa helped sustain two proto-terrorist organizations — Unita, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, and Renamo, the Mozambican National Resistance — that were armed and trained by the South African Defense Force. Renamo became what Mr. Mamdani calls Africa's "first genuine terrorist movement," a privatized outfit that unleashed random violence against civilians without any serious pretension to national power. In the 1980's, Mr. Mamdani argues, the American use of proxy forces became increasingly overt. "What had begun as a very pragmatic policy under Kissinger was ideologized by the Reagan administration in highly religious terms, as a fight to the finish against the `Evil Empire,' " Mr. Mamdani said. Drawing on the same strategy used in Africa, the United States supported the Contras in Nicaragua and then created, on a grand scale, a pan-Islamic front to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Whereas other Islamic movements, like the Iranian revolution, had clear nationalist aims, the Afghan jihad, Mr. Mamdani suggests, was created by the United States as a privatized and ideologically stateless resistance force. A result, he writes, was "the formation of an international cadre of uprooted individuals who broke ties with family and country of origin to join clandestine networks with a clearly defined enemy." According to Mr. Mamdani, the strategy of proxy warfare continued even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as the United States looked for new ways to sponsor low-intensity conflicts against militantly nationalist regimes. In a final section on the current conflict in Iraq, the book suggests that it, much more than the end of the cold war in 1989, closed the "era of proxy warfare" in American foreign policy. Scholars familiar with the book say that Mr. Mamdani's account of the late cold war, and its emphasis on Africa in particular, is likely to be disdained by specialists on Islam, some of whom are criticized by name in the opening chapter. "The book is most original in the skewer it puts through what Mamdani calls the `culture talk' that has substituted for serious explanations of political Islam," said Timothy Mitchell, a political scientist at New York University. "Scholar-pundits like Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami tell us that the culture of Muslims or Arabs cannot cope with modernity. Mamdani shows us that the origins of political Islam are themselves modern, and, in fact, largely secular." But John L. Esposito, a Georgetown University expert on political Islam, warns that an attempt to explain Islamic terrorism through international politics alone risks the same flaw as the cultural approach. "To say it's simply politics, without taking into account religion, misses the causes behind a lot of these conflicts, just as the reverse misses them," he said. "It's religion and politics together." Mr. Mamdani's unusual perspective is partly a result of his own experience in Africa. A third-generation East African of Indian descent, Mr. Mamdani, 57, grew up in the final years of colonial Uganda. "Idi Amin was my first experience of terror, and I understood how a demagogue could ride a wave of popular resentment," Mr. Mamdani said, recalling how he and other Asians were expelled in 1972. After completing a Ph.D. at Harvard in 1974, he took a faculty position at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, at the time a hotbed of radical African politics. Among his colleagues were the future Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, as well as Laurent Kabila, the future president of Congo, and Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, leader of one of the revolutionary factions against Kabila. Mr. Mamdani returned to Uganda during the civil war that ousted Amin and took a deanship at the national university in Kampala, where he became a leading expert on agrarian administration and its relation to post-colonial unrest. Often outspoken against the Ugandan government, he was exiled a second time in 1985, during another civil war. In the late 1980's, he led a Ugandan commission on local government; later he taught at the University of Cape Town in South Africa during the tumultuous early years after apartheid. His previous book, "When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism and the Genocide in Rwanda," sought to overturn the view that those atrocities had deep tribal roots. Much of the Hutu-Tutsi ethnic rivalry, he argued, could be traced to the colonial period. (The Belgians had introduced and enforced Hutu and Tutsi racial identities in a segregated social system.) Mr. Mamdani, who now directs Columbia's Institute for African Studies, lives in New York and Kampala with his wife, the Indian filmmaker Mira Nair, and their son. To understand political Islam, Mr. Mamdani says Africa's experience is instructive. "Africa is seen as exceptional, as not even part of the rest of the world," he said. "But on the contrary, it's an illuminating vantage point."

NYT 17 Apr 2004 Spotlight on Iraq, Genocide in Africa To the Editor: Re "Cruel Choices," by Nicholas D. Kristof (column, April 14): Unless we enter into the situation in Sudan, our administration is a hypocritical one. Our goals in Iraq currently lie in restoring democracy. How can we be so focused on toppling a nation, hostile to us even today, that was relatively stable under its totalitarian regime when there is another nation practicing genocide? In Sudan, there are the same practices of ethnic cleansing as there were in Rwanda in the early 1990's. Bill Clinton maintains that not entering into the Rwandan conflict earlier was one of the biggest mistakes of his presidency. Should President Bush not take the advice of his predecessor and make a stand to stop the genocide in Sudan? More important, under United Nations rulings, we cannot allow genocide to occur in any nation. The United States, if it wants to maintain any credibility, must take a strong stand in favor of sending peacekeeping forces to Sudan. If not, we admit that we are a nation that acts only for the benefit of itself. ALEXANDRA JOHNSON Brooklyn, April 14, 2004

WP 20 Apr 2004 MARYLAND Slurs Painted on Wall Outside School Vandals spray-painted the words "White Power" and "No Salvadorans" on a wall outside a Catholic school early Sunday, Montgomery County police said. The vandalism occurred near the entrance to St. Camillus School, in the 1500 block of St. Camillus Drive in Silver Spring, between midnight Saturday and 7 a.m. Sunday. No arrests have been made, and the investigation is continuing, police said. '

NYT 22 Apr 2004 Nazis and Jews: Insights From Old Diary By NEIL A. LEWIS ASHINGTON, April 21 - James G. McDonald was an American diplomat who knew every major public figure in the 1930's as Europe and later the rest of the world rushed to war. He was also, it turns out, a dedicated and precise diarist, recording his meetings with Hitler, Mussolini and Roosevelt and detailing his own impressions of Nazi intentions. The previously unpublicized diaries, numbering more than 10,000 pages, are now in the possession of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and will be made public beginning Thursday. They show, for example, that Mr. McDonald believed as early 1933 that the Nazis were considering the mass killing of Europe's Jews. It was a view he apparently shared with President Roosevelt, who seemed deeply concerned and said he wanted to find a way to send a warning message to the German people over the head of Hitler, according to the entries. Severin Hochberg, a historian at the Holocaust Museum, said that the entries showed that Roosevelt was greatly concerned and that "this picture is very different from the claim that he was indifferent to the fate of Jews." The diaries of Mr. McDonald, who served as the high commissioner for refugees for the League of Nations, provide fresh material for what has become a long-simmering debate among historians: Did the Nazis who took power in 1933 have an early intention to annihilate the Jews of Europe? Or was the plan for genocide something that evolved over the years and was impelled by other factors like the German Army's military setbacks in the east? The McDonald diaries also provide accounts of his entreaties to Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, then the Vatican's secretary of state, to help Europe's Jews. Cardinal Pacelli became Pope Pius XII, and his behavior during the Holocaust years has produced its own emotional debate as the Roman Catholic Church considers his eligibility for sainthood. Mr. McDonald, who spoke German fluently and whose mother was German, toured Germany in April 1933 and reported that a friend of his from Harvard said fellow Nazis were planning the elimination of Jews from Germany. He met on April 3 with the friend, Ernst (Putzi) Hanfstängl. Mr. Hanfstängl was part of Hitler's entourage and was, according to his own writings, enthralled with the Nazi leader. Mr. McDonald records that Mr. Hanfstängl "spoke poetically" of the Nazis. He said that when he told Hitler of an international movement to boycott Germany, Hitler "beat his fists and exclaimed, 'Now we shall show them that we are not afraid of international Jewry. The Jews must be crushed.' " Mr. Hanfstängl then spoke of plans to assign a storm trooper to each Jew. Five days later, Mr. McDonald met with Hitler in his office and got a softer view. Hitler said he was not making war on Jews as such, but on Communists and Socialists. Like many who met Hitler in that period, Mr. McDonald noted that he had striking, hypnotic eyes. Weeks after meeting Hitler, Mr. McDonald conferred with Roosevelt in the White House about his views of what was happening in Germany. Richard D. Breitman, a historian of the Holocaust at American University, said in an interview that the McDonald diaries were not conclusive as to when the Nazis decided on the mass killing of the European Jews. "But they remind people that the idea of killing Jews was there at the beginning of the Nazi regime," he said. The Nazi leaders generally did not put their plans in writing, fueling the debate over when their full intentions for the Jews became clear. The diaries also show Cardinal Pacelli as someone who expressed sympathy for the Jews to Mr. McDonald, but was mainly concerned with the church's problems with the German government. After an Aug. 14, 1933, meeting with Cardinal Pacelli, Mr. McDonald wrote to Felix Warburg, a financier and friend, that he was "deeply disappointed in the attitude" of the cardinal. He said that during an hourlong meeting, Cardinal Pacelli was "noncommittal but left me with the definite impression that no vigorous cooperation could be expected from that direction." But in 1935, after similar meetings, Mr. McDonald recorded that he finally got Cardinal Pacelli's attention when he offered him a quid pro quo; in exchange for helping Jewish refugees from the Saar region, Mr. McDonald offered to help the Vatican deal with a left-wing government in Mexico that was hostile to the church. Mr. Hochberg, the museum historian, said it appeared that some Catholics did help Jewish refugees after a referendum in which the Saar voted to join Germany, but that it was unclear if Cardinal Pacelli played any role. Nor is there any evidence, he said, that the Vatican received help in dealing with the Mexican government.

www.armeniansforkerry.com 22 Apr 2004 Statement by Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry In Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide April 22, 2004 "April 24th marks the 89th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian Genocide. Between 1915 and 1923 the rulers of the old Ottoman Empire killed or deported over 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children in a systematic policy of ethnic extermination." "I thank Armenian Americans for their persistence in the struggle to gain international recognition of this atrocity. By keeping the memory of this tragedy alive, Armenian Americans remind us all of our collective responsibility to insure that such horrors are not repeated. I am proud of my work with the Armenian American community to gain broader recognition of the Armenian Genocide, including fighting alongside Senator Robert Dole in 1990 for designation of April 24 as a national day of remembrance for this tragedy." "I have been an unwavering supporter of many other important Armenian issues. In 1992, I authored an amendment to the Freedom Support Act making U.S. aid to Azerbaijan conditional on it taking steps to end its blockades against Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. I supported the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act in 1996 which prohibits U.S. assistance to any country that restricts the delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid to another country. In 2003, I cosponsored legislation to extend "permanent normal trade relations" (PNTR) to Armenia. This January, I joined Senators Barbara Boxer, George Allen, Paul Sarbanes, Russ Feingold, and Jon Corzine in asking the President to urge Turkey to lift its embargo of Armenia." "I join Armenian Americans and Armenians worldwide in mourning the victims of the Armenian Genocide and I call on governments and people everywhere to formally recognize this tragedy. Only by learning from this dark period of history and working to prevent future genocides can we truly honor the memories of those Armenians who suffered so unjustly." www.armeniansforkerry.com

NYT 24 Apr 2004 THE SATURDAY PROFILE A 'Bone Woman' Chronicles the World's Massacres By JANE PERLEZ MELBOURNE, Australia — Clea Koff was present at the big events of the 1990's: Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo. Just out of graduate school, she was not a fledgling diplomat, nor a journalist. She was wearing overalls, protective gloves and boots. Her job was to dig out the aftermath: the decayed bodies, the skeletons and bones, hoping to make sense of the senseless. Most of the time, she was able to keep her composure, even under the most gruesome of circumstances, facing the recent dead. She would concentrate, she said, on the notion that she was helping provide critical evidence for the international trials where the authorities in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia have been charged with crimes against humanity and genocide. That is what it meant to be a forensic anthropologist. "We play a role in establishing what happened in the past," she said of the profession she has practiced at the intersection of history and justice. In Bosnia, she dug up bodies that had their hands tied behind their backs, were blindfolded and then shot multiple times. That evidence was presented in The Hague at the trial of the former leader of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic. "There is lawful killing in armed conflict but not that," she said. "A pathologist was asked at the trial of Milosevic if it was possible for those people to have been killed in combat. He replied: `I think not.' " Ms. Koff has chronicled her experiences unearthing mass graves in a book, "Bone Woman," published by Random House this month to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda that left 800,000 dead. It is a highly personal account written in an engaging I-was-there style. She helps the reader understand the complexities of skeleton structure, the exacting nature of having to bag and tabulate body parts. She gives a sense of the survivors and the guilt and grief they live with. It helps that Ms. Koff, now 31, is an accomplished writer who gave up a major in English at Stanford University for archaeology, and then forensic anthropology. "As we drove into Kigali town, I could not believe I was there," she writes of the Rwandan capital. "You know it is Africa: the air is fresh and then sweet — strongly sweet." Ms. Koff speaks of her work with an irrepressible enthusiasm, and the kind of conviction that she believes she was born to do the job. "The bodies exhibit clues to people's behavior as they approached death," she said over lunch in this Australian city where she took time off to write the book. "They are not telling us about their political beliefs. They're telling us about themselves." What she found on the bodies often raised unanswerable questions. "In some cases people brought deeds to their houses," she said. "People had baptismal cards. Some people had on two sets of clothes. What were they thinking? One man in Vukovar who had been taken from the hospital, had put his chest X-rays in his bathrobe. What did he expect?" She was 23 when she got a call, in 1996, asking her to join a team of 16 experts who would work for the United Nations on the massacre sites in Rwanda. She knew Africa from her heritage: her mother is Tanzanian, her father American. She had traveled the continent as a child accompanying her parents on their safaris making documentary films. But her experience until that time — an internship at a medical examiner's office in Arizona — was hardly preparation for the scale of Rwanda's carnage. After the United Nations missions, she decided to write a book in order to show Western readers that people in faraway places "don't do these things just because they can't control their primordial instincts." "Something like Rwanda, because it didn't happen with weapons of mass destruction but with machetes, doesn't mean it happened without a policy," she said. The massacres were not driven solely by an ethnic hatred of one group, the majority Hutu, against the minority Tutsi, she said. "If people had refused to kill because it didn't sound right, if there were not the material bribes — I feel there were enough people to allow a genocide not to take place." Many Rwandans joined in the mass killings because they were exploited, she said. At the same time, she said, "There were definitely people who killed wantonly." Born in Britain, Ms. Koff spent her primary school years in London, and then moved to the United States — Washington and then Los Angeles. She seems more American than English, though at times she slips into a British accent. In the last 18 months, she has split her time between Melbourne and Los Angeles, and plans to return to the United States full time, she said. Her real education came during her childhood traveling. Her father, David Koff, and her mother, Musindo Mwinyipembe, believed that taking their two children to the gritty reaches of Africa was the best preparation for life. Her memories of Somalia include playing on the beach at Mogadishu with Somali children. At the same time, she came across expatriates who lived in Mogadishu behind high walls studded with cut glass to keep out local people. She reports in her book that she sometimes felt the United Nations forensic missions were similarly isolated from the communities they were working within. Ms. Koff seems to inherit much of her drive from her father, whose work focused on the poor. In 1980, Mr. Koff fought the Boston public television station, WGBH, when executives there were unhappy with "Blacks Britannica," a documentary they had commissioned him to make on race in Britain. After WGBH made cuts that altered the film's militant message, Mr. Koff went to court, seeking an order barring the station from broadcasting the edited version. He lost. But the episode left an indelible impression on his daughter, who was left in Britain at school while her parents fought the case in America. "I was 6 or 7 years old," she recalled. "We didn't understand the ins and outs, but understood something was going on." Her next mission? A change. Ms. Koff plans to start a private agency in the United States that will help families with missing family members. She plans to act as a go-between for the families with the coroner's offices and the F.B.I. "There are 5,000 long-term unidentified adult bodies in California," she said. "Three thousand to 3,500 adults go missing in suspicious circumstances in California every year. It is often very difficult for the families to get cooperation from the police and medical examiners." The new work will keep her involved with her first love: bones. "I have an innate excitement about bones," she said. "They speak to me." She quotes her mentor, Clyde Snow, a pioneer in the field of forensic anthropology. "He said, `Bones don't lie.' I like that."

UPI 26 Apr 2004 White supremacist Hale convicted Chicago, IL, Apr. 26 (UPI) -- A Chicago jury Monday convicted white supremacist Matt Hale of soliciting the murder of a federal judge and three counts of obstruction of justice. He could be sentenced to a maximum 60 years in prison. Hale, 32, was found guilty of soliciting the killing of U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow after she ruled an Oregon group called the TE-TA-MA Truth Foundation-Family of URL Inc. held the trademark to the name World Church of the Creator. He was convicted on four of five counts against him. Jailed without bond since his arrest in January 2003, Hale was convicted largely on evidence in audiotapes secretly recorded by his bodyguard, an FBI informant. Renamed The Creativity Movement, the former East Peoria, Ill., hate group was best known for the 1999 Fourth of July weekend shooting spree by follower Benjamin Smith that killed two people and wounded nine. Smith committed suicide. Family members of former Northwestern University men's basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong, one of Smith's victims, were in the Dirksen Federal Building courtroom when the verdict was read, WLS-TV said.

www.state.gov 27 Apr 2004 (The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov.) Eternal Vigilance is Cost of Preventing Future Rwandas United States Department of State (Washington, DC) NEWS April 26, 2004 Posted to the web April 27, 2004 By Bruce Greenberg Washington, DC Panelists cite similarities between Rwanda, Sudan to Congress Two weeks after the world came together in Kigali, Rwanda, to observe the 10th anniversary of the genocide that tore Rwanda apart in April 1994, a congressional committee was told that the tragedy could have been prevented if the international community had acted on the advance warning it received by sending an unequivocal warning to the Rwandan government that violence would not be tolerated. According to Louise Mushikiwabo, a young Tutsi woman now living in the United States, who lost her mother, brother, sister-in-law, niece and two nephews to rampaging Hutu militias, those who planned the genocide were intelligent and world-savvy and would have taken heed of the international community's words, even if action was not immediately forthcoming. Mushikiwabo, who is international coordinator of Remembering Rwanda, a worldwide movement to sustain both the memory and the lessons of the Rwandan genocide, joined humanitarian activists Alison Des Forges of the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch and Samantha Power of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in testifying at an April 22 hearing of the House Subcommittee on Africa. Chairman Edward R. Royce (Republican of California) opened the hearing on the Rwandan genocide and possible lessons learned by stating: "The pressing issue today is whether the world is better prepared to respond to genocidal killing in Africa, or elsewhere. Ten years ago, the system failed miserably in responding to the decimation of the Rwandan people." Samantha Power voiced her fear that "in 10 years we'll be sitting on a similar panel discussing Sudan's genocide" and drew parallels between the international and U.S. responses to what happened in Rwanda 10 years ago and what is happening now in response to the atrocities being committed in Sudan. "The U.S. response then and now was not forthcoming," according to Power. "With regard to Rwanda, the U.S. was recovering from a failed mission in Somalia; today we are being distracted by the war on terrorism. ... We [the United States] just don't want to do what is required to suppress atrocities. "In the case of Sudan," she said, "the U.S. is reluctant to jeopardize a peace settlement by directly intervening in the Darfur region [where ethnic cleansing of black African Christians and animists is being waged by Muslim militias], just as we didn't destroy the Rwandan hate radio stations [that were calling for Tutsi deaths] because of fears of violating so-called national sovereignty." Today, Power insisted, we can prevent Sudan from turning into another Rwanda by marshalling the international community into action: The United Nations needs to deploy its crisis intervention forces rather than mere fact-finders, and the International War Crimes Tribunal must examine now what is happening in Darfur. The U.S. Congress, she declared, can be a major contributor by holding public hearings, allocating funding for U.N. peacekeeping and influencing the foreign affairs community to focus on this issue. That such actions put pressure on Khartoum was evident earlier this month, she said, when the Sudanese government announced a humanitarian cease-fire within 24 hours of President Bush's denunciation of the government's support of the militias in Darfur. For Alison Des Forges, the Rwandan genocide was more than an "eruption of enormous violence." It was a crime that sprang from an internal history of ethnic disparity, inequality and jealousy in which the Hutu majority finally reacted to its years as victims of subjugation and discrimination by the ruling Tutsi minority. According to Des Forges, the United States and the international community share responsibility for failing to prevent the bloodbath, principally in not silencing the hate radio in Kigali, which gave the Hutu government a tacit green light to continue the genocide campaign. Even though national and international leaders have acknowledged their shame at having failed to stop the slaughter, Des Forges said, it is time to "renew our commitment to halting future genocides. ... We must stop genocides before they become such. "We must react promptly and firmly to preparations for the mass slaughter of civilians. We must be prepared to silence these media if that will forestall or prevent the deaths of innocents through incitement of the population at large. We can impose arms embargoes and other forms of restrictive containment on genocidal governments. And, lastly, we should be prepared to intervene with armed force. In Rwanda, intervention would have required greater force than was initially deployed, and would have saved more lives. And intervention at any point ultimately limits the number killed." For these witnesses, the effects of the Rwandan genocide are present today in the form of guilt, retribution and the need for justice and closure. Of great concern is the current lack of AIDS anti-viral medications to treat those women who were raped during the genocide. Mushikiwabo stated that the Rwandan government today simply does not have such resources. "What is outrageous," she said, "is that detainees suspected of perpetrating these monstrous atrocities 10 years ago have access to the latest retroviral treatments, while their surviving rape victims are getting very little medical attention. This is a question of fairness and urgency. These women need our help, and I urge this congressional panel to send the proper signal at this time."

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Asia-Pacific

Cambodia

AFP 2 Apr 2004 Khmer Rouge leader absolves himself of blame in genocide By Pascale Trouillaud , AFP PHNOM PENH—In the first book written by a former Khmer Rouge leader on the regime’s brutal 1970s reign, Khieu Samphan styles himself as an intellectual and a patriot who knew nothing of the genocide being wrought. The memoirs are a preemptive strike by the 72-year-old former head of state of Democratic Kampuchea, who is likely to face an international tribunal which the United Nations and Cambodia are to establish as soon as early next year. In “Cambodia’s Recent History and My Stance,” released recently in France and Cambodia where copies are in great demand, Khieu Samphan claims his every move during that tragic era was made reluctantly. Fearing for his life after being sacked as secretary of state for commerce in 1967, he fled for the countryside and the protection of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, even though the movement “did not fit with my training and life choices as an intellectual and a parliamentarian.” Nevertheless, in 1976 he became head of state, a post he accepted “with a heavy heart,” but feeling compelled to help protect his country against Vietnam, which was believed to have expansionist ambitions that obsessed the regime. In claims that are certain to hold little sway with the judges presiding over the tribunal, he insists he saw nothing of the execution, torture, starvation and overwork, which led to the deaths of nearly two million people. Historians who have pored over one of the worst genocides of the 20th century dismiss that claim, even though the extent of the power that he held within the leadership of the shadowy movement remains unclear. From 1975 to 1978, “I spent my life confined to the annex of the Khmer Rouge leaders’ headquarters,” Khieu Samphan says, adding he remained “outside the core leadership” and “ignorant of what was really happening in the country.” He boasts of witnessing achievements like irrigation projects and massive rice paddy plant­ings, but was apparently blithely unaware of the regime’s violent internal purges and ghastly campaigns against its own people. “My role as president . . . was largely honorary and in practice I really assumed the role of an office clerk,” he writes, in one of many attempts to distance himself from blame. “The best known names, our names, are precisely the names of the people who have played no role in the top of the movement and consequently no role in its decisions,” he says of himself and others likely to face trial. A former top associate of Khmer rouge supremo Pol Pot, he now lives freely in the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin in Cambodia’s northwest, describes himself as a man of conscience who was torn by unfolding events. Chief among them was the fall of Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, when the Khmer Rouge marched into the city to the amazement of its citizens. He says that excitement gave way to shock as the population was forced into the countryside. Khieu Samphan claims he was powerless to do anything about that disastrous move, or the collectivization of the nation and the withdrawal of currency to take Cambodia back to “year zero,” but kept his regret and despair to himself. “By the time the true extent of the crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime started to become known I couldn’t really believe that they had been carried out on such a massive scale,” he says in the French-language book. “Until very recently it has been hard for me to acknowledge the atrociously brutal nature of the regime,” he writes, adding this only happened when he saw a seminal film on the era released last year by French-Cambodian Rithy Panh. To the many who lost loved ones, Khieu Samphan “asks them to forgive me for my naivety.” “Perhaps it was this naivety which pushed me to trust in Pol Pot, and to comply with the general discipline,” he says. The memoirs gloss over the facts and add little to the known history of the Khmer Rouge regime, but Khieu Samphan belatedly admits to some of the excesses of the organization and hints as to why they were perpetrated. “[There was] paranoia not only over the communist Vietnamese but also everything foreign, and the confusion between the proletariat dictatorship and personal dictatorship,” he says. Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia which is compiling evidence on the genocide, dismisses the protestations of innocence from Khieu Samphan and other Khmer Rouge leaders. “We should not be fooled by his strategy, he qualifies as a suspect and is trying to manipulate the thinking of the victims,” he says, challenging the ageing cadre to prove his claims in court.

China

BBC 30 Mar 2004 China detains Tiananmen mothers The women's children were killed in the suppression of the protests By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes BBC, Beijing Chinese security agents have detained the mothers of three students killed during the Tiananmen demonstrations 15 years ago. The three are all prominent members of the Tiananmen Mothers' Organisation. They are seeking justice for the students gunned down when government soldiers broke up pro-democracy protests on 4 June 1989. So far the Chinese government has given no explanation for the women's detention. Of the three women detained, the best known is Ding Zilin. The 67-year-old retired professor is the head of the Tiananmen Mothers' Organisation. She set it up after her 17-year-old son was shot dead on the night of 4 June 1989, while taking part in the mass democracy demonstrations. Ding was detained on Sunday morning in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi. The other two, Zhang Xianling and Huang Jinping, were taken from their homes in Beijing on the same day. Why they have been detained remains unclear. A US-based human rights group says the women recently made a video that is due to be presented to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. But Ding Zilin's husband says he believes she has been detained because the Chinese government fears her group is planning activities to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen democracy demonstrations, which began on 15 April 1989. [ Tiananmen Mothers Campaign www.fillthesquare.org ]

www.chinaview.cn 30 Mar 2004 Progress in China's Human Rights Cause in 2003 (Full Text) BEIJING, March 30 (Xinhuanet) -- The Information Office of the State Council on Tuesday issued a white paper titled "Progress in China's Human Rights Cause in 2003." The following is the full text of the document: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-03/30/content_1392191.htm

AP 30 Mar 2004 China Defends Human Rights Record By JOE McDONALD BEIJING (AP)--China defended its human rights record Tuesday in a report that cited rising living standards and legal reforms, even as activists announced that three women who lost relatives in the 1989 attack on pro-democracy protesters had been detained. The 40-page report, issued amid American efforts to seek a U.N. resolution criticizing Beijing, acknowledged the communist government has ``much room for improvement'' in human rights. But it said 2003 was a year of ``landmark significance for progress.'' It cited legal reforms to protect crime suspects and migrant workers. The report is part of a flurry of recent official efforts to blunt foreign criticism and improve the image abroad of China's human rights record. Chinese leaders often define human rights to include rights to food and housing. They reject criticism of their suppression of religious, human rights and pro-democracy activists. Last week, China suspended dialogue on human rights with the United States after Washington said it would seek a resolution from the U.N. Human Rights Commission criticizing Beijing. U.S. officials say Beijing has failed to keep promises made during a dialogue in 2002 about religious freedom and other issues. ``The Chinese government gives top priority to the people's life and health and basic human rights,'' the report said. Nevertheless, it added, ``there is still much room for improvement.'' Its release coincided with an announcement that three members of the Tiananmen Mothers group have been detained and accused of conspiring with foreign forces to harm China's national security. The group represents relatives of people killed in the June 4, 1989, crackdown on the protests centered on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Ding Zilin, Zhang Xianling and Huang Jinping were picked up Sunday at their homes, the New York-based group Human Rights in China said, citing unidentified sources. It said agents seized letters and T-shirts made to mark the 15th anniversary of the deaths. Zhang's husband was told the Tiananmen Mothers was a ``reactionary group,'' Human Rights in China said. It said the status of Zhang's arrest warrant suggested authorities ``intend to hand down summary sentences.'' Police in Wuxi, the eastern city where Ding lives, and Beijing, home to the other two women, said they didn't have any information on their cases. Ding's and Zhang's sons were among hundreds and possibly thousands of people killed when Chinese soldiers attacked the protesters, while Huang lost her husband. Communist authorities have declared the nonviolent protests an anti-government riot and suppress efforts to commemorate the deaths or gather information about the crackdown. Ding, a retired university professor, has been the leading spokeswoman for activists who want the Chinese government to reverse its verdict and reconcile with families of the dead. The government has rejected such appeals, despite promises by President Hu Jintao, who took office last March, to make the closed, one-party system more responsive to the public. At its annual session in mid-March, China's national legislature amended the constitution to declare that it ``respects and preserves human rights.'' The amendment gives no definition and doesn't say how it will affect government actions.

BBC 31 Mar 2004 US demands China release three Tiananmen relatives WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday demanded China release three relatives of victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown who were recently arrested. Chinese security agents on Sunday detained Ding Zilin, Zhang Xianling and Huang Jinping, all members of the "Tiananmen Mothers" campaign, which has lobbied the government to re-assess the crackdown. "We urge the immediate release of the three relatives of victims of the crackdown of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests who were recently detained in Beijing," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters. "The detention of the three women, who are members of the Tiananmen Mothers Campaign, as well as the Chinese Government's refusal to reassess the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests and the continuing imprisonment of political and religious prisoners who have spoken out for their civic rights and religious freedoms, calls into question China's claim that its human rights record is improving," he added. The arrests came two weeks before the anniversary of the death of former Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang on April 15, 1989, which sparked nearly two months of student-led protests centered on Tiananmen Square. News of the detentions emerged on Tuesday, the same day China released a report saying its human rights conditions had greatly improved in 2003, a move to deflect a U.S.-proposed censure in the United Nations.

UPI 2 Apr 2004 China releases Tiananmen mothers BEIJING, April 2 (UPI) -- China has released three women arrested for seeking justice at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights for victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. The three were members of the Tiananmen Mothers Organization. They were reportedly arrested when security forces learned a videotape of their testimony concerning the 1989 army crackdown on pro-democracy activists was to be shown to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. Ding Zilin, the 67-year-old founder of the Tienanmen Mothers Organization who lost her 17-year-old son in the crackdown, was released Friday evening in her hometown of Wuxi, where she had been arrested while visiting family graves, Ming Pao online reported. Ding now lives in Beijing. The other two women were Huang Jinping, who lost her husband during the crackdown, and Zhang Xianling, who lost her 19-year-old son. Both had been detained Sunday in Beijing. The three were reportedly subjected to police "education about their illegal activities." The United States is submitting a resolution to the U.N. commission censuring China for its human rights record.

India

BBC 3 Apr 2004 Unique tribe on edge of extinction By Adam Mynott On a small group of islands near the coast of Burma, the days of a unique tribal people are numbered. Settlers are moving into their patches of virgin forest and threatening to drive them out of existence. Settlers on the Andaman Islands have increased over the years Enmay belongs to the Jarawa tribe. It is not known exactly how old he is, but he is thought to be about 15 or 16. He is one of only about 250 of his kind left on the planet. His tiny tribe stands on the brink of extinction. The Jarawa cling to their precarious existence on the Andaman Islands - a group of tiny, forested lumps of volcanic rock poking out of the Bay of Bengal. A geographical anomaly, the Andaman Islands sit just off the coast of Burma, but they belong to India, 900 miles away. My flight to the capital Port Blair from Madras took more than two hours across the Indian Ocean. Protected The Jarawa live much as they did thousands of years ago in the stone age Four years ago, Enmay was nearly killed in an accident on the Andaman Trunk Road (ATR) - a highway that runs across Middle Andaman Island, cutting through the reserved land of the Jarawas. There is supposed to be no contact between Jarawa people and the so-called civilised settlers that have moved onto the Andamans in increasing numbers for the past 300 years. They are now legally protected. But there is the road built by the Indian Government - vital, it says, for defence purposes. The Jarawa have learnt that if they stand on the road, vehicles will either stop or biscuits and other food will be thrown out for them. It is easier than hunting. Vehicles, of course, are not supposed to stop. The ATR has been closed to normal traffic. Now any vehicle passing through the tribal territory travels in a convoy with a military jeep at the head and tail to ensure there is no contact with the Jarawa, but, of course, it happens. Enmay lacks road sense. He was hit by a passing truck and was lucky to have suffered only a broken leg. Isolated purity The Andaman Islands are part of India The Jarawa live much as they did thousands of years ago in the stone age. They are one of only six tribes on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. There were 12 at one point. Civilisation has destroyed the other six. One of the tribes, the Andamanese, are down to just 31 members, of which it is thought only 17 are ethnically pure. There have been attempts to understand them and study their way of life, but such research has been restricted by the need to preserve their isolated purity. Quite apart from any damaging cultural and sociological effect that we in the outside world might have on the tribal people, we also carry diseases that would quickly wipe them out. Measles ripped like a plague through the Jarawa in 1997. Terrified After he was hurt in the accident Enmay was taken to hospital in Port Blair. Enmay was frightened of a tap - that strange metal object on the wall which when twisted magically produced water He was frightened, but became increasingly curious about his new surroundings. I have not met Enmay - nor made any attempt to do so. He is back in the forest now, but an anthropologist and environmental activist in Port Blair, Samir Acharaya told me of Enmay's encounter with the strange new world he entered. It is hard to grasp how unsettling it was for this terrified teenager from another world. Enmay didn't like living inside. Samir said he was frightened of a tap - that strange metal object on the wall which when twisted magically produced water, and of the television in the corner of the hospital ward. But his accident and convalescence gave the most revealing insight yet into the Jarawa life. Enmay picked up some Hindi and talked about his life. The effect on the tribal people of settlement has been devastating. Logging has deprived them of vast areas of the forests that sustained them. Remarkable knowledge Enmay spoke of one of the many ways their lives have been blighted by so-called civilisation. For a young Jarawa to become a man he must track and kill a wild boar. Until he has performed this ritual task he will not be considered a man and not be eligible to marry. The settlement of the Andamans by outsiders, the clearing of huge areas of forest and hunting have critically reduced the numbers of wild boar. So now young Jarawa men struggle to find the quarry that they need to pass from childhood to adulthood. After his treatment Enmay chose to return to the forest. He said he liked the civilised world, but he preferred his own way of life. As he was waiting on the fringe of the forest to rejoin his people, he was interviewed briefly by a botanist. Samir Acharya told me Enmay revealed an unbelievable knowledge of the plants around him. He pointed out dozens saying what they could be used for; to treat cuts, bruises and insect bites, what time of day they should be picked and how they should be prepared. This remarkable know-how, which we in the developed world never had or lost generations ago, appears destined to disappear along with the tribal people of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Reuters 4 April 2004 Indian Muslims inch towards BJP before poll BOMBAY - Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, and Muslims in India don’t vote for the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. That, at least, was the political orthodoxy until now. In its campaign for this month’s Indian elections, the BJP has put aside its Hindu revivalist rhetoric and is making a determined effort to reach out for the political middle ground and cement alliances with moderate, secular parties. Most of India’s 120 million Muslims are still deeply mistrustful of a party associated with the destruction of a 16th century mosque in the northern city of Ayodhya in 1992 and the controversial campaign to build a Hindu temple on the site. But some, it seems, are beginning to think the unthinkable. “The BJP has brought prosperity to India in just five years and it will do the same for us too,” said Mohammed Mehfooz, hunched over a sewing machine late at night in a tiny one-room house in Bombay, India’s money and movie capital. “We have realised the BJP is not such an evil party after all. We should put the past behind us and vote for them.” The BJP has made an improvement in relations with India’s Muslim neighbour Pakistan a major plank of its re-election campaign, and insists it wants religious minorities within India to join it in building a newly confident Indian nation. It is an argument, which has won a few adherents but also meets considerable scepticism from critics who say the party retains a deep-seated bias against Muslims. “The majority of Indian Muslims are still anti-BJP,” said Zafarul-Islam Khan, New Delhi-based editor of the Milli Gazette, a fortnightly Muslim newspaper. “But only about 10 percent have been deceived by the doublespeak and propaganda blitz of the BJP. They want to buy peace with the bully,” Khan said. For decades, Muslims in India voted for the Congress, a party, which made secularism a central principle of Indian politics. But Muslims began drifting away from Congress more than a decade ago. Feeling disillusioned and taken for granted, many voted for smaller, regionally based parties. A few, like Bombay cloth merchant Bablu Sheikh, are now campaigning for the BJP. “We voted for the Congress for 50 years but they did nothing for us,” he said. “Muslims are the most backward community in India -- illiterate, jobless and poor.” “Never forget Gujarat massacres” Two years ago, the BJP state government in Gujarat was accused of complicity in the massacre of hundreds of Muslims in revenge for the torching of a train carrying Hindu pilgrims by suspected Muslim extremists. The BJP denies it was involved in the Gujarat carnage. But Hanif Lakdawala, leading Muslim activist in the state, says Gujarat’s Muslims will never join the BJP, and “can never forget the massacres and brutality of 2002”. In other parts of the country a small number of Muslims do seem prepared to forgive and forget. Two weeks ago, a group of Muslims in Delhi formed the ”Vajpayee Support Committee” to campaign for BJP Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. In Bombay, more than 5,000 Muslims pledged their support for the BJP at a rally in a Muslim-dominated part of town, while hundreds in Bangalore are preparing to campaign for the party. The BJP likes to trumpet its Muslim members, like former federal minister Arif Mohammad Khan who joined this year, even if critics denounce Khan as a political opportunist. Strong economic growth may have convinced some Muslims to put the past behind them, while the BJP’s efforts to make peace with Pakistan has made them feel less insecure. A resumption of cricketing ties has added to the good cheer. Other Muslims may simply want to be on the side of a party expected to coast to victory in the April-May polls. “In keeping with typical minority behaviour everywhere in the world, Muslims in India look to the possible winner because they don’t want to be isolated or on the wrong side,” said Muslim writer and scholar Rafiq Zakaria. “Ultimately, all that minorities want are safety and security."

expressindia.com 28 Apr 2004 Visnagar massacre: Three accused held Express News Service Ahmedabad, April 28: Three persons, allegedly involved in a post-Godhra massacre at Dipda Darwaja in Visnagar town of Mehsana, were arrested from a hotel in Umargam GIDC near Valsad on Wednesday morning. Accused Vipul Patel, Dhiru Patel and Bipin Patel have been absconding since the Supreme Court cancelled their bail a few months ago. Arrested by officials of the Valsad police (Local Crime Branch), the trio will be transferred to Mehsana and lodged at a district jail. Acting on a tip-off, the Valsad police raided room 106 of Hotel Nalanda Palace in Umargam GIDC and found the accused staying there under fake names. During interrogation, they revealed that they had been evading arrest since their bail was cancelled by the apex court for their alleged involvement in the post-Godhra massacre in which 11 persons were killed. Then, the Valsad police asked Mehsana police to check their records, which revealed that arrests warrants had been issued against the trio after they failed to present themselves before a local court following cancellation of bail.

Indonesia

WP 31 Mar 2004 Democracy Seeks A Drill Sergeant Indonesians Let Down by Reforms Throng to Presidential Campaign of Indicted Ex-General By Alan Sipress Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, March 31, 2004; Page A15 BANDUNG, Indonesia When Gen. Wiranto's stump speech ended, the real action began. "We should fall no more!" he exhorted the crowd. "We have fallen enough. Now we have to rise again!" Striking up the band, he launched into an Indonesian pop song: "Rise and Fall." He clasped the microphone in his left hand like a rock star, putting the right one over his heart and then reaching out to thousands of fans in a grassy field. Hundreds pressed forward toward the stage, forming a throbbing mosh pit beside the mountains of amplifiers. They waved their arms over their heads, clapped their hands, cheered their general. This is the Indonesian presidential campaign of the man known only as Wiranto: retired armed forces chief, recording artist, indicted war crimes suspect. Gone is the uniform he wore as Indonesia's military commander -- first under the longtime autocratic president Suharto, who was forced from office by protesters in 1998, and then a year later during the wave of killings in East Timor. Human rights groups say at least 1,000 people were killed in that violence, orchestrated by Indonesian army officers. Now, over his muscular frame, Wiranto dons a yellow windbreaker, in the color of his political party. But he retains the mantle of military discipline at a time when Indonesians increasingly express nostalgia for the strict rule of the past. Wiranto's candidacy has tapped into disillusionment with the country's experiment in democratic reform. Six years after Suharto's ouster, many Indonesians fret that order has given way to lawlessness, ethnic conflict and separatism in outlying islands, and that the rapid economic growth of the 1990s has been stalled by corruption. "The euphoria of freedom over the last few years hasn't brought us any change in our lives except poverty and uncertainty," said Adi, 48, an employee of the provinical government who turned out to applaud the retired general. Despite being indicted for crimes against humanity by a U.N.-supported tribunal in East Timor -- a charge he denies -- Wiranto, 57, has emerged as one of the most visible challengers to President Megawati Sukarnoputri in elections scheduled for July. "After Indonesia underwent its transition to democracy, the expectations for justice, security and prosperity were not fulfilled," Wiranto said in a recent interview in Surabaya. "People demand that their expectations be fulfilled as soon as possible. They're concerned about the dignity of the nation. They need strong leadership." Wiranto does not advocate a return to the one-man rule of the Suharto era. But he said the country's dash toward freedom has outstripped social responsibility. "There is new hope in society that a strong leader emerges from the power of the armed forces," he said. During a campaign swing earlier this month across four islands of the Indonesian archipelago, Wiranto's motorcade of SUVs and black luxury sedans, escorted by police cruisers and private militiamen in Jeeps, sliced through gleaming rice fields and past remote villages. The convoy climbed the lush slopes of Bali's interior, far from the tourist hotels along the beaches, and battled the downtown traffic in the industrial city of Surabaya, where the entourage was joined by dozens of bicycle rickshaws festooned with yellow banners. At rally after rally, he railed against what he described as Indonesia's slide into disorder. "The law has not been enforced. People can buy laws the way they buy secondhand goods in the markets," Wiranto told a crowd of about 5,000 people in Bandung, a provincial capital in the western hills of Java, Indonesia's main island. "Criminals have so much space to move. This is a mad era, a crazy era. We should not be influenced or we will go crazy ourselves. . . . Enough of waiting! Enough of suffering!" Cheers rose from a sea of yellow T-shirts, placards and flags. Yellow is the color of the Golkar party, which Suharto had used to exert political control and award patronage. Wiranto is now looking to win the Golkar presidential nomination at a party convention in mid-April. Defeated by Megawati's party five years ago, Golkar has resuscitated its organization and is now projected by some opinion surveys to be the favorite in April 5 parliamentary elections. But with Golkar's powerful chairman, Akbar Tandjung, also seeking the presidential nod, some Wiranto campaign officials said their candidate may need to find one or more smaller parties to endorse his run. "Indonesia needs Wiranto now more than before," said Made Sukadi, 31, an auto mechanic who was taking part in a rally in the hamlet of Bangli. "Recent governments haven't done anything for us. Wiranto's been tested. He has discipline." When Wiranto arrived in the town, he swapped his motorcade for a royal horse-drawn carriage, claiming his seat with perfect military posture, clad in a purple Balinese sarong with a garland of yellow flowers around his neck. Hundreds of supporters surged forward along the main street past stunning vistas of verdant canyons and a distant volcano. Balinese musicians marched behind, crashing cymbals and pounding drums. People rushed to doorways and onto balconies to gawk and, in some cases, join the chant of "Long live Wiranto!" "Wiranto is the only presidential candidate who has the capability to rule the country," said Ahmad Mamad, 32, a freelance driver at the rally. "With his military background, the country will go in a better direction. It has been proven that the Indonesian people are too stubborn to be led by civilians." Wiranto's supporters say he demonstrated his integrity and commitment to constitutional rule when he helped ease Suharto from power, refusing an offer from the former leader to take control himself. These backers point to Wiranto's role in pushing for reform inside the armed forces after Suharto's resignation. But the general's detractors accuse Wiranto of involvement in a series of atrocities, not only in East Timor but against democracy activists in Jakarta. U.N. prosecutors in East Timor indicted Wiranto in February 2003 for his role in human rights abuses by Indonesian security forces in East Timor following its 1999 vote for independence from Indonesia. Between 1,000 and 2,000 East Timorese were killed in militia violence directed by Indonesian officers, according to U.S., U.N. and other foreign officials. Last week, U.N. prosecutors at the special tribunal urged East Timor to seek an international arrest warrant for Wiranto. During separate proceedings in Jakarta that concluded last year, Indonesian judges acquitted 11 members of the security forces of abuses in East Timor while four others were sentenced to short prison terms, prompting U.S. officials and human rights monitors to call the trials seriously flawed. Wiranto testified but did not face prosecution before the Jakarta tribunal. U.S. government officials said in January that the State Department had placed Wiranto on a watch list of indicted war crimes suspects, effectively barring him from entering the United States. Wiranto said in the interview that the controversy over East Timor would not interfere with his foreign policy duties if he were elected president. "For me, there's no problem because I've offered a very clear explanation about East Timor," he said. He added, "The facts show that my policies were far from those that fit the definition of a 'gross violation of human rights.' " In his book, "Witness in the Storm," released on the eve of the political campaign, Wiranto says that only "some hundred lives" were lost in East Timor and that this was the result of fighting among East Timorese. He says the claim that Indonesian security officers and proxy militias were involved in human rights violations is a "pseudo reality" concocted by foreign journalists. "Ironically, instead of receiving praise for the sacrifice they made, [Indonesian soldiers] now face trials in their own country due to pressure from other powers over allegations of actions which were impossible for them to commit and were never committed," he writes. For Sumiati, 22, a grocery clerk who crowded into the rally at a Surabaya sports stadium, what matters is Wiranto's military rigor and record as a nationalist. What about the human rights charges? "That's what other countries say," she said after Wiranto had finished singing. "Why should we care? If we just listen to other people, we can't get anywhere." Special correspondent Natasha Tampubolon contributed to this report.

Xinhua 1 Apr 2004 Human rights abuse in Indonesia to be brought to UN JAKARTA, Apr 1, 2004 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The investigative team for the case of the Indonesia's University of Trisakti will publicize the case internationally by sending representatives to the annual meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Switzerland. "We will report the development of the human rights issue in Indonesia, especially the human rights abuse in the past time," Secretary General for the investigative team for the Trisakti case John Muhammad was quoted Thursday by Kompas online as saying. He said the team will urge the UN human rights commission and the European society to press the Indonesian government to bring the human rights abuse into the court. According to Muhammad, the team has decided to bring the case to the international forum because the government does not have a commitment to solving the case. Four students of the University of Trisakti were shot dead on May 12, 1988, when they staged rally to protest the Suharto dictatorship, which fell that month after mounting protests.

BBC 2 Apr 2004 Bin Laden 'prompted' Bali bombers By Jonathan Kent BBC correspondent in Kuala Lumpur Ba'asyir suggested the confessions had been extracted under torture A self-confessed member of the group behind the Bali and Jakarta bombs has said his leaders received orders from Osama Bin Laden to attack Americans. Mohamed Nasir Abbas told Malaysian TV the edict was distributed by Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir whom he calls the emir of the Jemaah Islamiah group. Ba'asyir, due to leave jail in Indonesia this month, denies leading JI. The interview, taped in an Indonesian prison, is billed as the confessions of four Malaysian members of the group. Abbas said the Bali bombers had acted on a fatwa, or edict, from Bin Laden. It had instructed members of the group to take revenge on Americans for US persecution of Muslims, he said, and had allowed for the killing of civilians, women, children and the elderly. He said that Ba'asyir and Hambali, the alleged mastermind behind the Bali bombing, had distributed the fatwa. The Bali attacks killed 202 people Another interviewee said he had recruited two alleged explosives experts being sought in connection with the Bali and Jakarta bombings and a third said he had helped provide explosives for the Christmas 2000 church attacks in Indonesia. Speaking by phone from his cell, Ba'asyir told journalists he believed the four men had been tortured. Human rights groups in Malaysia say they fear the statements were the result of coercion. The programme appeared to have been carefully staged. One interviewee praised the Malaysian government for helping Muslims in areas of conflict around south-east Asia. All four said they now regretted having been involved in the militant group.

BBC 21 Apr 2004 Tainted general in Indonesia bid Gen Wiranto has promised strong leadership Indonesia's former ruling party Golkar has chosen an alleged war criminal, General Wiranto, to run for president. He has been indicted for war crimes for his role in the crackdown on the independence movement in East Timor, but remains popular across Indonesia. Golkar held power for three decades and is set to be the largest force in parliament after this month's election. But the BBC's Rachel Harvey in Jakarta says there will be a close fight in the first direct presidential poll in July. Hard campaigner Gen Wiranto beat the apparent frontrunner, Akbar Tanjung, for his party's nomination. Mr Tanjung fought a lengthy legal battle which saw him cleared of charges that he embezzled millions of dollars of state aid, and was ahead in the first round of voting. Wiranto will face President Megawati and ex-security chief Susilo But Gen Wiranto, the last military chief during former President Suharto's autocratic rule, came top in a second-round run-off at a marathon meeting of party officials which lasted 14 hours. Our correspondent says the retired general spent much of the past few months travelling round the country drumming up support for his presidential bid, while Mr Tanjung was busy fighting the corruption charges. She says Gen Wiranto's promise of strong leadership and the fact that he comes from outside normal political circles appears to have helped his cause. His next test will come on 5 July, in what is expected to be a hotly contested vote for president - the first time Indonesians have had a direct say in appointing their leader. Megawati Sukarnoputri is fighting to stay in the post but so far polls suggest the front-runner is Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, until recently the security minister. Charges denied Gen Wiranto's past could cause problems with foreign governments should he become president, though political analysts say many Indonesian voters do not seem to care. WIRANTO CHARGES Indicted by prosecutors in East Timor over 1999 violence But Indonesia highly unlikely to hand him over to face trial Few Indonesians believe the allegations against him Wiranto denies any wrongdoing He is accused of crimes against humanity for failing to stop the violence which marked East Timor's transition to independence. He denies the charges, saying he was not in control of the militias fighting to stop the break from Jakarta's rule. He also described the assignment given to the military he headed to quell the unrest as a "mission impossible". He left his cabinet position as security chief after being held responsible for the trouble. Gen Wiranto had been a loyal support of former strongman Suharto and rose rapidly through the ranks to the top positions in the military. After he left the armed forces, he took up a microphone, recording a CD of love songs to raise money for Indonesia's refugees.

AFP 29 Apr 2004 Snipers still sowing fear in Indonesia's Ambon AMBON, Indonesia, April 29 (AFP) - Snipers spread terror Thursday in parts of Indonesia's Ambon but most of the city was calmer after four days of Muslim-Christian fighting which has killed at least 37 people. A young man was shot in the neck in the Tanah Lapang Kecil area near the now-deserted governor's office in mid-morning. An AFP reporter was about two metres away at the time. "I was just walking by a group of youths who were seated in an alley between houses when one of them suddenly fell forward after a shot was heard," the reporter said. Locals rushed the 26-year-old man to Al Fatah hospital where staff said later he had been shot in the neck but was not in critical condition. Several armed Brimob paramilitary police guarding the governor's office made no move to help, a witness said, even though two Brimob troopers were shot and killed by snipers Tuesday. Armed forces chief General Endriartono Sutarto said in Jakarta he had issued orders that snipers be shot on sight. "I have already issued an order to the provincial military commander. If they find them, because they have shot people, they should also shoot them," he said. Apart from the adjacent southern districts of Batugantung, Waringin and Tanah Lapang Kecil, the city was largely quiet after four days of bloodletting and arson attacks. A banned parade by Christian separatists sparked off the bloodshed on Sunday in the eastern city, which is the Maluku provincial capital. The violence was the worst since a pact in February 2002 ended three years of religious battles in which some 5,000 people died. Some 160 people have been injured. Hundreds of homes, and many other buildings including the United Nations mission, were set ablaze. More than 2,000 Muslims and Christians have fled their homes, according to one crisis centre. Those who stayed behind remained confined to their respective sectors of the divided city behind makeshift street barricades. A daughter of President Megawati Sukarnoputri, Puan Maharani, visited Al Fatah hospital on Thursday and pledged to provide medical supplies. Megawati faces a tough re-election challenge in July against two law-and-order candidates and her government has rushed hundreds of extra police and troops to Ambon. "There is only one solution: everyone should realise that what is happening is only hurting all sides," said Sinyo Sarundayang, home affairs ministry director general, who arrived for a week-long fact-finding visit. He said that no matter how many troops and police were deployed, "without the help of the people, peace would be impossible to reach." Some residents said troops and police in some cases may be part of the problem, not the solution. "Whether you want it or not, they (police and military) are siding with their own camps. Christians help Christians and Muslims help Muslims," said a Muslim woman clutching a machete after guard duty in Tanah Lapang Kecil. During the 1999-2002 battles, some police and military units were widely accused of taking sides. Islamic fighters arrived from outside Ambon to fuel the earlier bloodshed, including some from the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror group. Sutarto said members of the Laskar Jihad militia, which sent thousands of fighters to Ambon from 2000 and is threatening to do so again, would not be allowed to return. "We will take steps so that this will not take place," Sutarto said. Acting security minister Hari Sabarno told reporters that "hopefully things will return to normal in coming days." Sabarno, giving a lower death toll than police provided, said 32 people had died. Police have arrested more than 30 separatist supporters and Sabarno said their leaders would be flown to Jakarta for investigation. Officials have portrayed the clashes as between independence supporters and opponents, rather than Christian-Muslim battles. Indonesia's population is 87 percent Muslim but Christians and Muslims live in roughly equal numbers in the Malukus.

www.opendemocracy.net 29 Apr 2004 West Papuans: neither lads nor cannibals, but humans Paul Kingsnorth 29 - 4 - 2004 The western half of New Guinea is seeking to follow East Timor and win independence from rule by Indonesia’s military and global corporations. When media stereotypes add insult to injury, its campaigners find creative ways to protest. Benny Wenda and his wife There are many things you might expect to see in the plate-glass lobby of 189 Shaftesbury Avenue, central London, on a normal day. Cycle couriers, security guards, delivery-men, kitten-heeled media types carrying takeaway cappuccinos back to their desks. For the headquarters of Emap Consumer Media, one of the world’s biggest magazine companies, all this would be de rigueur. Less expected, and considerably less welcome, would be the presence of a tribesman from the highlands of New Guinea, wearing a bird-of-paradise feather headdress, a shell necklace and breastplate, and feather armbands. Particularly if he was refusing to leave the building until he had been given a personal audience with – and an apology from – the editor of one of Emap’s newest titles. Recently, however, this is just what the company got. Benny Wenda, an exiled tribal leader from West Papua, the western half of the island of New Guinea, wanted a word with Paul Merrill, editor of Zoo – one of Britain’s two new “lads’” magazines whose content mixes sexual grotesquerie, celebrity titillation, toilet humour, morbid alcoholism and cultural stereotyping in a way which makes its predecessor Loaded look like the editorial pages of the London Review of Books. Benny Wenda was angry, and he wasn’t going away until he’d been heard. Paul Kingsnorth’s book One No, Many Yeses (Simon & Schuster, 2003) – a campaigning journey inside the global resistance movement – is now published in paperback A week earlier, Zoo, which sells itself on its idiocy (“You want girls? … You want footie? … You want a laugh? … We’ll be the only thing blokes are talking about down the pub!”) had published an article entitled “Win a cannibal sex holiday!” It offered a competition to readers whose prize was a “flesh-eating orgy fortnight” in New Guinea, with a few “random orgies” with the natives thrown in, if they were lucky. The winner would accompany “seasoned jungle hand Reg Barker” (a paediatric nurse from Devon) on holiday to West Papua. Barker was quoted saying various wacky things about the locals. “They do eat people occasionally”, he explained – but only if you “really pissed them off”. They “slept on the skulls of their enemies” and often indulge in a ceremony in which “everyone has sex with everyone else – anything goes.” None of it is true. There are no sex ceremonies, no cannibalism, no sleeping on skulls in West Papua. Reg Barker, the “seasoned hand”, didn’t even appear to know what tribes lived where, and at one point managed to confuse West Papua with Papua New Guinea, an entirely separate country across the border to its east. If it is not true, neither is it funny. For Zoo’s “cannibals” are the victims of one of the most brutal, and under-reported, colonial occupations in the contemporary world. West Papua has been occupied by Indonesia for over forty years, after the departure of the earlier Dutch colonial regime. In that time, at least 100,000 Papuans have been killed, tortured or “disappeared” by the Indonesian military, whose current force commanders in the region inflicted the same devastating treatment on East Timor until that country managed to secure its independence in 2002. The Indonesians have closed off West Papua to outsiders and are continuing to inflict what some claim is a genocide on the Papuan people. At the same time, some of the world’s largest oil, timber and mining interests are despoiling the environment on a vast scale, and taking the ensuing profits out of the country. Dancing on graves Benny Wenda in prison Benny Wenda leads a peaceful movement campaigning for the independence of West Papua. He has experienced at first hand the fate of those who try to challenge Indonesian rule. Arrested by the military last year, he was locked up and tortured for months before he managed to escape and flee to Britain with his wife and daughter, where he is now seeking asylum. He still bears the scars – literally – of the brutal occupation of his country. Unsurprisingly, then, Benny didn’t laugh at Zoo’s zany piece. Instead, with a group of supporters, myself included, he decided to do something about it. Early one morning we marched into the Emap building and demanded a meeting with Paul Merrill. Initially we were refused entry, but a promise to stand outside on the pavement all day distributing press releases about Emap’s casual racism soon changed minds, and we all found ourselves seated around a long table in the Zoo editorial offices, as an uncomfortable Merrill, watched over by Emap management, tried to make amends without actually committing himself to anything. Benny took out some photos he had brought with him of Papuan victims of Indonesian military. One of them showed a dead resistance leader held up like a hunt trophy, surrounded by grinning soldiers. “Do you think this is funny?” he demanded. “No, of course not,” said the visibly uncomfortable editor. “But you have to understand, we’re not a political magazine. We don’t do this sort of stuff.” “But everything you’ve written is untrue,” one of us said. “No cannibals, no sex orgies. It’s all made up. Are you going to apologise for it?” “Well, look,” said Merrill, “we just wrote down what this Reg Barker guy told us. And like I said, we can’t be expected to run a piece on the political situation in Papua New Guinea.” Who is Paul Kingsnorth? You’ll regret not finding out. Click here to his own website. Also read his articles in openDemocracy, including “Making a new world – from the US to West Papua” (June 2003) “We’re talking about West Papua,” we said. “Right,” he said, uncomfortably. “You don’t even know the difference, do you?” we asked. “You haven’t been listening to a word Benny’s been saying.” “Look,” he said, “we don’t do politics. We’re an irreverent magazine.” “If we got you a map,” we said, “could you even find this country on it?” For ten minutes Paul Merrill ducked and dived, refusing to accept that accusing an entire culture of eating human flesh and indulging in random orgies was in any way demeaning, offensive or, heaven forbid, racist. Eventually, the patience of one of our number snapped. “Listen, mate,” he said. “I’ve been to West Papua. This isn’t a joke, you know. You’re dancing on graves.” “No I’m not!” spluttered the squirming editor. “Yes you are. You’re dancing on graves.” Behind the mask of prejudice What happens next is up to Zoo. They refused to cancel their wacky cannibal holiday competition, but the managing director of Emap did send Benny Wenda an apologetic letter, saying that Zoo would publish a “follow-up piece” which would “put the record straight”. We’re still waiting. In the meantime, a group of senior barristers in London, who have formed a group called “International Lawyers for West Papua”, have written to the Press Complaints Commission demanding an investigation into Zoo’s article. Other versions of this story were published in West Papua News and the New Statesman Perhaps this all seems like a bit of a po-faced over-reaction. After all, it’s just a lads’ mag: what can we expect? But the point is a wider one. Zoo just typifies, in its crude way, what the media in general, and probably society too, thinks about the people of Papua, when it thinks about them at all. Cannibalism, grass skirts, big headdresses, cooking pots, bones through noses, and all the old Victorian adventurer clichés serve as a mask behind which a real and terrifying degradation is going on. Any opportunity to tear that mask off, however small, is worth seizing. . For information about the Free West Papua Campaign, visit www.freewestpapua.org;

Iraq

BBC 4 Apr 2004 'Troops fire on Iraqi protesters' Supporters of Moqtada Sadr have protested in Baghdad and Najaf Coalition troops are reported to have opened fire on demonstrators in the Iraqi city of Najaf. At least three Iraqis were killed and dozens wounded after troops fired on a mass of people who were approaching their base, witnesses said. Meanwhile, two US marines have been killed in separate attacks west of Baghdad, the US military said. The province of Al-Anbar, where the attacks took place, has been a hotbed of anti-coalition violence. "One marine was killed in action yesterday. The other marine died today from wounds received in separate action yesterday," the US military statement said. The US military declined to give any further information on the latest incidents for security reasons. Protests In the incident in Najaf, thousands of supporters of the Shia Muslim radical leader Moqtada Sadr were said to be heading towards the coalition base outside the holy city when troops opened fire. "We have received three dead and dozens of wounded, but the toll will probably rise because more injured are being brought in," Dr Mohammed Hussein al-Husseini of Najaf's Al-Sadrein hospital told the AFP news agency. The past few days have seen a number of demonstrations by Moqtada Sadr's followers, some in the capital Baghdad. The protests follow the reported arrest on Saturday of one of the cleric's senior aides, and the closure of a pro-Sadr newspaper.

KurdishMedia.com 31 March 2004 Turkmen is named as the Iraqi Defence Minister The representative of Turkmens in the Iraqi Governing Council, Songul Cabuk, is named as the Minister of Defence of Iraq, according to the BBC Arabic service report on Wednesday. The ministerial position has not been formalised yet, BBC reported. She would be the first female who has taken the position of the defence minister in the entire Arab countries. Cabuk is well-known for her anti-Kurdish views. It is believed that she would never say "Kurdistan". In an interview on the BBC Arabic service, on Wednesday, Cabuk termed "Kurdistan" as "Northern Iraq". Cabuk earlier this year said that if the Kurds demanded some certain degree of rights, the Turkmens would call for an "Iraqi Turkmenistan". "Iraqi Turkmenistan" is a term that is the sole creation of Cabuk. Cabuk on the interview with the BBC said that she is qualified for this important post because of that she has always demanded for the establishment of the Iraqi army. She said that she was the first woman on the "Iraqi National Security Committee". Cabuk said that her uncle was an army officer and was active in arresting criminals, she was try to justify her qualifications for the post. Cabuk said that herself and her family worked very hard in order to be qualified for the position. Cabuk said the size of the Iraqi army will be 70,000 people or more.

BBC 7 Apr 2004 US vows to wipe out cleric's army Sadr's Mehdi Army is thought to have about 10,000 members The US military in Iraq has vowed to "destroy" the militia which backs a radical Shia cleric responsible for much of the latest wave of violence. US-led forces are conducting operations against Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army, said US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt. More than 100 Iraqis have died in three days of clashes in areas to the west and south of the capital, Baghdad. About 20 coalition troops have also been killed, including 12 US marines in a single attack in the town of Ramadi. Mr Sadr's Mehdi Army was created in the summer of 2003 and is thought to have no more than 10,000 members. Other developments: At least 36 Iraqis are said to have been killed in the past 24 hours in the flashpoint town of Falluja. Four Iraqis reported to have been killed by US air strikes in Baghdad's Sadr City neighbourhood - up to 60 estimated to have been killed since Monday. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says there are no plans to send additional troops to Iraq. Precise attacks "In the central and southern regions of Iraq, the coalition and Iraqi security forces are conducting operations to destroy the Mehdi Army," US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told a news conference in Baghdad. MEHDI ARMY Named after Mehdi - the "promised one" in Islam Created in summer of 2003 - the first Shia militia to organise on the ground Fewer than 10,000 members Ideology: defend Muslim faith Mehdi Army Profile: Radical cleric In quotes: Moqtada Sadr "Those attacks will be deliberate, precise and they will be successful." An arrest warrant has been issued for the cleric on charges unrelated to the current violence. Mr Sadr is currently surrounded by his gunmen who appear to control the holy city of Najaf. US forces were on the outskirts of the city, Gen Kimmitt said. He said US troops were trying to hunt down the militiamen in the mainly Shia neighbourhood of Sadr City in Baghdad. "If he [Mr Sadr] wants to calm the situation... he can turn himself in to a local Iraqi police station and he can face justice," Gen Kimmitt said. War footing The action by the Shias was triggered by the closure of Mr Sadr's al-Hawza newspaper a week ago on the grounds that it was inciting violence. The Shia-led violence has opened a second front for US-led coalition troops who had previously been confronting mainly Sunni supporters of the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein. MAJOR US COMBAT LOSSES 6 April 2004: 12 marines killed and 20 injured at Ramadi 2 November 2003: helicopter shot down near Amiriya with 15 soldiers killed 23 March 2003: 29 soldiers killed at Nasiriya Timeline: US losses in Iraq On Monday the US launched a big operation to "pacify" the town of Falluja - in the Sunni triangle that has been the centre of opposition to the occupation. The operation follows last week's horrific killing of four US contractors whose bodies were dragged through the streets. US President George W Bush has insisted the US resolve in Iraq remains "unshakable", despite the clashes. The White House is now back on a war footing, the BBC's Justin Webb in Washington reports, and Secretary of State Colin Powell has urged the nation to rally behind its troops.

ICRC 8 Apr 2004 Press Release 04/26 Iraq: ICRC calls on belligerents to respect civilians, sick and wounded Geneva (ICRC) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is extremely alarmed about the escalation of violence throughout Iraq and fears a further deterioration of the already precarious humanitarian situation in the country. A major issue of concern for the ICRC is the increasing number of casualties and the difficulty of providing them with basic services, notably medical care. The ICRC calls upon all belligerents to respect the civilian population, to refrain from excessive force and to respect and ensure access to medical facilities at all times, in accordance with international humanitarian law. Yesterday and today, the ICRC delivered urgently needed medical items and surgical equipment to the besieged city of Fallujah and to Najaf, Nassiriyah and Baghdad. It stands ready to provide further supplies. .

NYT 9 Apr 2004 NEIGHBORING NATIONS Arabs Worry Over Extremism While Evoking Vindication By NEIL MacFARQUHAR CAIRO, April 8 — Some Arabs watching the escalating violence in Iraq expressed fear Thursday that the United States, rather than helping to stamp out extremism, might have created a new, toxic incubator for it, while others expressed satisfaction that the Americans were getting their nose bloodied. There is an almost universal sense in the Arab world that Washington is paying the price for entering Iraq with no coherent plan beyond toppling Saddam Hussein, and that the anarchy they allowed to run unchecked in the first days of occupation a year ago has never really been tamed. "Iraq appears to be disintegrating, and the Iraqis are not better off today than they were before the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime," said Mohammed Kamal, a professor of political science at Cairo University. "The Americans don't have a plan on how to get out of this mess that they put themselves in." Most Arab governments, especially those enjoying close ties with Washington, maintained a studied silence on Iraq, trying to avoid either alienating the Bush administration or fomenting anger at home. There was a scattering of official statements, including one from the Arab League, calling for a greater United Nations role in restructuring Iraq and protecting its civilians. "The developments in Iraq in the last few days are alarming, and we fear that we are facing a civil war in Iraq, reminding me of what happened in Afghanistan and Lebanon," said the foreign minister of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, one of the few to speak out. "We are worried about the cluster of resistance and terrorist organizations in Iraq, which has become a fertile ground for these people to implement their extremist ideology." Arab news reports tended to concentrate more on events in Falluja than events in the Shiite community. "Falluja Is Burning" said a huge red headline in the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahrar, while Al Wafd, an opposition daily, screamed: "A Massacre Against Muslims in Falluja." Many commentators drew parallels between Israeli repression in the occupied territories — and its failure to pacify the Palestinians after more than three decades — and United States actions in Iraq. Indeed, there have been frequent accusations that the Bush administration is mistakenly following the Israeli model. "I don't think the Americans can achieve what they want by force, and it is the same phenomenon in Israel," said Abdulwahab Badrakhan, a columnist at Al-Hayat newspaper, published in London. "The Americans made a mistake when they did not involve the Arabs in the situation." There is widespread concern that the violence will further inflame existing divisions in Iraq, which could easily provoke similar ethnic or religious schisms in neighboring states. Among critics of the United States, and they are legion, there was satisfaction that chances are growing more remote by the day that Iraq will serve as a model that would eventually reshape the region. There is a sense that Syria and Iran are off the hook, while on a broader scale the violence is further undermining Washington's credibility and making Americans ever more unpopular. "Freedom, democracy, the rule of law and other such promises have been transformed in the occupation's lexicon into violations, invasions, sieges, curfews, bombardments from Apache helicopters and the terrorization of a people," the daily Al Khaleej in the United Arab Emirates wrote in a typical editorial. Few expect any improvement. "Thank God that the American administration is too stupid to win the Iraqis over," said Montasser Zayat, an Islamist lawyer in Cairo. "On the contrary, they create feelings of frustration and commit more mistakes, leading more Iraqis to rise against them." There have been few demonstrations in the Arab world, which some analysts took as a sign of general satisfaction that Washington is in trouble and the resistance succeeding. Among the Arab world's majority Sunni Muslim population, there is less of an emotional connection with the Iraqi Shiites, who are generally seen as an extension of Iran, analysts said. Also, the fiery young cleric who is leading the Shiite uprising, Moktada al-Sadr, is an unknown quantity. The exception is the Shiite communities in Lebanon and the Persian Gulf, which evidently pay close attention to their brethren in Iraq. The top Shiite cleric in Lebanon, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, once the Americans' nemesis there, condemned the "horrible massacres" by the United States in Iraq, saying they proved that Washington is lying when it says its goal is bringing freedom. At the same time, he called for self-restraint by Iraqis. In Tehran, an editorial in the English-language Tehran Times, often used to send messages abroad, said the United States should be working more closely with moderate clerics to defuse the situation. The wider Shiite populations worried that Mr. Sadr and his followers, who have little support outside Iraq, will divide the community and wreck the Shiite's historic opportunity to gain a dominant role. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who enjoys wide respect outside Iraq, has been biding his time, figuring that a democratic system will gain the Shiites effective control, given their majority status

www.paktribune.com 10 Apr 2004 Second Iraq interim minister resigns BAGHDAD, April 10 (Online): Iraqi interim Human Rights Minister Abdel Basit Turki has resigned, a day after the interior minister quit, senior coalition spokesman Dan Senor told a news conference here on Friday. Senor did not mention the reason for the resignation of the economist. On Thursday, interim Interior Minister Nuri Badran announced that he had submitted his resignation after US overseer Paul Bremer expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of his ministry, which notably controls the police. The resignations come amid widespread protests against US-led coalition offensives across the country against insurgents. However, a member of the interim Government Council, Ghazi Ajil al-Yawer, also threatened to resign if the coalition does not peacefully resolve the crisis in Fallujah, which is under siege by US Marines. "If the Fallujah problem is not resolved peacefully in a way that preserves the dignity of its people, and if America does not fulfil its promises ... and if they insist on using excessive force, then I will submit my resignation," he told AFP. "How can a superpower like the United States put itself in a state of war with a small city like Fallujah. This is genocide," he said.

UNICEF 21 Apr 2004 UNICEF condemns killing of children in ongoing Iraq fighting NEW YORK, 21 April 2004 - Responding to the deaths Wednesday of children on a school bus in Basra, UNICEF said it is alarmed by the growing impact of the ongoing fighting on Iraqi children. "The fighting in Iraq is exacting a heavy toll," said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy, "and children are paying with their lives." In many cities across Iraq, children are unable to lead a normal life. "They are not just unable to attend school and get decent health care and clean water, but far too often they are paying the ultimate price," Bellamy said. "The ongoing instability and fighting is hitting children the hardest." The killings in Basra follow the reported deaths of more than 100 children in Fallujah in recent days. Many schools are closed due to the recent upsurge in violence. Even where schools are open, many parents are keeping their children at home out of fear. "Children have the right to continue their education, and to do so safely, even when they live in the midst of conflict," Bellamy said. "They must feel free to exercise that right, and they must feel safe going to and from school. In fact, everywhere children spend time, whether on a bus, in a health center, at a school, or on a playground, must be treated as a zone of peace." "We must not allow children to become the victims of adults battles," she said. In response to requests from the Ministry of Health, the Red Crescent Society and direct appeals from local hospitals, UNICEF has mobilized emergency health supplies, emergency water supplies and fuel supplies for generators. UNICEF said it was having difficulty delivering these life-saving supplies in the most critically affected communities because of blocked roads. "We must remind all parties that the protection of children and all civilians during conflict is required under International Humanitarian Law," said Bellamy. "Access for humanitarian aid must be granted via protected corridors, and the integrity and safety of humanitarian workers must be respected."

Israel

www.israaid.org.il 1 Arp 2004 IsraAID Commorates Rwandan Geoncide IsraAID Members and Friends Commemorate 10th Anniversary Of Rwandan Genocide April 7, 2004 ISRAEL’S ASSISTANCE TO THE VICTIMS OF THE GENOCIDE On May 17, 1994, as the death toll continued to rise in Rwanda, Israel’s Foreign Minister, Mr. Shimon Peres, publicly condemned the massacre by stating "The Jewish people who personally know suffering and genocide, can not remain indifferent to the horrible massacres held in Rwanda" On May 22, the Israeli government decided to extend its aid and provide humanitarian assistance to the millions of people who fled Rwanda to neighboring countries. Mr. Peres sought ways in which Israel could initiate a desperately needed humanitarian response. Shortly after, the Israeli Government decided to launch ‘Seeds of Hope’, a massive campaign to assist the Rwandan refugees who fled to Goma, in the Eastern part of The Democratic Republic of the Congo (then called Zaire). A special aircraft convoy of over 8 Hercules planes carrying vital humanitarian material left Tel Aviv. By July 25th, a large IDF field hospital was deployed to the region. The 120- bed hospital contained special operating rooms and offered various medical treatments including internal medicine, orthopedic, first aid and more. A team of 50 doctors were sent in addition to 40 nurses and medical assistants. The Israeli team arrived to Goma where over 1.5 million refugees fled. The IDF medical team where the first ones to provide meaningful treatment to the refugees. Every day the team concentrated its assistance in a refugee camp that had over 700,000 people dying of Cholera, starvation and other diseases. Lieutenant Wiener Head of the Medical Corps in the camp “We have with us a massive donation of relief items accompanied by a large medical staff, but when you see the catastrophe here, you feel overwhelmed and you ask your self where is the world?” On August 3rd, a second humanitarian team was deployed to the area consisting of 86 paramedics and nurses. In the IDF medical team were also representatives of Magen David Adom one of them was Mr. Yigal Aviad who was in charge of the emergency room and the absorption of the first patients and casualties. The Israeli Air Force sent an additional plane carrying 25 tons of additional relief items. The field medical hospital treated thousands of the injured. In addition, Israel’s Ministry of Health donated 80,000 units of measles vaccinations to UNICEF. In total Israelis donated over 60 million shekels in Rwanda’s emergency relief campaign over the course of a few months. Israel was commended around the world for its fast deployment of aid and its efficiency in assisting the people of Rwanda. In addition to the IDF field hospital an Israeli civilian group spearheaded by Mr. Abe Nathan arrived to assist the 300,000 refugees who fled to Bukavu, Zaire. Nathan, accompanied by a team of fourteen Israeli volunteers, set up a refugee camp for tens of thousands of refugees following the request of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The Israeli team built the refugee camp, which included latrines, water holes and basic relief items. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) supplied and erected 500 tents to shelter the weakest and most vulnerable refugees in the Israeli refugee camp. Stating in 1995 with the arrival of Mr. Zac Nsenga the first Rwandan Ambassador, “Yad Va Shem” Holocaust Memorial and other institutions in Israel were in contact with the Ambassador to discuss ways of honoring the memory of the hundreds of thousands of people killed in Rwanda. Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Director of the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and director of “Amach”, an organization which provides rehabilitation psychological support to Jewish Holocaust survivors, were invited to Rwanda to participate in an international conference on ‘Rebuilding the lives of Genocide survivors.’ Prior to the invitation Dr. Zuroff from the Simon Wiesenthal Center has been in touch with the Rwandan government on a variety of subjects related to the tragic genocide of 1994 and the efforts to involve Israeli and Jewish experts in the initiatives related to commemoration, justice and rehabilitation. The conference brought together International participants, including genocide survivors and descendents of survivors from Israel, Armenia, Bosnians and others. Participants also included leading academics and scholars from the fields of law, psychology, economics, history, sociology and religion. The conference reflected on the challenges of "Life after Death" among the survivors of genocide around the world. The concept was to enable Jewish Holocaust survivors, Armenians, Bosnians, Cambodians and other survivors of genocides to exchange ideas with Rwandans about how to honour the memory of the dead while improving the living conditions of the living. At the conference, Dr. Zuroff delivered two papers - one on the efforts to prosecute Nazi war criminals as a model for the efforts to be launched by the Rwandan government and a second one on how Israel commemorates the victims of the Holocaust. Dr. Zuroff also participated in the deliberations on how best to achieve justice in Rwanda, which later served as the theoretical basis for the government's efforts in this field. Rwandan President Kagame added at the conference that, "world events since 1945 have sadly confirmed that mass murder based on racial, ethnic, nationality or religious differences is by no means a thing of the past, as recent events in Rwanda and elsewhere have shown." President Kagame appealed to the conference participants to discuss the issues with the seriousness that they merit. "The dialogue you are about to begin is not an academic exercise or a discussion about abstract issues. It is a crucial discussion of issues that are of immense importance to the future of our societies. We cannot, unfortunately, change the past. However, we can and must, drawing from the lessons learned from the past, influence the future," the President said. On November 22 1996, regarding special aid for the refugees in Rwanda, Foreign Minister David Levy decided to dispatch a mission, headed by the Director of the African Affairs Division of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Yigal Entebbi. The mission left immediately by special plane which carried food and medicines for the refugees. The mission included representatives of the Israeli Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Health and Agriculture. The supplies aboard the plane included 20 tons of flat beans, 15 tons of rice, two tons of cereals, and 2.5 tons of medicines. These were sent according to a list received from the Rwandan Government. The rice was donated by the Israeli Children's Society for Aiding Rwanda's Children. The plane landed in Rwanda on Monday, December 2, and was met at the airport by the Rwandan Ministers of Rehabilitation, Health and Labor, as well as representatives of various international organizations W.F.P., F.A.O., W.H.O. and U.N.H.C.R. Local and international correspondents were also present. The members of the Israeli mission visited the Runda transit camp, where food was distributed to refugees. In addition, they laid wreaths at the national Monument to Genocide, near Kigali. The Israeli mission was received by Rwandan ministers. They all expressed their deep appreciation and esteem toward Israel for the dedicated, helpful and rapid aid operation. After providing the relief aid two experts were left behind to carry out a survey and to submit recommendations within a week on continued assistance and cooperation activities in health and healing, agriculture and community development. The mission's visit won much acclaim from the Rwandan authorities and international organizations, and was given wide media coverage. Israel has since invited two Rwandan representatives to a “Yad Va Shem” course which helped provide them with tools to honor the victims and commemorate the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda.

www.maarivintl.com 1 Apr 2004 Israeli professor accuses Israel of genocide in European newspaper In an article published in a Belgian newspaper, Dr. Lev Greenberg of Ben-Gurion University labels Israel's actions "criminal" and calls on the world to stop Sharon immediately. Ilil Shahar "The murder of Sheikh Yassin is part of an Israeli policy that can be described as symbolic genocide". This claim was made by Ben-Gurion University professor Lev Greenberg in a recent article published in the Belgian daily 'La Libre Belgique'. Greenberg, a member of the university's political sociology department, served as spokesman for the “Yesh Gvul” peace organization in 1982, was imprisoned in 1987 for refusal to serve in the territories, and is an outspoken supporter of soldiers who currently refuse to serve there. Greenberg's article harshly attacks Israeli government policy. "The only people to suffer from the Holocaust are now performing genocide on the Palestinians", he wrote. It is a criminal act. I appeal to Europe and the international community to save Israel from itself and from its government", he added. "The government of Israel is asymmetrically liquidating and destroying the Palestinian people. Israel has invented bureaucratic jargon to camouflage its criminal acts: murder becomes targeted killing; occupation and repression are called the peace process. The Palestinians have offered endless cease fires. But Sharon responds by assassinating the democratic leadership of the Palestinian people. The government of Israel is leading the Middle East to Jihad. The world must stop Sharon immediately", Greenberg wrote. Greenberg's article drew a wave of angered responses from Jews and supporters of Israel in Belgium. Among them were European contributors to Ben-Gurion University who threatened to cut their ties with the institution. A Ben-Gurion University spokesman responded by saying, "Freedom of expression and thought form the basis of democratic, Western society, and in a pluralistic institution like Ben-Gurion University, the faculty members represent a variety of opinions and views". "In academia, researchers must be sensitive to and publicly defend the basic rights of citizens. Nevertheless, the views expressed by Dr. Greenberg are solely his", added the spokesman. The Israeli Foreign Ministry refused to accept the university's response, saying that "freedom of expression also has limits. There is nothing more legitimate than conducting a public debate in Israel. But to slander the State of Israel abroad carries an element of treason. As an Israeli, I am ashamed of him and what he represents", said a ministry official. Another ministry source called the university's response "scandalous", going well beyond the issue of freedom of expression in democratic countries. Minister of Education Limor Livnat responded by saying that "Unfortunately, this is not the first time that Dr. Greenberg has published words of hate and enmity against the State of Israel, which pays his salary". She said that in April 2002 she requested that Ben-Gurion President Avishai Braverman address the matter but that her efforts were unsuccessful. "I am not authorized to interfere in academic affairs", she said, "but I call on the president of the university and the academic community to take issue with and denounce anyone who attacks and opposes the government of Israel".

BBC 22 Apr 2004 Girls killed in Gaza incursion Northern Gaza has been wracked by violence in recent days Two Palestinian girls aged four and 11 have been killed during an Israeli army incursion into the northern Gaza Strip. A 16-year-old boy was also killed during a third day of clashes in Beit Lahiya, in which 16 Palestinians have died and at least 20 have been injured. Military sources say troops, who have now withdrawn, launched the raid to stop rocket attacks into Israel. In a separate incident, Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinian gunmen in Tulkarm in the West Bank. The Israeli army said the three were members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militant offshoot of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction. Buildings destroyed The teenage boy and 11-year-old girl were both killed by Israeli fire, Palestinian medical sources said. The four-year-old girl died of tear-gas inhalation, Dr Mahmoud al-Assali, the director of Jabalya hospital in Gaza, told the Reuters news agency. "Her skin had turned blue as a result of her inability to breathe and she soon died," he said. Israeli military sources said three Israeli soldiers were reported wounded. Israeli bulldozers have destroyed several houses and buildings in Beit Lahiya in the past three days. A centre for handicapped people was among the buildings that was blown up, AFP news agency reported. An Israeli army spokesman said the building was unoccupied at the time. Increased tensions Violence in Gaza has surged since Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced unilateral plans to withdraw Jewish settlements from the coastal territory as part of his disengagement plan. The recent killings of the Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al- Rantissi have also led to increased tensions in Gaza. Analysts say Israel has stepped up its attacks ahead of the planned pullout so as not to allow Hamas to claim it as a victory for the resistance. At least 15 Qassam rockets have landed over the boundaries of Gaza in recent days, injuring five Israeli civilians. Although the focus remains on Gaza, Thursday's violence in Tulkarm follows a pattern of raids targeting local militant cells in the West Bank, correspondents say.

Arutz Sheva 30 Apr 2004 www.israelnationalnews.com Interview With a Genocide Bomber 00:45 Apr 30, '04 / 9 Iyar 5764 An Islamic website has published what a freelance journalist from Shechem (Nablus) claims is an interview with a would-be suicide bomber. Youssef Ali Mohammed Kamil, the terrorist who is interviewed, claims to have been arrested before carrying out a genocidal attack on a Jewish community near the city of Jenin. Kamil, a 21-year-old freshman at Al-Najah University, explained in the interview published on Islam-Online.net why he sought to give his life in order to kill Jews – citing reasons contrary to the ‘despair model’ often cited by proponents of various ‘peace plans’. The following are excepts of the interview, which can be viewed in full at IslamOnline. Sulaiman Besharat (interviewer): Could you describe your life – socially, professionally, educationally; is it a successful life and are you ready to give it up to serve your cause? Ali Mohammed Kamil: Thanks to Allah, I lead a happy life, full of love and success. I am a university student and during my school years I also worked with my father and brothers in the fields. As a student I have always been successful; when I got my high school diploma I enrolled in the Najah University in the faculty of Shari`ah (Islamic Law) and have an excellent grade point average. As for the second part of your question, I say we are a Muslim Ummah, we believe strongly that the real life is the afterlife, and the worldly life is but a transitional period. When we seek martyrdom then the real life begins with it –eternal happiness in the life that Allah has promised us in the Glorious Qur’an. Besharat: Do you think of any other alternative to “martyr operations”? As a Palestinian, don’t you think that being successful in your studies and in life would serve the Palestinian cause better? Kamil: Every one knows that these operations have become the most effective weapon of this helpless people. It is the only strategic weapon that has achieved a balance of fear and deterrence; we have transformed dust into explosive materials, and gunpowder to arms. These operations have rendered our enemy sleepless and hit their economy hard. As for putting down our arms, this is not going to happen as long as the enemy continues his oppression against our land and our people. Besharat: Do you count your life as something precious, and if so, how can you give it up? Kamil: Of course anyone thinks of his life as very precious, and I am no different. My life is the most precious thing in the entire world, especially as there is a bright future that awaits me, but as I already said, this life is gladly given up for a better goal, that of freeing our land and the resuscitation of this Ummah after such long suffering. Besharat: How can you explain the new trend among the thousands of young Palestinians regarding “martyrdom”? Kamil: There are so many reasons: one is the will to resist, every Palestinian citizen who sees what our people is subjected to has no choice but to struggle. It is his human right to stop his oppressor, although the world has adopted a policy of silence. In addition, our society holds the martyr in the highest place. Besharat: What is your response to some Western analysts who claim that the propagation of martyrs is due to depression as a result of the Israeli violence? Kamil: It is worth pointing out that all statistics and studies on the subject of martyrs have revealed that the majority of them are university students and some are doing graduate work, most of them come from the middle class and some from the upper class, so it is not out of depression or out of poverty that they are driven to martyrdom. In conclusion, our people believe in their cause and are certain of the victory we have been promised. I say to all these analysts that we don’t look at life only from its materialistic aspect as you do, but we take it as a path to the eternal one, and if we cannot live this life with dignity then it is not worth living. Arutz-7’s Ezra HaLevi noted that Kamil’s statements contradict the leading Western theories regarding Islam and the war against terrorism. “It is being proven over and over again that despair and the lack of material goods and financial opportunity are not what causes genocidal terrorism – but a dangerous cult which bears the immunity of being considered one of the ‘major world religions’ and therefore cannot be properly identified in a politically correct environment,” said HaLevi. “Fortunately, we now have people who translate Arabic and can therefore rely on members of this cult to explain all this to the world on their own.”

Japan

Reuters 7 Apr 2004 08:13 Japan court rules against shrine visits, PM unbowed By Masayuki Kitano TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese court ruled on Wednesday that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had violated the constitution by visiting a shrine honouring Japan's military war dead, a landmark ruling on his annual pilgrimages that have angered China and other Asian neighbours. But Koizumi vowed to keep visiting Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are among those honoured and which critics at home and abroad regard as a symbol of Japan's past militarism. "It's strange," Koizumi told reporters after news of the court ruling. "I don't know why it violated the constitution." Asked if he would go again, he replied: "I will." In the first such ruling against Koizumi's visits, the Fukuoka District Court in south-western Japan said the prime minister's visit to Yasukuni on August 13, 2001 had violated the constitutional separation of religion and state. The court, however, rejected a demand by 211 plaintiffs for damages of 100,000 yen ($945) each. "Despite strong opposition from within the (ruling) Liberal Democratic Party and ordinary citizens, Koizumi went four times to Yasukuni, which cannot be said to be the best place to honour war dead," Kyodo news agency quoted the court as saying in its ruling. "This was based on political calculations." Koizumi had pledged to visit Yasukuni as prime minister when he was campaigning in April 2001, a promise aimed in part at attracting support from a powerful association of veterans and relatives of war dead. He has repeatedly stated that his visits are to pray for peace and that Japan should never go to war again. Government spokesman Yasuo Fukuda stressed that Koizumi's visits were in a private capacity, but the prime minister has left their status vague. EPOCH-MAKING RULING Other lawsuits have been filed against Koizumi's visits to the shrine and lawyers said Wednesday's ruling could affect those on which verdicts were still pending. "This is an epoch-making ruling," said Junichi Kusanagi, a lawyer who filed a similar suit on which the court declined to rule. "Now that such a ruling has been handed down, Prime Minister Koizumi should declare that he will stop visiting Yasukuni shrine in his capacity as prime minister," Kusanagi said. The visits have frayed ties with China, where many still have bitter memories of Japan's military aggression before and during World War Two. "Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine have tied the Sino-Japanese political relationship in a fast knot, but... with the continuous growth of the Chinese economy and the continuous development of bilateral economic cooperations, Japan can no longer ignore China's existence," the official China Daily said in a commentary published on Wednesday. A South Korean government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said South Korea wanted an end to the shrine visits. "It is difficult to imagine that this ruling will put an end to the issue," the official said. Successive Japanese prime ministers -- including Koizumi in October 2001 -- have apologised for the suffering brought to China by Japan's military aggression in the 1930s and 1940s. But some Japanese politicians also periodically inflame Chinese anger by saying accounts of past atrocities are exaggerated. Others argue that the time for apologies has passed. Some Japanese courts appear to be growing more inclined to favour plaintiffs in cases related to Japan's wartime actions. The Niigata District Court in northern Japan last month ordered the government and a transport firm to compensate a group of Chinese who were forced to toil in Japan during World War Two. The labourers were among the tens of thousands of Koreans and Chinese brought to Japan as forced labour during the war. (Additional reporting by Elaine Lies and Teruaki Ueno in Tokyo, Jack Kim in Seoul and John Ruwitch in Beijing)

Mainichi Shimbun 7 Apr 2004 mdn.mainichi.co.jp Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine ruled unconstitutional FUKUOKA -- Controversial visits to Yasukuni Shrine by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi infringed upon the constitutional separation of religion and state, a court ruled here on Wednesday. Mainichi Shimbun Plaintiffs smile after the court deemed Koizumi's shrine visits unconstitutional. The Fukuoka District Court ruled on a suit filed by more than 200 people who claimed that they suffered mentally from Koizumi's pilgrimages to the shrine. "Judging from generally accepted ideas in society, his visits to the shrine were religious activities (by a politician) which the Constitution bans," presiding judge Kiyonaga Kamegawa said. Describing the reason for deeming that the visits infringed on the Constitution, Kamegawa said that Koizumi's visit to the shrine on Aug. 13, 2001, encouraged more people to go to the shrine on Aug. 15, the anniversary of Japan's unconditional surrender in World War II, than the previous year. It was the first time that a court has deemed Koizumi's Yasukuni Shrine visits unconstitutional, although a high court ruled the same after a former prime minister visited the shrine more than 10 years ago. "It's a landmark ruling," one of the plaintiffs said after the decision. But Koizumi reacted by saying that he would still try to pay his respects at the shrine."I cannot understand why my visits (to the shrine) were deemed unconstitutional," the prime minister said. "Why are only my visits to Yasukuni Shrine called into question, even though I have visited Ise Shrine (another major Shinto shrine)?" Although the district court found Koizumi's Yasukuni visits unconstitutional, it dismissed the plaintiffs demands for 100,000 yen in damages per person. "Even if the plaintiffs felt disturbed over the shrine visits, the court doesn't feel that their rights were violated," Kamegawa said. The 211 plaintiffs reportedly don't plan to appeal the ruling that denied them compensation because they believe that the ruling that deemed Koizumi's Yasukuni visits unconstitutional was a "victory" for them. The plaintiffs in the Fukuoka court suit include Buddhists, Christians, Japanese people whose relatives have been enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine, and Koreans who were forced to work in Japan during World War II. Since taking power Koizumi has paid his respects at Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo four times. Because the shrine worships Japanese Class A War criminals as well as the war dead, China and South Korea strongly protested the visits. People opposing the visits across Japan have filed compensation suits against the visits. Two district courts earlier this year dismissed the plaintiffs' requests for damages while avoiding to rule if Koizumi's Yasukuni visits were unconstitutional. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, April 7, 2004)

ABC Radio Australia News Japan's PM plans to continue controversial Yasakuni war shrine visits The Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, says he will continue to pay his respects at a controversial War Shrine, despite a court ruling that the visits are unconstitutional. Our Tokyo correspondent, Mark Simkin, reports that Mr Koizumi has called the ruling "irrational" and pledged to continue his controversial visits. The Yasakuni Shrine honours the two and a half million Japanese people who have died for their country, including fourteen convicted war criminals. The Prime Minister has made a pilgrimage each year and been condemned by China and South Korea. A court in the Japanese city of Fukuoka has ruled the visits unconstitutional because they violate the separation between religion and the state

Korea, South

Chosun Ilbo, South Korea 26 Apr 2004 english.chosun.com 'Massacre in Korea' Heads to Korea Regarded as the most genius painter of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso’s ‘Massacre in Korea’ will for the first time be exhibited in Korea. Director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art Korea, Kim Yoon-su said “We received the chance to show ‘Massacre in Korea’ at the ‘Peace’ exhibition scheduled in June at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Gwachon.” The painting, which is currently displayed at the Musée Picasso in Paris, was done after Picasso receiving news of a massacre against innocent people during the Korean War. The painting clearly shows Picasso’s political inclination as a French communist, along with "Guernica" which is based on the Spanish Civil War. “Guernica” appeared at a memorial gathering remembering those citizens who were sacrificed during the Soviet Union’s invasion to Hungary. Kim said, “I met with former French Foreign Minister Dominique De Vellepin in Paris last March and requested that the painting to be exhibited in Korea. The Minister sympathized with the theme of the exhibition and gave permission with delight,” and explained the process. Another work of Picasso, “Joy of Life” will also come to Korea. Kim personally selected the artists and works for the coming exhibition. Art pieces by 100 Korean and foreign artists will be displayed under an anti-war and peace theme. (Jung Jae-yeon, whauden@chosun.com )

Nepal

Deutsche Presse Agentur 1 Apr 2004 Maoists abduct over 1000 villagers in west Nepal Kathmandu (dpa) - Armed Maoist rebels abducted over 1000 people from more than a dozen villages in Nepal's southern Bajura district Tuesday afternoon, Nepalese media reports said Thursday. Those abducted were residents of villages located in southern part of Bajura district, about 470 kilometres west of the capital Kathmandu, local media reported. The reports said the Maoist had earlier issued a notice to the villagers, demanding that one member each household join their struggle, the newspaper reports said. "I do not know the exact number, however, a large number of locals have been abducted by the Maoists on Tuesday,'' the Kathmandu Post quoted Surendra Poudel, acting Chief District Officer of Bajura district, as saying. In one remote village, the rebels abducted over 150 residents, including teachers, students and labourers between the ages of 18 and 45, the Kathmandu Post said, quoting an official from the district development committee who narrowly escaped from being abducted. He told the newspaper: "I hid in the jungle the whole night and headed for Martadi (the district headquarters) early this morning (Wednesday)''. It was the Maoists' largest single mass abduction since they launched their bloody struggle to set up a communist republic in Nepal in February 1996. More than 10,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the conflict, known as the Peoples War.

BBC 3 Apr 2004 Pro-democracy protest rocks Nepal By Charles Haviland BBC correspondent in Kathmandu It is the third day running that the capital has seen protests For the third day running the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu, is witnessing large pro-democracy demonstrations. Thousands of opposition supporters and students are massing in groups to converge in a big rally later. They have already set up barricades and started scuffling with the police, while plumes of smoke can be seen rising on the horizon. There has been political deadlock in Nepal since last year, when the king assumed executive powers. Scattered around Kathmandu, tyres and wood are being burnt and used with broken bits of wall and fence to barricade the roads. Eyewitnesses have seen buses, cars and motorcycles burning as well. Chanting opposition supporters have been roaming the streets, ordering motor vehicles to stop and businesses to pull down their shutters which virtually all have done. The strike call comes after Friday's violent protests in which dozens were injured, though none seriously. Growing tension Saturday's demonstrators are currently in pockets around the city, ranged against groups of sometimes nervous looking policemen who have set up their own barbed wire blockades by areas like the Royal Palace, which are off limits. The constant chant is simply "Democracy" with slogans against King Gyanendra, who 18 months ago suspended parliament. The mood seems to be growing more tense by the minute. Many ordinary people are disaffected by the showdown between the appointed government and its opponents. One told the BBC it is exactly what the Maoists want, referring to the Communist guerrillas who are gaining control of increasing swathes of the countryside.

Sri Lanka

AFP 31 Mar 2004 Army deployed as Tamils flee east Sri Lanka amid arson attacks, war fears by Jay Shankar CHENKALADI, Sri Lanka, March 31 (AFP) - Tamil residents began fleeing this eastern Sri Lankan town Wednesday as hundreds of troops poured in amid arson attacks and fears of a factional war between Tamil Tiger rebels, residents and police said. A shop owned by an ethnic Tamil from the north of the island was torched here Wednesday following the killing of local politician Rajan Sathyamoorthy on Tuesday allegedly by Tamil rebels from the north, police said. "Several shops have been torched here," a local police official told AFP. "Tamils who trace their origins to the island's north have begun fleeing after Mr Sathyamoorthy was killed." Hundreds of troops poured into the region in a show of force to discourage fighting between the rival rebel factions, officials in the capital said. Most of the shops in Batticaloa town, just 10 kilometres (six miles) south of here, were closed Wednesday as people feared an eruption of fighting, residents said. "Our whole community is living in fear," said retired banker from Jaffna, S. Sabanathan, adding his friends had witnessed shops being shut by force and the keys taken away by rebels. "My family is living in fear. We do not know what will happen (from one moment to the next)." Leaflets distributed among residents had warned Jaffna Tamils, or those from the northern region of the island, to leave the district of Batticaloa within 24 hours. The victim of Tuesday's shooting, Sathyamoorthy, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) election candidate, had been a supporter of breakaway Tamil Tiger leader V. Muralitharan, better known as Karuna, who holds sway in this eastern area. Karuna broke away from the group's main northern leadership earlier this month. The rebels have vowed they will not resort to bloodshed to sort out their unprecedented split, but police said the first shots had already been fired with Tuesday's slaying and the subsequent arson attacks. The defence ministry said another shop owned by a Jaffna had been torched Tuesday after the renegade rebels ordered Jaffna Tamils to quit this region within 24 hours. A spokesman for the renegade commander, V. Muralitharan, denied they were responsible for the forced eviction. More than 1,000 Sri Lankan soldiers patrolled the city in trucks and motorbikes and policemen checked vehicles entering the tense town. The mounting tension here prompted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to seek en emergency meeting with the Norwegian truce monitoring mission to ensure Friday's voting could take place here without any trouble. The renegade commander here had agreed to abide by a truce the Colombo government entered into with the main Tiger group in February 2002, but has asked the administration for a separate truce deal, which has bee turned down.

BBC 22 Apr 2004, Opposition wins Sri Lankan vote -President Kumaratunga's rivals could now control the parliamentary agenda A candidate from the main Sri Lankan opposition party has been voted in as speaker in the new parliament. Correspondents say the election of former Justice Minister WJM Lokubandara is a setback for the new government led by President Chandrika Kumaratunga. Mr Lokubandara secured the key post by 110 votes against the 109 votes won by the government candidate for the job. Mrs Kumaratunga now heads a minority government which cannot fully control the parliamentary agenda. Abuse shouted The BBC's Frances Harrison in Colombo says that the opposition triumphed after nine hours of chaos and after three separate votes. The first voted ended in a tie and the second in confusion. Our correspondent says that MPs shouted abuse at one another, and at one point a government MP sat on the ballot box to stop the opposition from voting. He was surrounded by other government MPs sitting cross-legged on the floor. "We did not expect this kind of bad behaviour in parliament," monk MP Athuraliya Ratana told the AFP news agency. The president's failure to install her chosen speaker means that the opposition now controls the agenda in parliament, deciding when to table legislation and with the power to delay government business. The government had been counting on the support of right wing Buddhist MPs in the vote, but many of them abstained after their choice for speaker was rejected. We did not expect this kind of bad behaviour in parliament Buddhist monk MP Athuraliya Ratan After the results of the ballot were announced, Mr Lokubandara was escorted to the chair and was immediately sworn in as speaker of the 13th parliament of Sri Lanka. "I thank both sides of the house," he said, to applause from the opposition and silence from the government benches. Our correspondent says the outcome of the vote is not a good start for the new government of President Kumaratunga, whose coalition earlier this month won 105 of the 225 seats in parliament. The president sacked the last government which had a majority in an attempt to put her own party in charge of parliament and bring more political stability. But our correspondent that now looks increasingly unlikely.

AFP 29 Apr 2004 Sri Lanka imposes regional curfew as ethnic riots kill two COLOMBO, April 29 (AFP) - Sri Lankan police clamped indefinite curfews and troops poured into a central tea-growing region Thursday after two people were killed in ethnic violence, officials and residents said. A curfew was imposed on the picturesque Kandapola region after clashes between the Tamil and Sinhalese communities that left more than 20 shops destroyed, officials said. They said Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse flew to the area in a military helicopter and promised compensation and an impartial inquiry into the shooting by police to quell rioting. Residents said two Tamil men of recent Indian origin were killed when police opened fire to stop mobs that attacked shops and vehicles late Wednesday in clashes triggered by a traffic accident. Sinhalese are in a majority in the country, but are smaller in number than the Tamils in Kandapola. Indigenous Tamils form about 12.6 of Sri Lanka's population, while Tamils of "recent Indian origin" descended from indentured labour imported by British colonial rulers in the late 19th century account for another 5.5 percent. More than 60,000 people have died in ethnic violence in Sri Lanka since 1972. Tamil guerrillas and the federal government have been observing a ceasefire since February 2002.

Syria

www.kurdmedia.com 3 Apr 2004 Kurdish leadership console of Western Kurdistan of Syria 02/04/2004 KLC The Syrian regime and its security forces are still continuing their massacre of the Syrian Kurds and threatening Kurdish leaders. On Friday, March 26, 2004 The Syrian regime tortured five Kurdish soldiers in the Syrian army, killing one of them for attending the Kurdish celebration of Newroz and critically injuring the other four. Kurdish students are being expelled from the Universities and many Kurds along with other minorities are being arrested. Security forces continue to occupy Kurdish cities turning schools into military bases, imposing the continued curfew and shooting chaotically in the streets at night. Also, the regime arrested more than 2500 people and they continue to arrest and torture Kurds. In the last few days the regime brought in a special military unit to start arresting Kurdish leaderships. Kurds that have been killed are being buried in undisclosed areas and family members are not allowed to hold burials in their family cemeteries. The Syrian regime buried 4 Kurdish bodies in a Christian cemetery in Kamishli without the knowledge of the families. The Syrian constitution does not mention Kurds. About 200,000 plus Kurds have been denied Syrian nationality, meaning they cannot vote, own property, go to state schools or get government jobs. The Syrian government continues their discriminatory actions against the Kurdish people by these atrocities and through the media, calling Kurds secret agents of foreign governments, fueling the animosity between the Arabs and Kurds. The Kurds are enduring repressive nationalism, massive atrocities and genocide. The Kurdish Leadership Console in Western Kurdistan (KLC) representing major Kurdish parties, Kurdish tribal leaders, and Kurdish intellectuals are urging an intervention to put a stop to these human rights violations. We are pleading to the international communities, human rights organizations, democratic organizations, the free world government, and The United Nations to step in and put an end to these contemptible violations of human rights by the Syrian Regime and stop the Syrian government from using violence against the Kurds and to negotiate in good faith with us. We are asking for our God given rights including social, human and cultural rights and to have the perpetrators of these atrocities prosecuted. We urge the unarming of Arab militia, the return of the military to their bases, the release of Kurdish activists (2500 people), and reversing the Arabization policies. We also urge the US government to consider implementing the US Congressional punitive Law against Syria. Released in Washington by the KLC spokesman Sherkoh Abbas

BBC 7 Apr 2004 Syria urged to free riot Kurds Trouble started after a football match and quickly spread The human rights organisation Amnesty International has called on Syria to release Kurds detained during last month's violent riots. "Hundreds" of Kurds are being held at unknown locations, incommunicado and without charge, Amnesty said. It called for an independent inquiry into the riots which left 25 dead and injured hundreds in five days. The unrest was sparked by a soccer match brawl on 12 March, between fans of teams supported by Arabs and Kurds. It spread quickly from the northern town of Qameshli, near the border with Turkey and Iraq, to other towns. The incommunicado detention... puts detainees at greater risk of torture or ill-treatment Amnesty statement The Syrian government has not revealed how many people were detained following clashes between demonstrators and troops. Kurdish leaders said last month that hundreds of people had been released from custody, but that hundreds of others were still being held. In its statement on Tuesday, Amnesty International said: "The incommunicado detention at unknown locations of many hundreds of Syrian Kurds is of serious concern, not least as it puts detainees at greater risk of torture or ill-treatment," the statement said. "Unless they are to be charged with recognisably criminal offences and brought to trial without undue delay, they should be released immediately," The group also urged the Syrian authorities to establish how friction at a soccer match escalated into such violence. Syria has about two million Kurds among its population of 17 million.

Thailand

BBC 29 Apr 2004 Thailand on alert for more violence The families of the victims have been burying their dead Thai troops are braced for new attacks after over 100 suspected militants were killed on Wednesday during fighting in the country's Muslim south. Two extra battalions of soldiers have been sent to step up security. Top generals have warned of a new military campaign by Islamists, but the prime minister said the attacks were carried out by criminal gangs. Rights groups and some Muslim leaders have questioned the military's degree of force in quelling the attacks. "Troops must be on maximum alert and well prepared for the second and third wave of attacks," said Defence Minister Chettha Thanajaro. Bersatu, an umbrella group for separatists in the region, issued a statement warning visitors not to travel to Thailand's south. THAI VIOLENCE Yala: At least 5 police posts attacked Songkhla: 1 security base targeted Pattani: Shoot-out between police and gunmen trapped in mosque Who's behind the violence? Malaysia's border fears "Patani people are not responsible for anything happens to you after this warning," the statement said, carried on the website of one of its member groups, the Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo). The statement listed Thailand's Muslim-dominated southern provinces as well as tourist spots further north like Phuket and Krabi. "I would say the military phase has just started," General Pallop Pinmanee, who presided over a bloody shoot-out at a mosque in Pattani on Wednesday, told Bangkok radio. "Our current estimate is that the strength of their armed men and recruits is in the thousands," he said. He said that it was "absolutely certain" the raids were mounted by Muslim separatists. Defence Minister Chettha said that it was possible "some of them were trained abroad". Those who died were young and were mostly armed only with swords. But Mr Chettha said each group of attackers were led by a commander usually in his mid 30s. "The leaders used AK-47 rifles, M-16 assault rifles to open the way for their men, who used only machetes," he said. These comments are in sharp contrast to those by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and others in his administration. Mr Thaksin dismissed the attacks as perpetrated by local "bandits", while the army chief, General Chaiyasidh Shinawatra, said many of the attackers appeared to be under the influence of drugs. Who is behind it? No idea but we all know that a lot of money is involved and that foreigners are involved. Anchalie, Yala ,Thailand Have your say: Read more of your comments A leading Thai newspaper, The Nation, dismissed this explanation in a front page editorial on Thursday. "What the two leaders do not see, or pretend not to see, is that this is not about addiction or banditry; this is about a fanatical ideology that none of us knew existed on such a grand scale," it said. In the south, families of the victims gathered at army camps on Thursday to collect the bodies and rapidly bury them, in accordance with Muslim tradition. The violence began before dawn on Wednesday as groups of young men launched apparently co-ordinated assaults on security posts throughout Yala, Pattani and Songkhla provinces. But the security forces, who had been tipped off, were lying in wait and responded with devastating fire power, losing only five of their own men. At least 30 of the attackers fled to the Krue Se mosque in Pattani. After a stand-off of several hours, the security forces stormed the building, killing those sheltering inside. As another of the attackers died overnight, their official death toll was raised to 108. New York-based Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that Thailand should launch an investigation into whether "such a high level of lethal force was necessary". .

Uzbekistan

WP 31 Mar 2004 Two Dozen Killed in Wave Of Violence in Uzbekistan Bombings, Shootouts Claim Mostly Suspected Militants By Peter Baker Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, March 31, 2004; Page A15 MOSCOW, March 30 -- A wave of suicide bombings and street shootouts in Uzbekistan killed about two dozen people on Tuesday in the bloodiest outbreak of violence in the former Soviet republic since it enlisted as a key U.S. ally in the war on terrorism. Special forces laid siege to an apartment complex where suspected Islamic radicals holed up during an hours-long confrontation near the country home of President Islam Karimov on the outskirts of the capital, Tashkent, according to officials and witnesses. By day's end, 20 suspected militants and three police officers had been killed, the Uzbek Interior Ministry said. A witness said a civilian was also slain. The surge of violence followed bombings and attacks that killed 19 other people in recent days and unsettled Tashkent, where stores shut their doors, kindergartens sent children home and a U.S. Embassy annex temporarily closed. Uzbekistan has emerged as an important partner for the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon, hosting an American military base that serves as a forward staging post for operations in Afghanistan. As it struggled to respond to the attacks Tuesday, Uzbekistan portrayed itself as the latest U.S. ally targeted by international terrorists after countries such as Spain, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. "It's a great tragedy, of course," Abdulaziz Kamilov, the Uzbek ambassador to the United States, said in a telephone interview from Washington. "We don't want violence in Uzbekistan or the region. But at the same time, the war on terrorism is going on and unfortunately it takes time, it takes dedication and it takes a big effort." Uzbekistan has a history of homegrown terrorism, however, and some independent analysts pointed out that the attacks of the past three days were mostly aimed at police rather than foreign targets. Karimov's harsh repression of devout Muslims has only fueled radical opposition to his rule, according to human rights groups. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spoke with Uzbek Foreign Minister Sodik Safoyev on Tuesday and offered U.S. assistance in the investigation of the attacks. The latest bloodshed began Tuesday morning when a car was stopped at a traffic checkpoint a couple of miles from Karimov's home. A woman got out and detonated an explosives belt she was wearing, killing herself and three police officers, according to a duty officer at the Interior Ministry. Other passengers in the car ran away and joined up with masked companions who took refuge in a nearby neighborhood, according to the duty officer, who declined to give his name. Police and commando units soon swarmed the area and the two sides exchanged gunfire, according to officials and witnesses, although accounts of what happened after that were contradictory. Authorities said all 20 of the slain militants killed themselves with grenades and other explosives, but witnesses said they saw bodies riddled with bullet holes. The Associated Press, citing a resident, described a second suicide bomber who was shot in the legs by police after ignoring an order to stop as she approached a bus. She then set off her explosives. "We could see shooting, and then we saw that one of the houses caught fire," Natalya Bushuyeva, an Uzbek journalist at the scene, said by telephone. "The shooting lasted for a long time. The shooting was so messy that the special services were shooting at each other." Bushuyeva said she saw several bodies that had been shot or burned, including one slain man found naked on the ground with bullet holes in his stomach. "Local people said he didn't have enough time to blow himself up," she said. "Local people also said he was shouting 'Allahu akbar,' " the Arabic phrase meaning "God is greatest." While Karimov said the violence was carried out by a radical but historically nonviolent Islamic group, investigators said Tuesday that it was too soon to draw a firm link. "I can say for sure that it's an attempt to destabilize the social situation in the republic," said Svetlana Artykova, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office. "The criminals will be captured. Sooner or later they will face a court and get their punishment." The group singled out by Karimov -- Hizb ut-Tahrir, or Party of Liberation -- advocates the overthrow of secular governments in favor of a strict Islamic state but officially eschews violence. "None of those involved in this violence is involved with Hizb ut-Tahrir," Imran Waheed, the group's representative in London, said in a telephone interview. "It is contrary to Hizb ut-Tahrir's philosophy to raise arms against authorities even in retaliation." But analysts and even some Hizb ut-Tahrir members interviewed in the past have said that some faction might resort to violence because Karimov's oppressive rule leaves them little choice. At least 6,000 people remain in Uzbek prisons because of their religious or political beliefs, according to human rights groups. Human Rights Watch issued a 300-page report Tuesday on Uzbekistan's repression of Muslims, documenting what it called "systematic torture, ill-treatment, public degradation and denial of due process." Two other groups, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, condemned the terrorist attacks of recent days but warned that they should not be used as a pretext for further persecution. Uzbekistan first faced large-scale terrorism in 1999 when a series of bombings in Tashkent killed 16 people. The explosions were attributed to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which was largely destroyed during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan in 2001. The group's survivors fled with members of al Qaeda to the tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border, according to former members and regional officials. The movement's political leader, Tahir Yuldash, was reported to have been among the militants besieged by Pakistani troops in South Waziristan this month, although his whereabouts remain unknown.

Europe

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe 29 Apr 2004 www.osce.org OSCE Press Release : 'Berlin Declaration' sets out concrete measures to fight anti-Semitism BERLIN, 29 April 2004 - The OSCE's second Conference on anti-Semitism ended today with a ringing condemnation of all acts motivated by anti-Semitism or other forms of religious or racial hatred, and participating States agreed to take specific, practical counter-measures. In the Conference's "Berlin Declaration", read out by OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy, and accepted as a summary of the proceedings, the Organization's members undertake to assemble reliable information and statistics about anti-Semitic crimes, as well as other hate-crimes. At the same time, through its Warsaw-based human rights watchdog, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the Organization will gather and report these findings to its member States, and make them public. The ODIHR will also start systematically collecting best practices to prevent or respond to anti-Semitism and disseminate the information throughout the OSCE area. The OSCE Chairman-in-Office said the level of attendance, which included many foreign ministers, showed the depth of concern felt across the OSCE States at the upsurge in anti-Semitism: "We are particularly concerned that this hostility towards Jews -- as individuals or collectively -- has manifested itself in verbal and physical attacks and in the desecration of synagogues and cemeteries." The Berlin Declaration contains other concrete measures such as reviewing legal systems to ensure they foster a safe environment free of anti-Semitic harassment, violence or discrimination and calls for educational programmes to combat anti-Semitism and promote remembrance of the Holocaust. "I was particularly moved by some of the powerful testimonies we heard from survivors of the Shoah, the Holocaust," said Minister Passy. "The words of Elie Wiesel and Simone Veil are a challenge to us all never to let the memory of this most appalling of crimes against humanity die." "We must take Elie Wiesel seriously when he tells us that Jewish communities are disturbed and alarmed by evidence of a renewal of anti-Semitism in the OSCE region." Held in Berlin at the invitation of the German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, the two-day conference drew over 800 participants, including representatives of a large number of non-governmental organizations, as well as the OSCE's ten partner states for co-operation, which include Israel. The aim was not just to talk but to agree on practical action by the OSCE's 55 participating States to counter the upsurge in anti-Semitism. "I believe our conference in the last two days has made a significant contribution to making our collective response to anti-Semitism more credible. This scourge strikes against the foundations of democracy and the way our countries respond to anti-Semitism is critical for the credibility of democracy," said the Chairman-in-Office. The role of the media also came under scrutiny at the conference, which looked at ways in which some reporting and comment could, even inadvertently, serve as fertile soil for new intolerance by failing to challenge underlying prejudices. In June, an OSCE meeting will be held in Paris, which will focus on the deliberate use of the Internet to promote hate-crime and the spreading of racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic propaganda; a third event, to be held by the OSCE in Brussels in September, will be looking at the wider problems of racism, xenophobia and discrimination in society, across the OSCE region. [ www.osce.org/odihr/ ]

JTA 20 Apr 2004 Conference in Berlin condemns anti-Semitism, calls for monitoring By Toby Axelrod BERLIN, April 29 (JTA) –– An international conference on anti-Semitism failed to condemn its growth among Muslims in Europe, but participants nevertheless are hailing the gathering as a success. A resolution passed at the end of the two-day conference Thursday declared “unambiguously that international developments or political issues, including those in Israel or elsewhere in the Middle East, never justify anti-Semitism.” The mention of Israel in the final document — the first time the OSCE has ever issued a declaration of any kind — acknowledged a major source of anti-Semitism in Europe today and was one of several distinguishing elements in the forum on new manifestations of the age-old scourge. However, Arab states convinced members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which hosted the conference in the city where the Nazis planned their genocide of European Jewry, to remove references from official documents linking criticism of Israel and Muslim anti-Semitism. Our sense is that courageous statements at the conference “were few and far between,” said Shelley Klein, director of advocacy for Hadassah. Still, at a time when public opinion in much of the world has turned sharply against Israel — resulting in a wave of attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions across Europe — a gathering intended to help the Jewish people “is a success in and of itself,” Klein said. The conference, preceded by several other events in Berlin this week targeting anti-Semitism, was intended as a tougher follow-up to an initial OSCE conference last summer in Vienna. Hosted by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and chaired by Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy, the program featured addresses by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, German President Johannes Rau and Holocaust survivors Simone Veil and Elie Wiesel. In one particularly moving moment, Passy presented Fischer with the yellow star his grandfather had been forced to wear during World War II to identify him as a Jew. His family always had said that one day the star would be returned to a German, Passy said. Several hundred participants, ranging from politicians to religious leaders to OSCE representatives, attended the conference at Germany’s Foreign Ministry. Also present were representatives of Israel, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia, which are “Mediterranean Partners for Cooperation” in the OSCE. Observers said the high-level officials participating sent a signal to political leaders on the eve of European Union enlargement that all forms of discrimination are unacceptable. “Had it not been done by Joschka Fischer in Germany, I believe the Jews would be making a mistake in calling for a stand-alone conference,” Israel Singer, chairman of the World Jewish Congress, told JTA. He said he had asked Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel to attend last year’s conference in Vienna but was rebuffed. Chief among many participants’ concerns was growing international vilification of Israel and the spillover effect it has had in recent years on attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions in Europe. A significant number of perpetrators have been young Muslims, particularly in France, but that point was hardly addressed directly at the conference. “Today we confront the ugly reality that anti-Semitism is not just a fact of history, but a current event,” Powell told the gathering. He said that criticism of Israel was not necessarily anti-Semitic unless “Israel or its leaders are demonized or vilified, for example by the use of Nazi symbols and racist caricatures.” In the days before the conference, the Anti-Defamation League released a report showing a decline in anti-Semitic attacks in Europe from their peak two years ago, but a marked rise in anti-Israel sentiment. The disparity between the drop in anti-Semitism and the rise in hostility toward Israel suggests that political intervention has helped Europeans separate their feelings about Jews from their views on Israel, said Abraham Foxman, the ADL’s U.S. national director. “It’s open season on Israel, an open season of criticism at a level that is almost beyond reason and rationale,” Foxman said. Ultimately, he added, bias against Israel “impacts on how Jews are perceived.” Paul Spiegel, who survived the Holocaust in hiding in Belgium and today heads the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said anti-Semitic attacks of all kinds should be denounced “wherever they come from.” His remarks underscored the hesitancy to address the issue of Muslim anti-Semitism directly. Speakers offered numerous suggestions in workshops on topics such as anti-Semitism in the media and Internet; the role of governments and civil society in promoting tolerance; and diversity training and Holocaust education. Non-governmental organizations shared their materials and networked in the ministry’s library. Participants committed to honing their legal systems, promoting academic exchange and educational programs — including Holocaust studies — and pledged to “collect and maintain reliable information and statistics about anti-Semitic crimes and other hate crimes committed within their territory.” They pledged to report such crimes to the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. That office is to be charged with monitoring anti-Semitism with the cooperation of the 55 OSCE member states, and it will make its findings public. Finally, the OSCE’s human rights branch is to collect “best practices” from non-governmental organizations throughout the region “for preventing and responding to anti-Semitism.” Several non-Jewish activists attended the conference, including a delegation from the Washington-based Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. The conference “pushed anti-Semitism back on the agenda,” said Fahmia Huda, head of the Faith Communities Office of Britain’s Foreign Office. “Everyone has a duty to take part in the discussions and do whatever they can to combat it,” said Huda, who is Muslim. While several concrete recommendations emerged from the conference — including a call for a coordinator to monitor anti-Semitic crimes across the continent — some observers said the mere convening of the event made it a success. Such a conference on the highest political level “shows that anti-Semitism is not a legitimate political instrument, and it sends a signal to the Eastern European states that have not always seen it that way,” said Wolfgang Benz, head of the Technical University of Berlin’s Center for Research on Anti-Semitism. Observers said some Arab countries had pressured the OSCE to exclude language linking criticism of Israel with Islamic anti-Semitism. In addition, some European members of the board reportedly balked at including such language. The final declaration, which was read aloud by conference chair Passy, condemns all manifestations of anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination based on ethnic origin or religious belief, as well as attacks on religious institutions motivated by such hatred. Stephen Hoffman, president and CEO of the United Jewish Communities, the umbrella organization of North American Jewish federations, told JTA that the Bush administration encouraged the delegation “not to make blanket statements saying ‘Muslims say this’ or ‘Muslims say that,’ not to blanket a whole religion, just as we don’t want to be,” he said. In debates over the final statement, OSCE members expressed “considerable opposition to referencing the situation in the Middle East and Israel too directly and too graphically,” added Hoffman, who was a member of the official U.S. delegation. “The U.S. government fought hard to get a reference, but the consensus was not there among many of the European member states.” Rabbi Andrew Baker, the American Jewish Committee’s head of international affairs, told JTA that the event was a success despite the compromises over the final document. Even without pressure from the Arab states, the final document probably would not have explicitly linked Israel and Islamic anti-Semitism, Baker said. “There were too many people who were nervous about it,” he said. “The question is whether you will note what the declaration says or what it doesn’t say. And the answer is that it is noteworthy for what it does say.” Foxman agreed, noting that though the final declaration didn’t mention Muslim anti-Semitism, the topic was much discussed in both the OSCE event and at pre-conference events. “We broke an important taboo,” Foxman said. “The next thing is to talk about the perpetrators.”

Azerbaijan

www.azernews.net 1 Apr 2004 Azeris mark Day of Genocide On March 31 the Azerbaijan people mark the Day of Genocide. This date has been observed since 1998, when President Aliyev issued an edict "On genocide of Azerbaijanis", the first document to give political and legal assessment to the atrocities perpetrated by Armenians in the name of their "great Armenia" obsession. On this date in March 1918, a group comprising Bolsheviks and Dashnaks, Armenian nationalist party, under the pretext of a "struggle against counter-revolutionaries", launched a hideous plan of cleansing Baku of Azerbaijanis. Tens of thousands of Baku residents were slain, architectural monuments, mosques and schools looted and razed to the ground, the violence later spreading to Quba, Shamaxi, Kurdamir. This continuous oppression led in 1919-1920 to the marking of March 31 as the Day of Prayer by the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the first democracy in the Islamic world. In total, 2 million Azeris fell victim to the genocide unleashed by Armenians in the 19-20th centuries. Day of Genocide On Tuesday, President Aliyev made a nationwide address on Day of Genocide. History The signing of the Gulistan and Turkmenchay peace accords between Russia and Iran laid groundwork for a massive settlement of Armenians on Azeri soil and mass deportation of native Azeris. This was a part of the deliberate campaign to establish an Armenian state in the South Caucasus, which involved a series of mass killings of Azeris by Armenian nationalists in 1905-1907 and in 1918-1920, and deportation of hundred thousand of Azerbaijanis from their historical lands in 1948-1953. For example, 375,000 Azeris resided in the Iravan (Yerevan) province in 1916, their number tumbled to 12, 000 by 1920. Pursuing the "Armenia without Turks" obsession, Armenians were aided by Russia and the former USSR. Throughout the 20th century Azerbaijanis have repeatedly been subject to extermination and persecution by Armenians. The Facts about eradication of Azerbaijanis and annexation of Azeri lands to Armenia were concealed for years, Armenians unleashed genocide first in Baku and then in other regions of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus. In late March-early April 1918, as a result of an unprecedented massacre spearheaded by Armenian Bolsheviks (Dashnaks), more than 15,000 innocent people were gunned down in Baku and adjacent villages. From the late 1980s to early 1990s, tens of thousands of Azerbaijanis were brutally killed, while hundreds of thousands of others were made homeless as a result of Armenia's territorial claims on Azerbaijan instigated by the then leaders of the USSR. Over a million people have been made refugees and IDPs.

Bosnia

Reuters 1 Apr 2004 Priest and son in critical condition after NATO raid | 13:28 | Reuters PALE -- Thursday – A priest and his son who were injured last night in a raid by NATO troops searching for war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic are in critical condition, according to a hospital official. The priest, Father Jeremija Starovlah, underwent surgery for the second time this morning, while his son was still in a coma after being operated on, hospital spokeswoman Amra Odobasic said. The two suffered heavy injuries to the head. A NATO spokesman said they had received “blast injuries”.

AP 1 Apr 2004 Thousands of Serbs protest NATO raid By SAMIR KRILIC ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER PALE, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Waving Serbian flags, 3,000 protesters denounced NATO on Thursday for a pre-dawn raid in search of war-crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic that wounded a priest and his son. The raid outraged the people who live in Pale, Karadzic's stronghold during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Within hours of the raid, crowds carrying banners reading "Stand proud, Serb people," and "Nobody will arrest a Serb," lit candles and prayed for those the two wounded in the NATO sweep. "It can't go on like this," said one protester, Novka Suko, 46. "Their helicopters are scaring the children daily. ... How long is this going to last?" Acting on intelligence information, NATO-led troops raided a church and a rectory used by Orthodox priests and their families early Thursday. Soldiers used explosives to open the door, wounding the priest and his son. Jeremija Starovlah, 52, a known Karadzic supporter, and his son Aleksandar, 28, were taken to the hospital in the northern city of Tuzla. Both were in critical condition with multiple fractures and head wounds, said Mirsada Praso, who heads the hospital's intensive care unit. "We all are deeply insulted," said Slavko Kujundzic, the head of the Pale municipality. Troops have tried unsuccessfully several times to arrest Karadzic, believed to be on the run inside the Bosnian Serb half of Bosnia. The indictment against Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, his fugitive wartime general, accuses them of war crimes during the conflict. The two are accused of masterminding the massacre of up to 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, Europe's worst slaughter of civilians since World War II.

Czech Republic

www.romea.cz/english 20 Apr 2004 Two Roma women were attacked due to racial causes in Ostrava Ostrava, 20. 4. 2004, (ROMEA) Two Roma women (22 and 30 years old) became a target of racial motivated violence. This happened on Saturday morning in front of the Baník restaurant in Ostrava. Firstly, three men and one woman impugned them and them even physically attacked them. "When the younger woman fall down, two of the men started to kick her, while roaring out Nazi slogans of the type: `sieg heil'," as stated by spokesman of Ostrava police, Milan Klézl. The older one suffered contusion of the right hand. The older woman described the attack for the MF Dnes as follows: "We went back from Stodolní. On the zebra near the Baník restaurant, a girl and a boy started to abuse us with invectives of the type of you black jaw and so on. When I marveled why they are saying this, they started to jack up my skirt." Then, it moved onto the physical attack." I got a slap. My younger sister lied on the ground and they were kicking her, while heiling. Then, two more men joined them," as stated by the 30 years old woman, who, even though not bringing up her right name due to a fear, introduced herself as Radka. "They pulled my skirt to pieces on me. By now, I am looking carefully around me even in a tramp, if there is no one who could want to attack me." A Roma man, who saw what is happening, came to help them out. "I came to pull them away from those women, when I have got to know what is happening outside. They were skinheads for sure. They wore clothes that apposite them. I do not understand how three men could attack women. I just do not understand their scruffiness." That has been stated by the man, who also stopped just passing police in order to help to attacked women, for the MF Dnes. Police noted down two of the attackers. Police detection has been set to get the rest of them. I gave advice to copy policemen's ID numbers to the women. Just for a case they would not like to solve this case." As said by the man that stepped into the conflict. Police is investing the case as a rioting, battery, and as a criminal act of support and propaganda of a movement purposing suppression of the civic rights and freedoms. Five years of imprisonment is the penalty that threatens the attackers.

www.romea.cz/english 16 Apr 2004 Martin Stiskala is in detention Czech Republic: Another racial attack in Jesenik Jeseník, 16. 4. 2004, 13:45 UPDATED (ROMEA) Police in Jeseník is solving another racial attack. Nineteen years old Martin Stiskala, who already was accused of two racial attacks on Roma a while ago, is suspected of an attack on nineteen years old Roma boy. The attack happened on Wednesday, May 14, in front of a restaurant. At first, drunken Stiskala impugned and insulted the young boy. According to spokesperson of the Jeseník police Natálie Orlová, Stiskala used vituperations as Nigger, while spiting onto the ground. Then, he kicked and poked into him for several times. Both of them fell down then, where attacked person caught the attacker into a "cravat" and stopped him from onward violence. The young Roma boy held the racist until the police came. "Both of them suffered small injuries that were attended by a doctor," as stated by Natalie Orlová. The court of justice inflicted detention on Martin Stiskala. Martin Stiskala was detained and put into police cell. He is suspected of violence against a group and an individual, disgrace of a nation, ethnic group, race, and certitude, and disorderly conduct. For all that, Stiskala is threatened with an imprisonment up to three years. The cause is solving by the police in summary jurisdiction and was transferred to prosecution. "That is sort of scrimmage and common disposition of invoices. For sure, there is not racism prevailing in this region. Prague media have contributed to a negative picture of our region quite a lot. They constantly evoke and kindle particular causes related to attacks of Roma. This leads to false notion of Jeseník being racist town." That has been stated by deputy of the Jeseník chief magistrate Jarmila Javoríková for news real Respect. Martin Stiskala was indicted of racially motivated attack, together with another two boys (Martin Jašek and Petr Blajza), already earlier. They attacked Romani married couple from Jeseník last June. These three youths pretended they are policemen and tried to enter a flat of Romani family, while being drunk. Žigovi, the married couple opened the door to them. Then, the youths attacked the woman, who was pregnant at that time, with a cobble into her eye and cut her husband face and chest with a knife. The court in Jeseník assigned them with just three years conditional punishment, for all they have done. This controversial verdict caused a series of protest expressions from a side of Romani organizations and protectors of human rights. The regional court in Olomouc annulled the previous verdict on the base of appeal, and gave the cause to be investigated again into Jeseník. By now, Jašek and Blajza are placed in detention due to a suspicion of perpetration. Investigators accused them of two attacks towards Roma that they purportedly have done in spring at the bus station in Jeseník. Stiskala has done also another racially motivated malefaction that happened in mid-January. According to eyewitnesses' testimony, Stiskala decried a group of Roma right at the main square in Jeseník. After that, he tried to commit a suicide. Martin Stiskala wanted to poison himself with alcohol in combination with medical drugs on Tuesday, January 20, 2004.

Denmark

AP 1 Apr 2004 Ugandan political refugee in Denmark charged for war crimes By Jan M. Olsen COPENHAGEN, Denmark – A man granted political asylum in Denmark has been charged with war crimes in the death of two policemen and the kidnapping of a government official in Uganda, the Danish war crimes prosecutor's office said Thursday. The Special International Crimes Office said the man, who wasn't identified, committed the crimes in 1994-1995 while the leader of a rebel group that opposed Uganda's government. Ugandan media had identified the suspect as Maj. Herbert Itongwa, whose real name is Herbert Kikomeko Sseddyabane. He led the Uganda National Democratic Alliance. Ugandan media claimed he was behind the group's killings of regional police commander Erisa Karakire and his driver, Samwiri Kakonge. The group is also believed to be responsible for the kidnapping of then-Health Minister James Makumbi. The Ugandan arrived in Denmark in 1997 and was given political asylum in 1999. He has been in police custody since May 2003. He will be tried May 25 in Aalborg, where he had been living. The war crimes prosecutor's office said it would seek to have the man placed in a mental institution, saying he wasn't fit for a prison sentence, if he is convicted. Aalborg is 140 miles northwest of Copenhagen. In line with the Geneva Conventions, which calls for countries to prosecute or expel war criminals, Denmark has tried several other people for war crimes. In 1994, Refic Saric, a Bosnian Muslim, was sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in 14 cases of violently mistreating and assaulting fellow inmates, two of whom died, in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1993. In 2000, Innocent Sagahutu, who faced charges for his alleged participation in genocide, mass rape and the 1994 killings of 10 Belgian U.N. soldiers in Rwanda, was to extradited to Rwanda. He had lived in Denmark since 1998. Denmark also investigated claims that Gen. Nizar al-Khazraji, a former Iraqi army chief of staff, was responsible for 1988 poison gas attacks on Kurds in northern Iraq. Al-Khazraji who lived in Denmark, disappeared from his home in March 2003 a few days before the U.S.-led war against Iraq started. – On the Net: SPECIAL INTERNATIONAL CRIMES OFFICE The office is nationally responsible for legal proceedings of international crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, acts of terror and other serious crimes committed abroad. www.sico.ankl.dk/page22.aspx

France

BBC 3 April, 2004 France frees Congo police chief The head of the Republic of Congo's police has been freed following his arrest in France for alleged crimes against humanity. Jean-Francois Ndengue, the head of Congo's national police, was detained on Thursday, but freed late on Friday after claiming diplomatic immunity. He had been arrested in the town of Meaux, close to Paris. Mr Ndengue is being investigated in connection with the disappearance of hundreds of Congolese exiles in 1999. A judge on Friday had ordered that Mr Ndengue be remanded in custody in a Paris prison and placed him under judicial investigation. But Mr Ndengue's lawyer Jean-Marc Florand successfully argued that the police chief held a diplomatic passport and therefore enjoyed diplomatic immunity. French police and the International Federation of Human Rights had said that Mr Ndengue did not qualify, arguing that he was not in France for official business. Civil war Mr Ndengue's name is cited in a case under investigation in France as the result of a suit filed in 2001 by relatives of hundreds of Congolese exiles who went missing at the end of Congo's civil war in 1999. More than 350 people went missing after they were arrested by police as they arrived back in the capital, Brazzaville. They were returning from exile in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they had fled during fighting in their country. The President of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, and other ministers and military figures are also named in the investigation. The Republic of Congo has tried to block the suit. But French officials say that because France has signed the 1984 UN convention on torture, it does have competence to judge crimes of this order, even if they are committed abroad.

Germany

BBC 1 Apr 2004 German state backs headscarf ban Teacher Fereshta Ludin's case prompted states to legislate The southern German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg has become the first in the country to ban teachers from wearing Islamic headscarves. The state assembly approved the law almost unanimously, but Muslim groups said it eroded religious freedom. The law follows last year's ruling by Germany's highest court that states could ban headscarves if they were deemed to unduly influence pupils. Another five out of 16 states are in the process of passing similar bans. On Wednesday, Berlin's regional government agreed to outlaw all religious symbols for civil servants, although the bill still needs to be approved by the regional legislature. Fierce debates Baden-Wuerttemberg's parliament - dominated by a coalition of the opposition Christian Democratic Union and liberal Free Democrats - backed the deal almost unanimously. State culture minister Annette Schavan was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying that headscarves had no place in schools as they were "open to interpretation", including a possible espousal of "Islamic political views". The issue has been fiercely debated in Germany since Fereshta Ludin, who was denied a job in Baden-Wuerttemberg in 1998 because she wore a headscarf in school, went to court. She argued that the German constitution guaranteed her religious freedom. Last September, the federal Constitutional Court ruled by five votes to three that, under current laws, she could wear the scarf. But it also said new laws could be passed by individual states banning them. (see US above)

Netherlands

www.expatica.com 2 Apr 2004 Dutchbat commander flees amid Srebrenica threats 2 April 2004 AMSTERDAM — The commander of the Dutchbat UN battalion which surrendered to Serb forces in 1995 at Srebrenica, where 7,000 Muslim men and boys were executed, has fled the Netherlands because he feels threatened. Colonel Thom Karremans has fled to Spain, claiming on the IKON television Factor on Friday that he has been verbally threatened on several occasions, news agency ANP reported. While walking in Amsterdam recently, the Dutch military officer overheard someone say: "They should hang that guy". Several similar experiences prompted his decision to emigrate south. "I have fled my own nation and that causes a lot of pain," Karremans said. During the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Karremans was the commandant of Dutchbat III, the Dutch United Nations peacekeeping force entrusted with the protection of the Muslim enclave at Srebrenica in Bosnia in 1995. But the vastly outnumbered and lightly-armed troops, who were deprived of UN air support, surrendered to Bosnian-Serbian forces led by General Ratko Mladic in July of that year. The invading troops killed more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys in mass executions. It was Europe's worst case of genocide since World War II. The Dutch Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) later published a highly damming report blaming Dutch ministers, military commanders and the UN for the massacre. The report's findings led to the resignation of the Dutch Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Wim Kok in April 2002. Meanwhile, the Mothers of Srebrenica pressure group submitted at the end of last year a EUR 875 million compensation claim against the UN and the Dutch government. Lawyers said the complaint against the UN had been lodged with US courts, while the compliant against the Dutch government had been submitted to the Dutch judicial system. They are demanding USD 1 billion (EUR 875 million) in compensation. One of the lawyers representing the Srebrenica survivors, US international rights professor Francis Boyle, previously tried in vain in the Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague to have Karremans held accountable for the massacre. Two of the men most wanted by UN tribunal in The Hague, Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, Ratko Mladic, are accused of responsibility for the Srebrenica massacre and the siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. Both men remain at large. Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is on trial in The Hague, faces charges relating to atrocities carried out in Kosovo in 1999, to crimes against humanity committed in Croatia between 1991 and 1992 and to alleged genocide in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995.

Radio Netherlands www.rnw.nl 2 Apr 2004 The mechanics of genocide by Bertine Krol The UN General Assembly has designated 7 April as the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. During the past decade, there have been heated debates about whether the massacres could have been prevented. Last year, a study centre was set up in Amsterdam to glean more insight into the factors that can touch off mass killings. Offering support to academic research and public education, the centre seeks to contribute to the public debate about genocide in general and the Holocaust in particular. "Genocide can be defined as the effort to wipe out minorities as completely as possible. It requires mass involvement of ordinary people, who are needed to perform the actual killing." The words are from Johannes Houwink ten Cate, professor of history at the University of Amsterdam and the director of the Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He roughly distinguishes two types of genocide: "There is genocide as a state crime against an ethnic, religious or political minority. On the other hand, there is an ethnic conflict in which the object is not only to kill the other group but also to conquer political power." Holocaust The name of the new centre suggests there's a difference between the Holocaust of the Second World War and other genocides, such as the one in Rwanda: "At first glance there is a major difference, because the Holocaust belongs to the type of state murders of minorities, whereas the war between the Hutus and the Tutsis was an ethnic conflict over the question who would rule the country." Yet there are also some similarities, stresses Professor Houwink ten Cate: "The percentage of victims is on the same level. The Nazis tried to kill all the Jews of Europe, and they succeeded in killing nearly 65 percent. The victim rate amongst the Tutsis was on rather the same level." Face-to-face killings In both cases, a large number of the victims died in face-to-face killings. Professor Houwink ten Cate says this factor is often overlooked: "The Holocaust is usually seen in terms of concentration camps, but at least one in three victims of the Holocaust – totalling up to 1.8 million people - were killed in open air mass shootings, also the most common form of killing in the Rwanda conflict." Johannes Houwink ten Cate, Director of the Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Genocide doesn't happen overnight or just anywhere. Professor Houwink ten Cate lists a number of preconditions: "A history of ethnic and civil strife, for instance. The form of government is another: genocides hardly, if ever, occur in democratic societies, but in countries that are ruled autocratically." Mobilising the masses A third precondition is ideology: people have to believe that the targeted minority is extremely criminal and dangerous. "The perpetrators of genocide are convinced that they do not kill out of their own accord, but out of political self-defence. A fourth precondition would be manpower: you obviously need instruments to kill." In order to mobilise the masses, the media are used in painting a negative picture of the targeted minority. In poor countries with low literacy, radio plays a major part. "The Rwanda state radio had a large role in the mass killings. Not only did it describe the Tutsi minority as snakes and cockroaches that had to be killed, it gave very specific information, too. For example, ‘there are still 54 members of a Tutsi family alive in that particular village.'" Creating killers Most perpetrators live under the illusion that they can kill in relative secrecy, that they can do it fast and thorough, so there will be no help for the persecuted minorities. But how can more or less ordinary people turn into brutal killers? 15 year old Issiaka comes from Kigali. His mother was hacked to death with a machete before his very eyes. His father later fell sick with malaria and died. All his other relatives were massacred in the genocide. Issiaka fled into the bush and lived there for months in constant fear of the interahamwe. Hunger finally forced him to return to Kigali. He has been living on the streets since then.. "People kill out of ideology, hatred or greed. But they can also kill out of peer pressure. One of the complicating factors is that some of these motives do not lead to criminal behaviour in other cases. Greed is a very normal human characteristic. It evidently takes a particular historical or sociological context, an extraordinary situation, to lead to genocide." According to Professor Houwink ten Cate one of the most disturbing aspects of mass murders is that it becomes routine fairly quickly: "Most people who kill are more or less normal, they're not sadistic or crazy. Nevertheless, they can become professional killers, often within a couple of days." Sadism He thinks it's a misconception that the perpetrators are natural born killers or sadists: "In no way is sadism a precondition. For instance, the Waffen-SS guards in German concentration camps were certainly not selected for their sadistic character. They became sadists after they had started working in the camp." Professor Houwink ten Cate thinks the new genocide centre can help gain more insight into the factors behind mass killings. "Genocide can be prevented. For instance, the western military presence in Africa's Great Lakes region has had a calming effect." But the professor admits it's hard to determine whether the conflict that thus suppressed, would otherwise have turned into genocide. "However, the notion of genocide has developed since World War Two. We now have the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These are changes that people 50 years ago could never have hoped for. There is also a sense that victims deserve to be treated in a respectful way, even if they're non-European. That is a new notion as well. So there are ample grounds for hope." The interview was featured in the programme Dutch Horizons. Click to hear it (10:12) Centrum voor Holocaust- en Genocidestudies

Netherlands - ICTY

Reuters 31 Mar 2004 Bosnian Serb Jailed Over Cliff-Edge Massacre AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Hague War Crimes Tribunal Wednesday sentenced a former Bosnian Serb policeman to 17 years in jail for taking part in the 1992 massacre of more than 200 non-Serb men on the edge of Bosnian cliff. Darko Mrdja confessed at the U.N. war crimes tribunal last year to taking part in shootings by a special Bosnian Serb police unit of at least 228 prisoners on Mount Vlasic in central Bosnia in August 1992. The Bosnian Muslim and Croat victims, who had been told they would be released in a prisoner exchange, were driven from the notorious Trnopolje detention camp to woods by a ravine where they were forced to kneel to be shot by the edge of a cliff. A dozen men survived the massacre by tumbling or jumping down the cliff. The mass killing marked part of an early wave of ethnic cleansing in the 1992-95 Bosnian war as rebel Bosnian Serb forces clashed with Bosnian Croats and Muslims during the break-up of the multi-ethnic former Yugoslavia. "The fact that Mrdja personally participated in the selection of the civilians that were going to be killed and in the subsequent murder and attempted murder of 12 of them... makes these crimes especially serious," Judge Alphons Orie told the court as he announced the sentence. Prosecutors and the defense recommended a 15- to 20-year prison sentence to judges after a plea deal. Mrdja initially pleaded not guilty to three counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes but changed his plea to guilty on two counts -- murder and attempted murder -- under the deal.

Reuters 14 Apr 2004 MILOSEVIC WANTS 1,631 WITNESSES Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president who stands accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide at the United Nations tribunal, submitted a list of witnesses he hoped to summon for his defense. Zdenko Tomanovic, a lawyer assisting Mr. Milosevic, said the list included Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. The judges in his trial, scheduled to resume in June, will decide which witnesses may be called. Mr. Milosevic has been given 150 court days to complete his defense.

Poland

Reuters 14 Apr 2004 Polish Firebrand Praises Hitler's 'Early' Policies WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish firebrand Andrzej Lepper, whose nationalist Self-Defense party tops popularity rankings, was quoted Wednesday as saying he believed Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's early policies were good. ``At the beginning of his activities, Hitler had a really good program,'' Lepper told the Zycie Warszawy newspaper. ``I don't know what happened to him later...who had such influence over him that he moved toward genocide.'' Lepper's growing popularity is part of a wider backlash in future European Union members from central Europe against years of tough market reforms and government sleaze. His nationalist, anti-establishment views also fit into a wider phenomenon of support for far-right politicians in western Europe such as Austria's Joerg Haider or France's Jean-Marie Le Pen, both of whom scored electoral successes in the last decade. Haider also once praised Hitler's ``enviable'' record in job creation. Lepper's remarks are bound to stir controversy in Poland, a country which Nazi Germany invaded in 1939, unleashing World War II. Five million Polish citizens, including over three million Jews, were killed by the Nazis. Asked to confirm the remarks, Lepper said the newspaper had manipulated his comments. ``All I said concerning Hitler is that, yes, he eliminated unemployment,'' Lepper told Reuters. ``Hitler was the biggest criminal and murderer in history.'' The newspaper played a tape recording of the interview to Reuters including the quoted remarks. ONE IN THREE Surveys show one in three Poles could vote for Lepper in the next parliamentary elections, which are due next year but could be brought forward as the current leftist coalition struggles to reconstruct its government. Unpopular Prime Minister Leszek Miller will step down on May 2, a day after Poland joins the EU. His designated successor Marek Belka has yet to assemble a parliamentary majority. Some Polish commentators have drawn parallels between Hitler's tactics on his way to power and Lepper's. Like Hitler, who scorned Germany's feeble Weimar Republic, Lepper uses fiery rhetoric to attack the mainstream parties and the shortcomings of Poland's young democracy. He opposes Poland's EU membership, wants more state intervention in the economy and advocates strong presidential powers such as those enjoyed by Russia's Vladimir Putin. His popularity is fueled by promises to slash the country's high unemployment, running at about 20 percent, by launching wide-scale public works. Hitler launched huge infrastructure projects including building Germany's autobahn network and the armaments industry after he seized power in 1933.

Russia

International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights 1 Apr 2004 Authorities severely intimidate remaining Chechen IDPs in the last two tent camps in Ingushetia Vienna, 1 April 2004. Although there are still 600 persons officially living in 'Sputnik' camp, with another 400 who have been arbitrarily removed from registration lists beforehand but stayed there, from today on one of the two last remaining tent camps in Ingushetia, the camp 'Sputnik' is declared officially closed as of April 1, 2004, with the relevant order of the Federal Migration Service in the beginning of March. While federal and Chechen officials pretend to have 'objective' reasons (like fire hazards) for their efforts to close the camps, the actual reason appears to be the visibility of the tent camps, contradicting claims that the situation in Chechnya has 'normalized'. Hence, in the last several days of March a strong action of intimidation was conducted in order to ensure the 'timely' closure of 'Sputnik' camp. According to reports from the Human Rights Centre Memorial, on 29 March 2004, the seemingly final phase of the liquidation of the 'Sputnik' camp began, after a first-aid post and the school have been already closed one week ago. At around 9 o'clock in the morning a big group of officials of the so-called 'Operative Group of the Government of the Chechen Republic' entered the camp. Enforcement officials from other regions of Russia accompanied them. Numerous vehicles moved onto the territory of the camp, including police cars and several large trucks. The officials walked from tent to tent, declaring that it is necessary to gather and leave the camp immediately, threatening those who refuse, that they would be transferred by force to their permanent places of residence in Chechnya. They offended people, quarrelled obscenely, and threatened to disconnect gas, water and electricity. At the end, only those 11 families that had originally agreed to return to Chechnya were loaded into the trucks and taken away but all the residents of camps were severely intimidated and began panicking. Later on, officials from the Ingush Migration Service promised that those who had explicitly declared their unwillingness to go back to Chechnya, would get a place in former industrial premises of the seed facilities, also located near to the settlement of Sleptsovskaya. But those who applied to be moved there were told, that they can only move there only if a group of 20 families ready to be thus relocated is gathered before the end of the day. Eight families agreed to the relocation immediately. Some families were interested, but wanted to see the place first. Their request was refused. As the number of families willing to be transferred did not reach the required 20, no one was relocated and people were told that the opportunity to be moved to those premises was lost to them once and for all. IDPs were also refused to get accommodation in one of the 180 small panel-board houses, that had been erected by the NGO 'Medecins Sans Frontieres' already a year ago and have remained empty due to the lack of the relevant permission from the Ingush authorities. The residents of 'Sputnik' were told that those panel-board houses "are not for you", with the explanation that they were reserved for inhabitants of the last remaining camp 'Satsita'. Similar actions of intimidation happened also at places of compact residence. For example, on March 28 a group of military in an armoured troop-carrier came to the temporary refugee settlement "Iman" and severely beat several teenagers. When an IHF delegation visited the two camps 'Satsita' and 'Sputnik' in the middle of February, when they still sheltered some 3,500 and 1,600 persons respectively. Many IDPs told the IHF delegation that they were afraid to go back to Chechnya, particularly when they had sons, whom they feared would be in constant danger of arrest, torture, and disappearance. Although federal and local-level migration authorities repeatedly affirmed that they had no plans to use force to move IDPs to Chechnya, and gave according promises not only to the press and to human rights defenders but also to the Human Rights Commission under the President of the Russian Federation and to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and to the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, they do not stick to these promises.

AFP 1 Apr 2004 One of last two Chechen refugee camps closes in neighboring republic MOSCOW, April 1 (AFP) - One of the two remaining tent camps for Chechen refugees in the Ingushetia republic on the border of war-torn Chechnya closed Thursday, Russia's federal migration service said. "Sputnik, one of the two remaining camps, closed today. The last 137 people there have gone back to Chechnya," Yelena Alexeyeva, a spokeswoman for the service, told AFP. "The only tent camp remaining in Ingushetia is Satsita, which currently has 1,900 refugees," Alexeyeva said. In January then minister for Chechnya Stanislav Ilyasov vowed to close Ingushetia's tent camps by March 1, though authorities backed off the deadline after an outcry by rights groups. The camps in Ingushetia are an embarassment to the Kremlin, which insists that the war that it launched in the Caucasus republic is over and the refugees can safely return home. But many of the refugees have refused to return because a guerrilla war between separatists and pro-Moscow forces continues to claim lives on nearly a daily basis and random kidnappings are common. Authorities have been luring refugees back to Chechnya with promises of compensation for lost homes. As of February 13, 65,208 refugees had registered for assistance with United Nations-affiliated international organizations in Ingushetia, according to UN figures. Out of these, 5,678 were in the three tent camps, 24,035 in temporary settlements, and 35,495 in private accomodations. .

adicalparty.org 2 Apr 2004 press release CHECHNYA: UMAR KHANBIEV AT THE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION ASKS FOR THE INTERVENTION OF THE UN Geneva, 2 April, 2004. M. Umar Khanbiev, Chechen Health Minister of the Aslan Mashkadov Government has addressed this morning the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations, currently meeting in Geneva. Speech by Minister Khanbiev: " Thank you Mr. Chairman, My name is Umar Khanbiev. I speak on behalf of the Transnational Radical Party, being also a member of its General Council. Three years ago I spoke in this same room and my speech provoked loud protest from the Russian delegation. I was testifying to Russian crimes against humanity and asking for help to stop the genocide of the Chechen people. What changes have occurred since then? Unfortunately none. The only difference is that the number of people killed, maimed and disappearing, has increased by hundred of thousands. This is the price of your lack of action. Concentration camps, torture (including torture aimed at destroying fertility), non judicial executions, kidnappings, trading in hostages and corpses, death squadrons, experiments with poisons on detainees, hidden mass graves – such is the reality of Chechnya today. On some occasions young people have been tied together and blown up in public to intimidate the population. Every type of weapons has been used against the civilians, including weapons forbidden by the Geneva Convention, such as incendiary and air vacuum fuel bombs. We have records of new combined chemical-bacterial weapons being used. According to data compiled by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Chechnya and independent NGOs, 25% of the Chechen population has perished since the beginning of the war, 30% becoming refugees. The people who remain in Chechnya have become hostages and are subjected daily to air bombing, artillery bombardment, “clean-up” operations and executions. It is time to understand that Russia is not engaged in an “anti-terrorist campaign” but in a colonial war and a shameful campaign of terror aimed at the physical and moral destruction of the Chechen people. Mr Chairman, President Aslan Maskhadov, has repeatedly stated that he is ready to start a dialogue with the international community. Should the UN be prepared to listen to his reasonable appeals, the lives of thousands of children, women and elderly people could be saved. The international community has refused to intervene, closing its eyes on the way Russia has made a parody of democratic institutions. Referendum and elections were conducted at gun point. The situation is getting worse every day. The Chechens will not accept the Quisling Kadyrov. Without a serious international intervention, the Russian leadership will not have the will and the moral fortitude to engage in a serious political dialogue. Taking note of the Resolution of the European Parliament adopted on 26th February 2004 (recognising the 1944 Stalin’s deportation as an act of genocide and stating its willingness to consider President Maskhadov’s Peace Plan), we request that the UN should also take measures. Mr. Chairman, Fully aware that there cannot be a military solution to the century-old Russian-Chechen conflict, the Transnational Radical Party urges this august body to give the highest priority in considering Aslan Maskhadov’s Peace Plan for a political solution that could put an end to this genocide war. This proposal stipulates that independence is not a goal in itself but the only mean of survival in the face of constant Russian terror. It suggests setting up a temporary UN administration in order to allow Chechnya to be demilitarised and to develop democratic institutions while safeguarding the interests of both warring parties. I thank you, Mr. Chairman"

Serbia

AP 31 Mar 2004 Serbia Votes to Pay Milosevic During His War Crimes Trial By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ELGRADE, Serbia, March 30 — Serbian lawmakers on Tuesday awarded salaries, legal fees and other financial perks to former President Slobodan Milosevic and other Serbian war crimes suspects who are being tried by a United Nations tribunal in the Netherlands. The new law will also cover travel and mailing expenses incurred by families of the two dozen Serbian war crimes suspects who are imprisoned in The Hague. It was adopted by a 141-to-35 vote in Parliament and illustrates the surge of nationalism in the Balkan republic. "Serbia is finally defending itself against the fabricated charges in The Hague," said Zarko Obradovic, a lawmaker who is a member of Mr. Milosevic's Socialist Party. "We will never forget how Milosevic was kidnapped and illegally sent there." The law was opposed by the pro-Western Democratic Party, which led the rebellion in 2000 against Mr. Milosevic and extradited him to the United Nations tribunal in 2001 to face charges stemming from the Balkan wars of the 1990's. "The law is basically intended to help Slobodan Milosevic," Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic told Parliament, calling him "the one who impoverished this country." "The poor country will be financing its rich citizens," Mr. Svilanovic said. The Democrats lost the elections in December and the nationalists, who consider the United Nations tribunal anti-Serb, took over Serbia's government. The new law was drafted by the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, whose leader, Vojislav Seselj, is awaiting trial in The Hague. It was approved by Mr. Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia and the ruling conservative coalition. The law, government officials say, is intended to give Serbian suspects a better defense at the United Nations tribunal. The defendants' telephone calls and other legal expenses would be covered, and families would be able to mail packages to the prisoners at government expense. Until now, the United Nations tribunal paid basic fees for the lawyers and covered some family visits. Because Mr. Milosevic is defending himself, the law will pay the fees of his numerous legal advisers. Prison visits by his wife, one of the toughest critics of the previous Democratic-led government, and his two children will be paid for by Serbia's taxpayers. Serbian government officials fear that if Mr. Milosevic and other top Serbian suspects are convicted and sentenced on war crimes charges, Croatia and Bosnia — where Mr. Milosevic led his war campaigns — could win multibillion-dollar lawsuits against Serbia in the World Court, a separate United Nations institution also based in The Hague. "If the genocide charges against Milosevic are dropped by The Hague tribunal, so will be the genocide charges against Serbia" in the World Court, said the hard-line nationalist leader Tomislav Nikolic.

BBC 31 March, 2004 Washington cuts off aid to Serbia The US wants Ratko Mladic handed to The Hague The US has suspended its aid to Serbia, saying Belgrade is not fully co- operating with the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. The decision means Washington will not disburse the last $25m of a $100m assistance package set up three years ago to help Serbia reform its economy. The package was tied to Belgrade's relations with the Hague tribunal. The US has expressed concern at the new Serbian government's reluctance to hand over people accused of war crimes. A State Department spokesman on Wednesday urged Serbia to extradite a number of suspects - particularly former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, who is believed to be hiding in Serbia. If such action was taken, Adam Ereli said, Secretary of State Colin Powell was prepared to review the decision. The BBC's Nick Hawton in Belgrade says that although the suspension of US aid will have no immediate impact on the Serbian economy, the decision could have longer-term consequences. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and private investors may be discouraged from extending any more loans, our correspondent adds. In December Serbia elected a new parliament with nationalist sympathies. Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has said extraditing war crimes suspects to The Hague is not one of his government's priorities.

Serbia - Kosovo

AFP 31 Mar 2004 UN revises death toll from Kosovo violence down to 19 PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro, March 31 (AFP) - United Nations police in Kosovo on Wednesday revised downward to 19 the toll from this month's ethnic violence in the Serb province. "There have been a total of 19 deaths. The victims include 11 Kosovo Albanians and eight Kosovo Serbs," UN police spokesperson Neeraj Singh told a news conference. Initial reports from the UN police in the province put the number of dead during the March 17-20 unrest at 28. "It was our eagerness to maintain transparency and share information with the public that prompted us to give out statistics even as these were being compiled based on preliminary reports," Singh said. According to the UN police, the unrest also left more than 900 people injured, including 65 international police officers and 58 local police. "Twenty-nine churches and monasteries, around 800 houses and more than 150 vehicles have been destroyed or suffered substantial damages," Singh said. The rioting was the worst violence the province had seen since the end of the 1998-1999 war.

European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) 31 Mar 2004 errc.org Letter of Concern to Kosovo and European Authorities over Violence against Roma, Ashkaelia, Egyptians and Others Regarded as "Gypsies" in Kosovo, and Long-Term Impunity for their Persecutors March 31, 2004 The ERRC today sent a letter to Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations for Kosovo Mr. Harri Holkeri, Commander of Kosovo Force Lieutenant General Holger Kammerhoff, Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi, and European Commission President Romano Prodi to express deep concern at the continued acts of ethnic cleansing perpetrated by ethnic Albanians in Kosovo beginning with renewed force on March 17. In the letter, the ERRC presented documentation gathered in the course of an ERRC field mission undertaken since the beginning of the latest wave of violence in Kosovo. The letter concludes with recommendations to Mssrs. Holkeri, Kammerhoff, Rexhepi and Prodi. Information on the situation of Roma, Ashkaelia, Egyptians and others regarded as "Gypsies" in Kosovo is available on the Internet at: http://www.errc.org/publications/indices/kosovo.shtml Photographic documentation by ERRC researchers in Kosovo in March 2004 is available on the Internet at: http://www.errc.org/publications/photos/kosovo_2004.shtml The full text of the March 31 ERRC letter follows: Your Excellencies, The European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), an international public interest law organisation which monitors the situation of Roma in Europe, is writing to express deep concern at the grave human rights violations against Roma and Ashkaelia in Kosovo committed on and after March 17, 2004 and currently ongoing. The ERRC has gathered evidence that Roma and Ashkaelia have been subjected to very serious human rights violations during the wave of pogroms on minority communities carried out in the period March 17-21, 2004 throughout the province by ethnic Albanians. ERRC field investigation undertaken in recent days has documented that, in addition to the pogroms on ethnic Serb communities, several hundred Roma and Ashkaelia have been also targeted. At least 75 houses belonging to Romani and Ashkaeli families have been set on fire. This figure may rise further, since it does not include instances of violence in localities of which we have been informed but have not yet undertaken first-hand documentation. We appeal to you to give full attention to the human rights status of Roma, Ashkaelia, Egyptians and all other persons regarded by ethnic Albanians in Kosovo as "Gypsies", and therefore currently under extreme threat of violence in Kosovo. A summary of ERRC documentation in some localities in Kosovo in recent days follows: Vushtri/Vucitrn ERRC research established that approximately 70 houses belonging to Ashkaeli persons were set on fire by Albanian attackers (referred to locally as "protesters") on March 18, 2004, in the town of Vushtri/Vucitrn, about 10 kilometres south of Kosovska Mitrovica -- the place where the pogroms on Kosovo Serbs had begun the day before. The houses were completely destroyed in the arson attacks. According to eyewitnesses, on March 18, 2004, at approximately 17:00, a crowd of 200-300 persons gathered at the St. Elias Orthodox church in the town, which in 1999 had also been the target of assaults by ethnic Albanians in the context of ethnic cleansing of minorities in Kosovo following the end of the NATO military action in June 1999. At the time of the March 18, 2004 incident, the Moroccan KFOR unit which had been positioned to protect the site, failed to provide any protection and allegedly left. The crowd set fire to the church and the adjacent structures, destroyed some of the remaining church interior, including an altar and wall paintings, and knocked down tombstones in the graveyard located beside the church. At around the same time, a second crowd began to gather and subsequently headed toward the Ashkaeli neighbourhood. The group that had set the church on fire then joined the attackers in the Ashkaeli area. According to the testimony of Ashkaeli eyewitnesses, during the pogrom, a crowd of ethnic Albanians came to the Ashkaeli neighbourhood and started breaking into the houses. Their intention was, according to witnesses interviewed by the ERRC, to burn the houses to the ground while persons were still inside. The first house burnt was the house of Xemail Balinca. Some of the attackers allegedly tried to rape a girl from the Balinca family. The next house broken into belonged to the Qizmolli family. According to Mr Hamit Zymeri, an Ashkaeli eyewitness to the pogrom, neighbours gathered in the yard of the Qizmolli house in order to help the family, but officers of the Kosovo Police Service (KPS) intervened. The representatives of the Ashkaeli group alleged that some of the KPS officers acted in complicity with the attackers. Three members of the Qizmolli family were then arrested by KPS officers. According to the testimony to the ERRC of Station Commander Martin Wenzel, a senior UNMIK officer, Ashkaeli persons allegedly fired at the Albanian crowd, in an attempt to defend their homes. According to Station Commander Wenzel, these shots were not the trigger for the onslaught and arson that followed; the attackers had allegedly already decided to evict, burn and destroy the neighbourhood. In his view, "Everything was orchestrated." According to Officer Wenzel, when the information that Ashkaeli houses were being attacked was received, ten KPS police officers volunteered to evacuate the Ashkaeli families and bring them to the police station. Over 200 Ashkaeli people were assisted by KPS officers in fleeing their homes and coming inside the building of the police station. At about 19:30, the last Ashkaeli individuals were extracted from the area under mob siege. The houses were subsequently burned to the ground. At approximately 2:00 AM the following morning, the evacuated Ashkaelia were transferred to the French KFOR base at Plana. Two days later, they were transported to the French KFOR military compound Marechal de Lattre de Tassigny, near the village of Novo Selo. The three members of the Qizmolli Ashkaeli family detained at the time of the pogrom were held initially at the same police station. An AK-47 and hunting guns were seized during the arrest. The men were released two days later, reportedly on verbal order of the local prosecutor and they joined the other Ashkaeli people in the camp. According to the Officer Wenzel, the three men face charges of illegal possession of firearms. In addition, an investigation into the destruction by arson of each of the approximately 70 houses in Vushtri/Vucitrn is currently reportedly open. As of March 28, 2004, no one associated with the attacking crowd had been detained in relation to the arsons and the looting. According to Mr Hamit Zymeri, an Ashkaeli man with whom the ERRC spoke at the French KFOR compound in Novo Selo, the total number of persons burned out of Vushtri/Vucitrn in the attack was 257; there were 87 children, 85 women, two of whom are pregnant, 13 children under 3 years of age, and 18 babies under 6 months of age. According to a medical expert from the Ashkaeli community, thirteen people have diabetes, 20 have high blood pressure, 3 have epilepsy, and one woman has hip condition and is unable to walk. The conditions in the camp, according to the Ashkaeli representatives are poor: the barracks, which accommodated eleven persons each, were damp from heavy rain and were inadequately heated. Gjilan/Gnjilane At approximately 17:15-17:30 on March 17, Serbian and Romani communities in the town of Gjilan/Gnjilane, about 35 km southwest of Pristina were attacked by a mob of ethnic Albanians, reportedly predominantly young people in their teens. According to Romani eyewitnesses with whom the ERRC spoke, twenty-three houses belonging to Serbs were burnt. Also according to Romani eyewitnesses, the attackers were also intent on burning Romani houses. The attackers arrived at the Romani streets with canisters of inflammable liquid. Albanian neighbours, however, reportedly protected the Roma and did not allow the attackers to set their houses on fire. The attackers threw stones at Romani houses breaking windows and doors. They also insulted the Roma, calling them Majup(a pejorative word meaning, roughly, Gypsiesin Albanian). Some of the attackers broke into the house of Sulejman Demiri, in the process breaking the front door and window-panes. The house of Milaim Demiri was also attacked with stones and some window-panes were broken. According to Mr Milaim Demiri, some of the attackers asked Roma why they did not join the protest. Also according to Mr Milaim Demiri, one Romani house in another neighbourhood, Avdulla Presheva, was burnt. The house belonged to Mr Ramadan Selimi. Roma with whom the ERRC spoke in Gjilan/Gnjilane were afraid to accompany the ERRC to see the Romani house. They did not know the whereabouts of Mr Selimi. According to ERRC research, the police first appeared approximately six hours after the attack. Locals told the ERRC that the town has a community of 350 Roma. The number of Roma used to be between 5,000-6,000 before 1999, but most of these fled during the campaign of ethnic cleansing of minorities in Kosovo, 1999-present. Lipjan/Lipljan According to eyewitnesses with whom the ERRC spoke on March 28 in the town of Lipjan/Lipljan, about 15 km south of Pristina, three houses belonging to Ashkaeli and Romani families were burnt to the ground on March 17 and March 21. The ERRC spoke with Ms Selvije Kurteshi, an Ashkaeli woman whose house was burnt down on March 21 at around 2:00 AM. Ms Kurteshi and her family were not in their house at the time it was set on fire; they were temporarily accommodated in the house of Ms Kurteshis brother, located nearby. Neighbours reportedly told Ms Kurteshi that her house was burning, but stated that they were not able to identify the attackers. Mr Kurteshi told the ERRC that all of the furniture in the house was destroyed in the fire. According to Ms Kurteshi, KFOR arrived at the scene of the attack approximately one hour after the fire. The fire was extinguished by the police, who had reportedly been called by neighbours. The other two houses burnt in Lipjan/Lipljan belonged to Ashkaeli persons currently refugees outside Kosovo. Both houses were reportedly set on fire on March 17. The Investigator of the KPS in Lipjan/Lipljan in charge of the investigation cases told the ERRC that investigations had been opened with respect to the arson attacks on the three houses. He declined to provide the ERRC with information as to whether persons had been detained or charged in connection with the attacks. Obiliq/Obilic In the town of Obiliq/Obilic, east of Pristina, a number of Romani persons with whom the ERRC spoke told the ERRC that they had fled their homes on March 17 and sought refuge in the nearby Plemetina refugee camp when they saw a mob of people approaching their neighbourhood. At least three Romani families were reportedly forced to flee from their homes in Obiliq/Obilic in advance of rioters there. The ERRC subsequently observed that the building in Obiliq/Obilic where the Berisha family -- one of the families concerned -- lived was looted and that window panes in the building were broken and other damage to the exterior was visible. The building had previously housed ethnic Serbs and Roma. According to Mr Shevki Berisha and Ms Taibe Berisha, Romani victims of the attacks, no authority came to help them when the crowd gathered intent on attacking their house. As of March 28, no authority had been to visit them in the Plemetina camp. They stated to the ERRC that they did not have means to buy food and were afraid to go to Obiliq/Obilic. In Obiliq/Obilic, the ERRC also visited a community of 19 Roma, Ashkaeli and Egyptian families, who live in recently rebuilt houses on the outskirts of Obiliq/Obilic. They told the ERRC that none of them had been attacked on March 17. However, individuals in the community stated that they feared attack and had stopped sending their children to school. One Ashkaeli man told the ERRC, We are not free to go to Obiliq/Obilic. All persons in the community were reportedly unemployed at the time of the ERRC visit; they collect scrap metal to earn money for food.

BBC 22 April, 2004 Kosovo media blamed for violence - Nineteen people died in the recent violence "Reckless" reporting by media in Kosovo fanned March's deadly ethnic clashes, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) says. The group criticised the way local broadcasters implicated Serbs in the drowning of ethnic Albanian children. The incident led to unrest in which 11 ethnic Albanians and eight Serbs died. The report came as an influential pressure group said the province risked becoming Europe's "West Bank" unless the tensions were addressed. Draskovic called for greater security for Kosovo Serbs The International Crisis Group called on the international community to begin preparations for talks on the final status of Kosovo now, rather than waiting until next year. The province is administered by the UN, but it is still formally part of Serbia and Montenegro. Media reports of the drowning incident in March said the children had been chased into the river by local Serbs who set a dog on them. The broadcasting sector, displayed unacceptable levels of emotion (and) bias OSCE report The OSCE said the story was "unsupported by any journalistically valid accounts", adding that the circumstances were still unclear. "Without the reckless and sensationalist reporting on 16 and 17 March, events could have taken a different turn," said the OSCE's Miklos Haraszti in his report. "They might not have reached the intensity and level of brutality that was witnessed or even might not have taken place at all." The report said the media, specifically the broadcasting sector, displayed "unacceptable levels of emotion, bias, carelessness, and falsely applied 'patriotic' zeal". The rioting was the worst outbreak of violence since the 1999 Nato bombing forced Serbia to withdraw its forces from Kosovo. Since then, the number of Serbs living in Kosovo has dropped dramatically. Vexed question The foreign minister of Serbia and Montenegro, Vuk Draskovic, has said an independent Kosovo is "impossible". Any attempt to form such a state would go against the wishes and rights of Serbs living there, he told the BBC. But the call for an early start on final status talks was echoed on Thursday by Albanian President Alfred Moisiu. "The more delay there is, the more space is given to extremist activities from all sides," Mr Moisiu said during a visit to Kosovo - the first by an Albanian president.

ICG 22 Apr 2004 Collapse in Kosovo On 17 March 2004, the unstable foundations of four and a half years of gradual progress in Kosovo gave way to levels of violence not seen since 1999. Kosovo Albanian society was revealed to be deeply troubled and vulnerable to extremism. The provisional institutions of self-government (PISG), media and civil society afforded the Anti-Serb and anti-UN rioters licence for mayhem. Tensions have been fuelled by frustration and fear over the international community's intentions for Kosovo, UNMIK's inability to kick-start the economy, its suspension of privatisation, and by newly resurgent nationalists in Belgrade. The international community's institutions in Kosovo need new ways of operating and, in the case of UNMIK, a new structure and mandate. Without new policies on final status and socio-economic development, Kosovo may become ungovernable. The regional consequences of a destabilised Kosovo are i ncalculable. ------------------------------------- ICG reports and briefing papers are available on our website: www.crisisweb.org

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe 22 April 2004 www.osce.org Representative on Freedom of the Media -Press Release OSCE free media representative finds Kosovo press coverage of March violence "reckless and sensationalist" VIENNA, 22 April 2004 - The recent violence in Kosovo that led to the deaths of at least 19 people might have been avoided without the "reckless and sensationalist reporting" by local media, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, said today. Haraszti made the point in a report he introduced to the 55-nation OSCE Permanent Council, the Organization's main decision-making body. The report draws attention to the clear spin given by the media in accounts of the fatal drowning of a group of children on 16 March which seems to be unsupported by any journalistically valid accounts. "Without this, the incidents might not have reached the intensity and level of brutality that was witnessed, or even might not have taken place at all," said Haraszti. "The essence of our findings is that the most powerful broadcasters did a great disservice to Kosovo's ethnic peace and democracy, providing biased coverage on two counts". Haraszti said that on 16 and 17 March, local broadcasters portrayed the death of children as a cruel, criminal ethnically-motivated killing. But when, in the wake of their own previous reporting, the real inter-ethnic violence occurred, the TV media in particular followed up with justifying, almost supportive coverage. "For several crucial days, the media in Kosovo borrowed some of the characteristics of its own un-free, pre-democratic past, features that I personally know too well: lack not only of objectivity but also of plurality", said the Representative on Freedom of the Media. "What we witnessed in Kosovo was not just one-sided, careless and unprofessional journalism in a post-conflict volatile society, but it was a tragic lack of other balancing voices, at least in the broadcast media". "While displaying the weaknesses it did, the media was not, of course, intentionally instigating violence," the report says, but it notes that the media, specifically the broadcasting sector, displayed unacceptable levels of emotion, bias, carelessness, and falsely applied “patriotic” zeal. The events of mid-March were the first serious crisis that the Kosovo media has ever faced. While the report shows there was credible concern that broadcast media might have been one of the reasons for the outbreak of violence, it says that long-term sanctions could prove counter-productive. The document also offers 16 recommendations on how to repair the evident deficiencies of the media in order to prevent similar situations in the future and provide for a free, fair and balanced media landscape in Kosovo. These include strengthening the management and editorial component of the public broadcaster RTK, creating a legal framework for the media, as well as calling for greater attention to training and the education of young journalists. The report was prepared by Dardan Gashi, a journalist and author of two books on the Balkans, who has worked in the region for over ten years. --- Alex Ivanko Senior Adviser and Spokesman OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media ]

Institute for War and Peace Reporting 29 Apr 2004 Gun battle exposes splits in UN police A recent shootout has provoked demands for a revamp of Kosovo's international police By Jackson Allers in Pristina (BCR No 494, 29-Apr-04) The recent shootout at a United Nations detention centre in Kosovo between members of the UN's multi-national police force has stirred a debate on the mission's capacity to keep the peace in the territory, one month after severe ethnic riots claimed 19 lives. The April 17 incident, in the divided town of Mitrovica, centred on a Jordanian officer from a Special Police Unit, SPU, who opened fire on vehicles carrying mostly American UN officers. The shooting claimed the lives of two American women officers and injured 11. A third US officer wounded in the shootout later died in hospital. International police officials have been quick to maintain that the gun battle was an isolated incident and would not derail their overall strategy. "The international police and the KPS [the local Kosovo police force] will continue to maintain the rule of law in Kosovo," said Kosovo police chief Stephan Feller. Notwithstanding this reassuring claim, the shootout has raised questions about whether the UN's multi-national police force needs restructuring if it is to guarantee the safety of Kosovo's ethnically divided population. Alex Anderson, Kosovo director of the Brussels based think-tank, the International Crisis Group, says the March riots had already revealed dangerous cracks within the force. "During the riots in March, it became clear that the UN police force was not cohesive in a crisis and was without a strong sense of identity," said Anderson, adding that the force lacked a sense of "shared values". That the international police force has shown signs of cracking under pressure crisis is not surprising, considering its heterogeneous command structure and the wide variety of countries from which it recruits members. Officers serving in Kosovo come from more than 40 states, some with questionable human rights records and others with poor traditions of policing. To complicate the situation, some countries participating in Kosovo's UN police force are locked in territorial disputes with each other, such as India and Pakistan, while others have historically bad relations, such as Greece and Turkey. Local critics of the UN police complain that political pressure from UN member states, demanding inclusion in lucrative international police missions, takes precedent over an honest judgment of the policing abilities of some of these countries. "All 3,500 internationals currently in the UN police force have their respective cultural reference points," said Anderson, adding that these can be difficult to abandon when different policing standards are in play. UN police spokesperson Neeraj Singh said the force was still awaiting the results of its investigation into the Mitrovica shootout and no reforms could be expected until they had examined the assessment. "If it turns out that the attack was politically organised, only then will measures be put in place to address ethnic or national differences within the police force," he said. Kosovars who have worked with the UN force say animosity between the different police units is not a secret. "This 'marmalade' of police from different countries is an experiment to see how to integrate a police system," former UN police translator Samir Potera said. "I have noticed a feeling of inferiority among the police who come from developing countries. I definitely felt this from Jordanian officers." Potera said he had also noticed strong anti-American sentiments among some of the officers he worked with during his 18 months as a police translator. This was strongest among those from what he called near eastern countries. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority, on the other hand, see Americans as liberators -- a legacy of the role played by former secretary of state, Madeleine Albright and former president Bill Clinton, in leading the NATO air war that terminated Serbian rule in Kosovo in 1999. Pro-American signs are woven into the fabric of daily life in Kosovo's capital, Pristina. A huge poster of a waving Bill Clinton overlooks the university campus. A main thoroughfare has been renamed after Clinton, while a copy of the Statue of Liberty crowns one of the city's biggest hotels on the route to the Macedonian capital Skopje. Local analysts say Albanians in Kosovo perceive any attacks on the US police presence as undermining the force as a whole. Blerim Shala, editor of the Kosovo weekly, Zeri, says the April 17 shootout was another wake-up call for the UN following the March 17 riots -- and proved "once again what has been known for a month now: the UN police system must undergo essential changes". What those changes should be is less clear however, both for the Kosovars and international authorities in Kosovo. Loath to open up a public discussion about which nations the Kosovars favour for policing, the UN here is staying tight-lipped about potential shake-ups within the force. At a joint UN press conference one day before the funeral for the murdered American officers, US, Jordanian, Turkish and Austrian unit commanders issued a joint statement, pledging that the tragedy would not affect their cooperation. The display of solidarity is not likely to quieten the discussion, however. In Belgrade, the Serbian government has insisted that the shootout was more proof of the lack of security surrounding Kosovo's 80,000 or so remaining Serbs, who were the targets of last month's ethnic violence. At the same time, Oliver Ivanovic, leader of the local Kosovo Serb Povratak Coalition and a member of the Kosovo parliament's presidency, has echoed this criticism. "The event shows a weakness in the local policing structure," he said. "The reality is that reflections of events occurring in places like the Middle East can be felt here. I know the officers are professional, but they're human." Surprisingly, the need to reassess the UN police structure is one of the very few points that both Albanians and Serbs have no serious disagreements about. Jackson Allers is an American journalist recently based in Kosovo.

UN News Service 29 Apr 2004 UN envoy calls for major effort to rebuild trust after March violence Declaring that last month's ethnic violence in Kosovo, the worst since the United Nations took over its administration five years ago, dealt "a huge setback" to stabilization and normalization, the top UN envoy there warned today that much more remains to be done to rebuild trust and confidence among all communities. "The violence put our common project of a multiethnic Kosovo at risk," Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative Harri Holkeri told the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, of the violence between Albanians and Serbs, in which 19 people were killed and hundreds injured. "The main challenges now are bringing to justice those responsible, reconciliation, reconstruction and re-embarking on the political processes in place before the violence began," Mr. Holkeri said. The UN has administered Kosovo since NATO forced the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops after fighting between Albanians and Serbs. Mr. Holkeri said the violence could make elections in October more difficult and stressed the need to include all communities. Many Serbs have fled. "There can be no truly multiethnic Kosovo without the Kosovo Serb community," he said. "This is why all efforts must be made by Kosovo's leaders to reach out to the Serbs. In return, the Kosovo Serbs must rejoin the institutions and engage in the political process. The only way ahead is integration, not segregation."

Ukraine

www.uanews.tv/news/wire/ Mykolayiv says farewell to Holodomor activist Boris Moroz By Ihor Stoliarov, Odesa, 03 April 2004 On 31 March Ukrainian public activist Boris Moroz died suddenly, and was buried yesterday in Ukraine's southern city of Mykolayiv. Boris Moroz was a public activist, poet and the author of many publications relating to Ukraine's Holodomor - Stalin's enforced famine of 1932-33 in which millions of Ukrainians died. Ukraine's south was particularly hard-hit by the genocide. In particular, Boris Moroz is well known for fighting for all of Ukraine's national interests in the Mykolayiv region. He was a delegate at the first meeting of Ukraine's RUKH (People's Movement of Ukraine) and actively supported Ukraine's Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patrarchate). Boris Moroz , in fact, supported all pro-Ukrainian organisations and was a regular writer for Mykolayiv's opposition newspaper The Ukrainian South. A great weight of his writing was dedicated to the Holodomor of 1932-33 in which he highlighted the effects of Stalin's occupying forces in the region's villages. Yesterday, Boris Moroz was buried in Mykolayiv. His funeral was attended by many local dignitaries including Council leader Volodomyr Chaika. The service was run jointly by priests of both the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The regional leader of Rukh, Yuri Didenko, has made formal applications for Boris Moroz to receive Ukraine's highest national honours for his dedicated life-long work. http://www.uanews.tv/news/wire/04/04/040403-01.htm

Slovenia

On April 4, 2004 voters in a non-binding referendum upheld the 12-year-old policy creating 'erased residents' (izbrisani) in Slovenia. In 1992, eight month after declaring independence from Yugoslavia, the government of Slovenia deleted some 30,000 persons from civil registries. Some call this policy 'administrative ethnic cleansing' or 'soft genocide.'.

Ljubljana Life 20 Mar 2004 (Weekly Bulletin in English ) www.geocities.com/ljubljanalife/ by Brian J. Pozun Liberals urge boycott of Izbrisani referendum Anti-war protestors in Ljubljana were not the only ones this week to call for a boycott of the upcoming Izbrisani referendum – the Forum for the Left also spoke out against the referendum this week. On 23 March, the group of left-wing intellectuals launched a campaign to urge the public to boycott the referendum, believing that a vote is not an acceptable way to make decisions relating to human rights. Forum for the Left representative Gorazd Kovacic told the press that "a democratic tool with undemocratic and illegal content does not lead to stronger democracy, but to a dictatorship of the majority." Another member of the group, Franco Juri, said that while the group respects the idea of referenda, this particular referendum serves only to incite xenophobia. The Forum for the Left believes that referenda on human rights issues should be banned in the country. A demonstration is planned for 4 April, the day of the referendum, in Ljubljana. The Forum for the Left will be joined by members of the youth group of the United List of Social Democrats. Smaller protests will be staged in Maribor and Koper. Meanwhile, survey results published in the latest issue of Mag found that only about 40 percent of the public plans to vote in the referendum, with more than 20 percent undecided about their participation. Of those who will participate, some 40 percent plan to vote against the government’s proposed technicalities act, with just over 17 percent planning to vote in favor of it. Some 41 percent remain undecided. According to Mag, the total of those intending to vote against the act has declined by seven percent since February, while the number of those who are undecided rose by the same amount. The survey was conducted between 15 and 18 March by Studio Salamon, and had 631 respondents. )

independent.co.uk 2 Apr 2004 Slovenia accused of cynical move to deny rights to minorities By Vesna Peric Zimonjic in Ljubljana On the eve of joining the European Union, Slovenia will vote on Sunday on whether to restore the civil rights of its ethnic minorities, which were "erased" in 1992. Opinion polls indicated last night that the overwhelming majority of Slovenes will vote against the move to restore full citizenship rights. Human rights organisations condemned the referendum as "cynical" and ill- befitting a member of the EU. Aleksandar Todorovic realised that officially he did not exist on the day that his daughter was born in 1993. When he went to the public records office for a birth certificate for the baby in the tiny Slovenian town of Ptuj, he was told that his name could not be put into the form. It was no longer in any records. "You have been erased," the clerk said. An astonished Mr Todorovic presented his ID card, thinking that the administration often makes mistakes. But this time, his ID card was taken from him and destroyed on the spot. It took him some time before he realised that he belonged to the group of almost 130,000 non-Slovenes living in the newly independent country who had failed to apply for Slovenian citizenship. The deadline for applications was short, only six months after Slovenia obtained independence from former Yugoslavia in June 1991. But the catch was that only a few knew about it, somewhere at the top levels of power. Those who did not know were, by chance, or on purpose, the non-Slovenes, Serbs like Mr Todorovic, but also Croats, Bosniaks and ethnic Albanians. They were simply erased from all the records with a simple push of a button on 26 February 1992. "I felt I was no longer a person," Mr Todorovic, now 49, said in an interview with The Independent. "The years that followed made me think I was one of the living dead." Being one of the "erased," as these people became known over the years, meant having no social security number, health care, driving licence, passport, or even a job. As many of the "erased" had lived for years or even decades in Slovenia, built homes and raised families, they decided to stay, even as illegals. They risked being deported within 24 hours to their countries of birth if found without proper documents. Many were left by their spouses as they could not provide for their families. Many left for Serbia, Bosnia or Croatia. Some even committed suicide. In the tiny country of two million, they were worse than second-class citizens, as they simply did not exist. But many decided to stay, like Mr Todorovic, who has dedicated more than a decade to prove that non-Slovenes can be equal to Slovenes. He heads the Association of the Erased, which fights for recognition. Opposition right-wing politicians have succeeded in their effort to put the issue to a popular vote, believing that the Slovenian public will say "no" to the people who have already been segregated by society. An opinion poll commissioned and broadcast last night by Slovenia's most popular television channel, Pop TV showed that only 3 per cent of people who voted said they would vote for the restoration of the rights of the erased; 82 per cent said they would vote against and 15 per cent of those questioned said they would abstain. Neva Miklavic Predan, head of the Slovenian Helsinki Monitoring Group, said: "Erasing non-Slovenes from all the records meant administrative ethnic cleansing. It was a planned and systematic operation. It did not leave a pile of bodies, but did leave enough traces so that we could act. Slovenian authorities have tricked the EU into believing that everything was all right here. And Slovenian society is racist." Alvaro Gil Robles, the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, has urged Slovenia to move quickly and decisively to settle the issue of the erased. He said that Slovenia should "keep the lid on growing racism and xenophobia". Mr Todorovic said: "On the side of the state, it can also be all about money: if and when our rights are restored, we might ask for compensation." The sum could reach €2.5bn euros (£1.7bn), analysts say. But what is more important, Mr Todorovic says, is that restoring all the rights of the erased would mean getting their dignity back. "For many people, that would mean having a chance to see their relatives again," he says. Like many of the erased, he has not seen his brother for more than a decade. Without a passport, he could not travel. And being a non-existent person, he could not send a letter of invitation to his brother to come from Serbia and visit, as required by visa regulations.

ft.com UK Home UK 3 Apr 2004 Backlash over 'erased' persons threatens Slovenian rulers By Christopher Condon Published: April 3 2004 5:00 | Last Updated: April 3 2004 5:00 When he went to register the birth of his baby girl in 1993, Aleksander Todorovic was surprised to discover that his daughter had no father - at least not on paper. Mr Todorovic, an ethnic Serb who settled in Slovenia 20 years ago, had been "erased". Mostly Bosnians, Serbs and Croats, the so-called erased are 18,000 non-Slovene Yugoslavs who were living in Slovenia when it declared independence in 1991 as the former Yugoslavia broke up and who became illegal aliens after they failed to apply for citizenship within six months. Mr Todorovic, 48, now heads the Association of Erased Persons. He recalls vividly how the government clerk calmly destroyed his identity card, passport, work permit and driver's licence. "It was a refined form of ethnic cleansing," he says. More than a decade later, under pressure from the Council of Europe and its own courts, the Slovenian government has proposed legislation that would reinstate legal rights to the thousands of erased who remain in Slovenia. But that has provoked a furious public backlash, revealing that old insecurities and prejudices have not faded in this country of 1.9m people. In a referendum tomorrow, voters are expected to block by a margin of nine to one the first of two bills that would correct the injustice. The controversy may even topple the ruling Liberal Democrats, a party that has led Slovenia nearly continuously since independence, in elections due this fall. In essence, Slovenia demanded at its birth that other Yugoslavs living on its soil declare their loyalty to the new state by taking citizenship. About 90 per cent of those affected did so. Of the rest, most thought they were opting for legal residence as foreigners. Instead, like Mr Todorovic, they lost their rights to work, receive public health care, own property and even drive a car. Some were deported. The initial exclusion might be viewed as the rash behaviour of an infant country searching for a clear national identity and fearful of potential enemies as the region around it exploded in violence along ethnic lines. But to critics, the persistence of that policy is nothing less than anti-Balkan chauvinism among a people who have always felt closer to Germanic Central Europe than the Balkan peninsula. Slovenes, who generally see themselves as more industrious and cultured than other ex-Yugoslavs, have a word for their more southern Slavic brethren: cefur. All this sits awkwardly alongside Slovenia's image as a stable and orderly little country in an otherwise chaotic region. Slovenia emerged seemingly unscathed from Yugoslavia's bloody disintegration, with only 10 days of fighting after declaring independence. It has also became the star pupil in the class of 10 countries ready to join the EU on May 1. Slovenia enjoys the highest standard of living, by far, among ex-Communist countries in that group. Yet, while EU membership brings a new responsibility to openness, Slovenes may not be eager to embrace all that this implies. "Most Slovenes see the EU simply as a club of trade," says one western diplomat in Ljubljana. "It would not occur to some that it is also a club of democratic values." Slovenia's highest court has struck down the law that initially created the erased. Some government officials admit the act was a mistake. Public opinion, however, clearly does not agree, and opposition parties are taking full advantage. Janez Jansa, president of the rightwing Slovenian Democratic party (SDS) and a hero of Slovenia's war of independence, says he does not oppose restoring rights to those who deserve them. But a large portion of the erased, he claims, were Serb officers in the Yugoslav military who fought against its independence. It infuriates Slovenes that such people might not only regain legal residency but also sue for compensation over a decade of lost benefits, as would be their right under the new laws. And no one seems to know how high the bill for compensation may eventually run. "It's not a question of anger," says Mr Jansa. "People feel very strongly that this is not fair." Mr Jansa wants a new law that would screen the erased one-by-one before they receive any legal status. Government officials and human rights observers say Mr Jansa's argument is a deliberate exaggeration aimed at scoring political points. "There are some former [Yugoslav army] officers, but he is extending this argument to the vast majority, which is totally false," says Bojan Bugaric, a senior interior ministry official who deals with the erased. Mr Bugaric calls Mr Jansa's approach "McCarthyism". It is also, however, massively popular. Just as autumn elections approach, Mr Jansa's SDS has for the first time topped the Liberal Democrats in an opinion poll. In trying to right past wrongs, Slovenia's ruling party could run itself out of office.

AP 4 Apr 2004 Slovenians vote against restoring rights of ethinic minorities By EUGENE BRCIC, ASSOCIATED PRESS LJUBLJANA, Slovenia (AP) - Slovenes overwhelmingly voted Saturday against restoring the rights of thousands of ethnic Bosnians, Croats and Serbs who were stripped of their citizenship when Slovenia broke away from Yugoslavia. More than 18,000 mostly Bosnians, Croats and Serbs were officially erased from state records after Slovenia declared its independence in 1991. The move effectively made them non-persons in the eyes of the government. In a referendum Sunday, 95 percent of the voters denied restoring the rights to the ethnic minorities. Only 4 percent supported a Constitutional Court ruling that recommended last year the government restore rights back to the group, widely known here as "The Erased." More than a third of 1.6 million eligible voters in the tiny nation of 2 million, wedged between the Alps and the Balkans, turned out for the vote. Slovene nationalists opposed restoring rights to the minorities, arguing that the fledgling country could be forced to pay billions in punitive damages for the suffering that resulted from being "erased." The ethnic Bosnians, Serbs and Croats were removed from the national register without any public warning or announcement - effectively losing their right to permanent residency, which is a precondition for other state privileges, like pensions and health benefits.

Slevenska Tiskovna Agencija (STA) Slovene Press Agency www.sta.si/en/ Referendum Seals Fate of Technicalities Act on the Erased Ljubljana, 04 April (STA) - As the counting of the referendum votes continues, it has become clear that the technicalities act on the erased has been rejected. According to the National Election Commission, the act was rejected by 94.68 percent of the voters that went to the polls, while only 3.82 percent endorsed it. Over 510,000 ballots have been counted so far.

Slevenska Tiskovna Agencija (STA) Slovene Press Agency www.sta.si/en/ Polls Close in Referendum on the Erased Ljubljana, 04 April (STA) - Some 3,390 polling stations around Slovenia have closed in what was the first referendum this year. Voters were deciding whether the technicalities act on the erased should be implemented. While preliminary unofficial results are to be released later tonight, official results are to be out only after Easter. Only 23.57 percent of some 1.6 million eligible voters turned out to vote at the polling stations by 4 PM..

AP 5 Apr 2004 Nonbinding referendum is held on ethnic rights Voters in Slovenia held a referendum Sunday on whether basic rights should be restored to a group known as the "Erased" - thousands of ethnic minorities who were deleted from the country's population register 12 years ago during the Balkan wars. . More than 18,000 people, mostly Croats, Serbs and Bosnians, were taken off the record books in an administrative decision a year after Slovenia declared independence in 1991. The referendum asks whether court rulings reinstating the rights of the group should be annulled. . The national referendum result is not legally binding and leading politicians as well as human rights advocates have condemned the poll as an affront to minorities. They urged voters to boycott the vote. Voters in Slovenia held a referendum Sunday on whether basic rights should be restored to a group known as the "Erased" - thousands of ethnic minorities who were deleted from the country's population register 12 years ago during the Balkan wars. . More than 18,000 people, mostly Croats, Serbs and Bosnians, were taken off the record books in an administrative decision a year after Slovenia declared independence in 1991. The referendum asks whether court rulings reinstating the rights of the group should be annulled. . The national referendum result is not legally binding and leading politicians as well as human rights advocates have condemned the poll as an affront to minorities. They urged voters to boycott the vote. Voters in Slovenia held a referendum Sunday on whether basic rights should be restored to a group known as the "Erased" - thousands of ethnic minorities who were deleted from the country's population register 12 years ago during the Balkan wars. . More than 18,000 people, mostly Croats, Serbs and Bosnians, were taken off the record books in an administrative decision a year after Slovenia declared independence in 1991. The referendum asks whether court rulings reinstating the rights of the group should be annulled. . The national referendum result is not legally binding and leading politicians as well as human rights advocates have condemned the poll as an affront to minorities. They urged voters to boycott the vote.

BBC 2 Apr 2004 Mosque bid stirs feelings in Slovenia By Tamsin Smith BBC News, Ljubljana, Slovenia Ljubljana's historic city centre is a picture postcard rivalling any European capital. Campaigners say a mosque would jar with local architecture Its gothic and baroque skyline stands silhouetted against a backdrop of snowy mountains. The cafes in the city centre are full of young people and overpriced cappucinos and the old market place is bustling. But this is one of the few European capital cities without a mosque, even though the country's 50,000 Muslims have been requesting one for more than three decades. The most recently proposed site for the mosque is in central Ljubljana... next to the ring road, beside some allotments and perfumed by the proximity of the city refuse dump. But some politicians remain firmly against even such a modest location. Extreme opposition Nearly 11,000 signatures have been collected in opposition to the latest planning proposal. A referendum has been pencilled in for next month, pending a decision from Slovenia's constitutional court. The head of the anti-mosque campaign points to folk memories Michael Jarc is the city councillor leading the petition against the mosque. Standing in the market place as the church bells chime midday, he tells me urban planning is the main reason a minaret should not be added to Ljubljana's cityscape and that he and his citizens want to be consulted for architectural reasons. But he then went further to provide some other reasons why Slovenia should not have a mosque. "You should look back in history. Slovenes have been in this area for 20 centuries. In the Middle Ages our ancestors were attacked by Muslim soldiers, and they did bad things here, and this is in our historical subconscious," he says. He also says Muslim values are seen as somehow opposed to the Jewish, Christian and Orthodox European tradition - the "enemy of Europe", as he chooses to put it. Election year Slovenia's small Muslim community is starting to worry about the tone of the debate which is now taking place. Muslims say that they feel increasingly victimised "Before this debate was blown out of all proportion, people in schools and workplaces felt fine, but now they feel afraid," says local Imam Ifet Suljic. Some of this fellow Muslims, he says, are now suffering victimisation in the workplace. Slovenes are starting to accuse them directly, saying "It's you... you're the ones who want this mosque", he adds. With elections due this autumn, the imam worries that the mosque debate is being used for political reasons. "We're really angry at those who have known about our request for a mosque for years and years and have said nothing and now they are taking a stand on it just to win votes," he says. 'Bad timing' But it seems public opinion has already been affected and many people in the streets now think a mosque will bring terrorist threats. "I wouldn't build a mosque here," says one woman adjusting her sunglasses in the bright sunshine. "Slovenia is so small and I don't want a mosque here because we know what kind of people are behind all these recent explosions... We don't need that here... I'm against it." "It's not an appropriate time to build a mosque here," a taxi driver agreed, "especially when you look at the problems in other European countries because of these forgiving attitudes towards Muslims." With the European flag already fluttering over the city hall, Slovenia is a country on the verge of joining the European Union. But the debate over building a mosque casts a darker shadow over a country where some people view liberal attitudes towards Islam with deep suspicion.

Sweden

Reuters 298 Apr 2004 Sweden to Take Rwanda Genocide Convicts Wed Apr 28, 2004 07:20 AM ET DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (Reuters) - Sweden has agreed to take prisoners convicted of playing key roles in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, the U.N. court trying suspected architects of the slaughter said Wednesday. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) mandate allows for prison sentences to be served in Rwanda or other countries approved by the U.N. Security Council. "The signing of this agreement is a very important step which underlines the commitment of the Swedish government in facilitating the discharge and completion of the mandate of the ICTR," the court said in a statement. Sweden is the sixth country to agree to take convicts from the tribunal, which sits in Arusha, northern Tanzania. The others are Mali, Benin, Swaziland, France and Italy. A Swedish Justice Ministry spokesman said no specific prisoners were under consideration for immediate transfer. Rwanda was plunged into 100 days of ethnic slaughter in April 1994 when extremists from the Hutu majority killed some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus. The tribunal, set up in November 1994, is trying suspected leaders of the mass killings. It has so far convicted 18 people of genocide and acquitted three. Six tribunal convicts, including former Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, are serving their prison terms in Mali. Rwanda itself is acting against lower-level genocide suspects, but only a few hundred of an estimated 80,000 suspects held in overcrowded Rwandan jails have faced trial. The tiny Central African country has set up a system of village courts known as Gacaca to speed up the process. Local judges are trained and neighbors asked to act as informal juries in trials for suspected killers, who may well have been friends or relatives. Senior Swedish Justice Ministry official Ulf Wallentheim emphasized that agreement had only just been reached on accepting Rwandan prisoners. "What happened is that the politicians thought they would like to cooperate. We have a similar agreement to cooperate with prisoners with the tribunal for the former Yugoslavia," he said. Last year Bosnian Serb former President Biljana Plavsic began serving a war crime sentence in Sweden, amid uproar among Muslim survivors of the 1992-95 Bosnian war at the relatively comfortable conditions at Hinseberg women's prison. Plavsic's new home is a high-security facility west of Stockholm with a gym and solarium and which allows its inmates to go horseback riding and have massages. Some of Sweden's prisons boast swimming pools and cells with TV sets and en suite bathrooms and prisoners can take dancing classes. "Of course there are differences. Our prisons are not the same as those in Rwanda," Wallentheim said. "But I would not call them luxury hotels." .

United Kingdom

Independent UK 2 Apr 2004 Digging deep: the British brothers who are building hope in Rwanda Ten years after the genocide in which 800,000 died, the people of Rwanda are seeking closure through mass reburials and an $1.8m memorial. Declan Walsh meets the men from Nottinghamshire who made it possible Ragged labourers swarm across the Kigali hillside, surging around a white building which looms over the rows of tin-roofed houses. Young men balance metal beams on their shoulders; women carry bundles of bricks. A cacophony of grinding and sawing fills the air. English doctor James Smith stand amid the dusty chaos, and makes a quiet vow. "It will be finished on time." Next Wednesday Rwanda marks 10 years since the start of the 1994 genocide, the largest and swiftest act of human slaughter of the late 20th century. Mr Smith and his brother Stephen - an English businessman who normally sells novelty cakes - are in charge of the frantic effort to build the first national genocide memorial through Aegis Trust, the genocide-prevention charity they founded. The brothers, who lead a team of about 400 builders and 85 support staff, some of whom have flown in from England, have had just six weeks to complete the job. But the deadline has been a relatively easiest obstacle. Far trickier was deciding how to commemorate the massacre of 800,000 people in a country where divisions still run deep and the wounds of heart and soul remain bitingly raw. "This is not about a big glossy museum," said James, pointing down the hill to a row of concrete tombs in the ground, each large as a cargo truck. "It's about those graves down there where 250,000 people are buried." The Smiths are no newcomers to the sombre business of remembering genocide. The sons of a Methodist minister, they have a long-standing commitment to highlighting humanity's greatest crime. After a visit the Yad Vashem, Israel's national memorial centre in Jerusalem, in 1991, they came away both moved and ashamed that no such institution existed in Britain. "I was shocked about our own ignorance. The holocaust happened in Europe, and we had to go to the Middle East to find out about it," said James. Four years later they opened the UK Holocaust Centre in the middle of the rolling English countryside outside Nottingham. Three years ago, the Rwandan government asked them to build a similar memorial in Kigali. Initially they refused, daunted by the political and cultural sensitivities, but then agreed. They were given a site in Gisozi, the hillside mass grave where Kigali's dead were hurriedly buried in the aftermath of the 1994 slaughter, their remains pulled from ditches, sewers and latrines. The authorities say 250,000 are buried here but the true figure is anybody's guess. Thousands of bodies remain buried in hundreds of mass graves around the city; some plumbers won't respond to calls for unblocking latrines because they often end up exhuming the dead. There was already a building on the site, erected by Kigali council, but the city fathers were unsure what to put inside. For most Rwandans, the genocide is still an achingly fresh trauma, and the issue of how to remember the dead is controversial. Some genocide sites have been cleaned up, and the remains of the dead entombed in neat rows of coffins for visitors to see. But in other sites, such as Ntarama church near Kigali, the remains have been left as they fell. Bones are scattered between the pews, the bullet holes and grenade blasts have not been plastered over, piles of decaying clothes lie in the corner. Such memorials raise both emotional and practical dilemmas. Surviving relatives are divided about whether the dead should be afforded a decent burial, or left in situ as a dark warning for future generations. And without correct preservation methods, which cost scarce money, the memorials will gradually crumble to dust anyway. Already in Ntarama, for instance, stray dogs have started to gnaw at the bones and during the rainy season, water leaks in through shrapnel holes in the roof. The new genocide memorial has to respect a delicate balance - the honour the memory of the dead but not deepen the divisions among the living. "We don't want people to feel accused or threatened. It should contribute to a society that is at ease with itself. But that is rather complicated here," said Stephen Smith. Some Rwandans raised eyebrows at the idea of two Englishmen setting up the genocide museum. First among them was James's wife, Beatha Uwazaninka, whom he met in Kigali two years ago. They met while buying furniture for the Aegis office two years ago, and the 22-year-old shop assistant scorned James's talk of a memorial. Rwandans had difficulty coming to terms with the genocide, so how could a white foreigner cope with it, she asked. James took her up on the challenge, and friendship turned to love. After proposing in a hot-air balloon last year, the couple got married in the UK in a civil ceremony presided over by a rabbi and attended by 70 European holocaust survivors. The centre has also changed life for Stephen, 36. He has a PhD in holocaust studies from Birmingham University, which he financed through more mundane means - a business called Greetings for Eating, which distributes miniature cakes to card shops across the UK. He has sold 10 million cakes in the past decade. "When he's not interviewing survivors he is figuring out the next teddy bear cakes," said Aegis Trust spokesman David Brown. When it is completed this week, the museum will be divided into sections, documenting life in Rwanda before, during and after the genocide. Wall-sized interactive panels display the tools of genocide alongside its heroes and villains - the sponsors of the hate radio station Mille Collines; the infamous Hutu "Ten Commandments" urging the extermination of all Tutsis; the desperate faxes to New York from besieged UN commander Romeo Dallaire, begging for help. There is a carefully measured display of shocking images - a corpse hanging from the window of a ransacked pickup; a couple chained together and burned alive, a wall of portraits of child victims. The text under the children contains information about their family, favourite food and games, and manner of execution. In the case of Irene Mutoni, it was boiled to death. But the most powerful statement will be a quiet room where the bones of the dead will be displayed below smoked glass, where the names will be continuously recited by a female voice. Rwanda's Schindlers - ordinary Hutus who risked their lives to save Tutsis in danger - are also commemorated. Beatha Smith is pictured beside Yahaya, an elderly Muslim who cut down the bars outside his house to allow her to shelter inside. Glass panels divide the sections, carrying local sayings such as "A tree can only be straightened when it is young" - a reference to the importance of education in preventing future slaughter. A separate display places Rwanda in the context of other genocides during the 20th century, starting with the German massacres of the Herero in Namibia in 1904 through the madness of Pol Pot's Cambodia to the calculated butchery of the Balkans in the 1990s. "We wanted to show that genocide is something everyone must deal with, not just Rwandans," said Stephen. The $1.8 million museum is funded by the governments of Belgium and Sweden, and the Clinton Foundation. Guilt may lie behind the former US president's largesse - according to recently published official documents, Bill Clinton was aware of the genocide from an early stage but refused to speak out in case US troops would be forced to intervene. But the museum skirts controversial issues. It makes no judgement on who was responsible for shooting down the presidential jet in 1994, the act that triggered the genocide and which has been the subject of furious exchanges between President Paul Kagame and France. It also avoids the sensitive subject of Tutsi reprisals against Hutus which, according to historian Gerard Prunier, accounted for up to 450,000 deaths in the wake of the genocide. "We are concentrating on the genocide. If we start that discussion, the survivors will get overlooked. Let's give them peace of mind for now," said Stephen. In comparison, it took Britain 50 years to start coming to terms with the Dresden bombings, he added. "We should not point the finger and say Rwanda should have done this or that. We as the international community should have offered greater support at the time." The history of the genocide is still being written - estimates of the dead vary from 500,000 to 1.2 million - and the museum project is helping to establish some facts. It has deployed teams of researchers to scour Kigali neighbourhoods, armed with questionnaires and satellite technology, to pinpoint the sites of mass graves and roadblocks around the city. So far, almost 900 mass graves and 1,200 checkpoints have been located, which will be pinpointed on an interactive map of the city. Visitors will be able to press a button on any of the barriers, or mass graves, to see photos of the people murdered there. Aegis has also extensively interviewed the survivors. This week Wilberforce Murengezi sat before the camera. The Kigali businessman left the city on the eve of the genocide. When he returned home three months later, his entire family had been killed - his wife and five children; his brother; his sister, her husband and their six children. He got physically sick, and had to go for medical help in Kenya. "My body was itching all over. The doctor told me it was okay to cry," he said. Like many genocide survivors, Mr Murengezi can talk dispassionately about gruesome details, coldly describing how the killers bludgeoned his wife to death then. But when asked about forgiveness, he slaps his thigh impatiently. "It's a tough question," he said. "Maybe if they came and said 'Sorry, I betrayed you. But that's the problem here in Rwanda. People don't acknowledge that they killed." The distance between survivor and perpetrator is often uncomfortably close in Rwanda, one of the world's most densely populated countries. Ironies frequently arise, even on the building site at Gisozi where, statistically speaking, it is likely that some of the labourers helping to build the memorial themselves participated in the genocide 10 years ago. One day Beatha recognised the man repairing a generator on the site. "His uncle was the one that killed my godmother's family," he said. "I said nothing." Last year the government released 28,000 prisoners from the packed jails after confessing their guilt. Another 90,000 remain, about one third of which the government intends to release later this year. Although President Kagame's government has almost miraculously stabilised Rwandan since 1994, reconciliation has proceeded slowly - the village court-style gacaca trials have started in just 10 per cent of districts; there has been no compensation fund; and there remains an enormous pressure for land. For others, even the camera was too painful. "We couldn't find anyone to give a testimony about rape," said Stephen. Rwandan survivors are also on the staff. In April 1994 13-year-old Yves Kamuronsi, and his sister fled into the forests near their grandfather's house in Gitarama to escape the rampaging militia. When they emerged two months later they found their parents and other siblings dead, cut to pieces and dumped in a pile of rubbish in their back yard. Since then Yves, now a third-level student, has reburied them in a corner of the garden, under a fruit tree. Earlier this week he stood in that corner, his arms folded. "Every day I think about it, "he said. "Every day before I go to sleep. It is important to remember, because we must never allow this to happen again." See Aegis Trust Genocide Prevention Initiative AND Greetings For Eating (g4e.co.uk)

AEGIS TRUST – Rwanda PRESS RELEASE www.aegistrust.org Kigali - 07 APRIL 2004 - 1/2 10 YEARS ON: SHAPING THE MEMORY OF RWANDA’S GENOCIDE On the 7th of April, 2004, Rwanda will mark the tenth anniversary of its 1994 genocide, which saw a million people killed in 100 days. The UK-based Aegis Trust, an organisation addressing causes and consequences of genocide, is currently: Ø Managing the creation of Rwanda’s national genocide memorial centre, opening in the capital, Kigali, on 7 April. The Centre is modelled on the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre in the UK. Ø Managing the creation of the Murambi Memorial Centre in Gikingoro, which houses Africa’s first Genocide Prevention Centre, to open on 9 April. Ø Involved in the preparations for Rwanda’s official commemorative ceremony, which will be attended by state dignitaries from around the world. Ø Responsible for creating an audiovisual record of ‘Gacaca’, Rwanda’s post- genocide communal justice process. Ø Supporting projects initiated by survivors on Aegis’ staff to assist orphans and HIV-positive rape victims of the genocide. Brothers Drs Stephen and James Smith, who founded both the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre and the Aegis Trust, are driving these projects. They are both in Rwanda working 24/7 with survivors and the Rwandan Government. "We do not create museums for the sake of museums. We create museums to dignify the past, to ensure the historical record and to provide an educational tool for future generations. The Rwandans have been very bold. We are in the process of creating a museum and memorial centre just ten years after the genocide when feelings are still extremely raw…. Genocide takes on a new immediacy when sitting opposite a woman with no family and only half a face, who tells you she wants to help as she wouldn’t want anyone to experience what she has gone through." – Dr Stephen Smith, Aegis Director If you or your colleagues are interested in covering stories relating to this – and particularly if you or your colleagues are planning to visit Rwanda for the events marking the tenth anniversary of the genocide – please contact Aegis Press Officer David Brown for more information or to arrange interviews. Tel: (+250) 0877 4006 - email: davidonthemove@hotmail.com

AEGIS TRUST – Rwanda PRESS RELEASE www.aegistrust.org Kigali - 07 APRIL 2004 - 2/2 OPENING OF KIGALI AND MURAMBI GENOCIDE MEMORIAL CENTRES “If you knew me, and if you really knew yourself, then you would not have killed me.” (Felicien Ntagengwa, genocide survivor) Kigali Memorial Centre Some 250,000 perished on the streets and in the houses, churches and hospitals of Kigali alone. After the genocide, the Kigali City Council decided to dedicate a site for the burial of its people in a single place. Many mass graves were exhumed from around the city and the remains interred at the Kigali Memorial Centre in Gisozi district. This is now their final resting place. It is a poignant symbol of the devastation that genocide brought to families across the city and the country as a whole. The cemetery has been developed into a centre and place of reflection and learning for the families of victims, for schools and visitors to Rwanda. You are now able to see the mass graves and view the permanent exhibition, as well as experience the moving children’s memorial and gardens. Kigali Memorial Centre, Gisozi, Kigali, Rwanda Mass Graves, Gardens and Exhibition www.kigalimemorialcentre.org Murambi Memorial Centre In Gikongoro province, to the south, some 40,000 to 50,000 perished on 21st April at a single site: the unfinished school complex at Murambi. After the genocide, survivors reburied the dead. On removing the bodies from their shallow grave, they preserved 800 of the corpses in lime. An insignt to the genocide in Gikongoro is powerfully detailed in the centre’s exhibition. But the full story of the province still remains to be discovered. What is certain, however, is that Murambi poses some of the most challenging questions you will ever encounter. The main building of the complex houses a Memorial Museum, where some of the corpses are interned; a witness to the genocide and a warning to the world. Africa’s first Genocide Prevention Centre has been set on the first floor and offers a program of conferences and seminars for the public, for students and for scholars. Adjacent to the building are large graves containing most of those murdered on the site, surrounded by smaller school buildings that remain today as they were following the genocide. The Centre is about two and a half hours’ drive south from Kigali, and half an hour drive from Butare, home of the National Museum of Rwanda, on the road to Nyungwe forest and Kivu Lake. Murambi Memorial Centre, Butare, Rwanda Mass Graves, Gardens and Exhibition www.murambimemorialcentre.org )

Global

Guardian UK 2 Apr 2004 Comment Humanitarians must avoid becoming tools of power The gap between aid to Iraq and central Africa is driven by politics Martin Woollacott Friday April 2, 2004 The Guardian If there is one word which sums up the modern western mentality, it is "humanitarian". When political, religious or even moral motives for action are seen as less than wholly legitimate, the humanitarian claim is a kind of trump card. Who can be against helping people in danger? There should be no surprise that attempts to appropriate it for a particular policy, cause or campaign are so continuous. The point may have been reached where the humanitarian concept represents the principal counter in political rhetoric to the concept of "terror". We, the American administration might argue, are the sort of people who go halfway across the world to rescue others from tyranny or famine, whilst "they" - the terrorists - travel a similar distance just to kill and destroy. The murky nature of such claims is evident to most people. Something in them seems true, but mixed up with something fraudulent. Judgments on the humanitarian successes and failures of recent years have pushed in on us in recent weeks. The 10th anniversary of the failure in Rwanda is a reminder of the terrible results of doing nothing in the face of genocide. The return of American and other troops to Haiti illustrated the consequences of interventions carried out without sufficient seriousness or perseverance. The attacks on Serbs in Kosovo demonstrated that people saved from ethnic cleansing will not necessarily refrain from it themselves, however long the period of international tutelage to which they are subject. Even as these lessons are considered, new problems are apparent. The peace plan brokered by the French after their intervention in the Ivory Coast is in trouble. In Sudan, according to some alarming reports, including those by the New York Times writer Nicholas D Kristof, new ethnic cleansing is taking place in the west of the country, just as the war in the south seemed to be winding down. In Iraq, an intervention retrospectively justified on humanitarian grounds hangs halfway between some kind of success and some kind of failure - nobody knows which, even if the former is still more likely - and continues to cost lives every day. Clarity on these matters is not easily achieved. But the light cast on them in a new collection of essays brought out by Médecins Sans Frontières is very welcome. By reasserting the distinction between the humanitarian idea proper and the humanitarian motives or pretensions of political leaders, the MSF writers are able to move the arguments back to where they ought to be taking place. In essence, they are saying that there are two quite different sets of arguments. One is about foreign policy, and this should take place in the knowledge that even worthy foreign policy is not in the first place humanitarian. The other is about the humanitarian mission, and the emphasis must be on the need for humanitarian organisations to distance themselves from governments and limit, as far as they can, their role as instruments of policy. Colin Powell's call for non-governmental organisations to act as "a force multiplier for us... an important part of our combat team" in Iraq shows the dangers. According to Jean-Hervé Bradol, chairman of MSF France, "humanitarian logic" does not endorse humanitarian military intervention, or other forms of involvement, or abstention from intervention or involvement. It has nothing to do with any of them except to estimate their impact on the victims which all policies create and "to range itself with those deemed expendable for whatever reason". As other contributors remind the reader, modern humanitarianism emerged in the 19th century by "asking who needs help because of this war?" and not "who is right in this war?" Bradol, who laid out some of these ideas in a speech at the Royal Institute for International Affairs this week, argues that these principles should lead to a re-ordering of priorities. We are treating as urgent on supposedly humanitarian grounds situations which are politically important, but which would not be at the top of any humanitarian list. Crude mortality rates, for instance, are the best simple indicator of humanitarian need, but they show that Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are very far from being the worst situations. The resources devoted to them, however, dwarf those deployed to deal with that in, for instance, the Democratic Republic of Congo, where millions may have died. In other instances, like North Korea, huge resources are being expended in humanitarian aid, but that aid has not reached many of those for whom it was intended because, MSF says, it has largely gone to the party and the army. The humanitarian label is attached to a policy aimed at calming and containing the North Korean regime - a policy which may be rational but, says MSF, let's not pretend it has anything much to do with feeding ordinary people, who have continued to starve to death in large numbers. On Iraq, MSF steered a brave course. It refused to condemn the war in advance, as some other relief agencies did, on the grounds that neither condemnation nor approval was appropriate. It refused to join other agencies in what turned out to be inflated predictions about the humanitarian consequences of combat, just as it had earlier refused to accept the huge figures which opponents of sanctions gave for infant deaths. It refused to join in the chorus of demands from voluntary organisations for the United Nations to play a leading role in organising and assuring relief in Iraq, noting how far beyond UN capacities that role was. And as Rony Brauman and Pierre Salignon write in their contribution, it grasped very early that there was no humanitarian crisis in Iraq. "No humanitarian organisation could serenely countenance the frightening disproportion between the budgets allotted to humanitarian aid in Iraq, which has few urgent needs, and the paltriness of the sums available for critical situations, notably in West and Central Africa." The phrase humanitarian crisis is "a curious term", the same authors note, which "in one context... permits the response to be confined purely to relief, like during the genocide in Rwanda; in another it justifies military intervention as in Kosovo", or, as in Iraq now, the diversion, for political reasons, of resources to a country which is relatively well-off. This book is an aid to clearer thinking in an era in which, as David Rieff argues in his essay, states have decided that "humanitarianism is too important to be left to humanitarians". But, although Rieff is pessimistic, their appropriation of it is not yet complete, and ought to be resisted. · In the Shadow of 'Just Wars', edited by Fabrice Weissman, Hurst & Company with Médecins Sans Frontières.

International Herald Tribune 2 Apr 2004 www.iht.com Ten years after the Rwanda genocide David Bryer IHT Friday, April 2, 2004 Never again? OXFORD, England Ten years ago, the world's governments stood by and watched as an estimated 800,000 people in Rwanda were massacred in the space of a hundred days. Aid agencies saw what was happening, but it was in vain that we lobbied to persuade Western governments to fulfill their obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention and intervene to stop the killing. With the number of deaths rising daily, we pressed for an urgent reinforcement of the tiny and virtually helpless United Nations force in Kigali. But UN Security Council members would not commit their own troops. Nor would they deliver the necessary logistical support to the African nations that had offered manpower. Such callous disregard in the face of such immense suffering still haunts me; it was certainly the lowest point in my 30 years as a humanitarian worker. Many others shared this sickening sense of failure. General Roméo Dallaire, the deeply committed commander of the ill-fated UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda, wrote that as long as Security Council members "procrastinated, bickered and cynically pursued their own selfish foreign policies," his men could do little to stop the killing. Ten years on, it is sobering to reflect on what has changed. If genocide were looming today, would there be a speedier and more united response? Just as importantly, how is the world responding today to appalling and widespread attacks on innocent men, women and children? In short, is there any hope for an internationally agreed policy to protect civilians that would transcend "selfish foreign policies"? At first sight, the signs are not auspicious. The "war on terror" and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have consumed international agendas and resources. The controversy over U.S. and allied action in Iraq has muddied the debate over when and how it is acceptable to intervene in a sovereign country to protect civilians, in effect rendering all forms of intervention open to accusations of aggressive neocolonialism. And yet the question is as urgent and fundamental as ever. While there may not have been systematic killings on the scale of the Rwandan genocide since 1994, armed conflicts and massive violations of human rights continue, with hundreds of thousands of people killed, raped or terrorized every year. These rarely make the headlines, but for many people in conflict zones or insecure regions - like Sudan, the Middle East, northern Uganda, Aceh or Colombia - terror is an everyday experience. Ten years after Rwanda, the world must reapply itself to this most fundamental question. We urgently need an agreement among governments on clear and consistent principles to guide when the Security Council should act to protect civilians around the world. Military intervention should always be the last resort. The Canadian-backed report, "Responsibility to Protect," published in December 2001, lays out just such a framework. It argues that where a population is facing large-scale killings, which the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect civilians. On a more practical level, we need to see the provision of forces and resources on the ground that were so tragically lacking in Rwanda. Throughout the three months of slaughter, from April to June 1994, there were ample opportunities for a relatively small, well-trained force to intervene and stop genocide in its tracks. There were many proposals - not least from U.S. General Wesley Clark, who presented a plan for a small force to establish corridors of escape. Today there are at least some signs of progress, even in Africa. Last June, a UN-mandated European force of almost 2,000 troops flew into the Ituri province of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and was able at least to contain the vicious ethnic conflict there. Although it was unable to secure the region as a whole, it stopped the worst of the bloodshed in and around the town of Bunia and many of the arms shipments that were fueling the violence. Last August in Liberia, UN mandated troops from several West African countries received a rapturous reception as they arrived in Monrovia, bringing to an end 14 years of civil war and untold misery. This West African peacekeeping force was soon subsumed into a UN operation which, if it finally reaches its target of 15,000 troops, may shortly become the world's largest-ever UN peacekeeping force. As UN Secretary General Kofi Annan lamented in a speech last September, the Security Council still responds to violence in a way that is "tardy and hesitant." But recent interventions in Africa highlight a growing willingness - by both African and Western nations - to intervene to protect civilians. Last month, the African Union agreed to set up a force of 15,000 troops, to be ready in 2005, to intervene to prevent genocide or end armed conflicts. This is a hugely welcome development that should be supported. The European Union is working on a similar idea around a British-French-German plan for a rapid reaction force to move quickly into conflict zones to fill the gap until UN peacekeepers can arrive. This idea is due to be discussed again at a meeting of European defense ministers in Brussels next week. These are crucial developments that would provide some practical tools to prevent genocide and other atrocities against civilians. Kofi Annan has also proposed a UN special rapporteur on the prevention of genocide, reporting directly to the Security Council. In theory this should make it more difficult for the Council to look the other way as it did in 1994. But in the last resort there is nothing to prevent another genocide unless the Security Council has the will to do so, and the world's powerful governments put in the energy and resources which were so tragically lacking, even after a Security Council resolution, in 1994. The tenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide will be a painful moment for millions, especially the Rwandan survivors still trying to heal their shattered lives. We owe it to them, and to those who died, to ensure that the cry of "never again" so easily and regularly uttered in the aftermath of such horrors does at last mean what it says. David Bryer is the chairman of Oxfam International.

Reuters 6 Apr 2004 UN to unveil anti-genocide plan UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is to unveil a plan of action to prevent acts of genocide such as the one in Rwanda in which up to one million people died. Critics charge that international bodies, inlcuding the United Nations, still remain ill-equipped to detect, let alone deal with, wholesale ethnic violence and calculated massacres such as the one in Rwanda that stunned the world. "The risk of genocide remains frighteningly real," Annan said on Tuesday on the eve of an event in Geneva marking the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide at which he will announce the plan. "The world must be better equipped to prevent genocide, and act decisively to stop it when prevention fails," he said in a statement. 'Callous indifference' "We cannot afford to wait until the worst has happened, or is already happening, or end up with little more than futile hand-wringing or callous indifference," Annan said. Two weeks ago, Annan accepted institutional and personal blame for the Rwandan slaughter that was initially ignored by world leaders. Annan was head of the UN peacekeeping department at the time. Earlier on Tuesday, the Canadian commander of the small UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda at the time said Western powers bore "criminal responsibility" for the genocide because they did not care enough to stop it. "The international community didn't give one damn for Rwandans because Rwanda was a country of no strategic importance," Romeo Dallaire told a conference in the Rwandan capital Kigali.

IPS 6 Apr 2004 Could U.N. 'Special Adviser' Prevent Future Genocide? Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Apr 6 (IPS) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has admitted he could have done more to stop the genocide of about 800,000 Rwandans exactly 10 years ago, says he is determined to prevent a similar tragedy in the future. Annan, who headed the department of peacekeeping operations when the slaughter took place in the presence of a U.N. military force (UNAMIR) in Rwanda in 1994, will soon appoint a 'special adviser on the prevention of genocide', perhaps as early as next week. U.N. Spokesman Fred Eckhard says the new official will deal primarily with the prevention of genocide, the systematic and planned extermination of a national, racial or ethnic group. ''This is something the secretary-general feels very strongly about,'' Eckhard said, adding that Annan also intends to develop ''a plan of action'' to ensure that no mass slaughter of people will ever happen again. But human rights activists, U.S. academics and U.N. diplomats remain sceptical that a special adviser could be effective. The actions of such an official would require the consent of the 15-member U.N. Security Council, says Christian Davenport, associate professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland. ''There needs to be an agreement in advance, with prior commitment to send troops, publicly made,'' said Davenport, author of the just-released study, 'Rwandan Genocide 10th Anniversary: Correcting the Record'. ''There needs to be an international commitment to the prevention of mass killings,'' he added in an interview. ''To do this requires also a recognition that in most instances there are few, if any, 'good' among the warring parties.'' It also means the United Nations must be prepared to provide governance and stability in areas where mass killings are either under way or believed to be so, said Davenport. Also, there needs to be a systematic and open U.N.-led data collection effort, in order to accurately document events. Not having such a record, ''influences not only our understanding of what is taking place, but also, in the context of a democracy, it hinders our capacity to mobilise large sections of the population,'' added Davenport, who is also consultant for the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda based in Arusha, Tanzania. Christian Scherrer of the Netherlands-based Genocide Research Project thinks that genocide could be prevented only by creating a rapid reaction mechanism and a genocide alert and early warning system. At a more practical level, he calls for the prosecution of all perpetrators of genocide. U.N. agencies such as the U.N. Development Programme and donor states, he adds, should impose conditionalities on development aid in cases of organised forms of state criminality. Last week, Annan said that if the international community had acted promptly and with determination, it could have stopped most of the killings in Rwanda. But the political will was not there, nor were the troops, he added. The Belgian government warned then Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1994 of an impending genocide and also pleaded for a stronger U.N. peacekeeping force. But it was rebuffed by members of the Security Council, specifically the United States and Britain. Annan also said that as head of the U.N.'s peacekeeping department he pressed several member states for troops. ''I believed at that time that I was doing my best. But I realised after the genocide that there was more that I could and should have done to sound the alarm and rally support.'' Annan's decision to appoint a special adviser to prevent genocide comes at a time when more than one million people have fled the Darfur region of western Sudan, caught up in one of the longest running civil wars in Africa. In a commentary in the 'New York Times' on Tuesday, Samantha Power of Harvard University said that about 10,000 international peacekeepers are needed to stop the killings in Darfur. U.S. President George W Bush will have to press Sudan to agree to a U.N. mission -- and to convince U.N. member states to sign on to the plan, she added. On Friday, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland characterised the ongoing ''ethnic cleansing'' in Sudan as ''one of the world's worst, and one of its most neglected humanitarian crises''. Most of the attacks, directed at communities of black Africans by ethnic Arab militias, specifically targeted civilian populations, he said. ''Entire villages had been looted and burned down, and large numbers of civilians had been raped, tortured and killed,'' Egeland told reporters. He called the killings ''a systematic depopulation of areas''. An Asian diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS that most diplomats familiar with human rights violations would express doubts about the worthiness of a U.N. adviser to prevent genocide. ''We have had dozens of U.N. special rapporteurs investigating human rights violations. But unfortunately there are also several member states which have refused to allow these officials to visit their countries,'' he said. He pointed out what he called ''the classic example of Israel'', which he said has been accused of indiscriminately killing Palestinian civilians. Following a Security Council resolution in April 2002, Annan named a U.N. fact-finding mission to probe the killings of Palestinian refugees in the Jenin refugee camp in Israeli-occupied territories. The Israeli government not only refused to cooperate with the United Nations but also denied permission for the U.N. team to enter the area.

Christian Science Monitor 7 Apr 2004 www.csmonitor.com Would the world allow another genocide? By Abraham McLaughlin KIGALI, RWANDA - As quickly as Rwanda began its descent into genocide 10 years ago, the world community began its retreat from any serious effort to help stop the frenzy that killed nearly 1 million people in just 100 days. Now, amid somber commemorations of those events, one question looms large: If a similar atrocity exploded now, would the international community again "pass by on the other side" while hundreds of thousands were killed? Many observers say it probably would. Places like Rwanda are still far removed from the center of world events. With no oil and no terrorist cells, its strategic value to the world is small. Nonetheless there are subtle signs that the world is more prepared to act on reports of mass killing. "Genocide prevention is being taken more seriously by governments. There is, at least, much greater awareness," says James Smith, head of the Aegis Trust, which is orchestrating commemoration events in Rwanda this week. But, he adds, "I'm skeptical of the idea that another genocide would be prevented by the international community." There are, for instance, new anti-genocide structures: The UN and US now have officials devoted exclusively to the prevention of mass killings. New forums for crimes against humanity have emerged with the establishment of the International Criminal Court in The Hague last year, Belgian courts has tested the limits of "universal justice" in human rights cases, and the ongoing Yugoslav and Rwanda war-crimes tribunals. UN chief Kofi Annan is expected to announce Wednesday a new early-warning system to help prevent genocide. More fundamental, resistance to keeping troops overseas has lessened drastically in a decade. Back in April 1994, when Rwanda's genocide started, Americans had just watched the bodies of marines being dragged through Somalia's streets after their Blackhawk helicopters were downed. It was one reason the US refused to condone a robust UN humanitarian mission to stop Rwanda's genocide. Today American troops are deployed across the globe, and despite challenges in Iraq, the troops don't appear to be headed home soon. Recent French and American troop deployments in Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Haiti are further examples of a new willingness to deploy. "The stomach for war is much stronger," observes Anne Morris, country director for the international aid group, CARE, in Rwanda. There's also a growing desire by Africans to intervene in their continent's conflicts. The new African Union plans to create a rapid-reaction force to help end wars. Through NEPAD, another Africa-wide organization, nations are undergoing "peer review" - criticism by their neighbors. It hints at a growing consensus to challenge the long-sacred concept of state sovereignty, which has traditionally been a key argument against interventions. But many are skeptical that the global response would be different today. "If it all happened again, it would all happen again," says Gerald Caplan, the Canadian author of "Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide." Indeed, there are plenty of signs of continued global indifference. A small but symbolic one is the guest list for Wednesday's commemoration ceremonies in Kigali. The UN's Mr. Annan won't attend. Neither will a top American official such as Secretary of State Colin Powell. Rather, the US is sending its mid-level ambassador for war crimes, Pierre-Richard Prosper. Also on the guest list, Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir, who is, says one UN official, presiding over ethnic cleansing in western Sudan. Rwandan President Paul Kagame testily raised another issue earlier this week as he accused the world of a "deliberate and convenient" failure to help stop genocide. "Do the powerful nations have a hidden agenda?" he pondered. "I would hate to believe this agenda is dictated by racist considerations or the color of the skin." Whether the agenda is based on racism or other factors, many observers agree that black Africa has had little geostrategic cachet. But with up to 25 percent of US oil expected to be flowing from Africa within 10 years, that's starting to change. Meanwhile, Rwanda's experience with genocide has, at least, given observers a better understanding of how such mass killings can begin. One of the central lessons: "Genocide never happens in exactly the same way," says Mr. Smith of Aegis. While the world was braced to prevent a resurgence of concentration camps aimed at exterminating Jews, it wasn't ready for other methods of mass killings that have emerged instead. Yet there are common warning signs, say experts. One is government training of militias. In 1994, Rwanda's notorious Interahamwe gangs were trained and armed by the government. Today in Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni has recently been arming civilian militias to combat the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Some Ugandan religious leaders have raised alarms about potential ethnic cleansing of the Acholi people, who live in LRA areas and sometimes support them. For more than a year in Sudan, the government has reportedly been arming Arab militias in their fight against rebel African tribes. The militias have been systematically robbing and raping civilians, according to a recent Human Rights Watch report. The UN's top official in Sudan recently charged the militias with "ethnic cleansing." Will such strong words have an impact? "It's possible it will result in a more robust response," says John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group in Washington, "But so far it's rhetorical."

iccnow.org 22 Apr 2004 High-Level Board of Directors of the Victims Trust Fund Convenes at the International Criminal Court for First Meeting (New York, April 22, 2004) - For the first time ever, a Trust Fund for Victims has been established as an integral part of an international criminal tribunal to help to address the suffering of victims of the worst crimes. The Trust Fund forms an essential part of the Court's innovative mandate towards victims, and is an acknowledgment that justice for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes cannot be met by retribution alone. Board members met this week at the premises of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, to begin developing criteria that will guide the operations of this new initiative. The establishment of the Victims Trust Fund was provided for in the treaty creating the ICC as part of a series of unprecedented steps to fully acknowledge the rights and needs of victims. In particular, the Statute allows for victims' active participation in the criminal justice process and enables them to claim reparations from perpetrators. The Trust Fund complements these efforts, and its activities and projects will provide concrete means by which victims' broader needs may be addressed. "The Victims Trust Fund is a historic effort to widen the scope of justice to not only punish perpetrators, but also to restore dignity to victims," said William Pace, convenor of the NGO Coalition for the ICC, a global advocacy group. "The International Criminal Court recognizes that victims need to be treated as more than silent partners, but instead as active participants in the justice and healing process," he said. "The moral authority and integrity of the Fund's first Board is a reflection of the historic importance of this effort," he added. The members of the Board, who represent the five UN regional groups, are: Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan; His Grace Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, former Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa; His Excellency Mr. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, former Prime Minister of Poland; His Excellency Dr. Oscar Arias Sánchez, former President of Costa Rica; and Madame Minister Simone Veil, former Minister of Health of France and former President of the European Parliament. Voluntary contributions from individuals, organizations, corporations, governments and other sources will constitute a portion of the resources of the Trust Fund, which will also include money and other property collected through fines and forfeitures imposed by the ICC. Funds could be allocated for expenses such as medical costs, school fees for orphans or reconciliation projects for communities, or be directed to non-governmental organizations and other groups for projects that will directly assist victims and their families. The Trust Fund will be guided by a strict set of criteria to be determined by the Assembly of States Parties to the ICC. # # # The web site of the Campaign for the Victims Trust Fund: http://www.victimstrustfund.org/.