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Africa Inform International - Expert Analysis
BBC TV
Newsnight Special
A debate with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Sidney Blumenthal, Bronwen Maddox, Professor Akbar Ahmed and Vincent Magombe.
Africa Inform International - Expert Analysis
Zimbabwe - Opposing Sides are now in some kind of Unity Government... But, the opposition MDC of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai continues to accuse Robert Mugabe Mugabe and his ZANU PF of not respecting rules... Mugabe's supporters within the government and in the countries security services are believed to be sabotaging efforts by MDC politicians to bring about constitutional changes that will create a viable democratic environment and ensure the evolution of good governance in future Zimbabwe.
See Cartoon from: http://www.zimdaily.com/
Most Zimbabweans think Mugabe is to blame for the slow progress.
Africa Inform International - Expert Analysis
Ayo Johnson & Vincent Magombe on Africa Today - (Press TV) PART 1
Western media depiction of African affairs — Part 1 Vincent Magombe, Africa Inform International, Ayo Johnson, and Ebere Nzewuji - Ben TV.
Presenter - Vuyiswa Ngqobongwana.
Tags: Africa, Africa in the media, Ayo Johnson, Ben TV, Ebere Nzewuji, Media, Vuyiswa Ngqobongwana
Africa Inform International - Expert Analysis
Dr. Vincent Magombe - on the 4 Corners Programme (Press TV), 24 april 2009.Topic of Discusion: South Africa for a Zulu President
4Corners
24 Apr. 2009
Africa Inform International - Expert Analysis
Africa Inform International - Expert Analysis
Please check out this BBC Radio Four programme, which features Dr. Vincent Magombe of Africa Inform International:
BBC Radio 4's Analysis: Bad Ballots was originally broadcast on Thursday, 24th July 2008 at 20:30, to be repeated on Sunday 27th July at 21.30 BST
You can also find the same at this website:
Bad Ballots
Are bad elections better than none at all?
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Read the programme transcript
The elections in Zimbabwe resulted in hundreds of people losing their lives and thousands suffering intimidation, torture and violence when they tried to vote out their autocratic president, Robert Mugabe.
Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on the campaign trial in Pakistan.
Interviewees:
Dr. Vincent Magombe - Writer, journalist and Director of Africa Inform International
Anatol Lieven - Professor of War Studies, King's College, London and Senior Fellow of the New America Foundation
Dr. Glen Rangwala - Lecturer in Politics, University of Cambridge
Tom Porteus - London Director of Human Rights Watch
Mary Kaldor - Professor of Global Governance, London School of Economics
Brendan O'Leary - Lauder Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Penn Programme in Ethnic Conflict
Dr. Pryamvada Gopal - Senior Lecturer in Faculty of English, University of Cambridge
Dr. David Runciman - Senior Lecturer in Political Theory, University of Cambridge
Kenya's elections ended in widespread bloodshed before a compromise was eventually brokered by the international community. The jury is still out whether it will stick.
And even if people don't die, elections are more often than not accompanied by vote rigging - witness the latest Russian elections, for example, but also the Florida vote in the last US elections which many people would claim was rigged in favour of George W Bush.
Presenter: Zareer Masani
Producer: Ingrid Hassler
Editor: Hugh Levinson
Africa Inform International - Expert Analysis
Dr. Vincent Magombe Talks about SouthAfrica on Inside Story Programme - Aljazeera English (May-21-08)
Part 2 South Africa
http://www.videosift.comwww.videosift.com/video/Inside-Story-Violence-in-South-Africa-May-21-08?theme=dark
Africa Inform International - Expert Analysis
Dr. Vincent Magombe Interviewed on Voice of America
Africa Inform International - Expert Analysis
Dr. Vincent Magombe - Featured on Wide-ranging Global Media Outlets
Fox News Online
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,25386,00.html
CNN Internet Edition
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/africa/02/23/angola.analysis/
Voice of America
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2002-04/a-2002-04-19-37-Madagascar.cfm
Aljazeera English
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2008/06/2008619122937475521.html
London Evening Standard
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23501129-details/Tesco+condemned+for+claiming+Zimbabweans+don't+want+to+eat+the+food+they+export/article.do
Telegraph Group of Newspapers
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/world/africa/obama-in-historic-trip-to-africa-14399757.html
BBC World Service Radio
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/138_africanperform08/page7.shtml
Africa Inform International - Expert Analysis
Nigeria - The Battle With Islamist Rebels in North-Eastern States.
In July 2009, violence spread like fire across several Nigerial states. The Nigerian security forces responded with deadly force - killing hundreds of youthful Islamist fighters:
Africa Inform International Viewpoint on the violence - Nigerian Government Must Fight Less and Talk More to Its Citizens To Guarantee the Stability and Unity of the Federal Republic...
The fateful clashes between Islamist rebels and government forces affected Bauchi, Yobe and Borno states, resulting in hundreds of deaths, with thousands of civillians displaced from villages and townships.
The growing conflict between the state authorities and the Islamist groups threatens to distabilise the Nigerian Federation, whose 140 million Christian and Muslim citizens are demographically segmented at about 50-50 percentage.
Hundreds have been arrested.
The troubles were aggravated by attacks on police stations, across the three states by Islamist groups calling themselves the 'Taliban' and 'Boko Haram'.
This was in revenge at the killing by government forces of dozens of their supporters in Bauchi state.
The Isamist fighters had been demanding the release of their leaders, in addition to the banning of Western education and cultural practices in their home regions.
The extreme use of force by country's State forces is widely seen as one of the main causes of the growing bloodshed.
In Bauchi state, the government response to the Islamist attack on a police station, after the arrest of the leaders of the so called 'Boko Haram' group, resulted in the death of close to 50 people. The impact of this 'over-reaction' by the government drove young Islamists into desperate revenge attacks.
Already the Federal government was facing strong criticism for the aggressiveness and ruthlessness with which its special forces dealt with the rebellion in the Niger Delta. Hundreds of civillians were killed and thousands displaced from their homes.
Most analyst agree that Nigeria is faced with acute unresolved political, economic and socio-cultural problems, which need urgent attention.
The Federal government may not be giving these problems due recognition, and the insistance on military approaches will eclipse any real chances of diplomatic solutions.
Nigerians must learn to talk in times of crisis. They must learn to share the country's enormous wealth instead of fighting over them.
External links to this story:
Bauchi mayhem suspects paraded before newsmen by the state police command, on Sunday. Photos: NAN.
African Affairs Analysis - From Global Media & Other Sources.
African crises escalate as AU leaders meet - 1.4 million homeless so far this year in DRC, Sudan and Somalia
01 Jul 2009 05:35:00 GMT
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.
Five people forced to flee every minute of 2009 in DRC, Sudan and Somalia, says Oxfam --------- Over 1.4 million people have been forced to flee their homes so far this year as a result of significant increasing violence in DR Congo, Sudan and Somalia, international agency Oxfam said today, as heads of state gather at the AU Summit in Libya to discuss peace and security across the continent. At the last AU Summit, in January 2009, leaders failed to address these ongoing conflicts or take measures to protect civilians from violence and suffering, Oxfam said. Since then, violence in eastern DRC, south-central Somalia and southern Sudan has escalated even further and countless more lives have been destroyed.
The rest of the international community has been equally ineffective "Every minute of every day since AU leaders last met has seen the equivalent of a family of five made homeless by these conflicts. The AU must unequivocally condemn such suffering. It is unacceptable that right now African women continue to be raped, men killed, families torn apart and the lives of generations of children are shattered," said Desire Assogbavi, Oxfam's Senior Africa Policy Analyst .
Oxfam called on the AU to put renewed emphasis on sustainable diplomatic and political solutions to these conflicts, rather than military actions that bring yet more death and misery for civilians, such as this year's offensives in DR Congo and northern Uganda. It said the AU had in the past played a key role in forging the peace agreement between northern and southern Sudan, which although now facing serious challenges, demonstrates what can be achieved when there is sufficient political will.
DR Congo has seen the highest levels of displacement since the start of the year. Up to 800,000 people in eastern DRC have fled as a result of a new UN-backed military offensive by the Congolese army, which began in January and has led to numerous reprisal attacks by FDLR rebels. Terrified communities have told Oxfam staff of widespread rape, and burning and looting of villages in North and South Kivu.
"The AU must tell the Congolese government that such massive suffering will not be tolerated. While FDLR atrocities must be addressed, government troops are also committing unacceptable human rights violations," said Assogbavi. In the past six months, southern Sudan has seen some of the worst violence and displacement since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Around 200,000 people have fled increasingly deadly conflicts linked to tribal clashes, cattle raids and North-South tensions.
Meanwhile, Darfur remains the scene of one of the world's biggest humanitarian crises, and the ongoing conflict has displaced at least 140,000 people so far this year - most fleeing to already severely overcrowded camps, and now receiving even less aid following the recent expulsion of humanitarian agencies. "With the peace agreement looking increasingly fragile, urgent diplomatic attention is needed.
AU governments played a key role in forging the peace deal - they must now help keep it alive. A return to war would have devastating consequences not only for Sudan but all its neighbours," said Assogbavi. Tens of thousands more people have also been made homeless in northern DR Congo and southern Sudan by ongoing attacks from northern Uganda's Lords Resistance Army. A joint military offensive against the LRA launched in late 2008 has failed to halt its attacks on civilians.
In Somalia, 160,000 people have fled the capital Mogadishu since May, after an upsurge in fighting between the Transitional Federal Government and opposition groups and militia. Most are sheltering in vast camps around the city, where conditions are dire as deteriorating security makes it harder than ever for aid agencies to reach people in need.
Oxfam called on the AU to urge all parties to the conflict to respect international law, cease fighting in populated areas, and allow the safe delivery of aid. "Peace and security in Africa has made great strides forward over the past decade - there are now fewer conflicts across the continent, and African peacekeepers have intervened to protect civilians.
However, the ongoing humanitarian suffering and conflicts in these three countries are delivering a fatal blow to the hopes of a peaceful and prosperous future for Africa. The AU must step up and challenge those that are responsible, and say that enough is enough," said Assogbavi.
African Affairs Analysis -From Global Media & Other Sources.
Global financial crisis: What is Africa doing?
By Maxwell M. Mkwezalamba -
[The writer is the Commissioner for Economic Affairs, African Union, and this was part of his presentation at the official opening of The African Employers’ Regional Forum on "The Financial Crisis, Economic Recovery And Employment".]
THE impact of the current global financial and economic crisis will spread to all parts of the world, including African countries, despite their economies being less integrated into the international financial system.
Many African countries have already started experiencing this impact as evidenced by massive capital outflows; decline in private capital inflows, foreign direct investments; remittances; government revenues; and decreasing demand for and falling prices of commodities.
The crisis has also been accompanied by widespread currency depreciations in Africa, with inflationary pressures persisting in many countries.
The impact of the crisis on the private sector has been worsened by the tightening of credit markets due to shortage of bank liquidity as well as the rise in uncertainty, making it difficult for African banks to secure lines of credit on international markets.
The effects have been felt in many African countries, with most notable examples being closures of mining industries in countries such as Botswana, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, resulting in huge job losses.
Thus, the current global financial and economic crisis, if not immediately addressed, may result in failure by African countries to attain the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
The current financial and economic crisis has adversely impacted on the improved and satisfactory economic growth performance of African economies, which averaged in excess of 5 percent per annum over the past five years.
Following the global financial and economic crisis, March 2009 African Development Bank estimates indicate that real GDP growth in Africa is expected to decline to around 2,8 percent in 2009, and May 2009 projections point to even lower average economic growth rate of around 2,4 percent in 2009.
The UN estimated that an average GDP growth rate of 7 percent per annum would be required for Africa to achieve the MDGs by 2015. In the light of the recent economic downturn and its impact on growth, among others, Africa’s prospects of attaining the MDGs by 2015 have been substantially reduced.
According to International Monetary Fund estimates, the current account balance on average, as a percentage of GDP, is expected to widen from a deficit of about 2 percent in 2008 to about 6 percent in 2009.
This gap is projected to widen more for oil-exporting countries. Furthermore, the fiscal balance, as a proportion of GDP, is expected to decline from a surplus of 5 percent in 2006 to a deficit of 4 percent in 2009 owing to expected declining levels of aid flows.
Many questions, therefore, remain unanswered — "How will African countries embrace the impact of this global financial crisis which is affecting even innocent poor people? Who is to blame? What is the role of international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank? What is the role of the national governments and regional organisations? What is the role of the private sector, and more specifically, what is the role of employers’ organisations?"
Efforts are being made to address these questions. Examples include the African Ministers of Finance and Central Bank Governors Conference held on November 12, 2008 on the financial crisis, the G20 Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy in Washington, held on November 15, 2008; the meeting of the Committee of Ten African Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors held in Cape Town, South Africa, on January 12, 2009; and the Twelfth Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union held from 1-3 February 2009 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
More recently, the meeting on "Changes: Successful Partnerships for Africa’s Growth Challenge" organised jointly by the government of the United Republic of Tanzania and the IMF in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and the G20 Summit held in London on April 2, 2009 also addressed these questions. These meetings have come up with several policy responses for implementation.
The issues that we may wish to discuss include: requesting monetary authorities to consider appropriate and sustainable mechanisms for lowering base rates to encourage lending while also maintaining macroeconomic stability; ensuring that African countries pursue prudential regulations that are comprehensive in covering all financial institutions and all types of financial operations; and ensuring that African countries put in place appropriate governance of loan guarantee institutions as well as conducive institutional and legal environment to minimise moral hazard.
In addition, we may wish to support the development of domestic and regional bond markets, which have also offered a great potential for improving domestic resource mobilisation in Africa.
The African Development Bank has been able to implement emergency assistance programmes by reallocating resources through the Emergency Liquidity Facility, the Trade Finance Initiative and other ways of support to low-income countries. However, for the AfDB to play its counter-cyclical role effectively, it would require shareholders to agree on a general increase in resource in particular a capital increase.
This would ensure that the AfDB is able to scale up financing without jeopardising its long- term viability and sustainability of its lending programme.
Equally important is the need to accelerate the establishment of Africa’s three pan-African financial institutions, namely the African Central Bank, the African Monetary Fund and the African Investment Bank. Work on establishing the African Investment Bank is quite advanced, following the adoption of its protocol during the January/February 2009 African Union Summit held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The Statute of the Bank is expected to be adopted during the forthcoming June/July 2009 African Union Summit.
The African Ministers of Finance and Central Bank Governors Conference of November 12, 2008 on the financial crisis, the G20 Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy in Washington held on November 15, 2008 and the Assembly of the Twelfth Session of the Assembly of the African Union held from 1-3 February 2009 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and the G20 Summit held in London on April 2, 2009 have all called for a comprehensive reform of governance of the global financial system and the Bretton Woods Institutions, to adequately reflect the changing global economic realities and emerging challenges, with special emphasis on greater voice and representation for emerging and developing economies. Since this recommendation is yet to be implemented, this forum may wish to add its voice to it.
Assessment of the delivery of commitments on aid shows mixed results. Total net ODA to Africa, which increased to a record US$43,4 billion in 2006, declined by 10,8 percent to US$38,7 billion in 2007.
Similarly, Africa’s share in total aid also declined to 36,9 percent in 2007 compared to 41,2 per cent in 2006. Furthermore, at Gleneagles, the G-8 leaders made a commitment to increase ODA to Africa by US$25 billion a year by 2010, relative to 2004. The drop in ODA flows to Africa in 2007 was mainly due to decline in debt relief.
Despite commitments to increase ODA flows to Africa, only a few countries have met the 0,7 percent ODA to GNP target set by the United Nations, while the European Union has made a commitment to reach an ODA to GNI target of 0,56 percent by 2010.
This is welcome and represents an important first step towards meeting the overall target of 0,7 percent. Although a number of commitments have been undertaken by developed countries to scale up resources for Africa’s development, all indications show that most of them are not on track to meet their stated commitments and they need to make unprecedented increases to meet their 2010 targets.
The risk of them not meeting their commitments is high now in view of the financial and economic crisis.
Africa faces mounting challenges in relation to improving trade performance and the slow progress of the multilateral and bilateral trade negotiations. Pro-development expectations are attached to the outcomes of the Doha Round and EPA negotiation processes with the European Union.
In addition, the aid for trade initiative constitutes a major opportunity to render trade as an operational engine for growth. It is, therefore, critical that the pace towards a successful conclusion of the Doha Development Round is accelerated.
The current global and economic crisis has demonstrated the need for Africa to promote intra-African trade and regional integration in general to bolster economic growth and development by enlarging markets and reducing vulnerability to shocks. Clearly, promoting export diversification, maintaining competitiveness of Africa’s exports, and investing in new technologies would be required to complement the current efforts by regional and international organisations.
African Affairs Analysis -From Global Media & Other Sources.
UGANDA - Brutality in the name of security
By Maria Burnett. Researcher - Africa Division, Human Rights Watch
"I kindly beg you to ensure that you keep our children. I don’t think I will be coming back.”Those were the last words of Saidi Lutaaya, spoken over the phone to his wife. He had been picked up from Old Taxi Park in Kampala in November 2007 by men wearing civilian clothes driving an unmarked car. His family has not heard from him since. But sadly, they learned about his final hours from those who saw him die.
Members of the Joint Anti-terrorism Task Force (JATT) arrested Lutaaya even as President Yoweri Museveni welcomed Queen Elizabeth II to Uganda at the start of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). JATT personnel brought Lataaya to their headquarters in the lush Kampala suburb of Kololo. They beat him while interrogating him about his alleged knowledge of rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
He was severely injured, and soldiers took him to Mulago Hospital, where he died a few minutes later. Nurses there said that he had a hole in his foot and that the bone of his lower leg was poking out, that he had been hit in the head with a hammer, and that blood was oozing out.
But his family was never formally informed of his death. Soldiers collected his body and took it away.After that last desperate phone call, the man’s family began a frantic search. They visited police jails. They paid money to government officials who claimed to be able to secure his release, but to no avail.
After several days, some informants who moonlight for JATT told the family not to pay anyone because the man was already dead. Only recently did the family secure a death certificate for Lutaaya. It says he arrived in a comatose state, but that no cause of death had been ascertained.
Two weeks ago, Human Rights Watch published an in-depth report based on more than 80 interviews that documents routine human rights abuses, such as illegal detention and torture, committed by JATT personnel between 2006 through the end of 2008.
The pages of The Independent have frequently exposed the horrors of torture in Uganda at the hands of security personnel, especially JATT and military intelligence. Human rights groups have routinely denounced the lack of access to detainees held in Kololo.
Some have documented the physical scars when the victims were fortunate enough to be released.The overwhelming evidence of illegal detention and torture by JATT in Kololo has been met with official denials, excuses and contradictions.
Most important, there have been no investigations or prosecutions. Look no further than comments by military spokesmen in the press over the last few years to see the contradictions.First, categorical denials that there are “safe houses,” in Uganda. Then later, yes, Haroon Saley and Mufti Bhayat were detained without charge for 11 days in the ungazetted JATT offices in Kololo in August 2008, but they were “terrorism suspects”!
Initially, the Chieftancy of Military Intelligence (CMI) denied that the JATT offices at the top of Kololo Hill are a site of illegal detention. But, later, the UPDF spokesman admitted that Hanifa Nalukwago was held illegally in the JATT offices in Kololo for over two months in early 2008. And, yes, Abdu Semugenyi died in illegal JATT custody in 2006, but while “trying to escape”.
In meetings with Human Rights Watch, the chief of military intelligence, Brig. James Mugira, acknowledged his responsibility for command and control over JATT operations. He told Human Rights Watch that he had planned – since taking over from Col. Leopold Kyanda in August 2008 – to “polish the place up.
”These promises are important. Hierarchy and meaningful control in the military and security services can ensure that civilians do not suffer at the hands of those given the power of the state.
But for Brig. Mugira’s “polish up” to be meaningful, it needs to be open and clear in its intentions. Transferring culpable personnel, covering up abuses, and dismissing allegations without investigations will not get the job done.
President Museveni wields tremendous power to influence how these allegations of illegal detention, torture, enforced disappearances and deaths in JATT custody are addressed. Brig. Mugira will need his full support.
Human rights monitors should be granted access to any detention facility, including JATT’s offices in Kololo.Those found responsible for abuses should be appropriately disciplined, including termination from active service, or prosecuted.
Most important, as the one at the top of the chain of command, President Museveni should ensure that no one prevents or obstructs such investigations. Parliament also has a critical role to play in curtailing abuses by JATT.
Certain committees such as Defence and Internal Affairs and Presidential Affairs have a legal mandate to examine and comment on policy matters of the military, police and intelligence organisations. Committee members should urgently engage in this work and see that there is adequate civilian oversight for all security organisations.
Torture committed by state security organisations is not a partisan issue. The ruling party and the opposition parties should work together to criminalise it in law and eliminate it in practice.Uganda’s national elections are not so far away.
All previous national elections since President Museveni took power have been tainted by allegations of fraud and state-sponsored violence. Uganda has still not had a peaceful transfer of power since independence.
The credibility of any electoral process starts well before polling day so the practice of state security agents operating in violation of Ugandan and international law needs to end now. This is the time to rein in groups such as JATT and to disband them if they act outside the law.
President Museveni has a constitutional duty to safeguard the laws of Uganda and to promote the welfare and rights of all its citizens, even those who might be criminals, even those he might disagree with, even those who might pose a threat to him in the 2011 elections.
The courts are the only lawful place to determine an individual’s guilt or innocence, based on due process and respect for individual rights.
Uganda’s international standing is tarnished by the continued tolerance of these kinds of abuses, especially now that it serves in such a high visibility position on the United Nations Security Council.
African Affairs Analysis - From Global Media & Other Sources.
Libya: Mark Anniversary by Restoring Rights
31 Aug 2009 21:40:06 GMT
Source: Human Rights Watch
Secondary Source - AlertNet / Reuters
(New York) - Colonel Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi should mark his 40th anniversary in power by wiping repressive laws off the books and freeing political prisoners, Human Rights Watch said today.
Notwithstanding movements toward reform in the past five years, laws and policies that restrict the most basic rights and freedoms of Libyan citizens remain in force, and Libyans are not free to criticize the government or to form political associations.
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"Gaddafi's Great Green Charter of Human Rights promised that ˜all human beings will be free and equal in the exercise of power,'" said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
"Forty years later, Libyans are still waiting for their rights."
Limited steps toward increased press freedom, legal reforms, and increased tolerance of dissent indicate that at least some elements of the government recognize the need for reform. Two new private newspapers and the internet have created a new limited space for freedom of expression, and some unprecedented public demonstrations have taken place.
The Justice Ministry has announced plans to reform the most repressive provisions of the penal code, but has not yet made the proposed revisions public. The justice system at times has made independent decisions, ordering the government to pay compensation to people whose rights have been violated. But many trials, especially those before the State Security Court, still fail to meet international due process standards. Overall, unjustified limits on free expression and association remain the norm, including penal code provisions that criminalize "insulting public officials" or "opposing the ideology of the Revolution."
"Business deals with other countries aren't going to improve Libya's human rights reputation," Whitson said. "That won't happen until Libya abolishes laws that restrict speech and association, frees its political prisoners, and prosecutes government officials responsible for past crimes."
Human Rights Watch went to Libya on a research mission in April 2009, meeting with the secretary of the General People's Committee for Justice, the justice minister, the secretary of the General People's Committee for Public Security, and the interior minister, as well as other officials.
Two reports detailing its findings will be issued this year.
Freedom of expression, assembly, and association
Freedom of expression is severely restricted by the Libyan penal code, which criminalizes acts such as "insulting public officials" and "promoting anti-state theories." However, in the past five years, there has been a gradual opening of a new, still-vulnerable, space for freedom of expression.
Libyans have access to more information through establishment of two private newspapers and a satellite TV station, along with the spread of international satellite stations and the availability of Libyan news websites based abroad. This gradual opening has brought with it an increase in media criticism of government policies, as well as increase in the number of prosecutions of journalists, although no journalist has been sentenced to prison so far.
Libyan laws also severely restrict freedom of association. Law 71 bans any group activity opposing the ideology of the 1969 revolution, and the penal code imposes the death penalty on those who join those groups. The Libyan association law (Law 19) also restricts freedom of association by requiring any new organization to have 50 founding members and to apply for certification giving the General People's Congress full discretion to refuse an application without justification or appeal. For example, Libya's Internal Security Agency blocked an attempt in the summer of 2008 by a group of lawyers and journalists to set up an independent human rights organization.
In a further step backward, on June 26, the General People's Committee issued a decision (312/2009) requiring 30-day advance approval from a newly established government committee to hold any meeting or event, and requiring the meeting organizers to provide a list of all participants and the issues to be discussed. Under international law, though, these requirements do not meet the standard of a necessary or proportionate limitation to freedom of assembly and association.
"Libyan authorities should reform the penal code and law on associations to bring them fully in line with international standards for freedom of expression and association," said Whitson. "Issuing a decree that further stifles freedom of assembly gives the wrong signal. It should be revoked."
Unlimited detention
By the Justice Ministry's own reckoning, about 200 prisoners who have served their sentences or who have been acquitted by Libyan courts remain imprisoned under orders of the Internal Security Agency. Internal Security, under the Interior Ministry, controls two prisons, Ain Zara and Abu Salim, where "security" detainees are held. Internal Security has refused to carry out judicial orders to free these prisoners, despite calls from the justice minister for their release.
For example, a dual UK-Libyan citizen, Mahmoud Boushima, remains imprisoned in Abu Salim prison, despite a Supreme Court decision on March 30, 2008 ordering his release. Boushima, who had been living in the United Kingdom since 1981, returned to Libya on July 17, 2005. Eleven days later, Internal Security officers arrested him, and the state security prosecutor charged him with membership in an illegal organization. A court acquitted him on March 18, 2005, a decision confirmed by appeal on February 20, 2007. His case eventually came before the Supreme Court , which further upheld his acquittal in the 2008 decision. Human Rights Watch asked to meet with him in April, when it visited Abu Salim prison, but prison authorities denied access to him.
Political prisoners
Libyan prisons still contain dozens of prisoners who were sentenced after unfair trials for expressing their political views. Over the past two years, however, a number of political prisoners have been freed. Earlier this year, Libya released the last of a group of 14 prisoners arrested in 2007 for organizing a demonstration.
One prisoner whose case has received little attention is Abdelnasser Al-Rabbasi, whom Human Rights Watch interviewed in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli in April. He is serving a 15-year sentence for writing a novel about corruption and human rights. On January 5, 2003, Internal Security officers in plainclothes arrested him at his home and then held him incommunicado for six months. On August 18, 2003, the People's Court handed down the prison sentence for "dishonoring the guide of the revolution" (as Gaddafi is called) under article 164 of the penal code.
Rabbasi told Human Rights Watch that, "I'm not part of any group or anything like that," and that all the officers found in his home were some of his writings."
"The Libyan government should free all prisoners detained for the peaceful expression of their opinion," said Whitson. "It should ensure that the decisions of Libyan courts are respected and that court orders for the release of prisoners from Abu Salim and Ain Zara are implemented."
Justice for the 1996 Abu Salim prison killings
Up to 1,200 prisoners were killed on June 29, 1996 in Abu Salim prison, but the Libyan authorities have yet to make public any investigation into the incident or to hold anyone responsible. From 1996 until late 2008, the vast majority of the families of the prisoners who were killed sought news of their fate but received no information about them. In 2007, some of the families went to court over the issue, and in June 2008, the North Benghazi Court ordered the government to reveal the fate of those who had died.
As a result, Libyan authorities started issuing death certificates to the families in December, without acknowledging that the deaths were related to the 1996 incident, and offering compensation of 200 thousand Libyan Dinars (US$162,300) in compensation if the family agreed to relinquish all legal claims. But most of the families in Benghazi have refused to accept compensation on those terms.
Mohamed Hamil Ferjany, a spokesperson for the families now based in the United States, told Human Rights Watch that for him, "the money is irrelevant." He added: "My family spent years suffering, not knowing where my brothers were, only to be given a piece of paper 15 years later saying they are dead and nothing more. We want justice."
Some of the families insisting on accountability from the government have held protests in Benghazi over the past months. They have formed a committee to present their demands, which include revealing the facts about what occurred on the day of the killings and trying those responsible. In a positive sign, the government has, for the most part, allowed the families to demonstrate, and the Libyan press has at times covered their activities and demands. However, the families also have faced harassment from security forces and even, at times, arrest.
Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the right to life and to an effective remedy implies the duty to investigate violations and inform the families of the victims of the circumstances of death. If any crime was involved in deaths caused by state authorities, the perpetrators should be identified and prosecuted.
"It's not enough to issue death certificates and pay out a sum of money to surviving family members of this terrible event," said Whitson. "The government needs to provide a full accounting of what happened, and punish those officials responsible for wrongdoing."
African Affairs Analysis - From Global Media & Other Sources.
The Associated Press story
A look at Guinea-Bissau's history of instability
By The Associated Press
Guinea-Bissau, a tiny country in West Africa, has had a long history of instability and numerous attempted coups since independence from Portugal in 1974. For 23 of the past 29 years, the country was ruled by President Joao Bernardo Vieira.
RISE AND FALL OF VIEIRA: Vieira came to power in a 1980 coup and weathered numerous coup attempts until being forced out 19 years later at the onset of the country's civil war in 1999. Vieira went into exile in Portugal. A transitional government was formed and opposition leader Kumba Yala became president, but he was ousted in a 2003 coup. The country organized elections in 2005. Vieira returned from exile and ran, winning the vote.
MILITARY PURGE: The military is made up primarily of members of the Balanta ethnic group, who have long resented being under the rule of Vieira. He belonged to the Papel ethnic group, which represents roughly 5 percent of the population. After one of many failed coup attempts in the 1980s, Vieira set up a military tribunal and condemned to death several Balanta officers in an attempt to purge the military of his ethnic enemies.
COCAINE TRADE: In recent years, Guinea-Bissau has become a key transit point for South American cocaine. The drugs are flown from South America in small planes and then parceled out to dozens of drug mules that carry them north to Europe. The huge influx of money from the drug trade has been a major destabilizing force for the small nation.
BLOOD FEUD: The bad blood between Vieira and the head of the armed forces, Gen. Batiste Tagme na Waie, ran deep. Waie was one of the Balanta officers that Vieira targeted in his purges of the 1980s. Waie spent years in exile on a deserted island off Guinea-Bissau's coast. In November, unidentified gunmen opened fire on the president's residence and when the military failed to respond, those close to Vieira suspected the military, and possibly its chief, was behind the assassination attempt.
TIT FOR TAT?: Waie was killed Sunday night when a bomb hidden underneath the staircase to his office exploded. Those close to Waie, including his chief of staff, say it begs the question of whether the president was involved. A day later, a military group gunned down Vieira in what many suspect was an act of revenge by the military. The gunmen, however, have not been identified and the military says they belong to a renegade group.
African Affairs Analysis - From Global Media & Other Sources.
Rwanda: Obscuring the Truth About the Genocide
By Barrie Collins
Spiked
August 13, 2008
Last week, the Rwandan government published the findings of its commission of inquiry into the role France played in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. It found French diplomats, military leaders and politicians – including former president François Mitterand – complicit in the genocide.
Considering that the current Rwandan leadership has vilified France ever since it launched its bid to seize power in Rwanda in October 1990, eventually winning power in July 1994, it is not surprising that it should now up the stakes against its long-time enemy. The new strongman of Rwanda, President Paul Kagame, is fortunate that he has unswerving support from the United States, Britain and Belgium, and a cheerleading media in these countries which can be counted upon to give his report into France’s role in the genocide maximum impact.
But the truth is that France’s major mistake was to find itself on the wrong side of the moral parable that has been imposed by Western observers on Rwanda’s recent tragic history. A war that was complicated by considerable international intervention has become over-simplified into a morality tale of good versus evil, in which France has been branded as part of the ‘evil side’. Such a simplification further obscures the truth about what happened in Rwanda in 1994, and whitewashes the role of Western intervention more broadly.
According to the moral parable of Rwanda, the good guys were the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which invaded Rwanda in 1990 because it had no other means of protecting the persecuted minority of ethnic Tutsis inside Rwanda and of making the then Hutu-led government accept the right of return of Rwandan Tutsis living abroad as refugees. The bad guys were in the Rwandan government and armed forces. When the international community had helped Rwandans achieve a negotiated settlement, the worst elements among the bad guys drew up a plan to secure Hutu domination once and for all by planning and then implementing genocide against Rwandan Tutsis.
By the time the good guys – the RPF – had fought them off, their evil mission had been largely completed. Hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Tutsis were dead. Genocide had occurred, and the Western world had simply looked on passively. The United States refused to label the war that took place as a genocide in order to resist the clamour for international intervention to save lives. France was the only force on the United Nations Security Council to respond by sending in French forces under Operation Turquoise. But France’s real motivation was not to save lives, but to shore up its erstwhile allies: the bad guys. The French helped them escape Rwanda so that they would not have to answer for their crimes.
A moral analysis like this is compelling because it provides a clear pathway through a maze of complicating factors. For journalists, this moral signposting of the Rwandan genocide leads the way to great copy about the bravery of the heroes and the moral turpitude of the villains. For governments, it provides the crucial element of legitimacy that is the essential underpinning of their right to rule. The Rwandan regime under Paul Kagame depends on this version of events for its support and survival. And so do its principal sponsors, the United States and Great Britain.
As the force that relieved Rwanda from genocide, the RPF - whose leadership currently runs Rwanda - has exploited this version of events to remind Western governments that they failed to live up to the ‘Never Again’ principle that was the driving force behind the passing of the Genocide Convention at the United Nations in 1948. While they battled the genocidaires in 1994, the Western world simply looked on. Except France, that is. But as a supporter of the former, pre-RPF regime, France’s motives for intervening were highly questionable.
It may be the most widely told story of Rwanda, but this version of events is deeply flawed. While the US may have been embarrassed by this account, appearing less than heroic during the months of Rwanda’s greatest torment, it is far easier for it to live with this embarrassment than to be confronted with the facts of how it did intervene in this region of Africa in the early 1990s and since Kagame came to power.
The ‘plane crash’ debate
In fact, the three most influential Western players in Rwanda at this time – the US, France and Belgium – all intervened in ways that created the conditions that made mass slaughter inevitable. Contrary to the prevailing version of events, after its initial deployment of troops defending Rwandan leaders against the RPF’s October War in 1990, by means of Operation Noroît, France recognised that the US and Uganda were behind the RPF and had no desire to become isolated as the sole defender of the Rwandan government. So it increasingly made its military support conditional upon the government’s commitment to serious negotiations with the RPF. According to an informant from the French Ministry of Cooperation, France’s decision to disengage was already evident in 1990: ‘We did not want to remain alone…there were great powers behind the RPF. Uganda could send 30,000 to 40,000 soldiers.’ (1)
The Kagame government’s latest salvo against France, in the shape of its commission report fingering the French for their support for the genocide, is in fact part of an increasingly desperate search for political legitimacy. The weakest point of the Rwandan moral parable is the question of what caused the re-eruption of the war in 1994 and the subsequent descent into mass slaughter. The start of the bloodiest stage of the war is far more complicated than the moral storytellers – who blame it on the then evil government’s determination to secure Hutu domination – would have us believe.
It was an act of international terrorism that triggered the return to war. In early April 1994, an aeroplane carrying Hutu President Juvénal Habyarimana was blown out of the sky by a missile attack that had been planned for several months. Apologists for the RPF have tried hard to blame the attack upon hardline Hutu conspirators, but they have produced nothing of substance to back up this claim. Rather, there is an accumulating amount of evidence that the RPF was responsible for the missile attack – and it is this evidence that has put the current RPF government, led by Kagame, on the back foot. It is the government’s defensiveness on this issue that lies at the heart of the current France-bashing.
The UN’s own investigator, Michael Hourigan, first came across compelling evidence of the RPF’s responsibility for assassinating President Habyarimana and the other unfortunate occupants of his plane. However, it appears that under pressure from Washington, the UN agreed to shut down its investigation into the missile attack. Another UN investigator, Robert Gersony, came across evidence of RPF atrocities and was also silenced; the UN even stated that his report ‘did not exist’.
These inconvenient truths threatened to muddy the clear waters of moral certainty that the Rwandan parable provides. The Rwandan regime has lived behind the shield of international powers which have worked hard to keep the matter of the plane shooting off the agenda. For all of its 13 years of operation, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), whose brief is to establish the truth of what happened in 1994, has ruled that the matter of the President Habyarimana’s assassination (which it chooses to refer to simply as a plane ‘crash’) is not within its remit. When one of the ICTR’s chief prosecutors, Carla Del Ponte, expressed her desire to dust off the investigation into the allegations against the RPF, stating that ‘if it is the RPF that shot down the plane, the history of genocide must be rewritten’ (2), she was abruptly relieved of her position and moved to The Hague.
Del Ponte’s successor at the ICTR, the Gambian Hassan Bubacar Jallow, subsequently confirmed that the shooting down of the aircraft is ‘not a case that falls within our jurisdiction’ (3). It is ironic that the ICTR’s first chief prosecutor, Richard Goldstone, has expressed his view that the plane attack does fall within the remit of the court and ought to be investigated. ‘It is clearly related to the genocide, by all accounts [it was] the trigger that started the genocide and it would have been very, very important from a justice point of view, from victims’ point of view, to find out.’ (4)
However, the ICTR’s deputy prosecutor, Bernard Muna, felt cavalier enough about the issue to tell the ICTR’s legal adviser, Kingsley Moghalu, that ‘after all, there was a state of war, and Habyarimana could be considered a legitimate target’ (5). This is an extraordinary statement from such a senior figure. The missile attack was, among other things, a deliberate violation of Article 1 of the Arusha Accords of 4 August 1993, which stated: ‘The war between the Government of Rwanda and the Rwandan Patriotic Front is over.’
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the secretary-general of the UN at the time of the Rwanda tragedy, is also emphatic about the cover-up of the investigation into the plane shooting: ‘It is a very mysterious scandal. Four reports have been made on Rwanda: the French Parliament Report, the Belgian Senate Report, Kofi Annan’s UN report, and the Organization of African Unity report. All four say absolutely nothing about the shooting down of the Rwandan president’s plane. That just goes to show the power of the intelligence services that can force people to be quiet.’ (6)
Building upon the evidence received by the UN investigator Michael Hourigan, the French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière conducted his own enquiry on behalf of the family of the French pilot who died in the missile attack, along with the presidents of both Rwandan and Burundi and senior government and military figures. Bruguière’s report is thoroughgoing and detailed. I have interviewed one of the several RPF dissidents who briefed the judge: Aloys Ruyenzi. A former member of Kagame’s guard, Ruyenzi states categorically that he was in the room when Kagame gave the order to shoot down the president’s plane, and names all those who were present. The meeting was between 2pm and 3pm on 31 March 1994 (7). The Kagame government reacted in its customary fashion to these revelations about the shooting down of the plane: it launched a character assassination of all the Rwandan contributors to Bruguière’s report, and condemned Bruguière for being, well, French.
Western complicity: what about the US?
Yet there is more than the legitimacy of the Rwandan government at stake in this latest retelling of the moral parable on Rwanda. The RPF would not have sustained its war without diplomatic support from Washington. The US intervened to legitimise the RPF’s war, even though the justifications for it had by that time proven to be baseless. The first invasion in 1990 was timed, not to force a reluctant Rwandan government to allow refugees to return, but to disrupt arrangements already in place to accommodate returning refugees.
Rather than being a desertion from the Ugandan military (the RPF leadership were in top positions in the Ugandan state), the invasion of Rwanda in 1990 was a joint Ugandan-RPF venture. President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda was keen to have an ally in power south of the border. More importantly, he wanted to be rid of his Rwandan refugee ‘problem’. The issues of land occupation by Rwandans, and suspicions about the leverage that Rwandans in top official positions enjoyed in the Ugandan government, had generated Museveni’s first political crisis since he took power in 1986.
Behind Uganda was its closest international ally and sponsor, Washington. It was US intervention, in the person of secretary of state for African affairs Herman Cohen, which chose not to condemn the RPF’s invasion and Uganda’s support for it, but rather to support the military recovery of the RPF upon its initial defeat. Cohen coerced President Habyarimana not only to negotiate a ceasefire with the RPF, but to enter negotiations with it in order that a stake for the RPF in a new government be agreed.
By July 1992, Rwanda no longer had a single-party regime but a coalition government and a new democratic constitution. The constitution guaranteed freedom of political organisation and prohibited discrimination on any grounds, ethnic or otherwise.
Of course, it takes more than a constitution to bring about democracy, but it was a promising start and presented another opportunity for the US to tell its Ugandan ally Museveni to pull the plug on the RPF or face the end of the privileged ‘New African Leader’ status that it had bestowed upon him. There was nothing to prevent the RPF from campaigning for support inside Rwanda alongside the other opposition parties. Nothing except the fact that the RPF was feared and loathed by the majority of Rwanda’s population. And yet, Washington was happy for the RPF to intensify its war. In February 1993, the RPF violated the Arusha ‘peace process’ with its heaviest offensive to date. It is arguably the case that if there had not been French forces around the capital Kigali, the RPF may have succeeded in seizing power at that time. The offensive resulted in thousands of deaths and the displacement of nearly a million people, living in miserable conditions in makeshift camps. This offensive did more than anything else to generate hatred for the RPF and, tragically, for the local Tutsi population who were assumed to be in league with the overwhelmingly Tutsi RPF.
How human rights lobbyists boosted the RPF
The RPF had violated the negotiations process with another round of death and destruction. But thanks to coordinated human rights lobbying, the RPF returned to the negotiating table unapologetic about its own conduct and full of moral indignation at the evils of the Rwandan government. A suspiciously well-timed human rights report was published in 1993, accusing the Rwandan government of gross violations of human rights. Some of its authors even accused it of genocide. The government had been responsible for atrocities against civilians in response to the RPF’s initial invasion, and had admitted to them. It objected to the report’s bias: the investigators had made only a token effort to investigate allegations of atrocities committed by the RPF, spending only a few hours interviewing people in the presence of RPF soldiers.
Thanks in large measure to the impact of this report, the RPF was able to take the moral high ground and use the negotiations as a vehicle for translating its military gains into political gains. RPF intransigence and military strategy was facilitated in no small measure by the human rights crusade that was launched against the Habyarimana-led coalition government.
But France, too, played a vital role in prodding the Rwandan government to reach a political settlement with the RPF. According to the French writer Agnes Callamard, it was not just pressure from the US that was applied to get Habyarimana to sign the Arusha Accords in 1993 – ‘it is doubtful if Habyarimana would have signed the peace accords, which gave heavy concessions to the RPF, without pressure and guarantees from the Elysée through François Mitterand’s personal emissaries, and possibly from representatives of the Military Mission of Cooperation, specifically Général Huchon, Colonel Cussac – the French military attaché and head of the French military Assistance Mission in Rwanda, and his assistant, Lieutenant Colonel Maurin.’ (8)
Having secured a virtual coup in the 1993 negotiations – the RPF had won 50 per cent command of the envisaged unified army and enough seats in the proposed transitional government to block anything that was against its interests – the RPF had emerged as the strongest party. The problem it now faced was the scheduled elections where its unpopularity would have been exposed. Local elections in the demilitarised zone that was created in the wake of the February 1993 offensive pointed the way – the RPF was massively defeated at the hands of the former ruling party.
Faced with the prospect of being downsized to a small party by the Rwandan electorate, and with clear support from the US and Belgium, it would appear that the RPF’s interests could only be further advanced with a return to the battlefield. With the promised departure of French forces from Kigali in December 1993, the military path to the capital was clear. What was needed by the RPF was a justification for resuming the war.
The Rwandan war re-erupts
The assassination of President Habyarimana by means of the missile attack upon his plane set off a round of killings of opposition political figures by elements of Habyarimana’s Presidential Guard on one hand, and killings of members of the former ruling party by the RPF on the other. Massacres of Tutsi civilians by Hutu militia soon followed in Kigali, and then spread across the country. But, contrary to the conventional story, RPF forces were on the march long before any massacres occurred.
Peter Erlinder, the lead defence council for the ICTR, stated categorically in a letter to the Canadian prime minister in 2006 that the final offensive of the RPF was ordered by Kagame within minutes of learning of the successful missile attack, ‘long before any retaliatory, civilian killings had occurred anywhere in Rwanda’ (9).
Three years of mounting fear, insecurity and material deprivation (much of Rwanda was by this time in the grip of famine) came to a head. Rwanda’s hastily (but constitutionally) appointed government of surviving ministers fled the capital. The army was pinned down in one losing encounter with the RPF after another. In these anarchic conditions, Rwanda’s defenceless Tutsi population bore the brunt of murderous hatred generated by an ethnically polarising war.
The RPF won the war and took power in July 1994. Africa then witnessed the largest mass exodus in its history. Over two million Rwandans voted with their feet and moved to former Zaïre and Tanzania. The United States, Britain and Belgium in particular rushed to recognise the new regime in Kigali.
Even greater numbers were still to die. The new Rwandan regime’s invasion of various refugee camps and its forced repatriation of refugees, the massacre of internally displaced people in Kibeho in April 1995, and two invasions of what became the Democratic Republic of Congo by the ruling RPF – all of this has brought the death toll of civilians to a level that is the highest of any conflict since the Second World War. The number of ministers leaving the new government and later dying in mysterious circumstances continues to rise. Accountability on the part of the Rwandan regime for these violations is waived by its sponsors in Washington, London and Brussels. Whenever challenged on these matters, officials from these capitals will reply that this was the force that liberated Rwanda from genocide, and continued Western backing for it is necessary to ensure that the genocidaires never return to power.
The truth behind the moral parable
But facts are stubborn things. Bruguière’s charges will not go away. The matter of the assassination of two heads of state is the Achilles heel of the Rwandan government. If the RPF’s responsibility for the plane shooting as a planned move towards reigniting the war in Rwanda is proven, what can be said about the diplomatic protection given to the RPF by the US and other Western powers? How can the leader of the ‘war against terror’ – America – explain its suppression of the facts about the assassination of two heads of state? What do we make of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda’s brief to foster reconciliation by establishing the truth and ending a culture of impunity?
In The Times last week, Linda Melvern wrote about ‘a large room in the French Embassy in Kigali filled floor to ceiling with shredded documents. This was probably the paper trail that might have revealed the depth of involvement between the Elysée Palace and the Hutu faction responsible for massacring hundreds of thousands of Tutsi and opposition Hutu’ (10). Holding on to the moral parable of Rwanda and endorsing Kigali’s invective against France may work for now. But facts – about the start of the war, the actions of the RPF, and the role of Western intervention more broadly in pushing Rwanda to the brink – are stubborn things…
Footnotes
(1) ‘French Policy in Rwanda’, A Callamard included in The Path of a Genocide: The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaïre, H Adelman and A Suhurke, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1999, p. 178, note 19
(2) Interview with Carla Del Ponte, Aktuelt, 17 April 2000. Cited in Le drama rwandais : Les aveaux accablants des chefs de la Mission des Nations Unies pour l’Assistance au Rwanda, E Karemera, Editions Sources du Nil, 2006
(3) Bush and Other War Criminals Meet in Rwanda: The Great “Rwanda Genocide” Coverup, P Erlinder, Global Research, 20 February 2008
(4) April 6th 1994 Attack Fits ICTR Mandate – Goldstone, Hirondelle News Agency, accessed 12 December 2006
(5) Rwanda’s Genocide: The Politics of International Justice, K Moghalu, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005 p.52
(6) Second Thoughts on the Hotel Rwanda, Philpot, R, Race and History, 26 February 2005
(7) ‘Major General Paul Kagame behind the shooting down of late Habyarimana’s plane: an eye witness testimony, 2nd Lt. Aloys Ruyenzi Press release, 18 January 2005 (Ruyenzi re-affirmed his statement to the author in an interview in Paris)
(8) ‘French Policy in Rwanda’, A Callamard included in The Path of a Genocide: The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaïre, H Adelman and A Suhurke, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1999, p.163
(9) Open letter to Prime Minister Harper: Regarding state visit of current President of Rwanda, P Erlinder, 6 April 2006 (Copy passed on to author by Erlinder. Emphasis in the original)
(10) The murky truth about France and genocide, L Melvern, The Times, 8 August 2008
African Affairs Analysis - From Global Media & Other Sources.
Analysis from This Day, Nigeria's premier newspaper
Guinea Bissau: The Thai Link in Killings
Paul Ibe
8 March 2009
- Lagos — Fresh facts on the killing of the Guinea-Bissau Army Chief, Brig. Gen. Batiste Tagme na Waie, which later triggered the assassination of President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira.
Waie was killed last Sunday when a bomb planted by unknown persons exploded in his office. A reprisal attack less than 24 hours later by elements within the army led to the tragic killing of Vieira.
In compliance with the constitution, the former Speaker of the parliament (the Assembleia Nacional Popular), Raimundo Pereira, was last Tuesday sworn-in as Interim President.
But the bomb that terminated the life of Waie has been linked to the Southeast Asian country of Thailand. The Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau, Carlos Gomes, Junior, and Minister of Defence, Marciano Silva Barbeiro, made the revelation at separate meetings with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Ministerial delegation to the former Portuguese colony.
President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua had on Tuesday despatched a delegation comprising the foreign ministers of Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, and Senegal, accompanied by the President of ECOWAS Commission, to Guinea-Bissau where they engaged all Guinean stakeholders in an effort to restore confidence among the political actors, civil society and security services, and return the country to constitutional normalcy.
"It is very important to find out who made and bought this bomb (that killed the Army Chief) in Thailand," Gomes had told the delegation led by Nigeria's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chief Ojo Maduekwe.
The Defence Minister and his service chiefs were in no doubt as to where the bomb came from: Thailand. In fact, the Minister of Defence showed what seemed to be a component of the bomb to the ECOWAS delegation. "The debris from the blast was so much that it took us about one hour to get the corpse of Waie out of the rubble that was his own office wing of the army building," Barbeiro said.
Although, Guinea-Bissau has been hailed for its smooth transition to an interim government, the situation in this land of Amilcar Cabra remains tenuous. "Ours is still a very fragile country and the international community knows that. I am not safe myself because there is no guarantee that there are no hidden bombs in my office," Gomes said, adding, "Gambia, Senegal, Guinea Conakry," and, indeed, the sub-region, "will not be safe if bombs are here."
Analysts say that Guinea-Bissau has become the soft underbelly of the sub-region. An admixture of factors has made Guinea-Bissau an attractive transit point for hard drugs bound for Europe and other parts of the world: pervasive poverty, unemployment, and $3 billion budget deficit compounded by $30 million in salary arrears.
There is a near absence of infrastructure to sustain any form of economic development. There is hardly any public power, with generators having to run round the clock, no potable water, and the few roads that have asphalt overlay have had them washed away over time. Ironically, the road bearing the name of the legendary Amilcar Cabra, the man who gave his all to wage a liberation struggle against the Portuguese, has never seen coal tar: it is an earth road.
The nation's economy is minute and driven largely by cashew, fish, and peanut exports. What this means is that even a small influx of drug money can have a major impact.
That is exactly what has happened.
Drug money is now the driver of the Guinea-Bissau economy. Last month, the United States State Department warned that the "degeneration of Guinea-Bissau into a narco-state is a real possibility."
The United Nations estimates that the cocaine transiting through Guinea-Bissau is worth more than a billion dollars a year, which is several times higher than the paltry national budget.
It is, perhaps, no coincidence that the bomb is being linked to Thailand. The Southeast Asian country has become a major hub for the production and shipment of hard drugs, especially cocaine.
The question on the minds of many after last week's killings of Waie and Vieira is, could it be fifth columnists (drug barons) are at work to create further divisions between the military and civilian authorities while they continue with their illicit trade unabated or it is a battle for the control of the spoils of the trade?
This is not the first time that Guinea-Bissau's Army Chief will be assassinated. In 2004, not long after elections had been successfully conducted, the then Armed Forces Chief of Staff was eliminated in similar Gestapo style.
Indeed, the killings of Vieira and Waie have been linked to a battle over the control of the illicit trade in drugs. The top military brass have been accused of taking bribes to allow drug planes to land and to turn a blind eye to drug activity.
Meanwhile, the Judicial Police, responsible for investigating the narcotics trade, are unarmed, equipped with mere typewriters, and the targets of anonymous death threats.
THISDAY observed parked at the Aeroporto International Osvaldo Vieira Airport, Bissau, a seized plane said to be linked to the trade in narcotics. Such seizures, it is gathered, are something of a rarity.
"What we have in our hands is a time bomb akin to the conflagration in Mexico. ECOWAS has to do something about this situation, else we will all be consumed in the impending inferno," Foreign Minister of The Gambia, Dr. Omar Touray, told THISDAY shortly after the ECOWAS delegation had visited the bombed-out office wing of the Army Chief on Wednesday.
Gomes was, perhaps, echoing the position of Touray when he said that the tragic killing of the President and Army Chief were "an attempt against ECOWAS, African Union, and all organisations and structures in the sub-region." He also told the delegation that the country did not have the wherewithal to wage a successful war against the drug traffickers.
The fear is that drug warlords operating out of Guinea-Bissau will accelerate the failure of the state. With a foothold in the former Portuguese colony, these mercenaries could unleash a war of attrition in other countries and pose serious security risk to the sub-region. It was in recognition of this that ECOWAS planned to work with the Guinean authorities and development partners to get to the bottom of the killings.
"You are not alone; we will stand by you all the way and provide experts that will work with you to find the culprits in this dastardly act," President of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr. Mohammed Ibn Chambas, assured the Guinea-Bissau leadership. But it remains to be seen how this could be achieved, given the complicity of the military and other high-ranking state officials in the narcotic trade.
Nonetheless, one of the issues that the extra-ordinary summit of Foreign Ministers of ECOWAS and the International Contact Group will be focusing on when it convenes in the next one or two weeks in Bissau, is defence and security reform, which is related to the fight against drug trafficking. Training and retraining of soldiers, especially of the top echelon of the military, is key to sustaining peace and security in the country and the sub-region, Air Vice Marshall Bala Golgak Danbaba, Chief of Policy and Plans at the Defence Headquarters and member of the Nigerian delegation to the solidarity visit, said.
The interim government of Pereira has limited powers and only 60 days to conduct fresh election. In a normal situation, this will present some challenge, but in a broken country like Guinea-Bissau, it would be a near-miracle if the feat is achieved.
ECOWAS and the International Contact Group on Guinea-Bissau, comprising the European Union, Africa Union, United Nations, CPLP (group of Portuguese speaking nations), and other stakeholders have pledged assistance to the country. But Cuban Ambassador to Guinea-Bissau, Pedro Dona Santana, said the pledge to offer assistance is an old refrain. "There have been efforts to bring aid and development to Guinea-Bissau. Most of these projects and programmes did not produce results, as the financial pledges were not redeemed," he said.
But the Dean of Ambassadors in Guinea-Bissau warned that not keeping to pledges to help the country through its trying times is an invitation to anarchy. "The priority here is the 60 days for the election. If we don't give support for this effort, it will be an invitation to further crisis," he said.
Going by the constitution, the interim presidency of Pereira has just 53 days, as at tomorrow, to conduct the election.
Newsnight Special
A debate with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Sidney Blumenthal, Bronwen Maddox, Professor Akbar Ahmed and Vincent Magombe.
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