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Weekly anb04055.txt #6

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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 05-04-2001   PART #5/6
* Sierra Leone. Minusil prolongée et renforcée - Le 30 mars, le Conseil de sécurité de l'Onu a voté l'envoi de troupes supplémentaires en Sierra Leone afin d'aider le gouvernement à rétablir son autorité à travers le pays, ravagé par la guerre. Les membres du Conseil ont décidé à l'unanimité de proroger de six mois, jusqu'au 30 septembre, le mandat des casques bleus basés en Sierra Leone et de renforcer leur présence. Actuellement 9.500, ils seront bientôt 17.500. (AP, 31 mars 2001)
* Sierra Leone. Is it really peace? - 30 March: The High Command of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) endorses all six members of the RUF's newly formed Political and Peace Council. The Council's objective is to start "formal dialogue" with the government and the international community to resume the peace process ruptured in May 2000 when the RUF detained over 500 UN troops. 2 April: Rebel forces in Sierra Leone say the decade-long war is over and that they want to engage in purely political struggle. In an exclusive BBC interview, senior rebel commander Jibril Massaquoi says the United Nations, which has its largest peacekeeping force in the world in Sierra Leone is now welcome to deploy throughout the country. Senior commanders of the Revolutionary United Front tell the BBC correspondent, that if elections due to be held at the end of this year are fair and monitored by the international community, they will transform themselves into a political party and compete peacefully. The British presence appears to have been a critical factor in bringing them to the negotiating table. The British army has several hundred soldiers in Sierra Leone. But they are working outside the UN mandate, training the army of the internationally recognised government to face up to the rebels. The rebels will not admit it in public, but there's no doubt that the large British military presence on the Sierra Leone government's side has been critical in bringing about this change in attitude. Many Sierra Leoneans will be deeply sceptical of the rebels' call for peace and will judge them on their actions not their words. This is hardly surprising after a decade of war atrocities, most committed by the rebel side. Nevertheless, the message the rebel commanders gave the BBC is clear -- they are tired of the war and they also perhaps realise that, thanks to the British presence, they can no longer win it. 3 April: Human Rights Watch says rebels in Sierra Leone are killing, raping and robbing refugees trying to return home to escape fighting in Guinea. "The findings raise serious questions about the viability of so-called "safe passage" or humanitarian corridors through rebel territory for returning refugees as proposed in February by the UNHCR", says the human rights organisation. 4 April: A critical UN peace-deployment into rebel-held areas of Sierra Leone has been delayed, in what is seen by most Sierra Leoneans as yet another example of UN disorganisation. (ANB-BIA, Brussels, 5 April 2001)
* Somalie. Otages libérés - Le 30 mars au matin, deux des quatre otages européens détenus depuis le 27 mars par des miliciens à Mogadiscio ont été libérés. Il s'agit du Français Mohammed Mohamedi de l'OMS et du Belge Pierre Lamotte de l'Unicef. Les Britanniques Bill Condie et Roger Carter, tous deux responsables de la sécurité de l'Onu, déténus par la milice du chef de guerre Muse Sudi Yalahow, ont été libéré le 4 avril et sont arrivés en bonne santé à Nairobi. (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 5 avril 2001)
* South Africa. Diamond Board to go this year - South Africa's Diamond Board will be abolished before the end of the year, Abbey Chikane, its president, said on 29 March. "All its powers, assets, rights, duties and obligations shall vest in the minister of minerals and in the state." The change will become effective when the minerals development bill, sweeping legislation which seeks to radically change the relationship between the South African government and the country's mining industry, becomes law. The Board, which oversees the trade and valuation of diamond exports from producers, has long been dogged by controversy. De Beers, the world's largest diamond producer, called openly for an overhaul of the Board last year after disputes over prices with the government valuator delayed the export of several shipments of rough diamonds for weeks. The valuator, Claude Nobels, was then dismissed and sued the government. Mr Chikane, formally appointed in January with a mandate to improve relations with the industry, said on Thursday that the dispute between the Board and Mr Nobels had been settled out of court. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the minister of minerals, said the Board suffered from "poor corporate governance" and last year she launched an investigation into allegations that Board inspectors were involved in illegally importing diamonds. The latest controversy concerns the fact that four members of the Board are also De Beers sightholders, diamond dealers allowed to buy directly from the company. (Financial Times, UK, 30 March 2001)
* South Africa. Indigenous groups demand their rights - Abraham Koopman was just 21 when apartheid drove his people off their land and destroyed his Griqua community's nomadic, pastoral lifestyle. Sixty-five years later, "we have nothing," Koopman said. Slaughtered by colonists, oppressed by the apartheid regime and marginalized under the country's young democracy, South Africa's indigenous people, once derisively known as Bushman and Hottentots, say they have had enough. Leaders from nearly all the nation's major indigenous groups gathered at a conference that ended on 1 April to demand redress for past wrongs, the return of stolen land and official recognition as South Africa's first indigenous nation. "The people are fed up," said Abraham Andrew Stockenstrom le Fleur II, chief of the Griqua National Conference, one of 36 indigenous groups gathering in Oudtshoorn, about 270 miles east of Cape Town. South Africa's first inhabitants were nomads -- Khoikhoi cattle farmers and San hunter-gatherers. They are now collectively known as Khoisan. Under South Africa's culture of colonialism and apartheid, many Khoisan became ashamed of their heritage and assimilated into mixed-race communities. An estimated 1 million of South Africa's 45 million people are thought to have some Khoisan ancestry, but few maintain allegiance to their roots and still speak the ancient languages. Only a handful of communities in remote rural areas continue to live traditionally. (CNN, 1 April 2001)
* South Africa. Govt. hits back at EU criticism of AIDS policy - On 3 April, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, South Africa's minister of health, lashed out at the European Union for criticising the country's AIDS policy at a time when it is fighting to contain its own epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease. In an open letter to Miet Smet, head of an European Parliament delegation that visited South Africa last month, the minister complains that people coming to the country should "acclimatise themselves about the nature and size of the AIDS problem before making sweeping statements about the country's national and multi-sectoral response to the epidemic". (Financial Times, UK, 4 April 2001)
* South Africa. The Bafokeng defend their rights - Africa's wealthiest tribespeople, the Royal Bafokeng, who have grown rich on platinum reserves discovered beneath their ancestral land north-west of Johannesburg, launched a campaign on 1 April against a South African government move to nationalise mineral rights. In full-page advertisements in the South African media, the tribe denounced a draft Mineral Development Bill aimed at taking the ownership of mineral rights out of private hands as "devastating" for the Bafokeng and comparable to the tactics of "expropriation without compensation" used by the apartheid regime. South Africa has some of the world's richest mineral reserves including diamonds, gold and manganese and, through deft negotiations throughout the 20th century, the Bafokeng secured royalties worth at least £12m a year from the world's second biggest reserve of platinum near Rustenburg. Platinum is used in catalytic converters for cars and its price has soared in recent years. But the Bafokeng who have built schools, a civic centre and impressive health facilities are the exception to the rule in a country whose black majority 42 million population has not benefited from the wealth of its subsoil.The South African government wants mining rights to rest with the state, which is common practice internationally. Last week, South Africa's Minister of Minerals and Energy, Phumzile Mlambo-Necguka, bowed to industry pressure for a rethink and agreed to redraft the Bill and appoint an advisory panel of international experts. (The Independent, UK, 2 April 2001)
* Afrique du Sud. Rencontre avec les leaders religieux - Lors d'une rencontre pour discuter des différentes manières de promouvoir les questions non raciales et autres, mardi 3 avril, le président sud-africain Thabo Mbeki Sud a appelé les leaders des 30 principales communautés religieuses de son pays à accélérer le processus de construction d'une société non raciale. M. Mbeki les a également encouragés à renforcer les programmes pour l'éradication de la pauvreté, à restaurer les valeurs morales et à participer à la renaissance de l'Afrique. Tous les différants groupes religieux -- chrétien, musulman, hindou, juif, baha'ie et les croyances traditionnelles africaines -- étaient représentés. Ils ont pris l'engagement d'oeuvrer à la transformation sociale et spirituelle de la nation au-delà des clivages politiques et confessionnels. Malgré l'existence de différends et de difficultés au sein de la communauté religieuse qu'ils ont ouvertement reconnue, ils ont admis que des activités communes de soutien pourraient être menées, notamment au sujet de l'établissement d'une communication plus rapprochée entre le gouvernement et les communautés religieuses sur des questions spécifiques relatives à la transformation de notre pays. 
   (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 4 avril 2001)
* South Africa. Long-awaited AIDS report - The Government has released a long-awaited report on AIDS in South Africa. More than 4 million South Africans are now thought to be HIV-positive. But the findings show a deep and almost unbridgeable divide between panel members. Many will be left wondering why the government had to call a panel of experts together to make this conclusion. Also, an inspecting judge, Johannes Fagan, has reported to Parliament that natural deaths in South Africa's overcrowded prisons have rocketed by 584% in the past five years, mostly as a result of HIV/AIDS. (ANB-BIA, Brussels, 5 April 2001)
* Sudan. Famine warning - Sudan is facing the prospect of a serious famine in the coming months. The warning comes from the UN World Food Programme who have been unable to raise the funds they need to feed three million people who are now under threat in the North African state. People are on the move trying to find food and they have already eaten the seeds which they need to plant the next harvest. The UN's World Food Programme first sounded an alert for Sudan last November. They appealed for $135m worth of food, but the civil war between the Islamist government in Khartoum and its opposition in the south has gone on too long for donor countries to care. Only 1% of the money was raised and now the WFP is warning of a famine which could kill more people than any disaster in the country since the mid-1980s. The head of the WFP in Sudan, Massood Haider, in London to try to raise money, said it is not just the war which is making life difficult but the weather. A prolonged drought has left major reservoirs empty, in a worse state than at any time in more than 50 years. Mr Haider said the clock is ticking. His food warehouses are empty and people will die on a large scale by July unless there is a swift response by rich countries. (BBC News, 29 March 2001)
* Soudan. Combats - Dans un communiqué divulgué le 30 mars, l'Alliance démocratique nationale (NDA) a affirmé avoir repoussé le quatrième assaut des milices gouvernementales qui tentaient de reconquérir la zone de Menza (Etat soudanais du Nil Bleu). Selon le NDA, l'attaque a été donnée à l'arme lourde dans le but de paniquer la population locale. La note n'indique pas le nombre de morts ou de blessés. La zone de Menza est contrôlée par l'Alliance depuis 1997 et l'armée a déjà tenté de la reprendre militairement à trois reprises. Elle se situe non loin de Damazin, où se dressent un grand barrage et une centrale hydroélectrique qui fournit l'énergie à la capitale Khartoum. (Misna, Italie, 30 mars 2001)
* Soudan. Le conseil du Nil - Au cours de sa réunion du 28 au 30 mars à Khartoum, le conseil des ministres de l'hydraulique des Etats du bassin du Nil a approuvé les projets de développement des ressources en eau, des ressources hydroélectriques et écologiques de la région. Les projets devraient être présentés lors d'un forum international de donateurs à Genève en juin prochain. Selon le ministre soudanais de l'irrigation et des ressources en eau, Kamal Ali, les projets visent à développer les capacités d'irrigation de la région ainsi que la production d'énergie hydroélectrique. Ils sont aussi destinés à mettre fin à la dégradation de l'environnement, à concevoir des programmes de protection des ressources en eau et développer les capacités en matière de recherche scientifique dans le domaine de l'eau. (PANA, Sénégal, 2 avril 2001)
* Sudan. Leader of the struggle to free the Nuba dies - Yousif Kuwa, the teacher who turned to armed struggle to get recognition for the Nuba people of central Sudan, has died at the age of 56 after a year-long struggle with bone cancer. His death strips the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army of a man who was the very embodiment of the "New Sudan" it is pledged to create. Kuwa died on 31 March in a Norwich (UK) hospital, while writing an open letter to the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, deploring the UN's failure to deliver relief to the Numba mountains three years after Khartoum promised to end its 12-year blockade. (The Guardian, UK, 3 April 2001)
* Sudan. US Bishops' Conference visits war torn Southern Sudan - A delegation from the United States Catholic Conference (USCC) completed an extensive tour of Sudan's non-government-controlled territory, in a move that could impact greatly on the relations between the USA and Khartoum. Having first spent a week in Khartoum, the US delegation divided themselves into two groups in order to be able to cover as much ground as possible in their two-day tour. One group led by Bishop Edward Braxton of Lake Charles in Louisiana, first visited the Diocese of Tambura Yambio in Western Equatoria, then proceeded to Rumbek in Bahr el Ghazal, Kauda in the Nuba Mountains in Central Sudan and finally to Narus on the eastern bank of the River Nile. Other members of the group were Fr. Mike Perry, the USCC's Policy Advisor on African Affairs, Mr. Ken Hackett, the Executive Director, of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Mr. Paul Townsend, who is the Country Representative for the CRS Sudan Programme. At hand to receive the USCC team at the different stations, were Bishops Joseph Gasi of Tambura Yambio, Paride Taban of Torit, Max Macram Gasis of El Obeid (Nuba Mountains) and Caesar Mazzolari of Rumbek. The second group comprised Bishop John Ricard of Tallahassee-Pensacola and Chairman of the CRS Board of Directors, and Kevin Appleby, USCC Director, Office of Migration and Refugee Policy. The Auxiliary Bishop of Torit, Rev Johnson Akio Mutek, accompanied the group that visited the Adjumani Refugee camp in northern Uganda, Nimule in Eastern Equatoria and Kakuma Refugee Camp in northern Kenya. The two refugee camps are homes to tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees, while Nimule hosts the internally displaced. (Fides, Vatican City, 3 April 2001) 

Weekly News - anb0405.txt - End of part 5/6