Weekly anb01098.txt #9

[anb-bia <anb-bia@village.uunet.be>]

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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 09-01-2003      PART #8/9

* South Africa. Self-defence killings divide S. Africa  -  South African 
police and legal experts have reassured citizens that under certain 
circumstances they have the right to kill criminals, following an outcry 
over the arrest of a couple who repeatedly stabbed a man who broke into 
their caravan. The couple from Carletonville, near Soweto, are in jail 
facing murder charges after killing an intruder who tried to rape the 
woman. It is the latest in a spate of killings considered excessive force 
by the police but seen as justifiable self-defence by vocal members of the 
public. Paula Nothnagel, a police spokeswoman, said people had the right to 
defend themselves using reasonable force and that the police were not 
carrying out a witch-hunt to arrest innocent people. "People need to employ 
the "reasonable man" principle when protecting themselves. Would a 
reasonable man stab another person several times?" According to radio 
phone-ins and newspaper letters pages, a reasonable man was entitled to 
stab an attacker many, many times, then bash him with the nearest heavy 
object before reaching for a revolver. "If my girlfriend was about to be 
raped before me, I would also stab the perpetrator repeatedly... Actually, 
I'd keep going until he stopped moving. I would not stab him once and then 
nicely ask him if he would like to fight some more," one letter in the 
Johannesburg daily Star said. South Africa's annual 21,000 murders and 
55,000 rapes gives it one of the highest crime rates in the world, but even 
those figures are seen as an understatement. The police claim crime has 
stabilised but the perception that thieves and rapists act with impunity is 
widespread and there are calls for capital punishment, abolished after 
apartheid, to be brought back. A 16-year-old boy who beat a man to death 
with a cricket bat after the family farm near Pretoria was attacked by a 
gang armed with spades and knives, leaving eight people wounded, may be 
charged with murder. The police are also reportedly considering charging a 
woman who squeezed the testicles of a man who allegedly tried to rape her; 
he then lost consciousness and reportedly died of complications. Over 
Christmas, several shopkeepers were arrested for murder after shooting 
would-be robbers.   (The Guardian, UK, 7 January 2003)

* South Africa. Road deaths hit record level  -  Nearly 1,210 people have 
died on South Africa's roads since the start of the festive season on 
December 1 -- a record toll. The number rose over last weekend as millions 
of people travelled back to the big cities from their rural villages or 
from coastal resorts after Christmas and New Year celebrations. The 
transport department reported last week that December's death toll of 1,111 
was 25 per cent higher than last year, when 839 people lost their lives. It 
is the highest number of deaths for 11 years and is an embarrassment for 
the department. The road death toll for the same period in Australia, where 
traffic volumes, weather and road conditions are comparable to South 
Africa's, was 66. Drive Alive, a non-profit South African road safety 
organisation, last week described the number of deaths on the roads as a 
national disaster and urged the government to appoint a road safety 
minister. The high-profile "Arrive Alive" campaign, which focuses on 
speeding and drink driving, has had some success in recent years, but Drive 
Alive said there were not enough traffic officers and too many unroadworthy 
vehicles were being driven. They also allege many of the 8,000 traffic 
officers are inexperienced, insufficiently trained, and often corrupt and 
easily bribed because they are poorly paid. Dullah Omar, the transport 
minister, blamed drivers. "About half of the victims in our mortuaries have 
blood-alcohol levels that exceed the legal limit for drivers," he said. He 
said this season's figures were not higher but simply more reliable. In 
past years many fatal crashes had gone unreported, he said.   (Financial 
Times, UK, 7 January 2003)

* Afrique du Sud. Collision ferroviaire  -  Le 7 janvier, un train de 
voyageurs et un convoi de marchandises sont entrés en collision dans la 
région du Cap, faisant onze morts et plusieurs blessés. L'accident s'est 
produit dans une zone rurale située à une cinquantaine de kilomètres de la 
ville du Cap. Selon un témoin, le train de voyageurs semblait s'être cassé 
en deux sous l'impact. Trois personnes grièvement blessées ont été 
extraites des débris. Une quarantaine de passagers ont reçu des soins pour 
blessures légères.   (Reuters, 7 janvier 2003)

* South Africa. Train crash  -  7 January: Eleven people are reported 
killed and at least 30 injured in a train crash near Cape Town. Five 
coaches were derailed when a commuter train collided with a freight train 
in the afternoon rush hour. South Africa's commuter rail network has been 
hit by a series of accidents, but this was described as the worst in the 
Western Cape for 20 years by railway officials. The accident happened about 
50km north east of Cape Town, between Kraaifontein and Muldersvlei at about 
1700 (1500GMT). "It appears that a (Spoornet) goods train was standing on 
the line and the Metrorail train crashed into the back," said South African 
Transport Minister Dullah Omar. Most of the fatalities occurred when people 
were thrown from the passenger train by the force of the impact, and then 
crushed when coaches derailed. 8 January: The South African transport 
minister, Dullah Omar, is coming under increasing pressure to resign after 
the train crash. Rail unions are now threatening a strike, describing the 
situation on the country's railways as a time bomb which has not been 
addressed by the government.   (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 8 January 2003)

* South Africa. Mbeki defuses provincial crisis  -  6 January: President 
Thabo Mbeki is holding talks with senior officials in the governing ANC in 
an attempt to resolve a growing political crisis in the province of KwaZulu 
Natal. The ANC is strongly opposed to moves by the Inkatha Freedom Party to 
dissolve the provincial legislature and hold early elections. Fighting 
between supporters of the ANC and Inkatha in KwaZulu Natal in the 1980s and 
early 1990s left thousands of people dead. A bitter dispute between the ANC 
and Inkatha is threatening the political stability South Africa has enjoyed 
since the end of apartheid. The rivalry has raised memories of the 
low-level civil war the two parties once fought in the densely populated 
hills of KwaZulu Natal. It is control of this same province which is at the 
centre of a new dispute. Inkatha has governed KwaZulu Natal ever since 
1994, but now its narrow majority is threatened by new legislation which 
allows elected representatives to swap parties in the middle of their 
terms. The ANC believes it has recruited enough defectors in the KwaZulu 
Natal provincial assembly to wrestle power from Inkatha. Inkatha is 
desperate to retain control of the province, its traditional stronghold, 
and is hoping to out-manoeuvre the ANC by dissolving the assembly and 
holding early elections. 8 January: The disagreement between the ANC and 
the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has been defused after a compromise is 
reached. The government has dropped its controversial plan to introduce the 
new law which would have allowed several IFP members to switch parties, 
effectively handing control of KwaZulu Natal to the ANC.   (ANB-BIA, 
Belgium, 8 January 2003)

* Afrique du Sud. Accord au KwaZulu-Natal  -  Le 8 janvier, le Congrès 
national africain (ANC) a évité des élections anticipées dans la province 
du KwaZulu-Natal en passant, à la dernière minute, un accord avec l'Inkhata 
Freedom Party (IFP). L'Afrique du Sud a un gouvernement national et neuf 
gouvernements provinciaux dirigés chacun par un Premier ministre. L'ANC et 
l'IFP semblaient aller droit à l'affrontement pour le contrôle de la 
province du KwaZulu-Natal. L'IFP, préoccupé par le fait qu'il pourrait 
perdre son assise politique dans le contexte d'une nouvelle législation qui 
autorise les législateurs à conserver leur siège même s'ils changent de 
parti, avait l'intention de dissoudre l'Assemblée législative du 
KwaZulu-Natal et d'obliger à une élection anticipée. Mais le parti a reçu 
des assurances écrites du président Mbeki sur le fait que l'"amendement 
controversé" sera retiré.   (PANA, Sénégal, 8 janvier 2003)

* Soudan. Violations du cessez-le-feu  -  Les rebelles soudanais de l'Armée 
populaire de libération du Soudan (SPLA) ont tué trois ouvriers du bâtiment 
et blessé plusieurs soldats dans une attaque perpétrée le 31 décembre dans 
le sud du pays, a affirmé un porte-parole du gouvernement. L'attaque a été 
lancée sur une route entre Ler et Bentiu, une ville pétrolière sous 
contrôle gouvernemental, située dans la vallée du Nil à quelque 750 km au 
sud de Khartoum. De leur côté, les responsables de la SPLA avaient accusé 
les forces gouvernementales et leurs milices alliées de violer le 
cessez-le-feu (signé le 20 juillet) dans cette région en brûlant les 
villages et attaquant des maisons de civils.   (AP, 2 janvier 2003)

* Sudan. Ceasefire hopes  -  2 January: SPLA rebels and the Sudanese 
Government have accused each other of attacks in oil-producing areas in the 
south, breaking a truce signed last year. The temporary ceasefire is 
supposed to last while peace talks continue in neighbouring Kenya. The 
negotiations over issues such as sharing oil wealth and the distribution of 
jobs in the federal civil service are set to resume within the next two 
weeks. Some two million people have been killed in 19 years of war between 
the northern, Muslim government and rebels from the Christian and animist 
South. "Government forces supported by militias... are carrying out since 
31 December a large-scale attack using tanks and helicopter gunships on our 
positions... in the Western Upper Nile region," the SPLA said in a 
statement. 3 January: The rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army 
(SPLM/A) says it is expecting the next phase of talks aimed at ending their 
country's 19-year civil war to resume on schedule, despite the recent 
hiccups, with the two warring sides accusing each other of breaking the 
terms of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) they signed in November. 
Samson Kwaje, the SPLM/A's senior spokesman in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, 
says he expects the negotiations, convened under the auspices of the 
regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and adjourned 
in Kenya's southern town of Machakos in November, to resume in mid-January 
as planned, even though the Khartoum government is "polluting the 
atmosphere" of the peace talks.   (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 3 January 2003)

* Sudan. Six die in tribal riots  -  Six people were killed in fresh tribal 
rioting in Sudan's Red Sea town of Port Sudan, a day after officials 
imposed a state of emergency and curfew to halt clashes, newspapers said on 
7 January. Demonstrations clogged the main streets of the port city on 6 
January, and protesters besieged a university and attacked a hotel and a 
market, the daily Akhbar al-Youm reported. The clashes were sparked by the 
murder of the leader of the local Beni Amir tribe by a member of the rival 
Hadandawi tribe on Sunday. The governor of Red Sea state imposed a 
dusk-to-dawn curfew, while federal ministers belonging to the two tribes 
appealed for calm. Three of those killed in the violence were members of 
the Beni Amir, while the other three were from the Hadandawi tribe. 
Authorities have arrested seven people, papers said. The governor, Hatim 
al-Wasila, said the violence had not affected shipping in Port Sudan, the 
country's main port which is located some 700 km northwest of Khartoum, the 
daily al-Ayam reported.   (CNN, USA, 8 January 2003)

* Swaziland. New lobby group calls for political reform  -  The Swazi 
government is on a collision course with the judiciary says an influential 
new organisation dedicated to good governance. At issue is the rule of law, 
or its alleged absence, in the kingdom. Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini, an 
appointee of absolute monarch King Mswati III, has ignored a high court 
order demanding that he provide an assurance that the government would 
adhere to court decisions. Instead, in a newspaper statement published 
today, Dlamini says: "Two recent appeal court judgments will be addressed 
through consultation between the government and its advisors, in addition 
to the head of state [King Mswati]. Legal experts will be included in the 
consultations." An Mbabane attorney and member of Lawyers for Human Rights 
Swaziland has told IRIN: "Instead of honouring court decisions, government 
intends to debate them. This is not what the judges want to hear." High 
court justices Josiah Matsebula, Stanley Maphalala and Thomas Masuku had 
indicated that if they were not satisfied with the government's commitment 
to the rule of law, the court would no longer accept cases presented by the 
authorities.   (IRIN, Kenya, 3 January 2003)

* Tanzanie. Un bateau disparaît  -  Un bateau transportant 40 personnes a 
disparu en début de semaine, alors qu'il faisait route entre Tanga, dans 
l'est de la Tanzanie, et l'île de Pemba, dans l'océan Indien, a-t-on appris 
le vendredi 3 janvier de source policière. La police de Tanga a déclaré 
qu'elle n'avait aucune certitude sur ce qui s'est passé, car aucun corps 
n'a été retrouvé. Mais les vents ont pu, selon elle, pousser le bateau 
au-delà des eaux tanzaniennes vers le Kenya.   (Le Figaro, France, 4 
janvier 2003)

* Tanzania. Fears rise for missing ferry  -  3 January: At least 40 people 
are feared dead after a ferry disappeared off the coast of Tanzania. Most 
of the passengers on board the overloaded Shukuru ferry were returning from 
a wedding party on the mainland. The newly-married couple was also on the 
ship. The ferry left Tanga, on mainland Tanzania, for the island of Pemba, 
in the Zanzibar archipelago on Tuesday and has not been seen since. Police 
say they do not know what happened as no bodies have been found. The ferry 
may have been swept away towards Kenya or the Comoros islands. A relative 
of one of the passengers, Amour Nassor Omar, is quoted as saying that the 
ferry had capsized during a severe storm. Local facilities make it 
impossible to launch a search and rescue operation, police say. "We don't 
have any boats to launch a rescue operation, so we can't say exactly where 
the boat disappeared, or if anybody survived," Pemba North police chief Ali 
Mbilikila says. 5 January: Fishermen off the Tanzanian coast have rescued 
two men from the sea four days after a boat carrying at least 40 people 
capsized, police say. Hopes are now fading that any other survivors will be 
found. The body of a man also believed to have been aboard the ferry was 
recovered. The two survivors were too weak to speak after four days in 
rough seas.   (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 5 January 2003)

Weekly anb0109.txt - #8/9