The car of José Rubén Zamora, the founder of three of Guatemala's most important newspapers - El Periódico, Siglo Veintiuno and Nuestro Diario - was found abandoned early this morning in Guatemala City. I found out the news from a member of Zamora's family as I was trying to set up an interview with him for later today in connection with an article I am writing on the grupos clandestinos, criminal organizations that represent perhaps the greatest threat to Guatemala's fragile state and an end to the culture of impunity that has dominated here for so long.
My arrival in Guatemala City last evening marks my first return to this beautiful and terribly troubled land since the fall of 2003, when I spent several months here reporting on the presidential candidacy of Efraín Ríos Montt, a former military dictator who seemed in danger of winning the highest office in the land through means fair or foul. Ríos Montt, whose government Amnesty International estimated killed over 10,000 indigenous Guatemalans and peasant farmers during a single four-month period in 1982, was eventually defeated by former Guatemala City mayor Óscar Berger, who has since been succeeded by Álvaro Colom.
Despite the change in governments and the increasing marginalization of Ríos Montt’s Frente Republicano Guatemalteco political party, the threat posed by the grupos clandestinos and other parallel powers, many composed of both former and active-duty members of the country’s security services deeply enmeshed in a web of drug and weapons trafficking and human rights abuses committed during Guatemala’s long civil war, continues and in fact appears to have expanded and deepened in the five years since my last visit.
I sat and spoke with Zamora in his office at El Periódico one fall day in 2003, and listened to why he had found it necessary to make his newspaper a forum for detailing the links between government figures and the country's criminal underworld. His decision came at no small risk, as he well knew, as earlier that year, he had been held captive along with his family as a dozen armed individuals brandishing the identification of a government ministry and the national police stormed his home, stripped him, and beat his two teenage sons.
Zamora, who was awarded the 1995 International Press Freedom Award by the Committee to Protect Journalists and the 1994 Maria Moore Cabot Prize, vowed to me that day that “"I will continue on in Guatemala.”
Hours have passed since José Rubén Zamora’s disappearance, without word or ransom demand, and Guatemala’s brave civil society is understandably plunged once again into a fearful and tense time, as has so often been the case here.
My hope is that José Rubén Zamora, one of Guatemala’s greatest lights and a fearless champion of press freedom, will be returned to his family and his desk at El Periódico to continue on with his brave work. Dark forces seek to keep the free press in Guatemala from operating, and to continue with the stranglehold of impunity over the country. It is my solemn hope that they do not succeed.
Update 22 August 2008
The Prensa Latina agency is reporting that José Rubén Zamora was found, unconscious but alive, in the city of Chimaltenango, 50 kilometers west of Guatemala City.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Congo: Between Hope and Despair
My new article on the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo: Between Hope and Despair, has appeared in the Summer 2008 edition of the World Policy Journal and can found at newsstands or read in PDF format here.
Friday, August 08, 2008
TRADE-AFRICA: New Technology to Sever Timber's Link to Conflict?
TRADE-AFRICA: New Technology to Sever Timber's Link to Conflict?
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Aug 8, 2008 (IPS) - While conflict diamonds or blood diamonds, as they are known, have gained attention the world over in terms of the role illicit gems play in fuelling warfare, the role that the timber trade has played in abetting conflict has received considerably less consideration. That may be beginning to change.
The world over, though particularly in West Africa, both legal and illegal commerce in timber has played a substantial role in the enabling of conflicts in countries such as Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The ruin globally wreaked on forests is having wide-ranging consequences.
According to the 2007 World Bank report ''At Loggerheads: Agricultural Expansion, Poverty Reduction, and Environment in the Tropical Forests'', nearly 70 million people—many from an indigenous background —live in remote areas of closed tropical forests, while an additional 735 million live in or near trop¬ical forests and savannas. Both groups rely heavily on forested areas for fuel, food and income.
The World Bank report went on to warn that tropical forests were shrinking at a rate of five percent a decade and that ''by the middle of the 21st century only shreds of this once-vast forest may be left''. This trend, the report noted, will have a dramatic effect on climate change, adding three billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year, something that would affect people far beyond forest-dwelling communities.
Stepping into this contentious landscape, Helveta, a firm based in the United Kingdom, is marketing software that it says will help regularise the fragmented supply chain for timber. It should also lessen the risk for companies of purchasing wood that has been illegally procured.
Read the full article here.
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Aug 8, 2008 (IPS) - While conflict diamonds or blood diamonds, as they are known, have gained attention the world over in terms of the role illicit gems play in fuelling warfare, the role that the timber trade has played in abetting conflict has received considerably less consideration. That may be beginning to change.
The world over, though particularly in West Africa, both legal and illegal commerce in timber has played a substantial role in the enabling of conflicts in countries such as Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The ruin globally wreaked on forests is having wide-ranging consequences.
According to the 2007 World Bank report ''At Loggerheads: Agricultural Expansion, Poverty Reduction, and Environment in the Tropical Forests'', nearly 70 million people—many from an indigenous background —live in remote areas of closed tropical forests, while an additional 735 million live in or near trop¬ical forests and savannas. Both groups rely heavily on forested areas for fuel, food and income.
The World Bank report went on to warn that tropical forests were shrinking at a rate of five percent a decade and that ''by the middle of the 21st century only shreds of this once-vast forest may be left''. This trend, the report noted, will have a dramatic effect on climate change, adding three billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year, something that would affect people far beyond forest-dwelling communities.
Stepping into this contentious landscape, Helveta, a firm based in the United Kingdom, is marketing software that it says will help regularise the fragmented supply chain for timber. It should also lessen the risk for companies of purchasing wood that has been illegally procured.
Read the full article here.
Monday, August 04, 2008
La Gran Sultana
We arrived in Granada, Nicaragua, a few days ago, passing through the over-touristed and sterile climes of Costa Rica and leaving behind Panama’s rainy Bocas del Toro and its capital’s enchanting San Felipe district. Now in the land of Rubén Darío and Augusto Sandino, but also of Anastasio Somoza Debayle and the disgraceful pacto between the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional and the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista, we have found something lacking Nicaragua’s more affluent neighbor to the south: A country with a great soul and a sense of its own history.
Granada, a city modeled on its eponymous namesake in Spain and so elegant that it earned the nickname La Gran Sultana, skirts the edge of Lago de Nicaragua beneath the looming rise of the Volcán Mombacho outside the city. Lovely one-story Spanish adobe buildings front lanes on which both horses and automobiles roll by at a leisurely pace. Once burned to the ground by the American adventurer (privateer might be a better word) William Walker, the city rebuilt itself splendidly and remains a fine place to enjoy a sip of 18 year-old Flor de Caña rum or the delicious chocolates produced by the city of Matagalpa, just to the north. My novia and I have enjoyed wandering its streets in advance of several days of hard reporting work this week and a journey to the Región Autónoma del Atlántico Norte starting this weekend. A trip to the surrounding pueblos blancos yesterday brought us into contact with the noted spiritualist Andrea Peña Aguirre and the natural healer William Mena in the historic village of Diriomo. All in all, my first trip to Nicaragua, a country I have long wanted to visit, has already proven greatly rewarding from both a historic and aesthetic perspective.
High noon has arrived and the flâneur in me calls.
Granada, a city modeled on its eponymous namesake in Spain and so elegant that it earned the nickname La Gran Sultana, skirts the edge of Lago de Nicaragua beneath the looming rise of the Volcán Mombacho outside the city. Lovely one-story Spanish adobe buildings front lanes on which both horses and automobiles roll by at a leisurely pace. Once burned to the ground by the American adventurer (privateer might be a better word) William Walker, the city rebuilt itself splendidly and remains a fine place to enjoy a sip of 18 year-old Flor de Caña rum or the delicious chocolates produced by the city of Matagalpa, just to the north. My novia and I have enjoyed wandering its streets in advance of several days of hard reporting work this week and a journey to the Región Autónoma del Atlántico Norte starting this weekend. A trip to the surrounding pueblos blancos yesterday brought us into contact with the noted spiritualist Andrea Peña Aguirre and the natural healer William Mena in the historic village of Diriomo. All in all, my first trip to Nicaragua, a country I have long wanted to visit, has already proven greatly rewarding from both a historic and aesthetic perspective.
High noon has arrived and the flâneur in me calls.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Note from Casco Viejo
Having arrived in Panama City aboard the red-eye from New York via Miami on Tuesday, I was fortunate enough to spend yesterday rhapsodizing over the architecture and ambiance of the Panamanian capital’s elegant and decidedly still-auténtico quarter of San Felipe, also known as Casco Viejo. Here, only a few miles from the impersonal high-rises of Panama City’s downtown residential and business districts, one can still wander the quiet colonial streets and see the beauty of Spanish architecture strung along the Bahia de Panama. Though many of the homes are in varying states of disrepair, one can tell that creeping gentrification is afoot, with sleek real-estate offices competing for space with multi-family dwellings and vendors pushing their carts selling flavored ice shavings. A considerable sojourn with my novia there was an enjoyable introduction back into Latin America.Panama City’s history has been nothing if not tumultuous, and in fact this location s the second on which the city was built- - the first was thoroughly sacked by the British privateer Henry Morgan in 1670. San Felipe itself abuts El Chorrillo, a very poor neighborhood that was largely burned in a mysterious blaze in the wake of the 1989 U.S. invasion which ousted Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega from power. The city now is a flourishing banking and commercial centre for Central America, with a sizable émigré community from neighboring Colombia.
Today, we go to see the Panama Canal and tomorrow off to the Caribbean archipelago of Bocas del Toro. As we make our way up through the isthmus to an eventual destination of Belize, I believe that feeling Latin America around me again, speaking its language, meeting its people, will be a bit like meeting an old friend after my many months in Africa. Something to look forward to it.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Debate Swirls Around Fate of Holy Sites
CULTURE-ETHIOPIA:
Debate Swirls Around Fate of Holy Sites
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
LALIBELA, Jul 3, 2008 (IPS) - Carved into the rugged mountains of northern Ethiopia, the eleven churches of Lalibela have for centuries remained among the most stunning visions a traveler can encounter.
Hewn out of the rock amidst a stark landscape, the structures represent perhaps the greatest flowering of the devotional creativity associated with Ethiopia's Orthodox Christian church, one of the oldest Christian denominations in the world.
Gebre Mesqel Lalibela, the ruler of the Zagwe dynasty, commenced construction of the churches following an extended period living in Jerusalem. Following Jerusalem's capture by Muslim forces in 1187, a dream told him to recreate the splendors of that city in Ethiopia. In a tribute to Lalibela's vision and the toil of an unknown number of labourers, the location has lost none of its power to awe even 800 years after its creation.
Among the houses of worship, one finds the Church of the Virgin Mary - the first church to be carved -- decorated with lush carpets and tapestries depicting angels, cherubs and seraphim. Prayer rooms hold crosses made out of gold, copper and iron whose intricate designs are fraught with religious symbolism; religious drums known as keberos rest against stone walls.
The Church of St. George, the last to be constructed, is carved in the shape of a giant cross four-stories high, seeking to symbolically represent Noah's Ark. Its spiritual power is such that the walls surrounding it are full of the bodies of pilgrims who, for hundreds of years, have chosen the church as the place to draw their final breath and were laid to rest in crevices in the structure. Lalibela himself is said to have been buried in the Bete Golgotha cathedral.
A complex engineering feat by any measure, the Lalibela churches also possess a sophisticated drainage system that assured that though the churches are cut deep into the surrounding rock, no water remains inside the complex.
Interrupting this architectural and religious splendour however, is a garish steel structure looming over five of the churches that could not look more ill-at-ease in its antique surroundings. Beneath the edifice, hovering like a spaceship making a tentative landing, a sign proclaims that the European Development Fund of the European Union is financing the project, which is being carried out be a team of architects from Italy.
Read the full article here.
Debate Swirls Around Fate of Holy Sites
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
LALIBELA, Jul 3, 2008 (IPS) - Carved into the rugged mountains of northern Ethiopia, the eleven churches of Lalibela have for centuries remained among the most stunning visions a traveler can encounter.
Hewn out of the rock amidst a stark landscape, the structures represent perhaps the greatest flowering of the devotional creativity associated with Ethiopia's Orthodox Christian church, one of the oldest Christian denominations in the world.
Gebre Mesqel Lalibela, the ruler of the Zagwe dynasty, commenced construction of the churches following an extended period living in Jerusalem. Following Jerusalem's capture by Muslim forces in 1187, a dream told him to recreate the splendors of that city in Ethiopia. In a tribute to Lalibela's vision and the toil of an unknown number of labourers, the location has lost none of its power to awe even 800 years after its creation.
Among the houses of worship, one finds the Church of the Virgin Mary - the first church to be carved -- decorated with lush carpets and tapestries depicting angels, cherubs and seraphim. Prayer rooms hold crosses made out of gold, copper and iron whose intricate designs are fraught with religious symbolism; religious drums known as keberos rest against stone walls.
The Church of St. George, the last to be constructed, is carved in the shape of a giant cross four-stories high, seeking to symbolically represent Noah's Ark. Its spiritual power is such that the walls surrounding it are full of the bodies of pilgrims who, for hundreds of years, have chosen the church as the place to draw their final breath and were laid to rest in crevices in the structure. Lalibela himself is said to have been buried in the Bete Golgotha cathedral.
A complex engineering feat by any measure, the Lalibela churches also possess a sophisticated drainage system that assured that though the churches are cut deep into the surrounding rock, no water remains inside the complex.
Interrupting this architectural and religious splendour however, is a garish steel structure looming over five of the churches that could not look more ill-at-ease in its antique surroundings. Beneath the edifice, hovering like a spaceship making a tentative landing, a sign proclaims that the European Development Fund of the European Union is financing the project, which is being carried out be a team of architects from Italy.
Read the full article here.
Friday, June 27, 2008
A Glittering Demon: Mining, Poverty and Politics in the Democratic Republic of Congo
A Glittering Demon: Mining, Poverty and Politics in the Democratic Republic of Congo
by Michael Deibert, Special to CorpWatch
June 26th, 2008
In the heart of the war-scarred Ituri region in northeastern Congo, some 200 mud-covered men pan for traces of gold in the muddy brown waters.
Working for the Congolese owners of Manyida camp, the miners are following a map of the site made by the Belgians, the country's former colonial rulers.
"It's very difficult, punishing work," says Adamo Bedijo, a 32 year-old university graduate from the central city of Kisangani. "We are not paid, we work until we hit the vein of gold and hope that will pay us…The government has abandoned us, so I am forced to endure all this suffering."
Bedijo is one of Ituri's estimated 70,000 artisanal miners, some of whom are former employees of state mining concerns that collapsed during the country's long-running civil war. Two years after the first democratic elections in 40 years, informal arrangements such as Manyida are operating alongside the many foreign multinationals rushing in to tap the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) extensive mineral resources.
The way foreign multinationals have gained entry into Congo, and the business methods they use, raise significant questions for a nation at historic crossroads. Will the DRC move forward to become more responsive to its nearly 67 million people scattered across an area as large as Western Europe, or will the tradition of rape-as-governance continue?
Read the full article here.
POLITICS: Is Democracy Dangerous in Multi-ethnic Societies?
POLITICS: Is Democracy Dangerous in Multi-ethnic Societies?
An interview with Frances Stewart, Oxford University Professor of Development Economics
Inter Press Service
OXFORD, Jun 26, 2008 (IPS) - The Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE) would seem to have its work cut out for it in a world racked by brutal and enduring conflict. The centre's goal is to explore the links between ethnicity, inequality and conflict in order to identify policies that could lead to more inclusive multi-ethnic societies.
A first book-length publication 'Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict: Understanding Group Violence in Multi-Ethnic Societies' from CRISE is slated for a July release, the fruit of the institution’s recent years of research into conflict and its causes.
To find out more about that research, IPS correspondent Michael Deibert spoke to CRISE Director Frances Stewart.
Read the full article here.
An interview with Frances Stewart, Oxford University Professor of Development Economics
Inter Press Service
OXFORD, Jun 26, 2008 (IPS) - The Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE) would seem to have its work cut out for it in a world racked by brutal and enduring conflict. The centre's goal is to explore the links between ethnicity, inequality and conflict in order to identify policies that could lead to more inclusive multi-ethnic societies.
A first book-length publication 'Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict: Understanding Group Violence in Multi-Ethnic Societies' from CRISE is slated for a July release, the fruit of the institution’s recent years of research into conflict and its causes.
To find out more about that research, IPS correspondent Michael Deibert spoke to CRISE Director Frances Stewart.
Read the full article here.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Why I am not running by Morgan Tsvangirai
(Note: Today I am doing something that I rarely do on this blog: Reposting verbatim text that first appeared elsewhere. Given the current situation in Zimbabwe, though, the results of which I saw for myself on a recent visit to South Africa, and the conditions of which I have blogged about here before, I feel compelled to share with readers the following declaration of Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change political party in Zimbabwe. Mr. Tsvangirai’s statement was printed this evening in the Guardian newspaper. MD)
Why I am not running
My people are at breaking point. World leaders' bold rhetoric must be backed with military force
By Morgan Tsvangirai
The Guardian
Wednesday June 25, 2008
(Read the original article here)
In the course of the last few tumultuous months, I have often had cause to consider what it is that makes a country. I believe a country is the sum of its many parts, and that this is embodied in one thing: its people. The people of my country, Zimbabwe, have borne more than any people should bear. They have been burdened by the world's highest inflation rates, denied the basics of democracy, and are now suffering the worst form of intimidation and violence at the hand of a government purporting to be of and for the people. Zimbabwe will break if the world does not come to our aid.
Africa has seen this all before, of course. The scenario in Zimbabwe is numbingly familiar. A power-crazed despot holding his people hostage to his delusions, crushing the spirit of his country and casting the international community as fools. As we enter the final days of what has been a taxing period for all Zimbabweans, it is likely that Robert Mugabe will claim the presidency of our country and will seek to further deny its people a space to breath and feel the breeze of freedom.
I can no longer allow Zimbabwe's people to suffer this torture, for I believe they can bear no more crushing force. This is why I decided not to run in the presidential run-off. This is not a political decision. The vote need not occur at all of course, as the Movement for Democratic Change won a majority in the previous election, held in March. This is undisputed even by the pro-Mugabe Zimbabwe electoral commission.
Our call now for intervention seeks to challenge standard procedure in international diplomacy. The quiet diplomacy of South African President Thabo Mbeki has been characteristic of this worn approach, as it sought to massage a defeated dictator rather than show him the door and prod him towards it.
We envision a more energetic and, indeed, activist strategy. Our proposal is one that aims to remove the often debilitating barriers of state sovereignty, which rests on a centuries-old foundation of the sanctity of governments, even those which have proven themselves illegitimate and decrepit. We ask for the UN to go further than its recent resolution, condemning the violence in Zimbabwe, to encompass an active isolation of the dictator Mugabe.
For this we need a force to protect the people. We do not want armed conflict, but the people of Zimbabwe need the words of indignation from global leaders to be backed by the moral rectitude of military force. Such a force would be in the role of peacekeepers, not trouble-makers. They would separate the people from their oppressors and cast the protective shield around the democratic process for which Zimbabwe yearns.
The next stage should be a new presidential election. This does indeed burden Zimbabwe and create an atmosphere of limbo. Yet there is hardly a scenario that does not carry an element of pain. The reality is that a new election, devoid of violence and intimidation, is the only way to put Zimbabwe right.
Part of this process would be the introduction of election monitors, from the African Union and the UN. This would also require a recognition of myself as a legitimate candidate. It would be the best chance the people of Zimbabwe would get to see their views recorded fairly and justly.
Intervention is a loaded concept in today's world, of course. Yet, despite the difficulties inherent in certain high-profile interventions, decisions not to intervene have created similarly dire consequences. The battle in Zimbabwe today is a battle between democracy and dictatorship, justice and injustice, right and wrong. It is one in which the international community must become more than a moral participant. It must become mobilised.
· Morgan Tsvangirai is leader of the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe
********************************
(An interesting addendum, all things consdered. MD)
Tsvangirai reverses peacekeeper plea
26 June 2008
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The British newspaper The Guardian printed a letter Thursday from Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in which he denied writing a commentary printed in the paper a day earlier.
Tsvangirai said the commentary did not reflect his position or opinions regarding solutions to the violence and political crisis in Zimbabwe, and he emphasized that he does not advocate military intervention in his country -- a call made in Wednesday's article.
"Although The Guardian was given assurances from credible sources that I had approved the article this was not the case," he wrote in Thursday's letter.
A spokeswoman for The Guardian said the letter had been authorized by a Tsvangirai representative with whom the paper had dealt in the past, as well as Tsvangirai's representative in the Zimbabwean capital.
"The article was supplied to us and we had no reason to doubt the authenticity," said the spokeswoman, who asked not to be named.
The Wednesday editorial in The Guardian, which the paper said was penned by Tsvangirai, called for U.N. peacekeepers.
"We do not want armed conflict, but the people of Zimbabwe need the words of indignation from global leaders to be backed by the moral rectitude of military force," the editorial read.
Tsvangirai made the same call in an interview Wednesday with CNN, by phone from Harare. Asked whether he had requested peacekeepers from the United Nations, he indicated that he had.
"It's a proposal we are requesting," Tsvangirai told CNN. "It's because the violence is continuing, and it's violence that is being committed by armed forces against unarmed civilians. And all we are doing is to try to call for these peacekeepers so that normalcy can return and people can feel safe."
Asked then whether he had received any response from the United Nations to his call for peacekeepers, Tsvangirai said no, but he hoped the United Nations would urgently consider the move.
Thursday's letter from Tsvangirai was an apparent reversal of his call for U.N. peacekeepers.
"By way of clarification I would like to state the following: I am not advocating military intervention in Zimbabwe by the U.N. or any other organization," Tsvangirai wrote.
Tsvangirai said his party, the Movement for Democratic Change, wants an African solution to the crisis, specifically one from the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC).
He said he is asking the SADC and the larger African Union to lead an initiative, supported by the United Nations, to manage the transition of power.
"We are proposing that the AU facilitation team sets up a transitional period that takes into account the will of the people of Zimbabwe," he wrote.
Tsvangirai withdrew earlier this week from a presidential runoff election, scheduled for Friday, against President Robert Mugabe, citing pre-election violence that the MDC said has targeted its supporters. The U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned Zimbabwe's government for the violence.
Mugabe says the violence has targeted his own ZANU-PF party.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission ruled that Friday's vote would go on as scheduled despite Tsvangirai's withdrawal, although U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the SADC had urged a postponement.
Why I am not running
My people are at breaking point. World leaders' bold rhetoric must be backed with military force
By Morgan Tsvangirai
The Guardian
Wednesday June 25, 2008
(Read the original article here)
In the course of the last few tumultuous months, I have often had cause to consider what it is that makes a country. I believe a country is the sum of its many parts, and that this is embodied in one thing: its people. The people of my country, Zimbabwe, have borne more than any people should bear. They have been burdened by the world's highest inflation rates, denied the basics of democracy, and are now suffering the worst form of intimidation and violence at the hand of a government purporting to be of and for the people. Zimbabwe will break if the world does not come to our aid.
Africa has seen this all before, of course. The scenario in Zimbabwe is numbingly familiar. A power-crazed despot holding his people hostage to his delusions, crushing the spirit of his country and casting the international community as fools. As we enter the final days of what has been a taxing period for all Zimbabweans, it is likely that Robert Mugabe will claim the presidency of our country and will seek to further deny its people a space to breath and feel the breeze of freedom.
I can no longer allow Zimbabwe's people to suffer this torture, for I believe they can bear no more crushing force. This is why I decided not to run in the presidential run-off. This is not a political decision. The vote need not occur at all of course, as the Movement for Democratic Change won a majority in the previous election, held in March. This is undisputed even by the pro-Mugabe Zimbabwe electoral commission.
Our call now for intervention seeks to challenge standard procedure in international diplomacy. The quiet diplomacy of South African President Thabo Mbeki has been characteristic of this worn approach, as it sought to massage a defeated dictator rather than show him the door and prod him towards it.
We envision a more energetic and, indeed, activist strategy. Our proposal is one that aims to remove the often debilitating barriers of state sovereignty, which rests on a centuries-old foundation of the sanctity of governments, even those which have proven themselves illegitimate and decrepit. We ask for the UN to go further than its recent resolution, condemning the violence in Zimbabwe, to encompass an active isolation of the dictator Mugabe.
For this we need a force to protect the people. We do not want armed conflict, but the people of Zimbabwe need the words of indignation from global leaders to be backed by the moral rectitude of military force. Such a force would be in the role of peacekeepers, not trouble-makers. They would separate the people from their oppressors and cast the protective shield around the democratic process for which Zimbabwe yearns.
The next stage should be a new presidential election. This does indeed burden Zimbabwe and create an atmosphere of limbo. Yet there is hardly a scenario that does not carry an element of pain. The reality is that a new election, devoid of violence and intimidation, is the only way to put Zimbabwe right.
Part of this process would be the introduction of election monitors, from the African Union and the UN. This would also require a recognition of myself as a legitimate candidate. It would be the best chance the people of Zimbabwe would get to see their views recorded fairly and justly.
Intervention is a loaded concept in today's world, of course. Yet, despite the difficulties inherent in certain high-profile interventions, decisions not to intervene have created similarly dire consequences. The battle in Zimbabwe today is a battle between democracy and dictatorship, justice and injustice, right and wrong. It is one in which the international community must become more than a moral participant. It must become mobilised.
· Morgan Tsvangirai is leader of the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe
********************************
(An interesting addendum, all things consdered. MD)
Tsvangirai reverses peacekeeper plea
26 June 2008
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The British newspaper The Guardian printed a letter Thursday from Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in which he denied writing a commentary printed in the paper a day earlier.
Tsvangirai said the commentary did not reflect his position or opinions regarding solutions to the violence and political crisis in Zimbabwe, and he emphasized that he does not advocate military intervention in his country -- a call made in Wednesday's article.
"Although The Guardian was given assurances from credible sources that I had approved the article this was not the case," he wrote in Thursday's letter.
A spokeswoman for The Guardian said the letter had been authorized by a Tsvangirai representative with whom the paper had dealt in the past, as well as Tsvangirai's representative in the Zimbabwean capital.
"The article was supplied to us and we had no reason to doubt the authenticity," said the spokeswoman, who asked not to be named.
The Wednesday editorial in The Guardian, which the paper said was penned by Tsvangirai, called for U.N. peacekeepers.
"We do not want armed conflict, but the people of Zimbabwe need the words of indignation from global leaders to be backed by the moral rectitude of military force," the editorial read.
Tsvangirai made the same call in an interview Wednesday with CNN, by phone from Harare. Asked whether he had requested peacekeepers from the United Nations, he indicated that he had.
"It's a proposal we are requesting," Tsvangirai told CNN. "It's because the violence is continuing, and it's violence that is being committed by armed forces against unarmed civilians. And all we are doing is to try to call for these peacekeepers so that normalcy can return and people can feel safe."
Asked then whether he had received any response from the United Nations to his call for peacekeepers, Tsvangirai said no, but he hoped the United Nations would urgently consider the move.
Thursday's letter from Tsvangirai was an apparent reversal of his call for U.N. peacekeepers.
"By way of clarification I would like to state the following: I am not advocating military intervention in Zimbabwe by the U.N. or any other organization," Tsvangirai wrote.
Tsvangirai said his party, the Movement for Democratic Change, wants an African solution to the crisis, specifically one from the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC).
He said he is asking the SADC and the larger African Union to lead an initiative, supported by the United Nations, to manage the transition of power.
"We are proposing that the AU facilitation team sets up a transitional period that takes into account the will of the people of Zimbabwe," he wrote.
Tsvangirai withdrew earlier this week from a presidential runoff election, scheduled for Friday, against President Robert Mugabe, citing pre-election violence that the MDC said has targeted its supporters. The U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned Zimbabwe's government for the violence.
Mugabe says the violence has targeted his own ZANU-PF party.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission ruled that Friday's vote would go on as scheduled despite Tsvangirai's withdrawal, although U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the SADC had urged a postponement.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
POLITICS-ETHIOPIA : A Tangled Political Landscape Raises Questions About African Ally of the U.S.
POLITICS-ETHIOPIA : A Tangled Political Landscape Raises Questions About African Ally of the U.S.
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
ADDIS ABABA, Jun 21, 2008 (IPS) - When it was announced last month that the ruling party of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had swept local polls in this vast Horn of Africa nation, few expressed surprise.
Zenawi's Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition was declared by the country's national electoral board to have won 559 districts in the kebele and woreda divisions of local government and all but one of 39 parliament seats contested in the by-election. Out of a total of 26 million registered voters, the electoral board claimed that 24.5 million, or 93 percent, voted.
April's ballot was the first chance for the EPRDF to flex the muscles of its electoral machinery since general elections in May 2005. Though early returns that year suggested an electoral triumph for the country's two main opposition parties, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) and the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF). Prime Minister Zenawi declared a state of emergency before final results were announced. In the unrest that followed, hundreds of people were arrested and at least 200 killed by Ethiopian security forces. Official results -- not released until September -- gave 59 percent of the total vote to the EPRDF.
Cries of fraud stained the reputation of one of Washington's closest African allies. to whom, according to U.S. defense department figures, the Bush administration sold $6 million worth of weapons to in 2006, more armaments than went to any other African country. The weapons are used in part to aid Ethiopia in its war against Islamic militants based in neighboring Somalia, which Ethiopia invaded in late 2006 and where it remains involved in active combat to this day.
Read the full article here.
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
ADDIS ABABA, Jun 21, 2008 (IPS) - When it was announced last month that the ruling party of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had swept local polls in this vast Horn of Africa nation, few expressed surprise.
Zenawi's Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition was declared by the country's national electoral board to have won 559 districts in the kebele and woreda divisions of local government and all but one of 39 parliament seats contested in the by-election. Out of a total of 26 million registered voters, the electoral board claimed that 24.5 million, or 93 percent, voted.
April's ballot was the first chance for the EPRDF to flex the muscles of its electoral machinery since general elections in May 2005. Though early returns that year suggested an electoral triumph for the country's two main opposition parties, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) and the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF). Prime Minister Zenawi declared a state of emergency before final results were announced. In the unrest that followed, hundreds of people were arrested and at least 200 killed by Ethiopian security forces. Official results -- not released until September -- gave 59 percent of the total vote to the EPRDF.
Cries of fraud stained the reputation of one of Washington's closest African allies. to whom, according to U.S. defense department figures, the Bush administration sold $6 million worth of weapons to in 2006, more armaments than went to any other African country. The weapons are used in part to aid Ethiopia in its war against Islamic militants based in neighboring Somalia, which Ethiopia invaded in late 2006 and where it remains involved in active combat to this day.
Read the full article here.
Q&A: Ethiopia's Urban Poor Cannot Afford To Eat
Q&A: Ethiopia's Urban Poor Cannot Afford To Eat
Interview with Abera Tola, Director of Oxfam's Horn of Africa regional office
Inter Press Service
ADDIS ABABA, Jun 21, 2008 (IPS) - Ethiopia, a nation of 80 million people, has been the site of famine and drought throughout its tumultuous history. Arising from a myriad of causes and often shepherded along by political instability, the country's 1984-85 famine, for example, left over a million dead and served as the impetus for the fund-raising concerts of Live Aid in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Today, Ethiopia once again stands at the brink of a substantial food crisis, with the Word Food Program currently estimating that, of Ethiopia's 80 million citizens, 3.4 million will need emergency food relief from July to September. This is in addition to the 8 million currently receiving assistance. UNICEF has asserted that the country's food shortage this year is the most severe since 2003, when droughts forced 13.2 million people to seek emergency food aid.
IPS correspondent Michael Deibert sat down in Addis Ababa with Abera Tola, Director of the Horn of Africa Regional Office of Oxfam America, to hear his insights as to Ethiopia's latest food crisis.
Read the full article here.
Interview with Abera Tola, Director of Oxfam's Horn of Africa regional office
Inter Press Service
ADDIS ABABA, Jun 21, 2008 (IPS) - Ethiopia, a nation of 80 million people, has been the site of famine and drought throughout its tumultuous history. Arising from a myriad of causes and often shepherded along by political instability, the country's 1984-85 famine, for example, left over a million dead and served as the impetus for the fund-raising concerts of Live Aid in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Today, Ethiopia once again stands at the brink of a substantial food crisis, with the Word Food Program currently estimating that, of Ethiopia's 80 million citizens, 3.4 million will need emergency food relief from July to September. This is in addition to the 8 million currently receiving assistance. UNICEF has asserted that the country's food shortage this year is the most severe since 2003, when droughts forced 13.2 million people to seek emergency food aid.
IPS correspondent Michael Deibert sat down in Addis Ababa with Abera Tola, Director of the Horn of Africa Regional Office of Oxfam America, to hear his insights as to Ethiopia's latest food crisis.
Read the full article here.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
EU Seeks to Subdue Competitive China
TRADE-AFRICA: EU Seeks to Subdue Competitive China
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, May 15, 2008 (IPS) - With the ascendance of China as a robust force on Africa's economic and political scene, plans are afoot in the European Union (EU) to pre-empt the Asian nation's dominance on the continent by forming a trilateral partnership that places Europe squarely in the centre.
The idea of a multilateral triumvirate was conceived by Louis Michel, the EU's commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, and seeks to lay out common ground in what has occasionally been a contentious relationship between these three actors.
''There are three fields where the partners can work together: peace and security, infrastructure and natural resources,'' says Veronika Tywuschik, a research assistant at the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) in Brussels. The ECDPM is a non-governmental organisation that assists African, Caribbean and Pacific countries with policy processes.
With Michel set to step down as commissioner in 2009, pressure is building for him to come up with a workable platform in the next few months.
A public consultation period which started on April 16 and will end on July 13 this year is seeking to gather a wide variety of views on how the proposed relations should be constructed.
A public consultation document has been released in the form of a questionnaire asking European citizens which sectors the cooperation should focus on and why.
Read the full article here.
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, May 15, 2008 (IPS) - With the ascendance of China as a robust force on Africa's economic and political scene, plans are afoot in the European Union (EU) to pre-empt the Asian nation's dominance on the continent by forming a trilateral partnership that places Europe squarely in the centre.
The idea of a multilateral triumvirate was conceived by Louis Michel, the EU's commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, and seeks to lay out common ground in what has occasionally been a contentious relationship between these three actors.
''There are three fields where the partners can work together: peace and security, infrastructure and natural resources,'' says Veronika Tywuschik, a research assistant at the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) in Brussels. The ECDPM is a non-governmental organisation that assists African, Caribbean and Pacific countries with policy processes.
With Michel set to step down as commissioner in 2009, pressure is building for him to come up with a workable platform in the next few months.
A public consultation period which started on April 16 and will end on July 13 this year is seeking to gather a wide variety of views on how the proposed relations should be constructed.
A public consultation document has been released in the form of a questionnaire asking European citizens which sectors the cooperation should focus on and why.
Read the full article here.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Extraction from chaos?
Extraction from chaos?
By Michael Deibert
Foreign Direct Investment
April 10, 2008
Embattled by war and corruption but laden with large deposits of diamonds and copper, DR Congo is largely avoided by investors. Might that change? Michael Deibert reports.
Blessed with natural resources and occupying a vast swath of central Africa as large as the US east of the Mississippi River, the Democratic Republic of Congo is home to some of the word’s largest deposits of diamonds, copper, cobalt and coltan. Despite a fecund climate encompassing everything from dense, nearly impenetrable rainforests to fertile plains, the country has remained one of Africa’s most tragic. Held in the grip of a predatory state culture of corruption and the often nefarious designs of its neighbours and unscrupulous business dealers with little long-term interest in developing its infrastructure, DR Congo has struggled to attract investors.
The country’s president, Joseph Kabila, first assumed office in 2001 following the assassination of his father, Laurent, who led a rebel movement that toppled the 32-year dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko.
Elected for the first time during a violent ballot in 2006, President Kabila is an often mute presence on the Congolese political scene, going for weeks at a time without appearing in public. Nevertheless, the government has begun to take small steps to regularise the often anarchic foreign investment climate in the country, and in February completed a review of all international mining contracts, many of which were signed by President Kabila’s father under circumstances of questionable transparency during DR Congo’s 1998-2002 civil war.
Read the full article here.
By Michael Deibert
Foreign Direct Investment
April 10, 2008
Embattled by war and corruption but laden with large deposits of diamonds and copper, DR Congo is largely avoided by investors. Might that change? Michael Deibert reports.
Blessed with natural resources and occupying a vast swath of central Africa as large as the US east of the Mississippi River, the Democratic Republic of Congo is home to some of the word’s largest deposits of diamonds, copper, cobalt and coltan. Despite a fecund climate encompassing everything from dense, nearly impenetrable rainforests to fertile plains, the country has remained one of Africa’s most tragic. Held in the grip of a predatory state culture of corruption and the often nefarious designs of its neighbours and unscrupulous business dealers with little long-term interest in developing its infrastructure, DR Congo has struggled to attract investors.
The country’s president, Joseph Kabila, first assumed office in 2001 following the assassination of his father, Laurent, who led a rebel movement that toppled the 32-year dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko.
Elected for the first time during a violent ballot in 2006, President Kabila is an often mute presence on the Congolese political scene, going for weeks at a time without appearing in public. Nevertheless, the government has begun to take small steps to regularise the often anarchic foreign investment climate in the country, and in February completed a review of all international mining contracts, many of which were signed by President Kabila’s father under circumstances of questionable transparency during DR Congo’s 1998-2002 civil war.
Read the full article here.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Back from South Africa
I returned to Kinshasa from Johannesburg the other days, after what was, for me, a highly instructive and enjoyable two weeks in South Africa.Initially hoping to have a short break from pretty much three-months non-stop reporting here in Congo, I was yet again reminded of how interconnected our word is when I was presented with the heart-wrenching story of the plight of hundreds of Zimbabwean refugees sleeping rough Joburg’s downtown, and was heartened by the wit and insight of their advocate. Busman’s holiday, as usual.
I ranged not only through the thoroughly salubrious Melville area (where I met up with my old friend and fellow journalist Gretchen Wilson, who has been in South Africa since 2004) but also the heavily-immigrant districts of Hillbrow and Yeoville, where South African tongues such as Zulu and Xhosa mingle with French and Lingala. A visit to Soweto offered the opportunity me see the house where Nelson Mandela, one of the handful of politicians I still have any respect for at all, lived at one time, as well as the Hector Pieterson Museum.
Perhaps no other icon better illustrates the stupid, banal brutality of the apartheid system that governed South Africa from 1948 until 1994 than the image of the lifeless body of schoolboy Hector Pieterson carried by another young boy, Mbuyisa Makhubo, as Pieterson’s sister, Antoinette, wails beside them. Pieterson was killed on June 16, 1976, when thousands of Soweto students were protesting the imposition of the Afrikaans language - the language of South Africa’s apartheid government - as the medium of instruction (along with English) in the country’s predominantly black schools. The killing sparked the Soweto uprising of 1976, an interesting account of which by Harry Mashabela I am currently reading.
While idly browsing through the bookstore at Oliver Tambo airport, I also picked up a copy of the The Bang-Bango Club, the account by the photojournalists Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva of their years, along with fellow photogs Kevin Carter and Ken Oosterbroek, of chronicling the violent era between Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 and South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994. It was a time during which, Marinovich and Silva, write, the forces within the country’s white power structure implacably opposed to a genuine democracy used members and affiliates of the Zulu-centered Inkatha Freedom Party as a bludgeon against the multiracial African National Congress in an effort to disrupt or even derail negations and the 1994 ballot that brought Nelson Mandela to power. The book is tough going - the photographers witnessed some truly ghastly violence, Ken Oosterbroek was fatally shot on the job and Kevin Carter later committed suicide - but it is an edifying read as the layers as the deception and collusion of that era’s violence are stripped away before the reader to reveal the naked power-play that was in fact at work. Reading about the constant money struggles of these, some of South Africa’s most well-regarded and courageous photographers, is also heartening for those of us who still do journalism for the love and mission of the craft and, as such, end up sacrificing a great deal in terms of comfort and financial security.
Walked through Kin La Belle again today, which swirls on to its own rhythm, as usual.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Portrait
My friend Eve Sibley painted a portrait of me when I was still living in New York which I just happened upon online. Not a bad likeness, all things told.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
RIGHTS: In South Africa, Zimbabwean Refugees Find Sanctuary and Contempt
RIGHTS: In South Africa, Zimbabwean Refugees Find Sanctuary and Contempt
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, May 4, 2008 (IPS) - As the autumn sun sets over South Africa's most populous city, the halls of downtown Johannesburg's Central Methodist Mission fill with weary figures, many far from home, seeking solace within its walls.
On every spare inch of space on the floors and narrow staircase of the mission -- and on the pavement outside -- the destitute curl up to find shelter as best they can from the chill wind that moves between the tall buildings in this city. Mixed in among them every night are hundreds of refugees from South Africa's northern neighbour, Zimbabwe, who have fled their country's slow-motion economic and political implosion.
"We sleep outside in the streets. Sometimes we spend days without eating anything; we spend weeks without working," says Owen Muchanyo, a 23-year-old secondary school teacher of mathematics and science from Chitungwiza, a town south of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare.
He has been in South Africa for three months. "It's better to sleep on the streets, where my life is somewhat safe, than to sleep in a house when my life is in danger."
Read the full article here.
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, May 4, 2008 (IPS) - As the autumn sun sets over South Africa's most populous city, the halls of downtown Johannesburg's Central Methodist Mission fill with weary figures, many far from home, seeking solace within its walls.
On every spare inch of space on the floors and narrow staircase of the mission -- and on the pavement outside -- the destitute curl up to find shelter as best they can from the chill wind that moves between the tall buildings in this city. Mixed in among them every night are hundreds of refugees from South Africa's northern neighbour, Zimbabwe, who have fled their country's slow-motion economic and political implosion.
"We sleep outside in the streets. Sometimes we spend days without eating anything; we spend weeks without working," says Owen Muchanyo, a 23-year-old secondary school teacher of mathematics and science from Chitungwiza, a town south of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare.
He has been in South Africa for three months. "It's better to sleep on the streets, where my life is somewhat safe, than to sleep in a house when my life is in danger."
Read the full article here.
"We Mustn't Think as South Africans That We Have Won the Day": An interview with Paul Verryn
"We Mustn't Think as South Africans That We Have Won the Day": An interview with Paul Verryn
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, May 4, 2008 (IPS) - Bishop Paul Verryn, who directs the Central Methodist Mission in Johannesburg, South Africa, has long been on the frontlines of the country's political struggles.
Born in 1952 in the capital city of Pretoria, Verryn came of age during the most contentious days of the fight against apartheid. After completing military training, he entered the ministry, working in the Eastern Cape Province for 11 years.
Verryn's experiences there as the chairman of the Detainees Parents' Support Committee -- which sought to aid the thousands of South Africans detained without trial at the time -- and the murder of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko while in police custody in August 1977 served as something of a political awakening for the young cleric.
Transferred to the sprawling black settlement of Soweto in Johannesburg in 1987, Verryn has continued to live there until this day.
His criticism of the powerful continued with the advent of democracy in South Africa; many recall his tearful testimony before South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 1997 regarding the involvement of Winnie Mandela, former wife of anti-apartheid hero and then South African president Nelson Mandela, in the kidnapping and murder of Stompie Moeketsi.
The 14-year-old anti-apartheid activist was seized from Verryn's Soweto mission by Mrs Mandela's bodyguards in 1988, and his battered body later found in a ditch. Winnie Mandela was eventually convicted of involvement in Moeketsi's kidnapping.
Today, as director of the Central Methodist Mission, Verryn has taken up another cause: the plight of immigrants to South Africa from Zimbabwe, a country that has been blighted by political violence and economic degeneration in recent years. Having thrown open the doors of his mission to these new arrivals, he saw the building raided in a controversial police action earlier this year, but has refused stop providing shelter and assistance to the Zimbabweans as they stream southward.
IPS correspondent Michael Deibert sat down with Verryn to hear his thoughts on how the mission was meeting this and other challenges.
Read the full article here.
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, May 4, 2008 (IPS) - Bishop Paul Verryn, who directs the Central Methodist Mission in Johannesburg, South Africa, has long been on the frontlines of the country's political struggles.
Born in 1952 in the capital city of Pretoria, Verryn came of age during the most contentious days of the fight against apartheid. After completing military training, he entered the ministry, working in the Eastern Cape Province for 11 years.
Verryn's experiences there as the chairman of the Detainees Parents' Support Committee -- which sought to aid the thousands of South Africans detained without trial at the time -- and the murder of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko while in police custody in August 1977 served as something of a political awakening for the young cleric.
Transferred to the sprawling black settlement of Soweto in Johannesburg in 1987, Verryn has continued to live there until this day.
His criticism of the powerful continued with the advent of democracy in South Africa; many recall his tearful testimony before South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 1997 regarding the involvement of Winnie Mandela, former wife of anti-apartheid hero and then South African president Nelson Mandela, in the kidnapping and murder of Stompie Moeketsi.
The 14-year-old anti-apartheid activist was seized from Verryn's Soweto mission by Mrs Mandela's bodyguards in 1988, and his battered body later found in a ditch. Winnie Mandela was eventually convicted of involvement in Moeketsi's kidnapping.
Today, as director of the Central Methodist Mission, Verryn has taken up another cause: the plight of immigrants to South Africa from Zimbabwe, a country that has been blighted by political violence and economic degeneration in recent years. Having thrown open the doors of his mission to these new arrivals, he saw the building raided in a controversial police action earlier this year, but has refused stop providing shelter and assistance to the Zimbabweans as they stream southward.
IPS correspondent Michael Deibert sat down with Verryn to hear his thoughts on how the mission was meeting this and other challenges.
Read the full article here.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
DRC: With Rebel Leader's Indictment, a Tentative Step to Accountability
DRC: With Rebel Leader's Indictment, a Tentative Step to Accountability
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, May 1, 2008 (IPS) - The indictment against a militia leader whose alleged abuses span the Democratic Republic of Congo's war-ravaged east was finally made public at the end of April, almost two years after being delivered under seal to war crimes prosecutors.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) alleges that Bosco Ntaganda "committed war crimes of enlistment and conscription of children under the age of 15", using the children "to participate actively in hostilities in Ituri, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from July 2002 until December 2003."
Formerly the chief of military operations for the Union des Patriotes Congolais (Union of Congolese Patriots, UPC), Ntaganda now serves as military chief of staff of the Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (National Congress for the Defence of the People, CNDP).
The warrant was made being made public now because it would "not endanger the witnesses of the DRC cases" at the present moment, the ICC said in a statement.
Read the full article here.
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, May 1, 2008 (IPS) - The indictment against a militia leader whose alleged abuses span the Democratic Republic of Congo's war-ravaged east was finally made public at the end of April, almost two years after being delivered under seal to war crimes prosecutors.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) alleges that Bosco Ntaganda "committed war crimes of enlistment and conscription of children under the age of 15", using the children "to participate actively in hostilities in Ituri, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from July 2002 until December 2003."
Formerly the chief of military operations for the Union des Patriotes Congolais (Union of Congolese Patriots, UPC), Ntaganda now serves as military chief of staff of the Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (National Congress for the Defence of the People, CNDP).
The warrant was made being made public now because it would "not endanger the witnesses of the DRC cases" at the present moment, the ICC said in a statement.
Read the full article here.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Hillbrow Vibes
Having arrived in Johannesburg on Monday, I have thus far found the city, despite its significant social ills, to be a vibrant, dynamic face of the mosaic that is modern day South Africa, and, as such, much to my liking. Glorious, crisp clear fall weather has complimented exploring nicely. After the ceaseless grind of Kinshasa, the restaurants, bookstores, good roads and ability to speak English are also welcomed breaks. Yesterday was an opportunity to dine with a colleague from the Inter Press Service and discuss international coverage of Africa and other issues, and today I will begin to wade into the situation of Zimbabwean exile politics and the treatment of Zimbabwean refugees by the government here. And hopefully a visit to House of Nsako will find it's way into the mix, as well.
Author's note: The title of this post is a naked steal from the opening song to the album Rhythm in Blue by the great T.K. Blue, referring as it does to the Jozi neighborhood of the same name. I first saw T.K. play with Randy Weston in New York a few years back, and later became friendly with him after seeing him play at a Darfur benefit concert. The album in question is a bracing tour of African and Caribbean rhythms in a modern jazz setting, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the genre.
Author's note: The title of this post is a naked steal from the opening song to the album Rhythm in Blue by the great T.K. Blue, referring as it does to the Jozi neighborhood of the same name. I first saw T.K. play with Randy Weston in New York a few years back, and later became friendly with him after seeing him play at a Darfur benefit concert. The album in question is a bracing tour of African and Caribbean rhythms in a modern jazz setting, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the genre.
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