Sudan president charged with genocide in Darfur

By MIKE CORDER, Associated Press Writer,

Omar Al Bashir

Mon Jul 14, 4:53 PM ET

The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court sought an arrest warrant Monday for Sudan’s president on charges of waging a campaign of genocide and rape in Darfur, a high-risk strategy that could backfire against the people in the war-torn desert region.

The indictment marked the first time prosecutors at the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal have issued charges against a sitting head of state, though President Omar al-Bashir was unlikely to face trial any time soon.

Sudan denounced the indictment as a political stunt, saying it would ignore any arrest order and was considering all options, including an unspecified military response. One Sudanese lawmaker said his government could no longer guarantee the safety of U.N. staff in the troubled region.

Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo filed 10 charges against al-Bashir related to a campaign of extermination of three Darfur tribes that the U.N. says claimed 300,000 lives and driven 2.5 million people from their homes. A three-judge panel was expected to take two to three months to decide whether to issue an arrest warrant.

Human rights groups welcomed the prosecutor’s move, but cautioned it could provoke a violent backlash from Sudan, while offering little prospect that al-Bashir will be arrested and sent for trial to The Hague. The court, which began work in 2002, has no enforcement arm and relies on governments to act as its police force.

“The prosecutor’s legal strategy also poses major risks for the fragile peace and security environment in Sudan, with a real chance of greatly increasing the suffering of very large numbers of its people,” the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said in a statement.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed, said al-Bashir was weighing all options, including a military response.

Al-Bashir likely will attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September, and Sudan would consider any attempt to arrest him a declaration of war, Mohamed said.

In Khartoum, the deputy parliament speaker, Mohammed al-Hassan al-Ameen, warned Sudan was unable to guarantee “the safety of any individual.”

“The U.N. asks us to keep its people safe, but how can we guarantee their safety when they want to seize our head of state?” al-Ameen said on state TV.

Sudan’s anger could undermine talks to resolve the decades-old enmity between north and south Sudan, and endanger efforts by relief workers and an ill-equipped U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force to protect 2.5 million people living in refugee camps, the Crisis Group said.

“These are significant risks, particularly given that the likelihood of actually executing any warrant issued against al-Bashir is remote, at least in the short term,” it added.

Al-Bashir, who has ruled Sudan for 19 years, appears invulnerable in his capital, though an international warrant would leave him open to arrest outside the country’s borders, restricting his travel and putting him in a category akin to Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, who faces a U.N. travel ban.

Still, African nations have rarely taken action against one of their leaders, and al-Bashir is likely to feel few constraints on his own continent.

On Monday, the Sudanese leader appeared at an elaborate law-signing ceremony in Khartoum, where dozens of lawmakers, diplomats and military leaders paraded past him cheering. Al-Bashir waved a wooden cane and smiled as advisers danced and a brass band played nationalist songs.

Moreno-Ocampo acknowledged the risks posed by an indictment, but said he had an obligation to pursue the president.

“I am a prosecutor doing a judicial case,” he said. “In the camps, al-Bashir’s forces kill the men and rape the women. He wants to end the history of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa people. I don’t have the luxury to look away. I have evidence.”

The 10 charges filed against al-Bashir include three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes.

The Sudanese Liberation Movement-Unity, a Darfur rebel group, welcomed the move and offered to help arrest and extradite any war criminals from Sudan — though it is unlikely the rebels would stand any chance of arresting al-Bashir.

If Sudan refuses to turn over al-Bashir, it will be up to the U.N. Security Council to press Khartoum to cooperate, something it has so far failed to do.

“Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo’s charges against al-Bashir underscore the need for the U.N. Security Council to finally act decisively with a comprehensive strategy for Sudan,” said Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition.

Achieving unanimous backing in the Security Council for any action against Sudan will be fraught with problems since two of its permanent members, China and Russia, are Sudan’s allies.

Both are accused of arming Sudan, but both also approved the council’s 2005 resolution ordering Moreno-Ocampo to investigate crimes in Darfur.

In a statement, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said he “expects that the government of Sudan will continue to cooperate fully with the United Nations in Sudan, while fulfilling its obligation to ensure the safety and security of all United Nations personnel and property.”

The war in Darfur began in 2003 as a crackdown on anti-government rebels who complained their arid region was neglected by Khartoum. The U.N. estimates 300,000 people have died, directly from attacks or indirectly through starvation.

Moreno-Ocampo said Sudan’s forces and their janjaweed militia proxies now deliberately target civilians in villages and camps rather than the rebels, sometimes even bypassing nearby rebel encampments.

They destroy villages, rape women and girls and leave the homeless to starve in the desert or suffer malnutrition in camps, he alleged.

“These 2.5 million people are in camps. They (al-Bashir’s forces) don’t need gas chambers because the desert will kill them,” Moreno-Ocampo told a news conference, drawing comparison’s with the Nazi Holocaust.

One witness cited by prosecutors said rape was woven into the fabric of life in Darfur.

“Maybe around 20 men rape one woman. These things are normal for us here in Darfur,” said the statement from the unidentified witness cited by Moreno-Ocampo.

The prosecutor said mass rape was producing a generation of so-called “janjaweed babies” and “an explosion of infanticide” by victims.

Moreno-Ocampo said an arrest warrant for al-Bashir would present the world a chance to stop the killings.

“We are dealing with a genocide. Is it easy to stop? No. Do we need to stop? Yes,” he told the AP in an interview Monday before publicly unveiling his indictment.

“The international community failed in the past, failed to stop Rwanda genocide, failed to stop Balkans crimes,” he added. “So this time, the new thing is there is a court, an independent court … which is saying, ‘This is a genocide.’”

Other U.N.-created international tribunals have charged Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Liberian President Charles Taylor with war crimes while they were still in office. Milosevic died in his cell in March 2006. Taylor is currently on trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone.

___

UN Somalia humanitarian chief warns of catastrophe

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, April 19 (Reuters) – A catastrophe is looming in Somalia, where 100,000 people fleeing fighting in Mogadishu lack food and clean water and a diarrhoea epidemic has killed more than 400, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for the country said on Thursday.

Cholera has struck hundreds in the Somali capital in the past month, and the worst fighting in a decade and the detention of aid workers have made it impossible to reach U.N. warehouses or land at the city airport, Eric Laroche told a news briefing.

Unless the fighting halts and aid agencies get access to those displaced by the conflict, “a humanitarian crisis is going to turn into a catastrophe and very soon,” he said.

Fighting between Ethiopian troops and Somali insurgents in Mogadishu flared again on Thursday, killing at least 12 people, witnesses said.

The insurgents, drawn from the local Hawiye clan and a militant Islamist movement, are fighting the interim government, its Ethiopian military backers and African Union peacekeepers for control of the city.

Four days of ferocious fighting killed 1,000 people in March and a truce since then has failed to prevent sporadic clashes.

An epidemic of acute watery diarrhoea is sweeping the Horn of Africa nation and is likely to worsen in the forthcoming rainy season, Laroche said.

Some 12,429 cases have been detected since the start of the year and 414 people have died, most of them children, he said.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) has treated some 800 cases of cholera in Mogadishu in the last month alone, more than in the previous decade, he added.

“Unless people have access to treatment and oral rehydration salts they are not going to survive,” Laroche said, adding that the interim government was not helping with access or proposing the use of other airports for aid.

Some 218,000 people have fled the capital since Feb. 1, including 100,000 staying in Lower and Middle Shabelle who are at greatest risk as they are cut off from aid supplies.

Most of Somalia remains “chronically insecure, therefore people are extremely vulnerable”, Laroche said.

“Migration means a lot of people are going to be in need of food soon. For the time being, only 40 percent of 50,000 malnourished children are reached. It is not enough.”

A U.N. World Food Programme convoy was turned back on April 7 from Afgoye, where 40,000 displaced people are staying, on the pretext that it had not been cleared, he said. He hoped talks with government officials in Baidoa on Monday would lead to better access.

The United Nations has increased its humanitarian appeal for Somalia to $262.3 million from $237 million, said Laroche, who presented it to donor nations at a meeting in Geneva. (Additional reporting by Sahal Abdulle in Mogadishu)

HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) — Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been released after police detained him at his party headquarters, police said on Wednesday.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) — Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been released after police detained him at his party headquarters, police said on Wednesday.

Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said Tsvangirai, who leads the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had not been arrested. Ten other MDC officials were arrested, however, on suspicion of being connected with a spate of petrol bombings.

The MDC said heavily armed riot police had stormed the MDC’s headquarters and detained Tsvangirai on Wednesday as African leaders gathered in Tanzania to debate Zimbabwe’s escalating political crisis.

The arrests brought immediate condemnation from Britain, the former colonial power, and from the European Union.

Police said they had no information on the arrests, but confirmed officers were looking for people connected to a string of petrol bomb attacks which President Robert Mugabe says are part of an opposition terror campaign to drive him from power.

The MDC said that before the arrests, Tsvanigirai was going to hold a news conference “on the escalating and systemic campaign of violence and intimidation” by Mugabe’s government.

Government sources say expect more arrests

Government sources said more people were likely to be arrested in the coming days, including opposition politicians and journalists the authorities accuse of trying to incite a military coup against Mugabe.

“Some people have just gone too far, talking and writing recklessly and they are going to be held to account,” one source said.

The raid increased pressure on African leaders to use a special summit beginning in Tanzania on Wednesday to censure Mugabe, who has faced a firestorm of criticism for violently cracking down on opponents of his 27-year rule.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett was among the first to criticize the latest arrests, saying the government appeared determined to intimidate.

“I strongly urge Mugabe and the Zimbabwean regime to heed the calls made by so many of the international community and their African neighbors to stop the oppression of the Zimbabwean people and respect their human rights,” she said in a statement.( Watch Mugabe claim “police have the right to bash” )

European Union president Germany said it was “deeply concerned” at the arrests while the European Parliament said it was time to end the “brutality” in Zimbabwe.

“The Southern African community has to react,” said Glenys Kinnock, who chairs the joint EU-Africa, Caribbean, Pacific parliamentary assembly.

Political observers agree that the special two-day Tanzania summit will be a test for the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC), accused in some quarters of not flexing its muscle against Mugabe’s government.

Analysts doubt African neighbors will take tough line

But despite the latest crackdown, political analysts said Mugabe’s regional colleagues were unlikely to follow Western calls for a tougher line — at least publicly.

“I don’t think there is going to be the kind of public condemnation that some Western countries are calling for, and I am sure Mugabe will be happy with that,” said Eldred Masunungure, a political science professor at Harare’s University of Zimbabwe.

In South Africa, the parliament held a snap debate on Zimbabwe where opposition parties demanded that President Thabo Mbeki’s government take a stronger line on Mugabe, a man still regarded as a liberation hero by many Africans.

“The goodwill which he earned and deserved has been dissipated by the cruelty, the vindictiveness and the inhumanity he has shown. This man is no longer a democrat,” said Douglas Gibson of the official opposition Democratic Alliance.

South African Deputy Foreign Minister Sue van der Merwe said the only way forward was through dialogue.

Before heading to Tanzania, Mugabe attended a meeting of his ruling ZANU-PF party’s politburo, which local media has speculated could discuss whether to back his bid for an extended presidential term despite the country’s gathering problems.

Mugabe, 83, has suggesting moving presidential elections back to 2010 — giving him two more years in office — or simply standing as the ZANU-PF candidate for another six year term if polls are held as scheduled next year.

Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Gaddafi: Libya ‘let down’ by West

In an exclusive interview with the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent James Robbins in the town of Sebha, Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi says his country has not been properly compensated for renouncing its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.

No question, Muammar Gaddafi is a changed man.

When we met in the town of Sebha – not in a tent this time but in a modern conference room – Col Gaddafi seemed much more the conventional politician… No women bodyguards in sight…

Britain and America now suggest the Libyan leader is a model for others to follow.

Libya abolished its programme without any compensation… This destroyed that model… no-one is going to follow that model as a result Col Muammar Gaddafi

Libya – by rejecting terrorism and then, in 2003, surrendering its nuclear and other unconventional weapons research – earned the lifting of sanctions and lost the status of a pariah.

But still Col Gaddafi can be combative.

“Libya has not been properly compensated, so other countries, like Iran and North Korea will not follow his lead.”

“This should be a model to be followed, but Libya is disappointed because the promises given by America and Britain were not fulfilled…

“And therefore those countries said we are not going to follow Libya’s example because Libya abolished its programme without any compensation… This destroyed that model… no-one is going to follow that model as a result,” he said.

‘Lost out’

So, I asked him, what more Britain and the United States should do and what they are failing to do.

“We haven’t seen Britain or the United States and the European Union setting up power stations in Libya to transform our programmes from weapons purposes to peaceful uses,” Col Gaddafi said.

“I believe that Libyans as a whole think that Britain and the United States have won, and we have lost out.”

Still, that does not mean Libya is slipping back to the old ways.

Col Gaddafi may be bargaining for greater foreign investment, but terrorism is out.

“Libya will never go back. I believe that the era of hostility and confrontation is behind us.”

Iraq

Col Gaddafi talked of Britain’s prime minister as “my friend, Tony Blair”, but he was highly critical of the situation in Iraq.

“This is a matter which is obvious… it doesn’t need clarification from me.

“The world is unified in its position to the American people. It’s not out of sympathy for the Iraqi people alone, but also the American people, who have paid the price in an unnecessary war based on false foundations.

“Thousands of Americans have been killed on the basis of wrong information. Who is going to bring back those hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have been killed? What has happened in Iraq makes all peoples in the world feel unsafe…”

Post-Gaddafi

But when I asked whether it was still possible for Libya to work with the Western world for mutual benefit, to work constructively with Britain and the US, Col Gaddafi was emphatic.

“Yes, that is quite possible, we are working to achieve that.”

Col Gaddafi remains under pressure though at home and internationally – to accelerate economic reform, to reduce reliance on oil and gas, to share more real power with his people.

He’s been in power for almost 40 years now.

On Friday, he was celebrating 30 years of the political system he invented – Jamahiriya.

He calls it “direct democracy” – rule by the people, though opponents see it as a cover for dictatorship.

Col Gaddafi said he would like to see a time Libya did not need him as leader – because self-rule through local communes and committees reporting decisions up to the centre was working without the need for a ruler.

But he shows no sign of giving up power.

Gaddafi Foundation: http://gdf.org.ly/ 

GUINEA: Aboubacar Diallo, “I buried my 7-year-old niece this morning”

CONAKRY, 16 February (IRIN) – Aboubacar Diallo says his seven-year-old niece, Aicha, was shot and killed by uniformed soldiers shooting randomly in the Taouyah suburb of Conakry on Wednesday night. The girl made it to hospital, but died because blood and medicines were not available. She was buried without a ceremony on Thursday morning.

Conakry and other towns have been under martial law since President Lansana Conte called in the army on Monday to end days of rioting and looting by youths demanding his resignation. Residents say the army is spreading terror by robbing and raping residents in the suburbs, and shooting in the air and at people.

“Last night after the start of the curfew at 8pm soldiers came into the district and started shooting into the air to warn people not to come out. They are doing that in all the areas where there was rioting before, shooting into the air to announce the start of the curfew.”

“One of the bullets came through the wall and hit Aicha, who was lying in her bed. The bullet hit her in the head.”

“She was unconscious and haemorrhaging blood and we knew she had to go to hospital.”

“When the shooting stopped, her father took her in his arms and went out into the street. It was deserted. He walked about half a kilometre to the main road and waited a long time until a private car with two soldiers passed and took them to the Donka hospital.”

“By the time they got to the hospital she was almost dead. The doctors there tried to help but they had no blood and no medicines. The bleeding could not be stopped and she passed away not long after they got there.”

“Today her father is so devastated he can’t speak. We can’t stop her mother crying. She is crying and crying.”

“God gave us Aicha and it’s him who took her back.”

“She was buried this morning at 11 am in the cemetery close to her home. Hardly anyone came because of the curfew. It was done very fast, without any honour.”

mc/ail/nr/cs

IRIN news

Oxfam urges action as Security Council meets on Chad

N’DJAMENA, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Aid agency Oxfam urged the international community to tackle rising violence in eastern Chad before it becomes “another Darfur”, ahead of a Security Council meeting on Thursday to decide on a peacekeeping force.

Ethnic conflict and a simmering rebellion in Chad’s east have displaced tens of thousands of people and hampered efforts to aid a flood of refugees from Sudan’s western Darfur region, where a four-year conflict has killed more than 200,000 people.

The Security Council was due to meet on Thursday to discuss a proposal to deploy a mission to protect civilians and respond to humanitarian challenges in eastern Chad.

Oxfam called on U.N. member states to make financial and logistical preparations to deploy peacekeepers this month, should the Security Council give its approval on Thursday.

“The situation is spiralling out of control,” Roland Van Hauwermeiren, head of Oxfam in Chad, said in a statement.

“We are facing an extraordinary situation as more than 230,000 refugees who fled attacks in Darfur in 2003 and 2004 are joined by thousands of Chadians fleeing a new wave of fighting at home,” he added.

With violence blocking efforts to establish decent camps and provide clean drinking water, Oxfam said diarrhea, cholera and hepatitis could spread among thousands of displaced people.

“In some of the areas where we work, you’ve got 12,000 or 15,000 people and not a single latrine,” said Van Hauwermeiren. In the northeastern province of Dar Tama, traditional rivalries are turning into a major conflict, as groups become better armed and more numerous.

In the southeastern region of Dar Sila, cross-border raids are being carried out by Darfur’s Janjaweed ethnic militia.

A variety of rebel groups are engaged with a cat-and-mouse war with President Idriss Deby’s forces all across eastern Chad.

A senior U.N. official in the region said this week the United Nations was already preparing an advance mission to the Chad-Sudan border area to lay the groundwork for a possible international force.

An initial U.N. assessment mission sent to Chad in November concluded it was too dangerous to send in peacekeepers until all sides agreed to a political truce.

However, diplomats said the Security Council ordered a reassessment after its members complained at a closed-door session that too little was being done to protect suffering civilians.

Guinea forces abusing population – rights group

By Saliou Samb

CONAKRY, Feb 16 (Reuters) – Guinea’s security forces are shooting, beating and robbing civilians under martial law, a rights group said on Friday, as international pressure grew for President Lansana Conte to strike a deal with opponents.

The capital Conakry and upcountry towns were calm and under tight military control four days after Conte declared a state of siege to quell a popular rebellion, triggered by a general strike, against his rule over the West African state.

Guinean authorities on Friday lifted martial law at the country’s main bauxite mine, Sangaredi, to allow a restart of halted exports of bauxite, the economic lifeblood of the country. Guinea is the world’s leading shipper of the bauxite ore from which aluminium is extracted.

While martial law appeared to have largely restored order, the killings since early January of more than 120 people, mostly unarmed civilians, in clashes with soldiers and police have drawn sharp condemnation of Conte’s government.

“Guinean security forces are using martial law as an excuse to terrorize ordinary Guineans,” Human Rights Watch’s Africa director, Peter Takirambudde, said in a statement.

“Under the guise of reestablishing law and order, they’re acting like common criminals, beating, robbing and brutalizing the population they’re supposed to protect,” he added.

Former colonial power France, hosting a summit of African leaders in Cannes, led calls for Conte’s government to seek a peaceful political deal acceptable to all sides.

“We have adopted a resolution … firmly calling on Guinean authorities to get out of the impasse, to protect the civilian population, to launch a political process,” French President Jacques Chirac told a news conference.

The West African regional bloc ECOWAS said it was sending former Nigerian President Ibrahim Babangida to Guinea at the weekend to try to broker a settlement.

Guinean officials sought to fend off the criticism, saying security forces had faced looters, escaped prisoners and protesters who had obtained arms smuggled into the country.

“We regret the sporadic shooting by uncontrolled elements, sometimes dressed in military uniform,” army chief of staff Kerfala Camara told state radio late on Thursday.

CIVIL WAR RISK

Opposition and union leaders say Conte, a chain-smoking general and reclusive diabetic in his 70s, is not fit to rule and should cede powers to a government led by an independent prime minister agreed on by consensus.

Union negotiators pressed this point on Thursday when they met state officials to try to thrash out a solution that would end the strike and lift martial law.

They demanded that Conte, who has ruled since seizing power in a 1984 coup, annul his choice last week of a close ally, Eugene Camara, to be prime minister.

Some analysts have warned the heavy-handed military crackdown could lead to a possible civil war which could spread beyond Guinea’s borders in a volatile region.

Human Rights Watch cited witnesses in Conakry’s suburbs as saying that security forces, especially the presidential guard, had searched private homes, breaking down doors and stealing cell phones, cameras, and money.

“(They) have seriously beaten individuals with clubs and rifle butts, and have even shot and wounded individuals protesting the theft of their household goods,” the group said.

Human Rights Watch said security forces had been responsible for at least 22 killings in the past five days. It cited other credible sources as saying at least three women had been raped by uniformed personnel, including soldiers. (Additional reporting by Kirsten Gemlich in Paris)

 

GUINEA: Life means terror in army-run Conakry

CONAKRY, 16 February (IRIN) – “The boss made reference to President Lansana Conte and gave us the order to shoot anyone provocative, so whoever provokes me, I will shoot him without any hesitation,” said a Kalashnikov-toting soldier in the main street outside the Donka hospital in central Conakry on Thursday, who refused to give his name.

The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday security forces have killed at least 22 people using this justification since last weekend.

Of those, HRW said at least one was killed since President Conte imposed 10 days of martial law on Monday night, although news reports have recorded nine people killed around the country since then.

In addition to the HRW count, IRIN has confirmed that a seven year-old girl, Aicha Diallo, was shot and killed during random shooting by uniformed soldiers in the Taouyah suburb of Conakry on Wednesday. CLICK to read Aicha Diallo’s story.

Guineans say uniformed soldiers have also been looting, raping and beating people at random in most of the sprawling city’s suburbs.

Violence erupted in Conakry and in towns across Guinea on Saturday after President Conte announced on Friday evening he would appoint a man seen as his close ally to the prime minister post, a position populist unions now leading calls for his resignation say he promised to an independent candidate.

Most areas of Conakry are calm since the army took over, although demonstrations have been reported in the towns Banankoro in the south and Labe in the centre of the country.

Provocations

Guineans struggling to live in Conakry, the rundown capital, where they are only allowed out of their houses between noon and 6pm, say ‘provocations’ can include staring, wearing a desirable pair of shoes, or simply being in the wrong place when the jeeps of soldiers careering around the city start shooting their guns in the air.

Alseny Bah, 21, was leaving his house in the maze of alleyways in the Petit Lac area of Taouyah district in the north of Conakry on Thursday, looking for an open kiosk to buy food.

“When I left the house, a soldier saw me straight away. I ran away but he trapped me in a corner and beat me with his fists. When I fell down he went through my pockets,” Bah said on Thursday.

Bah lost his cell phone, and the equivalent of US $8 in cash. The soldier even took his worn Nike running shoes.

Shot hiding in the closet

In the Hafea district in the east of the city, Aminata, 30, didn’t even leave her house but still got caught up in the violence, according to her sister, who gave her name as Djenadob.

“We heard trucks pulling up outside and shouting, then shooting started,” Djenadob said. The girls hit inside their wardrobe, but when the shooting stopped Aminata was slumped, bleeding.

Neighbours said later the soldiers were shooting into the air as a warning to people not to come outside. One of the bullets pierced the flimsy tin walls of the sisters’ shack and clipped Aminata.

The family borrowed a neighbour’s car and risked the long drive to the city’s only functioning hospital. Aminata’s condition later was unclear.

Stoned, raped

At the Donka hospital, the mother of a young boy who was hit in the head with a rock thrown by soldiers on Wednesday says he has not eaten or spoken since the attack.

“The soldier was going to shoot him but his colleague stopped him, so he threw a rock instead and it cracked his head,” she said.

In its statement on Friday, HRW said at least three women living in Conakry’s suburbs have been raped by uniformed personnel, including soldiers and presidential guardsmen.

“At least one victim was reportedly gang-raped,” the statement said.

“People in the suburbs are terrified because they say the soldiers are going to come in and ‘kill and rape us and send red berets into our homes’,” said HRW researcher Dustin Sharp who was in Conakry until Thursday.

Culture of impunity

Guineans say they are far more afraid of the army than the regular police or gendarmes.

“It’s the army that kills,” said a 33-year-old journalist, who did not want to be named. “We have much more reason to fear them than the police or gendarmes.”

HRW has previously accused the Guinean security services of torture and murder and said there is a “culture of impunity” compounded by a weak judicial system.

The army chief-of-staff, Gen Kerfalla Camara, told journalists in Conakry on Friday that a commission has been set up to look into allegations of army abuse.

But Sharp said no Guinean security personnel have ever been prosecuted for serious crimes, including the shooting of 13 unarmed students during a strike in June last year.

Despite the unrest, Sharp said many people he met in Conakry still wanted to demand Conte’s resignation when martial law is lifted.

“It’s an open question to what extent the resistance has been broken,” Sharp said.

Civil society leaders are due to sit down with the military on Saturday to start negotiations to end the crisis.

mc/nr/cs

IRIN news

Pressure grows on Guinea’s Conte to end martial law

By Saliou Samb

CONAKRY, Feb 16 (Reuters) – The United States, France and African leaders urged Guinea’s President Lansana Conte on Friday to end martial law and negotiate a political settlement with opponents contesting his rule over the West African country.

As human rights groups accused Conte’s security forces of shooting, beating and robbing civilians under martial law, the Guinean president came under intense international pressure to avoid further turmoil in the world’s leading bauxite exporter.

The seaside capital Conakry and upcountry towns are under tight military control four days after Conte declared a 12-day state of siege to quell a popular rebellion, triggered by a general strike against his 23-year autocratic rule.

The killings since early January of more than 120 people, mostly unarmed civilians, in clashes with soldiers and police have drawn sharp international condemnation of Conte.

“The United States is deeply concerned over the crisis in Guinea … We condemn the suspension — even partial — of civilian rule, the use of lethal force against the civilian population, the abrogation of basic freedoms, and the roll-back of the democratic process,” the U.S. government said.

It called for martial law to be lifted and the return of the military to their barracks.

“The disorder that plagues Guinea reflects widespread popular discontent caused by decades of poor governance,” the U.S. embassy in Conakry said in a statement.

Hosting a summit of African leaders in Cannes, French President Jacques Chirac also called for a democratic solution in the former French colony which became independent in 1958.

“We have adopted a resolution … firmly calling on Guinean authorities … to protect the civilian population, to launch a political process,” Chirac told a news conference.

Chirac said French planes and ships were ready to evacuate, if necessary, some 2,000 French citizens from Guinea, as well as Lebanese, U.S. and other citizens. The United States has already flown some of its nationals out.

Guinean union leaders and state officials, who held talks on Thursday, were due to meet again on Saturday to try to thrash out a solution that would end the strike and lift martial law.

ECOWAS MISSION

The West African regional bloc ECOWAS said it was sending former Nigerian President Ibrahim Babangida to Guinea at the weekend to try to broker a settlement.

Opposition and union leaders say Conte, a chain-smoking general and reclusive diabetic in his 70s, is not fit to rule and should cede powers to a government led by an independent prime minister agreed on by consensus.

They are demanding that Conte, who has ruled since seizing power in a 1984 coup, annul his choice last week of a close ally, Eugene Camara, to be prime minister.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch accused Guinea’s security forces of using martial law to “terrorise” ordinary Guineans.

“Under the guise of reestablishing law and order, they’re acting like common criminals, beating, robbing and brutalizing the population they’re supposed to protect,” HRW’s Africa director, Peter Takirambudde, said in a statement.

Guinean authorities on Friday lifted martial law at the country’s main bauxite mine, Sangaredi, to allow a restart of halted exports of bauxite, the country’s economic lifeblood.

Some analysts have warned the heavy-handed military crackdown could lead to a possible civil war which could spread beyond Guinea’s borders in a volatile region. (Additional reporting by Kirsten Gemlich in Paris)

Darfur rebel group says accepts cease-fire, talks

By Opheera McDoom and Aziz el-Kaissouni

KHARTOUM, Feb 15 (Reuters) – One of the biggest Darfur rebel factions said on Thursday it would respect a cease-fire and was ready to resume peace talks with the government to try to halt violence in the region that has killed some 200,000 people.

Peace talks have faltered in the past, and only one of three main rebel factions signed a 2006 deal. Since then the rebels have fragmented into numerous factions, but the group which has agreed to the cease-fire is one of the largest.

“We will respect the … cease-fire and … once we have our commanders conference we will attend peace negotiations,” rebel commander Jar el-Neby told Reuters.

U.N. Darfur envoy Jan Eliasson and his African Union counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim earlier met Darfur rebel commanders who rejected the 2006 deal.

The U.N. Security Council is expected to consult next week on proposals for a mission to protect civilians in eastern Chad, where attacks launched from Darfur have exacerbated ethnic conflicts and displaced tens of thousands.

At a French-African summit in the southern French resort Cannes on Thursday, Sudan, Chad and Central African Republic agreed not to support rebels attacking each other’s territory, Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol said.

“There is a commitment in this agreement that each country will respect the sovereignty of the other countries and no country will support any rebellion within its territory,”" Akol told reporters after the meeting.

POSITIONS SOFTENED

The Darfur rebels have in the past said they want the 2006 agreement to be scrapped but the government has refused to allow any changes or additions to the accord.

Eliasson told a news conference that those extreme positions seemed to have softened during their talks, and “that leaves diplomatic space.”

Rebels have in the past rejected AU mediation in any new talks on the ground that the first peace deal, which the pan-African body mediated, was biased.

“We will now be happy with mediation from the United Nations and the AU,” said Neby.

The joint team has not yet met the other large rebel faction, the National Redemption Front, whose political leadership is divided. Eliasson said the NRF had wanted to meet in Chad, but logistics prevented his team from traveling there.

Divisions among Darfur’s rebel factions have been a factor in delaying peace talks with Khartoum, and an oft-delayed conference to try to unite their positions is now due to start on Feb. 19.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday that he was awaiting a report from Eliasson and a reply from Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on a hybrid peacekeeping force of U.N. and African Union troops in Darfur.

“So again, this continuing deteriorating situation in Darfur is just unacceptable,” Ban said.

Sudan has agreed to a hybrid force but has objected to more troops coming to Darfur than the 7,000-strong African Union force now on the ground.

The United States is putting pressure on African governments to offer troops for the hybrid force. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington, “We would say that it is your responsibility because of the nature of the situation to make those contributions.”

Most of the AU soldiers now on the ground would be incorporated into a new mission the United Nations hoped would have some 17,000 troops. But until plans are settled, few other countries, except for Bangladesh, have volunteered to send soldiers or logistic personnel Western nations are to provide.

Ban also said he was disappointed Sudan had broken its promise to allow a U.N. human rights mission into Darfur. He urged Sudan to cooperate fully, adding that if Bashir “believes that there is no problem, then he should be able to receive the human rights fact-finding mission.”

Experts estimate 2.5 million people have been driven from their homes in four years of conflict in Darfur. Washington calls the violence genocide, a term European governments are reluctant to use and Khartoum rejects. (Additional reporting by Evelyn Leopold at the United Nations, and Sue Pleming in Washington)