Conservationists Appalled By Slaughter Of Gorillas In Congo
[The Courier-Mail, August 10, 2007]
Conservationists are appalled at the continuing slaughter of gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Photographs released yesterday by the World Wildlife Funds show horrific scenes of dead mountain gorillas being carried by park rangers. Four gorillas were found shot dead last month in the Virunga National Park -- home to an estimated 60 per cent of the 700-strong worldwide mountain gorilla population. The biggest was a 2m silverback adult male. The others were adult females.
The majestic creatures are the latest victims of seven brutal and senseless killings over the past two months. The reason for the killings is unclear. Poaching has been ruled out.
Traditionally, gorillas have been poached for their hands, feet and skulls. But these four were left intact. And weeks earlier, at a similar grizzly scene, a baby gorilla was left clinging terrified to its dead mother.
Rosalind Aveling, director of conservation for Fauna And Flora International, said the deaths looked worryingly like an execution. Conservationists think the apes were helpless pawns in an increasingly violent human feud, and killed by people trying to scare the dedicated wardens away from the sanctuary of the park. They claim the protected area has been coming under increasing pressure from outside exploitation, especially from the powerful charcoal trade which wants the park's wood.
Ms Aveling said the deaths were also a tragedy for the people of Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC, who share the range where the mountain gorillas exist. "They rely on the income from the tourism they generate," she said. "The loss of any gorilla will have a huge impact." Meanwhile, days after its mother was taken for a post-mortem at the park's laboratory, one of the babies is still missing. "The whole thing is particularly distressing because after more than 30 years of work in the area, conservationists had finally seen a small increase in the tiny mountain gorilla population of the Virunga National Park," Ms Aveling said.
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SOMALIAN PIRATES DEMAND $ 1.5 MILLION RANSOM FOR SHIP
[Agence France-Presse, July 22, 2007]
Pirates have demanded a $US1.5 million ($1.71 million) ransom for the release of a Danish freighter and its crew held off the coast of Somalia, officials said today.
The Danica White, with five crew members, was hijacked on June 2, about 240 nautical miles off the Somali coast while heading to Kenya's Mombasa port. "We were informed yesterday that the pirates are demanding $US1.5 million in order to release the vessel," said Kenyan official Andrew Mwangura.
Three other vessels – one from Taiwan and two from South Korea – are also currently held by pirates off the coast of war-torn Somalia and a Panama-flagged cargo vessel was recently reported to have gone missing in Somali waters. The International Maritime Bureau said this year had seen at least seven pirate attacks off Somalia's 3700km of unpatrolled coastline.
Pirate attacks have increased since late 2006, when ruling Islamists were ousted by Ethiopian and Somali troops. Lying in a strategic position at the mouth of the Red Sea, Somalia has been without an effective government since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991.
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TWO-YEAR-OLD BOY BEHEADED AND MUTILATED BY MUNGIKI
[Reuters, July 12, 2007]
A two year-old boy was beheaded and chopped up in a Kenyan capital slum today, police said, amid a fierce crackdown on an illegal sect blamed for a string of murders and decapitations. The boy's mutilated torso was discovered in a maize farm and his head 500m away at a river bank in capital's Nairobi's crime-prone Korogocho slums, police commander Paul Ruto said. The remains had no limbs, the chest was lacerated and the genitals chopped off, raising speculation that the body parts might be used in rites by the politically-linked Mungiki sect.
“The boy has been identified positively by his father who says he went missing two days ago,” Mr Ruto said. "We have recorded statements from several people and are now searching for the killers." The remains were discovered hours after police said they had killed 12 people in a crackdown on organised crime gangs in Nairobi, including members of Mungiki. Once a religious group of dreadlocked youths who embraced traditional rituals, Mungiki has morphed into a ruthless gang blamed for criminal activities including extortion and murder. Since March, the sect -- which was banned in 2002 -- has been blamed for the murders of at least 43 people, 13 of whom were beheaded, mostly in Nairobi slums and central Kenya.
The group also has alleged historic ties to the Mau Mau independence uprising, and is said to perpetuate customs such as female excision. The police crackdown against it comes ahead of December general elections. So far, it has resulted in the deaths of at least 79 Mungiki members and more than 3000 arrests nationwide. Police said 11 of the 12 suspects killed were linked to a foiled carjacking and robberies in three Nairobi suburbs.
At least three of them were members of the Mungiki sect, they added.
“We have intensified the crackdown on all organised gangs, including Mungiki,” said another police commander, Julius Ndegwa.
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US DRUG GIANT CHARGED WITH USING CHILDREN AS GUINEA PIGS IN NIGERIA
[BBC, June 4, 2007]
A court case filed by Nigeria's Kano State against Pfizer Inc. over a controversial drug trial in which 11 children died has been delayed. The trial was pushed back by a month to allow the US pharmaceutical giant to appear before the Kano court. The case could not begin as planned because the defendants were not in court, Kano government's lawyer said.
Kano government wants $2.7bn compensation for 100 children used as "guinea pigs" in the 1996 drug trial. Pfizer tested its drug Trovafloxacin in some meningitis-stricken children at the Infectious Disease Hospital in Kano in 1996. Many of the children reportedly died, while several others developed permanent mental and physical deformities.
The government says the children were injected with the drug without the consent of their illiterate parents. "The defendants were not in court today so the matter was adjourned to enable them make the next court date," Suleiman Namallam, counsel to the Kano Government told the BBC News website.
A Nigerian government investigative panel concluded in 2001 that that the Pfizer experiment was "an illegal trial of an unregistered drug." The panel also said the clinical trial was "clear case of exploitation of the ignorant."
Pfizer denies the allegations and claims that its clinical trials were done according to Nigerian laws and international standards. The drug company claims that "verbal consent was obtained" from the parents of the children that took part in the trial and that the exercise was "sound from medical, scientific, regulatory and ethical standpoints."
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IVORY COAST IS WELL ON THE ROAD TO REUNIFICATION
[Reuters, May 20, 2007]
Burning a small pile of rusty rifles and machine guns, militias that backed the government in Côte d'Ivoire's 2002 to 2003 civil war completed their disarmament on Saturday, taking the country one step closer to reunification.
The civilian combatants fought in some of the fiercest battles of the conflict, in which the rebels seized the north of the world's top cocoa grower. They are feared by locals in the far-western town of Guiglo, which they have controlled since.
"Thanks to you who took up arms to defend your fields and your villages," President Laurent Gbagbo told the groups at a ceremony in Guiglo supposedly marking the end of the hastily conducted disarmament. "We have 1 027 weapons." Brandishing a flaming torch, interim head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission, Abou Moussa, set light to a symbolic pile of guns thrown into a pit and covered with wood and straw. Onlookers cheered, shouting the country's conflict was now over.
Côte d'Ivoire's peace process foundered for more than four years as politicians squabbled but has made strides forward since March when Gbagbo and rebel leader Guillaume Soro (pictured) signed a home-grown peace pact after foreign-brokered accords failed. Gbagbo subsequently named the rebel chief as his prime minister. The agreement foresees disarmament of all combatants on both the rebel and government sides and the formation of a new army as well as reunification and the organisation of long-delayed elections that were supposed to take place in 2005.
'No more reason to exist'
Denis Maho Glofiei, head of the Great West Liberation Front (FLGO), one of the four militia groups, said they were disarming in support of the latest peace efforts. "We've realised that since the signing of the ... peace deal, we have no more reason to exist. Anyone possessing an arm from today does so illegally and not in the name of the FLGO," he said, after handing a machine gun and rifle to Gbagbo.
Mechanic Lacine Kone from Guiglo said he was grateful for the part the militias played in the conflict but was glad to see them go. Some locals say they are violent towards residents. "They helped us but after that they started to mistreat us civilians so if they're going now to enable peace, that's good," he said as robed village elders and guests took their seats at the ceremony under tarpaulins to shade them from the sun.
Disarming of the militia groups, which have previously claimed to have 10 000 members, has long been a major obstacle to peace and the New Forces rebels have maintained they would not turn in their own guns until they were gone. The sudden start to their disarmament, which defence adviser Kadet has overseen with the groups' leaders this week, contrasts with the fanfare of a failed attempt last August to disband them with offers of cash, job training and medical care. United Nations officials at the ceremony told reporters more weapons would be rounded up over the next fortnight while the head of the national disarmament programme, General Ouassenan Kone, said reintegration support was being offered to the ex-combatants.
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DEMONSTRATORS FOUND GUILTY BY ETHIOPIAN COURT
[BBC, June 11, 2007]
A court in Ethiopia has found 38 senior opposition figures guilty of charges connected to mass protests after disputed elections two years ago. The charges ranged from armed rebellion to "outrage against the constitution." Sentencing is next month and they could face the death penalty, says the BBC's Elizabeth Blunt in Ethiopia.
Hundreds of thousands took part in demonstrations complaining of fraud and vote-rigging by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's government in the 2005 polls. The opposition leaders refuse to recognise the court and did not present evidence in their defence. The judge said that because they had failed to defend themselves he had no option but to find them guilty.
One leader of the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy in London, found guilty in absentia, told the BBC it was "very sudden and tragic news." Almost 200 people died in two waves of protests. The CUD blamed the deaths on the security forces but Mr Meles accused the opposition of starting the violent protests. His government also points out that it introduced multi-party elections to Ethiopia after years of military rule.
In the elections, the opposition made huge gains but says it was cheated out of victory. An independent inquiry carried out by an Ethiopian judge concluded that the police had used excessive force. He went on to accuse them of carrying out a massacre. The judge later fled Ethiopia, saying he had been put under pressure to change his findings and had received death threats.
Two months ago, a judge threw out controversial charges of attempted genocide and treason against 111 people arrested after the election protests. The violence and the charges of election fraud have tarnished Mr Meles' image as a favourite of Western donors and one of a new wave of reforming African leaders.
[Picture shows ex-governor Joshua Dariye]
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BUSHMEN HAVE SURVIVED 50,000 YEARS, BUT NOW THREATENED BY MODERNISATION
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[Washington Post, June 11, 2007]
One of the last remaining tribes of hunter-gatherers on the planet is on the verge of vanishing into the modern world. The transition has been long underway, but members of the dwindling Hadzabe tribe, who now number fewer than 1,500, say it is being unduly hastened by a United Arab Emirates royal family, which plans to use the tribal hunting land as a personal safari playground.
The deal between the Tanzanian government and Tanzania UAE Safaris Ltd. leases nearly 2,500 square miles of this sprawling, yellow-green valley near the storied Serengeti Plain to members of the royal family, who chose it after a helicopter tour. A Tanzanian official said that a nearby hunting area the family shared with relatives had become "too crowded" and that a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family "indicated that it was inconvenient" and requested his own parcel. The official, Philip Marmo, called the Hadzabe "backwards" and said they would benefit from the school, roads and other projects the UAE company has offered as compensation.
But dozens of Hadzabe interviewed deep in the scruffy hills surrounding this valley said that while they are ready to modernize, slowly, they were not consulted on the deal, which is a direct threat to their way of life because it involves hunting. While they have through 50,000 years survived the coming of agriculture, metal, guns, diseases, missionaries, poachers, anthropologists, students, gawking journalists, corrugated steel houses and encroaching pastoral tribes who often impersonate them for tourist money, the resilient Hadzabe, who still make fire with sticks, fear that the safari deal will be their undoing.
"If they are going to come here, we definitely will all perish," said Kaunda, a Hadzabe man who prefers khakis but still hunts with hand-hewn poison arrows. "Our history will die, and the Hadzabe will be swept off the face of the world. We are very much afraid."
Their fear is based on a similar agreement the government struck years ago with another company that resulted in dozens of Hadzabe men being arrested for hunting on tribal land. Three of the men died of illness in the bewildering environment of prison, cut off from the open world, their daily hunting and their diet of herbs, roots and honey. Three others died soon after being released. "We're not used to that kind of life in jail," said Gudo, an elderly Hadzabe whose best friend, Sumuni, was among those who perished. "Sumuni was my age. Our fathers were friends. We played together, learned how to hunt together," he said, looking away. "I don't want to talk anymore."
A recent meeting in the Yaeda Valley on the issue ended with several Hadzabe men shouting at Tanzanian government officials for ignoring them. One of the men was later charged with disruptive behavior and jailed for several days. Two others who have spoken against the deal said they have been threatened with arrest and are now on the run, moving from hut to hut to elude police. Others seem prepared to fight an intruder they barely know.
Although the Hadzabe characteristically avoid confrontation by fleeing into the bush, a group of men recently greeted a passing convoy of Land Cruisers with bows drawn. "I don't even know what an Arab looks like," said Kaunda, who was among them. "Maybe he's black. Maybe he's another color. I don't know. But we are ready to die."
The Hadzabe are highly decentralized, living in remote, mobile settlements of two or three families scattered throughout the valley. They are also egalitarian, with no real hierarchy or leadership, and tend to reach decisions by consensus. Even if the tribe came up with a solution, it remains unclear whether the Tanzanian government or the UAE company would be willing to compromise. Marmo said the Hadzabe -- who until recently had no use for money, organized religion or standard time -- are "the one backwards group in the country. We want them to go to school," said Marmo, who is Tanzania's minister for good governance and represents the valley in parliament. "We want them to wear clothes. We want them to be decent."
Messages left with the UAE Embassy in Washington and a company representative were not returned. The Hadzabe are believed to be the second-oldest people on Earth, and they still hunt and gather as a way of life, if occasionally before audiences of khaki-covered tourists, who flock to northern Tanzania by the thousands. All live in the Yaeda Valley and surrounding hills, where one of the wanted men, Gonga Petro, lounged against a rock recently and reflected on his difficulties.
"It's very important to go to work and hunt, but now, you can just walk from morning to night and if you're lucky, you might come back with a dik-dik," he sighed, referring to an animal that is embarrassingly small for someone who once slew two zebras, an antelope and a buffalo in a single day. "But there's always an alternative. The baobab. Together with the herbs."
It was morning in his settlement, the four straw huts nearly invisible amid waist-high grass, thorny bushes and thick-trunked baobab trees. The four children were out gathering fruits and pretending to be frogs. Their mothers sat outside, picking leaves off branches for lunch. Gonga sharpened arrows. His family and one other moved to the spot three years ago to escape a cholera epidemic, he said, one of a multitude of problems the Hadzabe face.
The Yaeda Valley once teemed with elephants, zebras, antelopes and other animals migrating to the Serengeti Plain, but the wildlife populations have dwindled in recent decades because of heavy poaching and because several farming and cattle-herding tribes have drifted into the area, competing for water and grazing land.
Some Hadzabe have tried to adopt their neighbors' ways, starting small farms. Others have headed to villages to look for jobs. Mostly, the Hadzabe's economy depends on selling wild honey in exchange for something called money, which Gonga once used to roll his cigarettes.
"Money was just papers," he recalled. "It was very strange, because we learned you could take this paper to a shop and get a pen. It was very interesting." He lit a cigarette, rolled with a piece of newspaper that described a papal visit.
Government efforts over 40 years to forcibly integrate the Hadzabe into modern society have mostly failed. Instead, the Hadzabe seem to have preferred changing at their own pace, adopting bits of modern life over centuries.
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SUDAN AGREES TO JOINT UN - AFRICAN UNION PEACEKEEPING FORCE IN DARFUR
[BBC, June 12, 2007]
Sudan has agreed to a revised plan for a joint UN-African Union (AU) peacekeeping force to be sent to war-torn Darfur, AU sources say. Under the new plan, the AU will run day-to-day operations, while the UN is expected to have overall control of between 17,000 to 19,000 peacekeepers. However, there remains some doubt as to whether Sudan would allow peacekeepers made up of non-African troops. The current AU force of 7,000 has struggled to contain the violence.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has hailed the agreement and stressed the need for an immediate comprehensive ceasefire in the strife-torn region, AFP news agency reports, quoting a statement by UN spokeswoman Michele Montas. Sudan's foreign minister said that Sudan would accept non-African troops in Darfur, but US officials are sceptical.
Sean McCormack, US State Department spokesman, said: "President Bashir has made promises before about accepting an AU/UN hybrid force, but there's always the fine print." He said it would be difficult to get enough African troops to go to Darfur because "the assets simply aren't there. "So, to say that the force would be limited to only African troops is, in effect, to say that you are not agreeing to the full 17,000 to 19,000 troops."
More than 200,000 people have died in the four-year conflict and around two million have fled to refugee camps. The AU and UN presented their revised peacekeeping plan at talks in Addis Ababa. The new plan has been created to get round the objections of the Sudanese government, which does not want a solely UN force, which it says would be like a Western invasion of their country. "In view of the explanation and clarification provided by the AU and the UN as contained in the presentation, the government of Sudan accepted the joint proposals on the hybrid operation," AP news agency quotes Said Djinnit, the AU's top peace and security official, as saying.
The BBC's Elizabeth Blunt in Addis Ababa says the mood was cheerful at the AU headquarters after the announcement was made. A timetable for the deployment of the force was vague, she said, and will not be before next year.
"This is a unique situation of a hybrid operation and we are most likely going to face some difficulties on the ground, but with the spirit of co-operation we are confident," Mr Djinnit told the BBC. "We came a long way together not only as the AU and UN but also in working with the government of Sudan. As far as possible the African character of the mission should be preserved.”
Our correspondent says the actual composition of the force was not part of the agreement -- this will be the next stage in the process. But from Mr Djinnit's comments it is expected that it will be made up mainly African or Asian soldiers, with possible Scandinavian expertise. No US or UK soldiers are likely to be part of the operation, our reporter says.
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