Africa in Crisis- The Merged Superthread

[Blackadder1916]

Rwanda troops enter Congo to help fight rebel militias

Congolese President Joseph Kabila invites foreign troops onto his soil for a second time in a month. The joint military operation is aimed at restoring security in the eastern part of his country.

By Edmund Sanders Los Angeles Times January 21, 2009

Reporting from Nairobi, Kenya -- Hundreds of Rwandan troops crossed into Congo early Tuesday as part of a joint military operation to crack down on rebel militias that have been destabilizing the Central African giant for more than a decade.

It is the second time in a month that Congolese President Joseph Kabila has made a controversial decision to invite foreign troops onto his nation's soil to help restore security in eastern Congo. Last month, Ugandan and southern Sudanese troops entered the Democratic Republic of Congo to attack hide-outs of the Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan rebel movement.

The latest campaign appears to be targeting a Rwandan rebel army that also had sought refuge in Congo's dense jungles. The Hutu militia, known as Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, is accused of seeking to overthrow Rwanda's Tutsi-led government.

The FDLR, which finances itself by illegally exploiting Congo's mineral riches, was founded by Hutu extremists who fled Rwanda after orchestrating the 1994 genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 people died.

Early Tuesday, 1,500 to 2,000 Rwandan troops crossed the border and began making their way toward the town of Rutshuru, north of the regional capital of Goma, where they were expected to join Congolese troops with tanks and other heavy equipment, United Nations officials said.

Details of the impending operation were unclear, but a Congolese government spokesman told Reuters news agency that the campaign should last 10 to 15 days.

U.N. officials, who in Congo oversee the world's largest peacekeeping force, complained that they received only a vague notice Monday night about the planned operation, even though their mandate is to provide security.

"We don't know what the exact aim is," said Lt. Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich, a U.N. military spokesman. "Quite surprisingly, we were a little bit sidelined."

He called upon both governments to ensure that any military crackdown complies with international law and provides adequate security for civilians. As a precaution, he said, U.N. troops deployed Tuesday to some displacement camps in the region.

Aid groups and civilians criticized last month's joint operation against the Lord's Resistance Army as ill prepared. After being bombed by Ugandan helicopters, LRA rebels launched dozens of attacks against civilians, killing more than 500 people and displacing thousands in the last month.

The presence of more foreign troops in Congo is also stirring uncomfortable memories of the late 1990s, when soldiers from Uganda and Rwanda twice invaded to help overthrow Congolese regimes. Both countries claimed to be pursuing rebels and stabilizing their borders, but they also profited heavily from illegal mining.

One military official in Congo, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the joint Rwandan-Congolese force might also be used to reestablish the Congolese government's authority over territories recently seized by another rebel group, the Tutsi-led National Congress for the Defense of the People, or CNDP, which seeks to overthrow Kabila.

The CNDP, which historically has received support from the Rwandan government, has been weakened recently by an internal power struggle.

The presence of rebel militias in eastern Congo has long been a sore spot between the governments of Rwanda and Congo. Rwandan officials accused the Congolese army of protecting and even joining forces with the FDLR guerrillas. The Congolese government, in return, accuses Rwanda of backing the CNDP. A recent U.N. investigation found evidence to support both claims.

Last month, the two governments reached an agreement to work together to disarm the FDLR, which is estimated to have 6,000 fighters.

edmund.sanders@latimes.com

 

[George Wallace]

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.  (Title is link to article and video.)

Ransom for kidnapped Alta. journalist lowered



There's new hope that an Alberta journalist missing in Somalia may still be alive.   


24/01/2009 12:12:14 PM

Melissa Dominelli

Ransom for Amanda Lindhout has reportedly dropped from $2.5 million to $100,000 and a Somali journalist who was traveling with Lindhout has been released.

Abdifatah Mohamed Elmi said he has no idea why their group was abducted back in August but he still has hope that Amanda Lindhout will be released safely.

Elmi was working as a journalist last August when he met up with two other journalists, Albertan journalist Amanda Lindhout and Australian Nigel Brennan.

"We had a relation kind of quickly because they are journalists and I am journalist, and we worked together," Elmi told CTV News on the phone Friday.

The trio decided to report on the situation at this refugee camp at the port of Elasha so they left by car, along with two Somali drivers, but they never made it to the camp.

Just southwest of Mogadishu in Somalia, their car was pulled over by men with guns, who blindfolded the group.

"We were kidnapped at the same time and the kidnappers had guns pointed (at) us," Elmi said.

The group was separated and held captive for five months and during that time, the captors released video of Lindhout and Brennan, in which the kidnappers demanded millions for their safe return.

"I asked them, where's my colleagues? They told me, don't ask us this question," he said.

Earlier this month, Elmi was released and he thinks that because the ransom has been reportedly dropped for both journalists, it's a sign that they may be okay.

"I think Amanda and Nigel are still alive," Elmi said. "The kidnappers want something."

Back in October, the kidnappers threatened to kill Lindhout if they didn't receive the money by the end of the month. It's a deadline that passed close to three months ago.

With files from CTV's Bill Fortier

 

[cameron]

Nations, regions, and ethnicities have various strengths and weaknesses.

It is not the case that the British, for example, do not excel at bureacracy.

It is not the case that Africa has a lack of a labor pool, or people unwilling to go to war as deemed necessary.

It is not the case that Europeans are lacking in inventiveness and operational and management skills, and infrastructure development vision.

One thing that would be helpful for Africa is if the groups that are strong in the areas where Africa is weak were to invest in Africa with infrastructure, bureacracy, rule of law, management and future vision. What would expedite this would be if the Africans knew they were going to receive the bulk of the benefit for providing the overwhelming majority of the labor, which, to my mind, has not historically been the case.

From what I know of Africa, it is generally the technology- and infrastructure-heavy players that get the VAST majority of the benefit from whatever projects they emplace, while the African workers themselves get as little as is humanly possible that the employers can get away with.

Of course, it is the same in the North America, I have found. The difference is that here, we have laws and such to make it so my employer, who is charing 100 dollars an hour for my services, can't just pay me ten cents a day and expect me to be worshipfully grateful. Whatever little they can get away with paying, however, they tend to do.

Africans are less likely, from what I have seen, to remain subservient little production robots and accept it as their lot in life. There are more constructive ways of expressing it, but they periodically express their disgust with the status quo, and do so violently.

If, instead of regarding our neighbour as being a tool to be bought, used, and discarded at the lowest cost possible, we looked to the long term and worked at building sustainable societies, we, the non-Africans, might have a more positive impact in Africa.

Treating it like a gold mine where the main goal is wealth extraction at any and all costs in human suffering is something of which most people, including Africans, take a very dim view.

Just because I have, due to whatever nation into which I am born, more knowledge, and I am better educated, and live in a place with more advantages doesn't give me some God-given right to make virtual slaves of other men, depriving them of a hope for a future while extracting maximum productivity from them before casting them, like empty husks, to the wind, when I no longer deem them sufficiently useful.

And that, historically, has been the way Africans have been treated, in Africa, by non-Africans.

Just because you can get away with it, for a while, does not make it good, right, proper, or sustainable.

Well said, I agree

 

[PanaEng]

And that, historically, has been the way Africans have been treated, in Africa, by non-Africans.

However, most of the recent troubles have been by Africans to Africans: Rwanda, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Sudan (two conflicts), Congo, etc. Perhaps with complicity from outside parties, but we can't just absolve their leaders and blame the colonizing powers with a blanket statement.

cheers,
Frank

 

[MarkOttawa]

Who need the UN, anyway?

Rwanda-Congo move isolates UN mission
Last week's deployment of Rwandan troops to fight rebels in Congo caught the 17,000-strong UN mission by surprise.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0127/p07s01-woaf.html

Kigali, Rwanda - Deploying a mere 3,500 soldiers, one of Africa's smallest countries last week called into question the relevance of the world's biggest United Nations peacekeeping force.

Rwanda moved the soldiers across its western border with the Democratic Republic of Congo without notifying the 17,000-strong, $1 billion-per-year UN peacekeeping force (MONUC), which is supposed to broker calm, protect civilians, and maintain dialogue with the rebel groups and the governments of Congo and Rwanda, all of whom have a stake in the outcome of the conflict.

Rwanda disrupted that dialogue last week, deploying its troops as part of a secret deal with Congo's President Joseph Kabila to launch joint operations against one of the region's major rebel groups.

"The special envoys in the region, the international community, MONUC, – we did not get any official warning. We were not informed," says Roeland van de Geer, the European Union's special representative to the Great Lakes region.

Mr. Van de Geer says the lack of information was not an oversight but a deliberate move by two former enemies who have found in the past few weeks an alliance more useful than cooperation with the UN.

"[T]he region wants to do it itself," van de Geer says. "They've lost confidence in the UN."..

Rwanda and Congo brokered a deal in 2007 to force the FDLR out of the bush. MONUC has been a key player in that deal, as the go-between for FDLR fighters who desert. MONUC says it has disarmed 6,500 FDLR combatants since 2002.

Last year, MONUC also offered Congo's Army tactical training, equipment, and logistical support, preparing the Congolese for a military offensive against the FDLR slated to begin last fall. But renewed fighting derailed the plan.

The Rwandan troop movement will do little to dissolve the FDLR, one member of the UN team that has been working to disarm the group said by phone from eastern Congo. But it might do a great deal to damage the UN's reputation.

"Nothing important will happen, no serious clash…. They will push against FDLR, who will go deeper in the bush," says the worker, who wished to be identified only by his first name, Goran. "And MONUC cannot do anything. It will show that MONUC is useless."..

Joe Felli, head of office for MONUC in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, says the development hasn't marginalized the UN in eastern Congo, where as many as 24 armed groups vie for control over vast and sometimes impenetrable territory. "This does not prevent us from taking action against any of the armed groups once they threaten our mandate, which is chiefly the protection of civilians. The Rwandans are definitely aware of that."

Some observers predict that the joint mission will devolve into a Rwandan civil war on Congolese soil. Rwandan and Congolese forces exchanged fire with the FDLR over the weekend, reportedly killing nine combatants. The fighting raises concerns about the protection of civilians. The FDLR are known to nestle into civilian areas, making it difficult to isolate combatants and avoid injuring civilians. Van de Geer says the UN is the only body capable of providing that protection.

"We feel that the UN should stay involved as much as possible precisely because they are charged with responsibility of protecting civilian population," he says. "That will require muscle, military muscle."

Felli says MONUC is not wavering on its mandate to protect civilians, a task about which he says MONUC "cannot remain neutral."

It's unclear, however, precisely how the UN can protect those who find themselves in the path of the Rwandan Army. Last week, the Rwandan and Congolese armies blocked the UN from delivering humanitarian supplies to the recently displaced.

The Congolese themselves are questioning how valuable the promise of UN protection is. In October, Congolese civilians turned on the UN, hurling heavy slabs of lava rock at MONUC headquarters in the regional capital of Goma and stoning a peacekeeping vehicle.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[The Bread Guy]

Some highlights from a 20 Jan 09 speech by Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon to the Heads of African Missions to Canada.....

....Unfortunately, there remain too many crises in Africa. Somalia, Sudan, the DRC and Zimbabwe immediately come to mind....

....Canada has three main foreign policy priorities: the Americas, Afghanistan and emerging markets.  It may be difficult to see many of your countries reflected in our geographic priorities, but you may recall that Canada’s foreign policy is also anchored in our respect for the values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.  Our policies on Africa are anchored in them too.  Our approach focuses on engagement and partnership with progressive African leaders and governments committed to political and economic reform....

....Canada has strongly engaged in Africa on peace and security.

In Sudan, we have taken a leadership role in helping achieve sustainable peace by supporting efforts to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Canada supports this fragile agreement through critical projects that strengthen the rule of law, security-sector reform and good governance. Since 2006, Canada has contributed over $514 million for peace and basic human needs in Sudan.

We also provide significant support toward resolving the conflict in Darfur. This year, we are providing up to $40 million in equipment and training support to African countries that are contributing troops and police to the joint UN-AU peacekeeping mission in Darfur.

We also participate in the UN mission in the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo), and contribute to the development of a modern, professional military doctrine for the country’s new armed forces, to ensure that its population is protected.

Canada remains committed to the northern Uganda peace process, despite recent setbacks there.

The Canadian government has announced an additional $10.3 million for police and peacekeeper training in Africa, which will also assist centres of excellence in Accra (Ghana), Bamako (Mali) and Abuja (Nigeria).

Canada provides training, technical assistance and equipment to help combat terrorism, and we will increase our funding commitments and our cooperation with you.

Canada is a member of the UN Peacebuilding Commission, where we are working to support post-conflict peacebuilding in countries such as Sierra Leone and Burundi. To that end, we have provided over $20 million to the Peacebuilding Fund.

Canada is also quick to respond to immediate crises. In 2008, a Canadian Navy frigate escorted World Food Programme ships going to Somalia, aiding the delivery of enough supplies to feed about 400,000 people for six months....

- edited to correct date of speech -

 

[Blackadder1916]

Rwanda's Move Into Congo Fuels Suspicion
Some in Mineral-Rich Region See Broader Motives Than Disarming Hutu Militiamen

By Stephanie McCrummen  Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, February 13, 2009

KIGALI, Rwanda -- With thousands of Rwandan troops fanned out across eastern Congo's green hills, many residents and international observers are questioning what is really behind the operation in the mineral-rich region and how long it is likely to last.

The official explanation, offered by both Rwandan and Congolese diplomats, is straightforward. After two wars and a decade of mistrust, the two nations finally agreed to deal militarily with a common menace -- the Rwandan Hutu militia known as the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, or FDLR, which reorganized in Congo after the 1994 Rwandan genocide and has been a principal cause of the deadliest documented conflict since World War II.

By some estimates, at least 5 million people died in multi-sided wars over more than a decade, mostly from disease, hunger and the collapse of human services associated with the fighting. The humanitarian catastrophe was largely ignored by the United States and other Western nations, while United Nations peacekeepers failed to halt the violence.

In acting now, Congo and Rwanda have in theory ended a proxy war that had played out for years in eastern Congo. Rwanda pulled the plug on rebel leader Laurent Nkunda, whom it arrested last month. And Congo abruptly turned on its longtime ally the FDLR, joining the Rwandans in an operation to hunt down the militia.

"Rwanda and Congo have decided to come together as neighbors," said Joseph Mutaboba, who was Rwanda's envoy during several rounds of talks. "And we have been able to tackle the problems that are ours."

But some observers see much broader economic and political motives behind Rwanda's military foray -- its third in Congo in the past decade -- that have more to do with Rwanda's regional ambitions than with the 6,000 or so FDLR militiamen. As recently as October, Rwandan officials had cast the militia as "a Congolese problem," saying it did not pose an immediate military threat to Rwanda.

"Is the FDLR now suddenly on the verge of becoming more militarily powerful? I don't think we've seen that," said Alison Des Forges**, a Human Rights Watch researcher and leading expert on Rwanda. "And if they haven't, then what you have is Rwanda trotting out an old warhorse of an excuse to go in again. The question is, what is the intent?"

The stakes are high for the joint Rwandan-Congolese military offensive against the FDLR, given its potential to trigger more regional instability than it resolves. Rwanda's two earlier invasions succeeded in disrupting the militia's operations but also helped spawn more than a decade of conflict that at one point drew in as many as eight African nations in a scramble for regional supremacy and a piece of Congo's vast mineral wealth.

Although the two Rwandan invasions were devastating for the Congolese, they were hugely beneficial for Rwanda, which is still struggling to rebuild after the 100 days of well-planned violence in 1994 when Hutu extremists killed an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Many Rwandans became involved in the lucrative mineral trade out of eastern Congo after the genocide, and some observers speculate that the current military operation aims to solidify Rwanda's economic stake in the region.

"It was a period of great economic boom for Rwanda -- a lot of people got rich, including military officers," Des Forges said, adding that the current military operation could help Rwandan President Paul Kagame relieve internal pressures on his government, which allows little room for dissent. "Presumably, if the troops were back in Congo for a substantial period of time, they could expect to reap certain benefits. It could also be beneficial for Rwanda to have greater control over economic resources than they've had before."

On that score, unverifiable rumors abound about secret deals and gentlemen's agreements struck between Congo and Rwanda over mineral rights and mineral processing. At a local level, Congolese villagers who have long suspected Rwanda of wanting to annex a swath of eastern Congo say they are certain that their tiny but militarily powerful neighbor is interested in more than disarming the FDLR.

"Congo is rich," said Eric Sorumweh, who said he watched hundreds of Rwandan troops pass by his village last month. "So they just come to loot the wealth of Congo."

Those suspicions, along with Rwanda's messy history in Congo, have fueled criticism of Congolese President Joseph Kabila, who has been lambasted by political opponents for inviting an old enemy back into the country. Late last month, Kabila pledged that the estimated 7,000 Rwandan troops in Congo would leave by the end of February. This time, his supporters say, the situation with Rwanda is different.

While conspiracy theories swirl, Kabila's backers -- as well as a number of Western diplomats who support the joint operation against the FDLR -- say Congo's deal with Rwanda represents a mature realization by Kabila and Kagame that their interests are better served by working together officially, rather than through rebel proxies.

"I think the two presidents have understood that official contact can be to their advantage," said Julien Paluku Kahongya, governor of North Kivu province in eastern Congo. "Now we can start thinking together of how we can lift the economy. For agriculture and trading and other economic reasons, Rwanda will be coming here, and we will be going to Rwanda."

According to Kahongya and others, the downsides of the proxy war between Rwanda and Congo were becoming increasingly clear. Kabila was politically threatened by the stunning advance of Nkunda's rebels across eastern Congo last year. And Rwanda was embarrassed by a U.N. report in December that found it to be directly or tacitly supporting Nkunda. As a result, Rwanda's prized reputation as a darling of the aid world suffered, the Netherlands and Sweden cut off aid, and international pressure mounted for the government to solve its differences with Congo. The report also found that Congo was collaborating with the FDLR.

At the same time, hundreds of millions of dollars from the European Union, the World Bank and other donors -- for major road, railroad and power projects that would benefit both countries -- were largely predicated upon a detente between the two sides. That is supposed to become official when Rwanda and Congo restore full diplomatic relations, probably next month.

"Rwanda's interest is in a stable region, and you can't have that with multiple armed groups running around in eastern Congo," said a Western diplomat in the region who was not authorized to speak publicly. "Plus there's a whole system of militia taxes and corruption there, and none of that benefits Rwanda. They see their economic welfare as tied to greater integration in East Africa."

And so Congo and Rwanda devised a way to cut out the middlemen -- launching the joint military operation to disarm the FDLR, neutralize Nkunda's rebels and, in theory, fold an array of other, smaller militias into the Congolese army.

The entry of Rwandan troops into Congo also represents the failure of U.N. peacekeepers to tame the militias and rebels of eastern Congo. A deal signed in Nairobi in December 2007 called upon the peacekeepers to assist the Congolese army in disarming the FDLR, but that effort never got off the ground. A recent U.N. request for an additional 3,000 peacekeepers also fell flat, with only Bangladesh offering troops so far.

"Now things have turned in such a way that it's possible for the Rwandans to do it," said Philip Lancaster, a professor at the University of Victoria in Canada who has been involved in U.N. efforts to demobilize Congo's militias. "I think this is a clear case of two African states agreeing to solve their own problems, seeing that the international community can't."

According to a U.S. official who is in close contact with the Rwandan military, the goal is not to completely dismantle the FDLR, but merely to scatter it. Several of its key leaders are not even in eastern Congo, but are living in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, or in Europe.

So far, very little information is trickling out about the operation. According to U.N. officials, Rwandan forces were able in recent days to capture two villages that had served as FDLR bases. More than 40 FDLR fighters have been killed and 11 taken prisoner, and more than 500 fighters and their families have simply surrendered.

Several large groups of militiamen were fleeing west last week, deeper into Congo, the U.N. officials said, and Rwandan soldiers were pursuing them.

-----------------------------
** Though unrelated to the above story, Ms Des Forges died in the recent plane crash near Buffalo.

 

[Blackadder1916]

President Joao Bernardo Vieira of Guinea-Bissau assassinated by army

Tristan McConnell, Nairobi - From Times Online March 2, 2009

The President and head of the army in Guinea-Bissau were killed in tit-for-tat murders that have plunged the West African "narco-state" into crisis.

President Joao Bernardo Vieira and General Tagme Na Waie died in separate incidents only hours apart. General Na Waie was killed in a bomb blast at army headquarters. Hours later Mr Vieira died in a hail of bullets as he tried to flee his home in the capital Bissau.

An army spokesman claimed responsibility for the President’s death saying it was in reprisal for the earlier assassination of the army chief.

“President Vieira was killed by the army as he tried to flee his house,” said Zamora Induta. He said that the President was “taken down by bullets fired by … soldiers.”

Mr Induta alleged that Mr Vieira was “one of the main people responsible for the death of [General Na Waie].”

Mr Vieira ruled Guinea-Bissau from 1980 to 1999 before being deposed in a military coup. He returned from exile in 2004 and was reinstated as president at elections the following year.

But tensions between the President and the army have remained high. In July last year the head of the navy fled the country after a failed coup attempt. Days after parliamentary elections in November gunmen attacked the presidential palace leading Mr Vieira to establish an elite unit of personal bodyguards.

This militia was, however, partly disarmed by the army after its gunmen were accused of shooting at General Na Waie’s convoy in January in an incident that underlined the extent of the hostility between the President and his top military man.

Diplomats have accused General Na Waie of involvement in the growing cocaine trade through West Africa.

Drugs enforcement officials have complained that Mr Vieira failed to crackdown on the lucrative trade in which an estimated 50 tonnes of cocaine transit the region destined for Europe every year.

Much of this cocaine passes through Guinea-Bissau, one of the impoverished region’s poorest and weakest states. Its ragged coastline of unpoliced inlets and islands has in recent years been targeted by South American cartels seeking new routes to traffic cocaine to Europe.

The former Portuguese colony has a history of coups, mutinies and instability since winning independence in 1974.

But analysts say that the blowing up of General Na Waie bears the hallmarks of an attack by drugs cartels rather than the result of power struggles within the military.

“There is no mutiny aspect to the bombing. It looks more like a drugs hit,” said one analyst. The murder of Mr Vieira was a revenge attack by General Na Waie’s army loyalists.

There are fears that the instability might spread beyond Guinea-Bissau’s own borders. “This is a very bad situation,” said Richard Moncrieff, West Africa project director at International Crisis Group. “There is a power vacuum, people are not coming out onto the streets and there is still shooting going on.

“There are many factions within the armed forces, the fear is that the army could fracture further,” he warned.

After years of brutal civil war that ravaged West Africa during the 1990s it had seemed that the region was entering a new era of peace with the end of fighting in Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone. But in the past 12 months there have been military coups in Mauritania and Guinea.

“West Africa is not out of the woods at all,” said Mr Moncrieff.

 

[Blackadder1916]

Guinea-Bissau assassinations: Is Colombia's drug trade behind them?
The murder of the president and the Army chief on Monday raises questions about the nature of the instability in this African nation.

By Scott Baldauf  Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor from the March 3, 2009 edition

Johannesburg, South Africa - The assassinations were committed gangland style – a bomb in a stairwell, and a rapid fire shootout – which is perhaps not so surprising in a country that has swiftly become a major transit hub for narcotics into Europe.

But the tit-for-tat revenge killings of Guinea-Bissau's top two leaders, its Army chief and its president, have left this poor country without leaders and the prospect of continued military rule.

By Monday evening, the tiny African country's Army had shut down two private radio stations, and had escorted the president's widow and children to the home of the United Nations representative in Guinea-Bissau.

Meanwhile, the Armed Forces assured citizens on state-run radio that no coup was in process, but that the Army would respect the Constitution and allow the head of parliament to succeed the president.

Unstable region

Coming just a month after an apparently popular coup in the neighboring country of Guinea, the double assassinations in Guinea-Bissau are a troubling sign for a region with weak institutions for self-government and strong incentives for corruption.

"This is bad news for the country, and there are real risks of factional fighting between elements of the military," says Richard Moncrieff, senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, based in Dakar, Senegal. "But the question now is what direction the Army intervention takes. To my mind, the risks are the mid-level officers, [who] are not used to running a country and tend to react harshly if a problem comes up."

With a weak economy and institutions of governance, it's not surprising that Guinea-Bissau is seen as a haven for criminal enterprises.

In recent years, Colombian drug cartels have begun flying small planes across the Atlantic, landing on tiny islands dotting the Guinean coastline. Since Guinea-Bissau has no navy to patrol its waters, the cartels were free to unload tons of cocaine destined for Europe. The drugs were then distributed to impoverished African migrants, who would carry the drugs north by boat to the shores of France, Italy, and Spain.

Government corruption, fed by poor government salaries at the bottom and uncertain political leadership at the top, means that Guinea Bissau has few tools to stop the drug trafficking.

Rivalry goes back decades

While the bad blood between Army chief Gen. Tagme na Waie and President Joao Bernando Vieira goes back decades, tensions increased during the country's November 2008 elections, after General Waie accused President Vieira of involvement in the drug trade.

After a narrow escape from an assassination attempt in November, Waie publicly stated that the president wanted to get rid of him and was using his personal armed militia of 400 men to hunt him down.

"This recent set of killings can be explained [as] the action of the drug traffickers, who would not allow anything to get in the way or to obstruct their links with Europe," says David Zounmenou, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Tshwane, formerly known as Pretoria.

"Africans are very reluctant to call for external interventions," Dr. Zounmenou adds, noting that many African countries are still suspicious of Western countries, some of which were colonial rulers less than 50 years ago. "But drug trafficking is not a domestic matter anymore. It affects the stability of many countries, it affects systems of governance, and it allows groups to acquire weapons."

 

[George Wallace]

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.  (Title is link to article and video.)

Canadian journalist held in Somalia has failing health

Updated Mon. May. 25 2009 5:17 PM ET

The Canadian Press

EDMONTON -- A freelance Canadian journalist held hostage in Somalia says she may die in captivity and is begging the federal government to bring her home, according to a news report.

"The situation here is very dire and very serious. I've been a hostage for nine months. The conditions are very bad. I don't drink clean water. I am fed at most once a day," Amanda Lindhout reportedly told the Agence France-Presse news agency in a phone interview Sunday.

"I have been sick for months. Unless my government, the people of Canada, all my family and friends can get $1 million, I will die here, OK. That is certain."

Lindhout and Nigel Brennan -- a photographer from Australia -- were among several people abducted by roadside kidnappers outside the capital city of Mogadishu Aug. 23, 2009.

Lindhout was 27 when abducted and Brennan was 37.

The other members of the group -- all locals -- have been released.

It's believed Lindhout, who is from Sylvan Lake, Alta., and Brennan are being moved from house to house by their captors and that negotiations for their release have broken down numerous times.

A media spokesman for Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs could not be reached immediately for comment. The department has repeatedly declined to say anything about the case, saying it doesn't want to jeopardize attempts to secure Lindhout's release.

Lindhout, in the five-minute interview with a Mogadishu-based AFP journalist, said she is suffering.

"I'm being kept ... in a dark, windowless room, completely alone," she said.

"I love my country and I want to return, so I beg my government to come to my aid.

"Likewise, I ask all my fellow Canadian citizens and my family to contribute in any way possible in order to help me finally be released from Somalia and be able to return home."

The AFP said the statement seemed to be part of a prepared script.

When pressed by the reporter for details on her ill health, Lindhout replied: "I cannot answer any question that you have. What I just said, that's all I can say."

In the interview, Brennan urged the Australian government to free him. He said he has been shackled for four months and his body is breaking down due to a high fever.

Ambroise Pierre, head of the Africa desk of Reporters Without Borders, said the group is trying to independently verify the report, but that's hard to do in the war-torn country.

"The security situation in Mogadishu is pretty volatile," Pierre said in an interview from Paris.

Kidnappings of foreigners by mercenaries are not unusual in Somalia, which has been ravaged by civil war since the central government of president Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991.

Recently, Islamist rebels have fought pitched battles with government troops in the streets of Mogadishu in a bid to overthrow the internationally recognized transitional government of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

Gun battles, mortar attacks and suicide bombings have forced an estimated 57,000 people to flee the capital.

Pierre said mercenary kidnappings are generally resolved soon after an abduction and don't drag out for months.

He said the phone interview may be an attempt by the captors to strike a deal because they're having trouble staying hidden in the strife-ridden city.

"In such a context it's not very easy to stay in a house and hold two foreign hostages. This is difficult to assess, but the violence taking place in Mogadishu right now doesn't make things easy."

Pierre said it's been difficult to get good information and Lindhout's plea for a million-dollar ransom clouds the issue further.

Shortly after the journalists were grabbed, the captors demanded US$2.5 million for their release. That figure was reportedly dropped to $100,000 in January.

"The amount of the ransom is still not clear," said Pierre.

In Canada, Lindhout's colleagues and friends are trying to keep her case in the public spotlight through YouTube videos, Facebook pages and a website dedicated to the kidnapping (www.amandalindhout.com).

Lindhout came to Somalia on a freelance project after reporting on the Iraqi conflict for an Iranian-based English TV news network. She had also worked in Afghanistan and filed overseas dispatches for Alberta's Red Deer Advocate newspaper.

She arrived in Somalia on Aug. 20 to document the famine and violence for a French TV station.

Three days after arriving, she, Brennan and the rest of her group left their Mogadishu hotel to visit a refugee camp about 30 kilometres to the south. They were stopped on the road and abducted.

Two weeks later, their kidnappers demanded the initial $2.5 million, saying they would kill the hostages if their demands were not met within two weeks.

A week after that, Lindhout was seen on Arab TV's Al Jazeera network on a silent film clip wearing a red Islamic robe and surrounded by gunmen.

Al Jazeera said the kidnappers accused Canada and Australia of helping destroy Somalia and said Lindhout was urging the Canadian government to work to free her.






Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.  (Title is link to article and video.)

Kidnapped Alta. reporter fears dying in captivity


Updated Wed. Jun. 10 2009 9:41 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

A woman claiming to be Amanda Lindhout, a freelance Canadian journalist being held hostage in Somalia, called CTV's National newsroom Wednesday afternoon, appearing to be reading from a statement in which she says she fears dying in captivity and pleads with the Canadian government to help bring her home.


"I've been held hostage by gunmen in Somalia for nearly 10 months. I'm in a desperate situation, I'm being kept in a dark, windowless room in chains, without any clean drinking water and little or no food. I've been very sick for months without any medicine," she told CTV News.


She said she's in need of "immediate aid" and begs the Canadian government to help her family to pay her ransom. "Without it, I will die here," she said.


"I also tell them that they must deal directly with these people, (for) my life depends on it."


Lindhout is a freelance print and television journalist from Sylvan Lake, Alta.


She travelled to Somalia on Aug. 20 to cover the famine and violence in Sudan for a French television station.


Three days after arriving in the capital city of Mogadishu, she and a group, including photographer Nigel Brennan of Australia, left a hotel to visit a refugee camp about 30 kilometers to the south. They were stopped on the road and abducted.


The kidnappers have been identified as a group called the Mujahedeen of Somalia, They originally demanded $2.5 million but have lowered their ransom price to $1 million.


According to reports, it's believed the pair's captors are moving them from location to location -- and that negotiations for their release have broken down a number of times.




At the time of the abduction, Lindhout was 27 and Brennan was 37. The other members of the group, all locals, were released.


Lindhout had also worked in Afghanistan and has reported from overseas for Alberta's Red Deer Advocate newspaper.


Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs would not comment on the case.



Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.  (Title is link to article and video.)

Militias pressuring kidnappers of Alta. reporter



Updated Thu. Jun. 11 2009 8:56 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

The Somali kidnappers holding Amanda Lindhout, a freelance Canadian journalist, are under pressure from militias to make sure they exchange her for money, according to sources in the region.

Lindhout, a freelance print and television journalist from Sylvan Lake, Alta., was abducted last August while covering the famine and violence in Sudan for a French television station.

Three days after arriving in the capital city of Mogadishu, she and a group, including photographer Nigel Brennan of Australia, left a hotel to visit a refugee camp about 30 kilometres to the south. They were stopped on the road and abducted.

Ambroise Pierre, head of the Africa desk of Reporters Without Borders, said Thursday his organization is very concerned about the safety of Lindhout and Brennan.

"What I got this morning from information and sources on the ground is worrying because apparently there are some militias in Mogadishu who are putting pressure on the kidnappers so that the hostages would be sold," Pierre told CTV's Canada AM from Paris.

"What I mean is that apparently everybody in Mogadishu is surprised that the detention is so long. Nearly 10 months after the kidnapping the kidnappers would like to get rid of Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan but would absolutely like to get paid."

Pierre said the kidnappers are trying to show "everybody that if they don't (get paid) they could get really angry."

On Wednesday, a woman claiming to be Lindhout called CTV's National newsroom and, apparently reading from a statement, said she feared dying in captivity.

The woman also pleaded with the Canadian government to help bring her home.

"I've been held hostage by gunmen in Somalia for nearly 10 months. I'm in a desperate situation, I'm being kept in a dark, windowless room in chains, without any clean drinking water and little or no food. I've been very sick for months without any medicine," she told CTV News.

She said she was in need of "immediate aid" and begged the Canadian government to help her family to pay her ransom. "Without it, I will die here," she said.

"I also tell them that they must deal directly with these people, (for) my life depends on it."

After hearing the recording, a former colleague of Lindhout said it was "absolutely" her voice.

"She knew what she was doing, she knew it was dangerous," Daniel Smith told CTV's Canada AM on Thursday from Baghdad.

"She was based out of Baghdad, she was going to be coming back here after a two to three week trip to Somalia but she never returned."

Smith said Lindhout is "good under pressure" in tough situations.

"She generally jumps out there with kindness towards people she meets and tries to get stories and will go to places like Somalia to get them," he said.

The kidnappers have been identified as a group called the Mujahedeen of Somalia, They originally demanded $2.5 million but have lowered their ransom price to $1 million.

According to reports, it's believed the pair's captors are moving them from location to location -- and that negotiations for their release have broken down a number of times.

At the time of the abduction, Lindhout was 27 and Brennan was 37. The other members of the group, all locals, were released.

Lindhout had also worked in Afghanistan and Iraq and has reported from overseas for Alberta's Red Deer Advocate newspaper.

Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs would not comment on the case.



Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.  (Title is link to article and video.)

Public pushes to bring envoys home, not Lindhout



The public put significant pressure on the federal government to resolve the kidnapping of high-profile diplomats Robert Fowler and Louis Guay, while showing comparatively little support for missing freelance journalist Amanda Lindhout, documents obtained by CTV.ca reveal.


11/06/2009 6:19:37 PM

Geoff Nixon

In the first seven weeks of Fowler and Guay's four-month-long captivity in Western Africa, Foreign Affairs and senior government officials received several dozen emails from members of the public, pressing for details about their case.

But in Lindhout's case, only one person bothered to send a letter to Foreign Affairs on her behalf, even after she had been held against her will in Somalia for more than 90 days.

Through the Access to Information Act, CTV.ca recently obtained copies of all of the emails, letters and faxes sent, or forwarded, to Foreign Affairs about Fowler and Guay, during the first seven weeks of their captivity.

Starting only two days after the pair of Canadians first disappeared in Niger, a flurry of messages were sent to government officials, including to high-level civil servants, diplomats, cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister's Office.

On Dec. 16, one letter writer told a sitting MP that he wished to "beseech quick and urgent action on the part of the Canadian federal government to locate and protect Louis Guay and Robert Fowler."

Two days later, an all-caps email which arrived in the inbox of Defence Minister Peter MacKay aptly summed up the tone of the incoming message from the public: "Please do all possible to free Bob Fowler and his team now. It is essential that Canada act now."

The same day, another email instructed MacKay to "devote the maximum possible efforts your office and our country can generate in pursuit of the safe return of these men and their driver."

The next day, an email was sent to MacKay, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and the Prime Minister's Office, demanding that the two diplomats be returned to Canada "with all the energy that our country and government can generate."

And as time went on, the tone of the letters sent to Ottawa did not get any less urgent.

On Boxing Day last December, one letter writer sent a message intended for John McNee, Canada's ambassador to the United Nations, wanting to know "what is Canada doing at this point to find all three men (the diplomats and their driver) and what, in turn we can do to support your efforts in that sense?"

Less than two weeks later, another member of the public demanded to know what the government was doing about the kidnapping: "How about giving the press a statement on what you may or may not know concerning Fowler's disappearance? He is a prominent citizen and we have a right to know what attempts are being made for his return."

Some of the letters sent to the government regarding the Fowler and Guay kidnapping were deemed too sensitive to be released as four pages were blanked out in their entirety when sent to CTV.ca. The body of an email meant for Guay's family was similarly blocked.

Appeal for Lindhout

But the public pressure to bring home the diplomats appears to have been much higher than the resolve to free Lindhout, who was kidnapped for ransom in Somalia last August.

A separate Access to Information request for emails sent to Foreign Affairs about Lindhout, returned only one document that had been sent on her behalf during the first 90 days of her captivity.

"As you may know, Amanda Lindhout of Sylvan Lake, Alberta, is a freelance journalist and was abducted at gunpoint near Mogadishu, Somalia in August of this year. As of yet she has not been released," the writer said in the email to Foreign Affairs on Oct. 8, 2008.

"A fundamental responsibility of a sovereign state is to protect its citizens at home as well as abroad. I am asking what the Department has been doing to facilitate Amanda's release. I understand that for reasons of operational security, your response will be limited."

Nearly ten months after her abduction, Lindhout has still not been freed.

A woman claiming to be Lindhout called CTV's National newsroom on Wednesday afternoon, reading a statement to the person who answered the phone.

The woman pleaded with the Canadian government to get her home and said she was need in "immediate aid" for her survival.

 

[George Wallace]

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.  (Title is link to article and video.)

Somalia's foreign fighters

08 June 2009

The conflict in Somalia has encouraged many foreign volunteers to join the militant Islamist factions attempting to overthrow the internationally backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG). These foreigners seem to be mostly ethnic Somali émigrés living in Western countries, raising fears that some may return to carry out terrorist attacks.

While Somalia's hardline Islamist factions have often claimed they have foreigners fighting on their behalf, it has been difficult to independently assess how many foreign fighters there are in Somalia and what impact they have on the conflict. However, UN special representative for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, has claimed they constitute a small, but elite force within the Islamist insurgency. In May, the AP quoted him as saying that the foreigners are "the best disciplined and organised force".

This suggests that there are dedicated foreign units fighting in Somalia and that they are made up either of veterans from other conflicts and/or new recruits who have been given extensive training. It stands to reason that these foreigners are a more unified force, as they do not suffer from the clan loyalties that divide Somalia. They are also likely to be more ideologically committed to the hardline Islamist cause.

More on Janes' site with a subscription.

 

[Yrys]

Italy plans to reopen embassy in Somalia

Ethiopia denies its soldiers in central Somalia

Somali 'thieves' face amputation
Hardline Islamists have condemned four young Somali men to a double amputation
for stealing mobile phones and guns.

Somali police chief among 17 dead in clashes

Somali MP gunned down in capital

Somali Minister Killed in Bombing
MOGADISHU, Somalia — A suicide car bomber killed Somalia’s security minister and
more than a dozen others north of the capital on Thursday, witnesses and officials said.

Somalia: A Third High-Profile Killing

AU supports Somalia plea for foreign troops
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - The African Union said Monday it supports Somalia's plea
for neighboring countries to send troops to help fight Islamist insurgents, but there
was no indication the reinforcements would be forthcoming.

Somali president calls emergency
Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has declared a state of emergency
in the country.

 

[Yrys]

Africans prepare to welcome Obama

Ghanaian President John Atta Mills seems keen to cash in on the Obama effect

African view: Shipshape for Obama?

"We have consequently run into some very odd incidents.

This past week, there was the strange case of the president asking, or maybe,
ordering the police to allow a street demonstration by a group that wanted to
protest against a litany of things.

The police had gone to court and got an injunction to prevent the demonstration
on the grounds, among others, that the police were so busy with the planned
Obama visit they would not have the manpower to handle a demonstration.

Nobody here imagines that President Atta Mills intervened so dramatically to ask
that a court order be put aside and the group be allowed to protest because he is
dying for people to protest against him.

But imagine this: Here is Mr Obama, daily criticising the Iranian government for
not allowing its citizens to demonstrate; and here is Ghana, the "admirable example
of a thriving democracy" refusing to allow peaceful demonstrations… Obviously that
would not do. "

Historic African trip for Obama
African press pragmatic about Obama's visit
Ghana excitement builds for Obama

Unveiling Food Plan, Obama Presses Africa on Corruption

L’AQUILA, Italy — President Obama told African countries on Friday that the legacy
of colonialism was not an excuse for failing to build prosperous, democratic societies
even as he unveiled a $20 billion international program to help the developing world
grow more food to feed its people.

Just hours before his scheduled departure for his first trip as president to sub-Saharan
Africa, Mr. Obama made a personal appeal to other leaders of the Group of 8 powers
for larger donations to the effort, citing his own family’s experiences in Kenya. As a
result, the initiative grew from $15 billion over three years that was pledged coming
into the summit meeting to $20 billion.

At a news conference afterward, Mr. Obama said that when his father came to the
United States, his home country of Kenya had an economy as large as that of South
Korea per capita. Today, he noted, Kenya remains impoverished and politically unstable,
while South Korea has become an economic powerhouse.

“There had been some talk about the legacies of colonialism and other policies by
wealthier nations,” he said, “and without in any way diminishing that history, the point I
made was that the South Korean government, working with the private sector and civil
society, was able to create a set of institutions that provided transparency and accountability
and efficiency that allowed for extraordinary economic progress and that there was no
reason why African countries could not do the same.”

He continued: “And yet, in many African countries, if you want to start a business or get a
job you still have to pay a bribe.” While wealthier nations have an obligation to help Africa,
he said, African nations “have a responsibility” to build transparent, efficient institutions.

Mr. Obama noted that he has learned lessons from his family members still living in Kenya.
“They themselves are not going hungry, but live in villages where hunger is real,” he said.
“And so this is something that I understand in very personal terms.”

Mr. Obama left the Group of 8 meeting, held in this earthquake-rattled region, to head to
the Vatican to meet Pope Benedict XVI. In a 30-minute tete-a-tete, the two discussed some
of the themes of the Group of 8 summit, including international development aid and
immigration, but also Middle East peace and questions of bioethics.

Although they diverge over issues like abortion and stem cell research, the Vatican and
the Obama administration share common ground on some social issues. “We hope to build
strong relations between our countries,” Mr. Obama said after the meeting, which was held
in the papal library.

At his earlier news conference, the president set September as a deadline for Iran to negotiate
about its nuclear development program, saying that if it does not respond “we need to take
further steps.” He also indicated support for restructuring the Group of 8 and other international
gatherings to reflect geopolitical changes — and to ensure that there would be “fewer summit
meetings.”

But as he again hailed progress with Russia during a stop in Moscow earlier in the week,
President Dmitri A. Medvedev returned to sharper rhetoric about American missile defense
plans. He repeated a past threat to order short-range missiles placed in the western enclave
of Kaliningrad if Mr. Obama proceeds with an anti-missile project in Poland and the Czech
Republic. Moreover, just four days after he said at Mr. Obama’s side that “no one is saying
that missile defense is harmful in itself or that it poses a threat to someone,” Mr. Medvedev
said Friday that missile defense is “harmful” and “threatening to Russia.”

Mr. Obama’s comments on Africa may carry special resonance as the son of a Kenyan father.
Other presidents have called on African countries to take more responsibility or fight corruption
before, but Mr. Obama’s background gives him a connection and credibility that none of his
predecessors could command.

Mr. Obama left Italy en route for Ghana on Friday night for a one-day visit during which he will
address Ghana’s parliament, visit a hospital and, weather permitting, fly by helicopter to the
coast to tour a notorious slave embarkation point.

The food security initiative is designed to transform traditional aid to poorer countries beyond
simply donated produce, grains and meats to assistance building infrastructure and training
farmers to grow their own food and get it to market more efficiently. The $20 billion amounts
to a substantial commitment if carried out, but it remains unclear how much is actually additional
money. The American share of $3.5 billion over three years represents a doubling of previous
spending levels.

“The sums just aren’t adding up,” said Otive Igbuaor, head of ActionAid’s hunger campaign.
“Is this all really new money? Given the Group of 8’s record on delivery, this is still very
much a work in progress. So far they have been counting not just apples and oranges but
more like apples, oranges, cauliflowers and beets.”

Oliver Buston, the Europe director for One, the advocacy group co-founded by the singer Bono,
said the Group of 8 must do more than make promises. “All governments should now com forward
and prove the amounts they pledged here are new. They need to make clear what they will do,
by when. Some countries have done this; others have not.”

Mr. Obama was joined for his first trip to the Vatican by his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters,
Malia, 11, and Sasha, 8, all three of whom wore black dresses and black veils over their heads.
The Obamas shook the pope’s hand and some of the president’s Catholic aides kissed his ring.
Then the president and pontiff sat down without the family.

The meeting came just days after Benedict released his latest encyclical, “Caritas in Veritate,”
which calls for more ethics in business and represents the church’s latest thinking about the
economy in a globalized world.

Mr. Obama met separately with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. “They
talked about the encyclical and how some of the issues raised in it are in keeping with some of
the priorities of the Obama administration,” said a person who was present but insisted on
anonymity to discuss a private meeting. Benedict gave Mr. Obama a mosaic depicting Saint Peter’s
Basilica, a leather-bound and signed copy of “Caritas in Veritate,” and a copy of “Dignitas Personae,”
or ”The Dignity of the Person,” the church’s latest document on bioethics, released in December.

Rachel Donadio contributed reporting from Vatican City.

 

[PMedMoe]

It would seem Amanda Lindhout is still alive.

'I'm afraid I'll die in captivity,' kidnapped Canadian says

Almost a year into her captivity in Somalia, Amanda Lindhout said her health, both physical and mental, is deteriorating.

In a phone call to a Canadian media outlet, the kidnapped freelance journalist from Sylvan Lake, Alta., also said she is shackled and being kept in a dark room.

“I don't want to die here and I'm afraid I'll die in captivity if I don't get help soon,” she told OMNI TV on Monday. “I don't know how much longer I can bear this.”

Ms. Lindhout, 28, and Australian photographer, Nigel Brennan, were grabbed near Mogadishu, the Somali capital, on Aug. 23, 2008. Their local translator and driver were later released. A demand for $2.5-million was initially made.

In the call, Ms. Lindhout pleaded with her family to deal directly with her captors and Ottawa to intervene to pay a $1-million ransom. The teary statement was similar to previous calls to other media agencies.

“My government must have some duty to help me,” Ms. Lindhout said, “I love my country and I want to return so I'm begging, I'm begging my government to come to my aid.”

She said her captives have threatened to kill her if the ransom isn't paid.

Last month, Ms. Brennan's mother broke the family's silence and urged Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to move the case forward.

Ms. Lindhout's family and friends have not spoken to the media.

In the call, Ms. Lindhout also complained of fever, dysentery, severe stomach problems and an abscessed tooth.

The Somali news site, Waagacusub.com , reported Friday that Ms. Lindhout had given birth the week before to a boy, and that the father is one of her captors.

“She is very contented with her marriage relationship with one of her captors,” a captor said.

Rumours about pregnancy and escape have been circulating for months, but no Western source has confirmed them.

Daud Abdi Daud, executive director of the Somali Journalists' Rights Agency, does not consider Waagacusub a reliable source, but said that Ms. Lindhout “is still alive and in good condition.”

Reporters Without Borders, which has been monitoring the case, does not consider that agency to be reliable.

Emma Welford, a spokeswoman with Foreign Affairs, said Ottawa was aware of these reports, but had no comment.

Long-term kidnappings are not unheard of.

More on link

 

[Edward Campbell]

Today is the day the UN sets aside to consider slavery and its abolition.

Sadly, of course, while slavery was, indeed, abolished – within the British Empire – on 23 Aug 1833, it persists today. It is not just the informal slavery that exists, in some cultures, when, for example, women are deprived of their “natural rights,” there exists, today, in Africa and the Middle East, real slavery where people are bought and sold and where they can be worked, literally, to death.

This item, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the CNC website, is a bit dated, about 18 months old, but it remains pertenant:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/slavery/mauritania.html

IN DEPTH
Modern slavery
Freedom's just another word
Contemporary slavery in Mauritania

February 29, 2008

By David Gutnick, The Sunday Edition

The night of Aug. 8, 2007, seemed like a night for celebration in Mauritania, a vast desert country on Africa's northwest coast.

Radio, television and newspapers all proclaimed the end of slavery. Slave-owning was criminalized, and overnight, half a million people — a fifth of the country's population — were officially freed from bondage.

But there was a problem. Those half-million newly free people didn't own radios. They didn't own televisions. They can't read either. And the news — if they heard it — meant little anyway.

In Mauritania, despite good intentions and high-minded words, slavery is still thriving, as it has for 800 years. It is just taking new forms.

Dark-skinned men, women and children known as Haratine carry out orders under the threat of being beaten. They work as labourers and shepherds, as servants and cooks, as nursemaids and security guards. They are penniless and uneducated. Their masters are pale-skinned, Arab-speaking Moors.

The relationship is ancient, confusing and deeply entrenched, and it defines much of what goes on in this iron-rich, sandy country. Even the most modern and sophisticated of Mauritanians is caught in the tangled web.

My guide and interpreter, Mohamed-Sidi-Ali-François, is a computer teacher at an elite, American, private school in the capital city of Nouakchott. He is a tall, thin Moor in his mid-40s who studied at universities in Scotland and the United States. He's full of energy on the morning in late November 2007 when we meet.

A visit to a Haratine slum

As we drive through the sandy streets of Nouakchott, Mohamed points out the Tiviski dairy, which bottles milk collected from nomadic camel herders. We pass by the high walls surrounding the central military barracks; generals ruled Mauritania until last year. Our destination is Sebra, one of Nouakchott's poorest neighbourhoods.

Excited crowds of children meet us. Mohamed scans the golden sand, frowns and points to my shoes.

"Be careful as you walk," he says, "because people here don't have toilets, so they usually go to the bathroom in the street. So, you have to watch your steps every time."

Mohamed is leading me through a labyrinth of shoulder-wide alleyways. The rows of one-room shacks are built from wood scraps and corrugated metal and arranged so that they block out the desert winds.

Mohamed's ankle-length shirt, called a bou-bou, billows out like a sheet, a brilliant patch of blue against the sand-scarred walls.

Mohamed drives his SUV by Sebra often — it is near the airport — but he rarely visits. In Mauritania, everyone knows his or her place.

From the time they are born, Mauritanians learn to whom they can talk and to whom they can't, whom they can marry and who's off limits.

The donkey-cart drivers, the street sweepers, the construction labourers are dark-skinned Haratine.

The bank managers, the lawyers and the private-school teachers, like Mohamed, are Moors, and their skin is close to white.

The social codes in Mauritania aren't subtle. You read them instantly in Mohamed's proud posture and the dutiful way the Haratine here in Sebra avert their eyes and step out of his path unless he gestures that it's OK.

A reality check

To Mohamed's face, the Sebra residents won't readily admit they used to be slaves. They are still afraid their former masters will come looking for them.

A man named Hussein tries to set the record straight.

"If you go outside in the countryside, you will see that slaves and freed slaves are doing all the work in the fields," he says, "and the land doesn't belong to them. It belongs to the master."

"They keep saying we are not their slaves, but it is the masters who are making them work and who decide how much to pay them. [The Haratine] still believe because the government says, you are not slaves, but in practice they are still slaves," says Hussein.

Last August when the Mauritanian National Assembly voted to criminalize slavery, masters were ordered to free their Haratine slaves or face 10 years in jail.

Anti-slavery organizations called it a giant step forward, and on paper it was.

But the free Haratine are landless, own nothing and almost all are illiterate. The law cannot change the colour of their skin.

So far, the end of slavery has been a mixed blessing, Hussein tells me. Freed slaves who were fed by their masters are now going hungry.

"Some of them who are freed now really like to stay with the master because now the relationship is so good they just don't want to say anything," he says. "White people, now, they say they are related to you, but they treat us as slaves. So, why do Haratine keep denying the fact?"

Mauritania is an Islamic republic governed by Shariah law. Imams preached for centuries that the Prophet Mohamed justified the comfort of the Moors and the suffering of the Haratine.

Hussein is among the lucky ones; he managed to become a teacher. He knows that it takes more than a law to break the shackles of slavery.

"There is a contradiction here," he says. "The religion of the country allows it whereas the government is trying to put an end to it. So should we follow the religion, or what the government says?"

A visit to a Muslim scholar

Ever since we left the slums of Sebra, Mohamed's been telling me about Mohameden Ould Tah. He's a religious star in Mauritania, a regular guest on state television and radio. Street vendors hawk piles of his books and cassettes. I tell him I would like to meet with him. Mohamed makes a phone call and tells me he can't believe we got an appointment. He says imams line up to get into his white-walled mansion.

We are met at the door by a Haratine and led through a flower-filled courtyard, through another set of doors and down a long, tiled hallway.

Mohameden Ould Tah is waiting in his palatial book-lined study. He's got a head of thick white hair, delicate pale skin and a gracious smile. He looks gentle, though Mohamed has warned me of his reputation as a fierce and tenacious debater.

A Haratine servant hands us small cups of sweet green tea. Mohameden Ould Tah waves him off with the flick of his wrist, and says he finds my interest in slavery puzzling.

"Nothing in Islam encourages slavery," he says. "If Muslims had applied the verses of the Qur'an that said that, there wouldn't have been any problem"

I say I cannot believe that because the Haratine I have seen in his own home open the doors, clean the floors and make the tea, so if there are no more slaves in Mauritania, who are these people taking care of him?

He says that I do not understand: he used to have slaves, but now they are free to come and go. They are, he says, just like his own children and even his own mother, "because when I was young, my mother didn't have enough milk so slaves gave me their milk."

"When some countries are not happy with Mauritania, they try to find something wrong," he says.

"There is no more problem with slavery. We should not be talking about this subject at all, because it's gone, finished," he says.

I ask whether it is true what the Haratine in Sebra told me — that their imams preached that God made their ancestors slaves and that they shouldn't desire freedom.

Mohameden Ould Tah raises his hand to stop my question; he's clearly exasperated.

"The prophet Mohammed said never say 'slave,' say 'my son' or 'my daughter.' Islam shut the doors of slavery and opened other doors to free slaves. If you commit a sin and you free one slave, half of your sins are forgiven. There is a deed called Zakahat, [meaning] if you are rich, you will take part of your wealth to give to the poor people."

A visit to the countryside

Mohamed and I have a day-long drive across the Sahara ahead of us. I want to meet with Haratine in the market city of Atar in the north of the country. We're listening to Mohamed's favorite singer, Malouma, a light-skinned Moor who champions the rights of the Haratine and the rights of women.

When we spoke with our eyes, it was heavenly
All smiles and reverent beginnings
We tried love, and it failed
Yet whatever we do, love catches up with us

A few years ago, Malouma's music was banned; now, she's an elected senator. But her struggle against injustice still has a long way to go because hundreds of thousands of Haratine live in communities scattered across the vast Sahara dessert that's flying by our window.

We arrive just after sundown. The air is already cool. Our SUV crawls through the dark, narrow streets on the edge of town and pulls up beside a clay wall.

Mohamed says this is the first time he's been in this neighbourhood. Here, the homes are made of pressed sand that's covered with clay. When it rains, Mohamed says, the clay washes off, and residents worry about their homes falling apart.

The only light is the full moon.

Mistrust and skepticism

We stumble through a door into a courtyard. I hear a dozen voices, but I can't make out any faces until my eyes adjust to the candlelight.

Mohamed's arranged for a representative of S.O.S. Slavery to be present, along with men and women who have recently been freed from their masters.

A young man takes me by the arm and leads me over to a group of women and children.

On old woman named Mohammeda — this is the only name she goes by — is sitting on a carpet. She smiles and takes my hand. Her eyes are clouded over. She's almost blind.

From the time she was a little girl, Mohammeda rose before sunrise to work. She lit the fire, milked the camels and prepared food. She spent her days carrying water, gathering firewood and caring for the master's children. Her mother, her grandmother and her great-grandmother served the same family.

When Mohammeda's eyes and knees began to fail, the master expelled her from the only home she had ever known. He said he was following the law, setting her free.

Mohammeda left on foot with nothing but the clothes on her back: a yellow and pink cloak called a malaffa that protects her from the heat and sting of sandstorms.

"My children are still enslaved," she says, "and the master regularly beats my daughter. She is not given enough clothes."

Mohammeda said she knows about the new law that criminalized slavery, but she doesn't trust the government to help free her daughter. She begins to laugh when I ask whether slavery can ever end. No, she says. She wants to know whether I can help free her daughter.

A visit to Mohamed's home

It's my last day in Mauritania, and Mohamed and I are back in Nouakchott.

We're driving around in his SUV, music blasting through the open windows and across the dunes, two guys on a hot afternoon with time to kill.

Mohamed is excited about the foreign oil and mining money now flooding into Mauritania. Much of it is Canadian. Mohamed says he used to dream about moving to the United States because Mauritania was caught in a time warp. But he's changed his mind, he says, because the country is catching up with the rest of the world.

He wants to show me the new home he's building in an upscale neighbourhood near the beach.

Mohamed and I have only been together for a couple of days, but I feel I'm getting to know him. I've pegged him as a progressive guy, a member of the educated elite who will help end the caste system that goes back to the dark ages. I'm looking forward to finally getting a peek into his day-to-day life.

Mohamed points to a two-story high cement walled house. There's a balcony and two-car garage. So far, he's spent $60,000 on it. There are two bathrooms, imported tiles and a computer room.

Just metres away, a tent covered with old bags and bits of plastic leans into the wind. A dozen children run in and out. A handicapped boy sits on the sand next to a goat and a pile of garbage. Inside the tent, a woman nurses a five-day-old baby. There are a few cooking pots, some plastic water containers and a pile of clothes. A pot of tea steams away on an open fire.

Mohamed tells me that these are his guards. They are Haratine. He pays them 15,000 ouguiya — $50 — a month. For that, Mohammed gets round-the-clock service. The father, a man in his 40s named Jeva, makes sure no one steals construction materials.

When I ask whether the family are his slaves, Mohamed says no. Because he pays them, they are simple employees. Slavery is over, he says. They will be free to go when his house is finished and he no longer needs them.

"You never told me about these people," I tell him.

"This is a surprise for you," he says. "I just want to show you that sometimes those that work for you are not really slaves. We pay them a little salary, but that is all we can afford."

Mohamed makes $3,000 a month teaching at the American school. That's 30 times the average salary in Mauritania.

"You know," he says, "life is unfair."

I have suggested, many times, that we – Canada and our friends in whatever alliance might be formed – will end up in Africa, for a generation, of fighting and killing and dying as we try, with only limited prospects for success, to remake Africa into something more acceptable to our, Western, enlightened world view. Ending slavery is one of the right reasons to undertake that mission.

 

[Rifleman62]

While I believe you are more than likely correct about the crisis in Africa, I strongly believe the Canadian public will not want their sons and daughters killing "child" soldiers. It makes no difference to the Canadian public how ruthless these "child" soldiers can be. Our service personnel have enough problems without having to be looking down the gun sight and pulling the trigger on what we in Canada consider children. Canadian fathers/mothers/brothers/sisters put into situation would be criminal in my mind. And the Canadian liberal press, the CBC, the Parliamentary Press Gallery would be all over the CF for  this just to get at the government (assuming Mr. Harper is still the PM). The CF would be pawns in several agendas. If the UN was running the operation it is a guaranteed disaster.

In Africa it is too often a coup or invasion so that someone new can rape, pillage and loot the country. It's my turn Jack.
The solution? I don't know. Let China sort it out even if means some their influence in Africa is firmly established.

This has been going on forever even under Colonial rule. Tribalism.That's Africa's standard. Let's not try to establish Canada's standard. That's colonialism.

Why, I may even protest sending the CF!

 

[Edward Campbell]

While I believe you are more than likely correct about the crisis in Africa, I strongly believe the Canadian public will not want their sons and daughters killing "child" soldiers. It makes no difference to the Canadian public how ruthless these "child" soldiers can be. Our service personnel have enough problems without having to be looking down the gun sight and pulling the trigger on what we in Canada consider children. Canadian fathers/mothers/brothers/sisters put into situation would be criminal in my mind. And the Canadian liberal press, the CBC, the Parliamentary Press Gallery would be all over the CF for  this just to get at the government (assuming Mr. Harper is still the PM). The CF would be pawns in several agendas. If the UN was running the operation it is a guaranteed disaster.

In Africa it is too often a coup or invasion so that someone new can rape, pillage and loot the country. It's my turn Jack.
The solution? I don't know. Let China sort it out even if means some their influence in Africa is firmly established.

This has been going on forever even under Colonial rule. Tribalism.That's Africa's standard. Let's not try to establish Canada's standard. That's colonialism.

Why, I may even protest sending the CF!

I am very much in agreement, Rifleman62, except that:

1. I expect the anti-colonial/anti-globalization/anti-American left to demand that "we" - the American led West (the left has no sense of the irony of its own positions) - do something, and that will involve sending troops; then

2. I expect the very same people to protest because we are killing (take your pick) -

a. children, and/or

b. blacks, and/or

c. the poor; and

3. I expect the Liberal Party of Canada to support the left each and every step of the way.

 

[Rifleman62]

Absolutely agree. Although the LPC will have to tread smartly so not to alienate it's base in the New Canadians community. The CF's attempts to have a more diversified "workforce" will suffer, as it could be seen as an oppressor rather than a liberator to  some new immigrants. How many New Canadians would want to go back to the country they were born in, and remember what went on there?

And you can take it to the bank that whomever we are facing will put "child' soldiers in the first couple of waves, followed by the unreliable/potential threats, followed by the rest of the mob.

 

[Blackadder1916]

. . . to get at the government (assuming Mr. Harper is still the PM). The CF would be pawns in several agendas. If the UN anyone was running the operation it is a guaranteed disaster.

While I "sort of" agree with ERC that we (as part of whatever alliance) "may" end up in Africa, I don't think it is a given in my lifetime, so Harper probably has little worry concerning this (he is not that much younger than me).

Like this thread which has lumped together all things Africa, the problems of the "Dark Continent" are just as broad.  There are so many problems, in so many places, that it melds into one giant 'white noise'.  Looking at those problems in their totality overwhelms one and sometimes you can't see the "trees for the forest".  Yes, there will probably be continued calls (well past my expiry date) from the well intentioned (but sometimes poorly informed) for significant western military action to solve some of those problems.  But the question that should then be posed (now and in the future) is "where do you begin".

Everyone has their pet projects or cause de jour which clouds their thinking, however most of the leadership of the western nations are reasonably intelligent and rational individuals.  I don't expect that dynamic to radically change in the near future regardless of the party in power.  My expectation that any "western led" (which would have to include an African element) military expedition would only have limited objectives and would be closely tied (whether publically stated or not) to some "legitimate" security (or more likely economic) agenda.  The west (read USA) has already had (is still in) its moment of altruistic military action.  Despite the exhortations of the well-meaning, my belief is that there are enough with common sense to delay any rushing in until the memory of recent military action fades.

 

[Edward Campbell]

...

...Let China sort it out even if means some their influence in Africa is firmly established.
...

See Dambisa Moyo on why ”we” fail and China might succeed (7’25”).

But, see also Rwandan Pres. Paul Kagane on the same topic.

In fairness, to both, the “answer” is to go to the capital markets to sell bonds – which Westerners will not buy but the Chinese will – rather than to rely on aid.

But the Chinese seem more inclined to invest in Africa; they want and get influence, but, as Kagane says, Chinese influence is growing world wide, not just in Africa.