The International Criminal Court has said it expects Uganda to meet its obligation to arrest the leader of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army rebels. Joseph Kony is wanted for war crimes by the court, but on Wednesday Uganda's president offered him a peace deal. Yoweri Museveni said Mr Kony had until the end of July to end the war and said his safety would be guaranteed. But the ICC says Uganda's government referred the case to the court and must honour its commitment.

No-one was expecting Darfur's peace agreement to bring about an immediate transformation on the ground. But the short time since the deal in Abuja has shown the size of the challenge ahead. The Sudan Liberation Army, the region's biggest rebel movement is split in two. One faction lead by the wiry Minni Minnawi has signed the deal while the other faction under Abdul Wahid Mohammed al-Nur demands further concessions from the Sudanese government. In Gereida and Kalma - two of Darfur's biggest camps - the impact of the deal on the rebels and their supporters could be immediately seen.

At least five people have been killed in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, when Islamist gunmen attacked a warlord, breaking a three-day truce. A compound belonging to warlord Mohamed Omar Habeb Dheere north of Mogadishu was overrun by the Islamist gunmen. The attack coincided with a rally intended to call for peace, following the death of at least 140 people. Hundreds of demonstrators chanted anti-US slogans, accusing the US of backing the alliance of warlords.

For the first time in nearly four years, Ivorian political actors seem tempted by peace, says the International Crisis Group. "International intervention, the exhaustion of a population overwhelmed by its leaders’ bad faith, and a good start by Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny have primed the country for presidential elections, meant to be held before 31 October 2006. However, progress is far from irreversible," says the ICG.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has given the leaders of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) a two-month ultimatum "to peacefully end terrorism" or face a combined force of Ugandan and southern Sudanese troops. Although the Ugandan government has offered amnesty to LRA members who surrender, Museveni has repeatedly rejected the possibility of pardoning any high-ranking officers. However, according to a government statement, "[I]f he [Joseph Kony, LRA leader] got serious about a peaceful settlement, the government would guarantee him safety."

Floods have killed nine people, displaced thousands others and destroyed a cemetery in Burundi's northwestern province of Bubanza, following a week of heavy rainfall that caused two rivers to burst their banks. The government and the United Nations Mission in the country, known as ONUB, have started to provide to help the affected families and to divert the floodwaters back to the riverbeds.

Rebel groups are reportedly continuing to recruit men and boys in camps in Chad that shelter 200,000 Sudanese who have fled the fighting in the Darfur region of their own country, and the Chadian Government must take all necessary steps to stop such activities, according to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR). "People who have fled the horrors of Darfur have already suffered enough," UNHCR spokesman told a news briefing in Geneva. "It is totally unacceptable that refugee camps become recruiting grounds and that children under the age of 18 are being victimized."

More than 300 Somalis and Ethiopians were smuggled into Yemen last weekend with tales of a harrowing trip during which the smugglers beat three passengers to death and threw their corpses overboard, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said. Of the 335 who reportedly arrived in Yemen, only 35 came to the agency’s reception centre in May’faa in southern Yemen, but survivors of the dangerous Gulf of Aden trip often travel to other destinations, UNHCR spokesman told journalists at the UN complex in Geneva.

A group of Malians deported from France is due to hold a march to protest at the visit of hardline French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy this week. The planned march follows a statement from Malian MPs, calling on Mr Sarkozy to call off his "undesirable" visit. Mr Sarkozy wants to reduce illegal immigration and has been behind the deportation of many Malians.

While I am in agreement with most of Julie Flint's comments, it is necessary to highlight a grave inaccuracy in his article, namely, that Darfur has no geo-strategic importance and no oil, a misconception popularly repeated in many media articles.

She says: "Their region (Darfur) is of little or no strategic importance: it has no water and it has no oil...Their only asset was the support of the international community..."

I contend that Darfur is of strategic interest, both to the Khartoum government and the international community, because it does have potentiallly "abundant" unexploited oil reserves.

In support of this, please see "Oil discovery adds new twist to Darfur tragedy" at - an article which Pambazuka News also carried on 22 May last year. And "Briton named as buyer of Darfur oil rights" at http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,14658,1503470,00.html

It is also crucial not to underplay the importance of oil in Sudan generally and in the region as a whole. Sudan and neighbouring Chad (which has been greatly impacted by the violence in Darfur), are so-called "marginal producers" in the world oil industry, but have the potential to produce substantially more oil. In view of concerns over oil supplies from the Arab world, their strategic importance to the oil-guzzling industrialised nations, as well as to China and Russia, should not be underestimated.

This goes a long way in explaining the Hollywood-supported calls for US intervention in Darfur (where the violence and humanitarian crisis are indubitably horrific), while the ongoing violence and terror in other regions of Africa such as northern Uganda and the north-eatern DRC go largely unremarked in the USA.

Another useful article is "How oil drives the genocide in Darfur " available online at

The Kenyan security minister has warned he may order new raids against the media just days after a deadly attack on a radio station. The minister warned that the government would not hesitate to use force against any news group that demeans the state. "No body will be allowed to harm the government and if they do that we will teach them a lesson," he said. Last Friday, eight hooded gunmen raided Christian radio station Hope FM, killing a guard and injuring two more.

The Institute of Development Studies is publishing a pocket-sized guide to help people find some of the best websites on a wide range of development issues. They are requesting help to select 5 favourite websites about the issue of conflict. Send no more than 150 words indicating what you use the website for and why you recommend it. If your entry is chosen, it will be credited to you and you will receive 5 free copies of the book to share with your colleagues and friends.

Education International is deeply concerned at the actions taken by the Ethiopian authorities to dismantle the Ethiopia Teachers’ Association (ETA), which has been representing the legitimate interests of the teaching profession in that country since 1949. While Ethiopia has never been a haven for independent trade union activities, it can be said that in recent months EI’s Ethiopian affiliate has become the target of escalating repression which is clearly aimed at bringing about the total destruction of the union.

An unusually heavy influx of undocumented immigrants, who arrived on the coasts of Spain's Canary Islands over the weekend, has highlighted the ineffectiveness of wire fences and other police measures designed to keep people from sub-Saharan Africa from seeking a better life in Europe. Between Friday and Monday (8 to 12 May), the Civil Guard and local police intercepted and detained more than 500 people who arrived in Spain in canoes and "pateras" (precarious, low-floating wooden boats designed for shallow waters). Most were coming from Mauritania and Morocco.

Long-term humanitarian ‘care and maintenance’ programmes have a reputation for ignoring human and social needs. A new strategy designed for Sudanese refugees in Uganda was meant to address these failings by applying a more ‘developmental’ approach. However, political security, refugee participation and respect for human rights have been lacking.

A peace deal to end three years of fighting, the death of tens of thousands and the flight of millions was signed last Friday between the Sudanese government and the main Darfur rebel faction. The next stage in the peace process will be on May 15, when the African Union meets in an attempt to persuade two other rebel factions to sign the peace deal and to discuss when the United Nations will take over peacekeeping duties from the African Union. Can the peace deal succeed? Julie Flint weights its chances.

It took four years to negotiate an end to Mozambique’s civil war. That peace, signed in 1992, has lasted until today. The Darfur Peace Agreement, which it was hoped would end the first genocide of the 21st century, was forced through in little more than a year. If it fails to end the conflict in western Sudan, it will be because of its process rather than its provisions. The process has been flawed from the beginning, and could be fatal at the last. The DPA may well be the best the people of Darfur can get in their present, miserable circumstances. But international pressure for a quick fix threatens to cripple it - and in so doing to condemn Darfurians to further suffering.

Defenders of the peace process that began in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, in mid-2004 before shifting to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, will argue that it lasted almost two years. On paper, yes. In truth, no. The first four rounds of the seven-round talks were dominated by the Sudan government’s egregious violations of ceasefire agreements and the international community’s failure to take a single meaningful step to stop them. When serious negotiation was finally engaged, the African Union mediation was almost as problematic as the rebel negotiators themselves. The mediation improved towards the end of 2005, but popular pressure from outside Darfur for armed intervention was by then encouraging a series of deadlines that culminated with a 30 April date set by the AU Peace and Security Council. The best of the AU’s experts in Abuja believed April was unrealistic, off by a couple of months at least.

On 25 April, the AU presented its draft agreement. Previous deadlines had come and gone. But this one, astonishingly, was enforced (more or less). Officially, the parties had five days to take the agreement - or leave it. Five days, that is, for those able to read and understand English. Those who were dependent on the Arabic text, completed on 28 April, had only 48 hours. The people of Darfur, who will live or die by the agreement, know very little about it. They have not been party to the talks. No-one has explained the agreement to them. (Least of all the state-controlled media, which would not be permitted to mention the state’s many concessions.) They do not know what it offers and what it doesn’t - and, most importantly, why it doesn’t. There is no individual compensation, they tell me. But there is. No timetable for the disarmament of the Janjaweed militias. But there is. No guarantees for implementation. But there are - inasmuch as there can be in the face of a government that will see implementation as defeat and will fight it every inch of the way.

This was never a people’s peace, a peace that grew from within and had strong, deep roots. Today it is an imposed and partial peace- between the Sudan government and the faction of the Sudan Liberation Army that is led by Minni Minawi, who represents 8% at most of the population of Darfur. It is already faltering: Darfurians are demonstrating against it in towns and displaced camps, recognizing in the signatories two narrowly-based parties who believe in domination through force and preferring continued struggle to what they believe is surrender. SLA Chairman Abdul Wahid Mohamed al Nur, until now the single most important rebel leader in terms of popular support as opposed to firepower, is insisting he will not sign, refusing sack-fulls of dollars intended to change his mind.

There are many in the Khartoum government who believe they can crush the movements by force and who, given half a chance, will try. Rushing an agreement that some factions still oppose could, in a worst-case scenario, give them that chance.

Interpretation of the DPA varies enormously. My own is that it is a pretty good deal. Not the best, perhaps, but not bad. The rebel movements have from the beginning suffered from delusions of grandeur. Unlike the southern rebels of the SPLA, they have not fought for 20 years. Their region is of little or no strategic importance: it has no water and it has no oil. The rebels themselves are divided, without a leader who can hold a candle to the SPLA’s John Garang. Most importantly: they did not win the war. Their only asset was the support of the international community, and their comportment in Abuja - and in Darfur itself - has damaged that.

Even those who have rejected the agreement acknowledge that its security provisions are surprisingly good. The Sudan government must withdraw its forces from many areas it currently occupies, and must disarm the Janjaweed within five months - before the rebels even begin to lay down their guns. Guarantees include an independent advisory team that both Canada and Norway, outspoken critics of the Khartoum government, are keen to head up. The government must downsize the paramilitary Popular Defence Force and Border Guards in which Janjaweed have been hidden. The hated PDF must be abolished in three or four years. Thousands of rebels will be integrated into the Sudanese Armed Forces. Some will even be given command posts.

The agreement’s weakest point, from Darfur’s viewpoint, is its provisions for power-sharing. At the federal level, the rebel movements have won few concessions and have been refused the third place in the national hierarchy. But they have the fourth - in itself a gigantic step up. The government has won the battle to keep Darfur divided into three states, until a referendum on a single region, and controls 50% of state legislatures to the rebels’ 30%, with 20% going to independents - a division that could, in reality, produce an anti-government majority. Critically, however, the movements will control the Transitional Darfur Regional Authority (TDRA) and annual income of hundreds of millions of dollars. It is the TDRA which will be the real power until elections. It will implement the peace agreement, supervise reconstruction and economic development, and help the return and resettlement of the refugees. All the TDRA’s commission heads will be the movements’ nominees.

The real, abiding concern is implementation. Because of the timetable, the implementing force will be the AU, which has been hopelessly under-resourced so far. UN troops may be accepted by Khartoum now the strongest rebel faction has signed the agreement, but they cannot arrive much before year-end. The threat of UN sanctions frightens no-one. What is most disturbing is the degree of eagle-eyed, unrelenting international pressure that will be needed to force Khartoum to do all the things it is refusing to do in South Sudan. Not just now, when the world’s eyes are on Darfur, but in a few years time, when foreign chancelleries and Hollywood’s finest may have shifted their attention to another crisis and another photo opportunity.

* Please send comments to

* Julie Flint is co-author, with Alex de Waal, of ‘Darfur - A Short History of a Long War’, published by Zed Books. She wrote Human Rights Watch's May 2004 report, ‘Darfur Destroyed’, and is currently a consultant on the inter-Sudanese peace talks in Abuja. This commentary first appeared in Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper,

Angolans living in South Africa would be more willing to return home if Angola's education and health sectors were improved, according to a NGO that focuses on development in the war-battered country. The South African government and the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, are to launch an information campaign on Thursday to inform Angolan refugees that 2006 will be the last year that they will be given assistance to return home. About 14,000 Angolan refugees are living in various parts of South Africa.

Chronically weak and outdated arms controls urgently need strengthening to stop an ever-expanding chain of arms brokers, logistic firms and transporters from fuelling massive human rights abuse around the world, according to a new report issued today (10 May). The report from Amnesty International and TransArms shows how increasingly sophisticated freight transport and brokering operations now deliver hundreds of thousands of tons of weapons around the world with an ever-greater proportion going to developing countries where they have fed some of the most brutal of conflicts.

Among the inmates languishing in prisons throughout Congo are at least ten children, some as young as 15 years old, condemned to death and waiting to be executed, according to a September 2005 letter from the United Nations to the Congolese government.

Militants in Nigeria's volatile oil-producing region detonated a car bomb late Saturday and issued a warning that investors and officials from China would be "treated as thieves" and targeted in future attacks. The threat came as Chinese President Hu Jintao returned home from a week-long tour of Africa in which he reached a series of deals securing access to oil and other resources to meet the needs of China's booming economy.