Long host to hundreds of thousands of refugees, Tanzania is now forcibly repatriating asylum seekers to still-volatile Burundi despite their genuine reasons to fear persecution, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced. The government returned two families totaling nine persons, a UNHCR spokesperson said, despite assurances made to UNHCR that the nine would be granted refugee status.

War in Côte d'Ivoire has delayed the establishment of a full-fledged government office responsible for refugees and statelessness, Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo told UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers before the latter concluded his West African tour in Abidjan.The Minister of Foreign Affairs noted that the government was working on the adoption of a national refugee law that will establish this office.

If a United Nations report can decree, just days after Holocaust Memorial Day, that the killing of tens of thousands of people in Darfur did not amount to genocide, then what does it mean to say 'Never again'? asks Andrew Donaldson. In July last year, a US state report found evidence of genocide in the oil-rich region. However, a UN report released just days after Holocaust Memorial Day has ruled otherwise - thus freeing the international community from a legal and binding obligation to bring to a swift end the killings there and to punish the perpetrators.
Related Link:
- Oil greed trumps genocide concerns
http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/2025.cfm
- New UN Force for Sudan Will Skirt Darfur Crisis
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/sudan/2005/0208unskirts.htm

"The Freedom of Expression Institute welcomes the progress made by the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) made with respect to the investigation of complaints of assault and torture by three activists of the Landless Peoples' Movement (LPM) on the 15 April 2004. As a result of investigations by the ICD, the DPP has charged one police officer, and others may also be prosecuted in due course. "

For years young boys and girls have been trafficked into Gabon from all over West Africa for use as child labour in this relatively affluent oil-producing country. But finally, there are signs that the government is starting to crack down on the practice. Gabon passed a law against trafficking and child exploitation in 2002, but the first police roundup of child traffickers and their victims only took place on the 24 January - nearly three years later.

Burundi's remaining active rebel group, the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL), said on Thursday it was ready for talks with the transitional government, on condition that South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma does not act as mediator. FNL spokesman Pasteur Habimana said Zuma, who is also the facilitator of Burundi's peace process under an initiative of the Great Lakes regional heads of state, had in the past rejected FNL's proposal to hold talks with the Burundian government.

Enormous hopes rested on the Government of Sudan (GoS) and the rebels Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) when they signed a historic comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) in Naivasha, Kenya, on Sunday, 9 January 2004. If sustained, it will mark the end of a more than two decades of war and allowing Sudan’s people to return to a civilian lifestyle with the accompanying rights and freedoms.

Supported by the international community under the auspices of the Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the agreement is the outcome of an intense process of negotiations between both warring parties that gathered momentum in 2004: The peace accord signed on 26 May 2004 between the Government of Sudan and the SPLA/M was followed by a comprehensive framework agreement, the Nairobi Declaration, on 5 June 2004. On 31 December 2004, the last two protocols for a peace deal were signed - a permanent ceasefire and the implementation modalities of the protocols. Sudan now embarks on its pre-interim period of governance before the six-year interim period leading to a referendum on the South’s secession officially begins.

However, through all the joyous proclamations of peace and stability by the GoS and the SPLA/M, it is by far from sure whether this will be the beginning of a new period in Sudan’s history where human rights are respected and protected. Although the peace agreement has been a fairly smooth process since 2002 once high level delegations from both sides were involved, the longevity of the war, its underlying causes and the mistrust still evident between the two sides continue to be an impediment towards how both sides view each other and others involved in the conflict. Shifting alliances and this deep mistrust of all parties continue to pervade the atmosphere in Sudan, generating a profound lack of confidence in governance institutions and the environment in which they operate, and it will have important implications in the way a future National Unity Government will operate.

Moreover, even the official end of the north-south conflict will not necessarily bring immediate peace as potential uprisings and conflicts in the west, east, in Unity State and Upper Nile and continuing intra and inter ethnic conflict could destabilise Sudan once again. The human rights situation in the Sudan, although improved over a number of years, has sharply declined with the onset of the conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan and the situation in Sudan still remains tense with a number of high and low intensity conflicts throughout the country. The consequences and implications of these conflicts upon the peace process are still an unknown factor, and there is a significant danger that they could jeopardise the peace and cause instability.

The forthcoming several months, after a comprehensive peace agreement has been signed, will impact deeply on the stability of the country. This will have enormous consequences and implications for the human rights culture of the country. All parties to the conflict have committed serious human rights abuses that have been well documented.

Human Rights Trampled in One of Africa’s Longest-Running Conflicts

Civil war has characterised Sudan for all but ten years (1972-1982) since its independence in 1956. Two decades of the conflict, since its resumption with the SPLM/A in 1983, has devastated the country rich in natural and human resources, and the most heinous human rights violations have been committed. As a direct result of the fighting between north and south two million have died, three to four million have been displaced, and several million more have had their livelihoods disrupted. Sudan has consistently fallen into the lower echelons of the human and poverty indexes, where it was rated 139 out of 177 in the Human Development Index (HDI), and ranked 116/175 in the Gender-related Development Index, which measures the same achievements as the HDI but also takes into account the inequality in achievement between men and women. However, when the indicators highlighted in the Baseline Survey for Southern Sudan are taken into account these figures in reality should be much lower. This directly impacts economic, social and cultural rights of all Sudanese people – for example, the adult illiteracy rate countrywide is 41.2%, where many students are denied obtaining either a primary or secondary education due to migration, conflict and lack of governmental financial support.

In the past, the Government of Sudan has come under severe international criticism for its human rights record from the international community. Civil and political rights have been harshly repressed and the right to development in Sudan has been seriously adversely affected as a consequence of the fighting, affecting access to even the most basic of services such as education and health for the majority. Inversely, this has often led to human rights concerns as a low priority, and human rights violations were often carried out in a climate of impunity. The consequence of this has been for the international community to directly deal with alleviating suffering and responding to humanitarian needs in the short term.

Recently, the human rights situation has fluctuated according to the political atmosphere in Sudan and the Government’s flexibility. Reports from human rights organisations have stated that the human rights situation has slightly improved over the years, with fewer violations occurring within the civil and political spheres, as restrictions have been eased. Yet, this year has seen a number of simmering conflicts come to the fore, reversing the gains made in the past. The Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on Extra Judicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions on her recent visit to Sudan was “disturbed and alarmed by the gravity of the human rights abuses perpetrated in the Sudan,” and also stressed “the question of accountability as a fundamental principle in addressing violations of human rights.” Human rights violations committed particularly in the context of armed conflict is a worrying trend where security forces and militia allied to the GoS act with impunity.

Due particularly to the Darfur crisis in Western Sudan the human rights situation has steadily worsened over the past year, including war-related human rights abuses, such as killing, abduction, rape, displacement and extra-judicial executions. Human rights activists and defenders and opposition members, especially those associated with Darfur, have been detained and routinely harassed and are often held incommunicado detention without charge or trial. The international community has only recently begun to focus on the conflict, ongoing for over 20 months, and has highlighted the complete lack of accountability of human rights in Sudan. As the Government has gained a higher negative international profile as a consequence it has adversely rebounded on the rest of the country and made it more difficult for human rights activists to operate freely.

Ever since the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Sudan on Human Rights was abruptly ended in April 2003 there has been no independent monitoring of the human rights situation in Sudan. After a tense session during the 60th Session of the Committee on Human Rights in Geneva, where Sudan successfully lobbied to avoid the re-introduction of a Special Rapporteur, an independent expert on the situation of human rights with a mandate to investigate human rights in Sudan was realised and made his first trip to Sudan in mid-August. The ensuing report back to the UN will ensure that human rights ‘benchmarks’ remains a presence on the government’s agenda and that the GoS continues to be accountable for its actions, whether in a conflict or non-conflict situation.

There has been no effective promotion or protection structures functioning in the country. Human rights monitoring and work continues to remain a sensitive issue, where strict controls regulate work by non-governmental organisations. The promotion and protection of human rights in the Sudan can take on a multiplicity of activities, but presently very few national activities are ongoing to systematically address human rights violations in the country. There are few national structures in place that effectively works on promotion and protection issues. Although, particularly since the Darfur crisis began, the Government has engaged more with international partners to discuss human rights issues and to improve the human rights situation, there are still structural weaknesses, particularly with regards to functioning government institutions dealing with human rights.

>>>>>For the rest of this article, that includes a regional analysis of threats to peace, the political challenges of establishing a unity government and the building of safeguards for human rights, please click on the link below.

* Denise Lifton is a freelance consultant working on human rights in Africa. She is currently working in Sudan.

* Please send comments to

The relationship between land and conflict is intuitive. Historically, land has been significant in war in the form of a “prize” of territorial control enjoyed by the victors at the expense of the vanquished – losing groups would often be forced to flee, relinquishing their homes, fields and properties. More recently however, increased interest in conflict analysis has revealed various complex relationships between control over land (and land-based resources) and conflict. Combatants involved in conflict within states – by far the most significant kind of conflict today – often claim that unequal access to land is one of the causes of violence. During conflict, land access is affected not just for belligerents, but for entire communities, who become targets of violence due to the ethnicization of conflict. And in post-conflict situations, the land and shelter needs of returning internally displaced populations (IDPs) and refugees must be carefully managed in order to avoid dangerous disputes and further violence.

This problem is compounded in many developing countries by the challenging structural nature of land ownership, which may include demographic pressure, gross inequalities between and within communities, inadequate land administration and different conceptions of land tenure according to different land use norms. Therefore, land policies in post-conflict countries – and indeed, across the world – should consider the possible destabilizing effects that can result from inequalities and inefficiencies. In Africa as elsewhere, a key problem relates to the mismatch between customary land tenure systems, which are undergoing changes related to modernization and globalization, and state-managed systems based on western models. For this reason, the founder of ACTS, Prof. Calestous Juma, argued in 1996 that, “the way land use is governed is not simply an economic question, but also a critical aspect of the management of political affairs. It may be argued that the governance of land use is the most important political issue in most African countries.”

>>>>>To read the full article, please click on the link below.

During the day, the unpaved roads connecting dozens of villages in this cocoa-growing region of southern Cote d'Ivoire are full of farmers and cocoa buyers. But at night, when the red dust has settled and the roads are deserted, the self defence committees come out to stand guard. The civil war has not entirely destroyed the tightly-knit social fabric that helped spawn Cote d'Ivoire's wealth, but it has certainly damaged it badly.

Luis Moreno Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court (ICC), is going to be a busy man this year as far as Africa is concerned. Reports indicate that the court could begin trying those accused of perpetrating atrocities in the conflict between Uganda's government and rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) this year. The LRA, led by Joseph Kony, took up arms against Kampala in 1986, saying it wanted to establish a government based on the Biblical ten commandments.

The team defending Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, the only woman so far to be indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) begins its case on Monday. Nyiramasuhuko, the former Rwandan minister of Family and Women Affairs, is charged with 11 counts including genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide and rape. She has become the first woman to be charged for rape as a crime against humanity.

Minority Rights Group International (MRG) has raised its concerns at the 36th Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, regarding the poor situation of state compliance with its recommendations and urgent action directives. The rights group congratulated the Commission’s vision and foresight in a number of extremely progressive decisions in favour of some of Africa’s most vulnerable communities. However it criticized states including Nigeria and Kenya for failing to implement such decisions and recommendations, in clear contravention of their obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Competition for water resources could provoke wars in Africa and the Middle East, Boutros Boutros Ghali has said. In an interview with the BBC, the former UN Secretary General urged the international community to ensure a fair division of water between nations. Mr Boutros Ghali told Radio 4's Today programme that military confrontation between the countries of the Nile basin was almost inevitable. It would only be avoided if they could share water equitably, he said.

The plight of Liberian refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) has been explored in a new book that will be launched in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, on Friday. "A Life Removed: Hunting for Refuge In the Modern World" by British author and journalist Rose George, focuses on what it means to suddenly be made a modern-day refugee or IDP. She researched it by talking to displaced people in Liberia and refugees in camps in Cote d'Ivoire.

Tunisian authorities should stop harassing journalist and former political prisoner Abdallah Zouari, and end his banishment in the remote south of the country, Human Rights Watch said. Since Zouari completed an 11-year prison sentence in 2002, authorities have sought to silence and punish him because of his outspoken criticism of government policies, notably on human rights. Zouari has been confined to a rural district in Medenine province, 500 kilometers from his family's home in suburban Tunis, jailed three times, placed under round-the-clock police surveillance and intermittently prevented from using local Internet cafés to communicate with others. Zouari has been on a hunger strike since January 23 to protest the rejection of his numerous written requests to authorities for permission to visit his family.

South Africa said Thursday it was ready to help the International Criminal Court investigate war crimes on the continent as the tribunal tackles its first cases in Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. "We are working on a memorandum of understanding as to how we can assist the ICC," Justice Director General Vusi Pikoli told reporters in Pretoria after meeting with chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

The phenomenon of African migration into Europe is one of the hot topics often debated in the European media. But while the headlines focus on illegal migrants and the desperate means they resort to in order to reach Europe's shores, very little attention has been paid to refugees who also risk their lives along the way. This mixed flow of people arriving in Europe raises new challenges in terms of refugee protection. In recent years, the UN refugee agency has become increasingly concerned that, in their effort to combat illegal migration, European Union countries tend to overlook the needs of the refugees mixed in with the illegal migrants.

Jointly chaired by the Government's Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs and the South African Human Rights Commission in Johannesburg, the outcome of the first-ever public hearings on xenophobia held in early November 2004 will lead to a report that will be tabled before Parliament with the ultimate aim of realising some of the most pertinent recommendations made towards addressing xenophobia. Readily acknowledged as a global phenomenon, the public hearings on xenophobia gave the civil society, government agencies and communities affected by this scourge, the opportunity to voice their concerns.

Front Line Defenders (http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/) is concerned for the safety of Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, human rights defender and Director of the Sudan Social Development Organization (SUDO), and Salah Mohammed Abu Alrahman, a volunteer with SUDO. According to the information received, Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam and Mr. Salah Mohammed Abu Alrahman were arrested in a small village called Kondoua (North Kordufan) on 24 January 2005.

As heads of state from more than 25 African countries met in Nigeria to tackle some of the continent’s most urgent problems, another potential crisis on Nigeria’s own doorstep is being ignored. According to a new report by the Global IDP Project, resolving the situation of internal displacement in Nigeria must be a key priority. “Although the current situation of internal displacement in Nigeria may not amount to an ‘emergency’, especially when compared to other conflict-induced displacement crises in Africa, there is real potential for renewed violence that could quickly spread and cause major population movements,” said Raymond Johansen, Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council.