Despite the apparent move towards peace in Liberia in recent months, the situation of thousands of the country's displaced remains desperate. While many of Liberia's estimated 500,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) may wish to return to their areas of origin, very few have been able to do so. Faltering attempts to disarm the country's estimated 45,000 combatants have so far done little to reassure civilians that the tenuous peace will hold.

The civil wars that hit the Republic of Congo intermittently in the decade after 1992, the year of the first democratic elections, displaced up to 800,000 people. Most of these had either returned or settled down in their areas of displacement when hostilities broke out again in March 2002. The renewed fighting sent around 100,000 people, mainly Lari from the hard-hit Pool region which surrounds the capital Brazzaville, fleeing from their homes. In March 2003 a ceasefire was signed between the main rebel group and the government. The fighting has also resulted in massive organised looting, the burning of houses, and destruction of the rural economy and infrastructure and has devastated the social fabric of the Lari.

The latest death of a suspect in police custody in Swaziland has triggered renewed calls from the public and human rights groups for a probe into allegations of torture. Mandla Ngubeni, 28, was taken in last Friday for questioning by police in Mbabane, the capital, along with seven other employees of Fast Towing Services after Lilangeni 28,494.2 (US $4,363) was found missing from the company. Ngubeni was discovered dead in a police cell at 04h00 on Saturday. His family was not notified of his whereabouts until 10h00 on Sunday.

The UN Relief/Humanitarian Coordinator in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Herbert M'Cleod, has set up an inter-agency Crisis Task Force for the eastern town of Bukavu where fighting between rival factions of the Congolese army erupted on Wednesday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported. "The task force will interface with the ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] and will undertake an evaluation of the humanitarian needs in Bukavu as soon as security permits safe and unhindered access," OCHA said in a report of the current situation in the town.

This study of child trafficking describes a pattern of human rights violations affecting at least one million children today - probably many more. It concerns the business of taking children away from their homes and families, transporting them elsewhere, often across frontiers and even to other continents, to be put to use by others, usually to make money. This is a heart-rending pattern of abuse, but the study explains in as unsentimental way as possible what can be done to stop child trafficking and to protect
children who are trafficked.

The Forced Migration Online (FMO) team of the Refugee Studies Centre, has prepared a resource page highlighting relevant online resources relating to Africa. This is a review of key related resources including many resources catalogued on and available via FMO, and launched to coincide with the to the 10th anniversary of Africa Day.

A scandal involving systematic physical, mental and verbal abuse of asylum seekers in British detention centres is being investigated amid calls for the government to create a new watchdog to monitor the welfare of detainees. A middle-aged Kenyan woman was alleged to have received facial injuries after apparently resisting being put on a flight by her 3 escorts from a detention centre. Reports say passengers on the Kenyan Airways plane told immigration officials they were shocked to see Bernice Wairimu Mamau's swollen face and cheeks.

The international community must act urgently - and be prepared to use force if necessary - to save hundreds of thousands of civilians whose lives are at risk because of Sudan's brutal counter-insurgency in its western region of Darfur. There must be immediate, focused action, especially from the UN Security Council, to stop the killing and widespread atrocities, prevent mass starvation, reverse ethnic cleansing, and encourage a peace process, says the International Crisis Group. Experts warn that some 350,000 people could perish in the next nine months, mainly from famine, disease and malnutrition. More will die if the government-supported Janjaweed militias are not stopped.

The Sudanese government's signing of a peace agreement to end the 21-year civil war in the south must not deflect criticism of its ongoing campaign of "ethnic cleansing" in the western region of Darfur, Human Rights Watch has said. Human Rights Watch cited recent examples of Arab militias attacking five villages 15 kilometers south of Nyala in Darfur, killing 46 civilians and wounding at least nine others, according to local sources. The militias, known as Janjaweed, were accompanied by government soldiers in three Land Cruisers armed with antiaircraft artillery.

Human rights and humanitarian laws are under greater threat worldwide than at any time since the United Nations was founded more than half a century ago, Amnesty International says. In its annual report, the London-based human rights group cites attacks on civilians by extremist groups such as al-Qaeda that should be considered crimes under international law, with some amounting to crimes against humanity. But the report also blames the erosion of human rights on the U.S.-led war on terror, saying that governments that have pledged to fight terrorism are ignoring international laws and human rights principles.

Arms dealer Viktor Bout was the merchant of death wanted for feeding conflicts in Africa - until Iraq happened. Today the United States and Britain are using his extensive mercenary services in Iraq. The condemnation of his role in the diamond wars and other conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa over the past ten years is being silently erased. The Tajikstan-born Bout would be an embarrassing ally to acknowledge publicly. But the coalition partners are showing him exceptional favours as he does some of their job for them. The UN Security Council drafted a resolution in March to freeze the assets of mercenaries and weapons dealers who backed ousted Liberian dictator Charles Taylor. Bout should top that list, French diplomatic sources say. But the diplomats and UN sources say the United States has been working to keep Bout off that list.

More than 20 Christian villagers have been killed in a fresh outbreak of religious violence in Plateau State in central Nigeria, where President Olusegun Obasanjo imposed a state of emergency earlier this week, residents in the area told IRIN. Armed Muslims attacked five Christian villages on Tuesday near the town of Yelwa on Tuesday morning, they said.

The 70 suspected mercenaries arrested in Zimbabwe on charges of conspiring to topple the president of Equatorial Guinea are taking the South African government to court, a lawyer told IRIN on Wednesday. "We have filed an application at the Pretoria High Court following the failure of the office of the [South African] president [Thabo Mbeki] to respond to our request, sent to him on Monday, to either extradite the men to South Africa or ensure they are not handed over to the authorities in Equatorial Guinea," lawyer Alwyn Griebenow said.

The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Retired General Olushegun Obasanjo, has declared a state of emergency in Plateau State, one of Nigeria's 36 states. The Governor of the state and the parliament have been suspended from office and replaced by an Army General. Plateau, in the middle Belt region of the country, has been the centre of sectarian massacres between different ethnic and religious communities since 2001. The North Western state of Kano, Nigeria's second commercial city, has also seen ethnic and religious massacres recently, allegedly as a 'revenge' for the killings in Jos. Both states are not alone in the spate of killings that has gripped Nigeria in the past few years.

As to be expected the State of Emergency measure has been criticized by many people. Human rights groups decry it as a descent into dictatorship and a threat to the already faltering democratisation in the country. Some critics including the Christian Association of Nigeria have criticized it as discriminatory against Christians who are the majority in the state while a similar measure was not directed at Kano state where the majority of the population is Muslim. Still others see a majority and minority dimension in it. Plateau state is not one of the core states of the tripodal majority groups (Hausa -Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo) in the country therefore the president, himself part of the majority, feels he can get away with it whereas he dares not introduce similar measures in Kano.

The problem with conspiracy theories is that while it may be easy to be dismissive of them rationally and intellectually, the mix of fact, prejudice and beliefs make for serious political dangers in a very polarized society like Nigeria.

The principle of fairness should have demanded that the President imposes a state of emergency on both Plateau and Kano State. And if for any reason it is not possible in one then that extreme measure should never have been considered for one of the two states for similar crimes. There is no way in which the government can now escape criticisms of both intimidation in one case and timidity in the other.

However I can hazard guesses why the President took the steps he took in Plateau state. One, it is a state controlled by his party, the PDP, therefore he could not be accused of partisanship, whereas Kano state is controlled by the main opposition party, the ANPP.

Two, Plateau is a state with majority Christian population and since he is a Christian, a born again one for that matter, no one will accuse him of being anti-Christian. A third reason and a more personal one must be his anger. The president is known to take things personally and be slow to forgiveness for conduct he considers a personal affront to his leadership.

Therefore, the widely reported altercation he had with religious leaders in Jos when he visited the scene of the massacres during which he called one of them 'idiot' may have contributed to his determination 'to teach them a lesson'. Four, the president may have decided that in going for Plateu, seemingly the weakest link in the chain of shame in the governance of Nigeria, he could teach other states a lesson that enough was enough. Plateu's Governorbseemed to have lost the popular confidence of the people and elite of the state and was recently at the centre of criminal investigations by the British Police over money laundering allegations.

All of these would be the wrong reasons for taking the extraordinary step of suspending all elective institutions. If that happens at the federal level it would amount to a successful coup and an end to civilian rule. A democratic society must find other ways of dealing with threats to national security instead of resorting to the Army. It is a fire brigade approach that does not address the fundamental basis of the conflicts. Those who are saluting the 'courage' of the president, in taking this step, including many who have been his worst critics, would sing different tunes if the state of emergency had been declared in their own states or states controlled by parties they are sympathetic towards. Justice and the rule of law must be blind and should apply to all equally. This state of emergency may not strengthen the rule of law because its politics undermines the process of justice and democracy.

Now that this bad precedent has been set does that mean that the next state where such conflicts take place will also be placed under state of emergency? Lagos , Kaduna, Anabra, Imo and the whole of the Delta region continue to be ravaged by communal violence - does that mean a state of emergency will apply in all of these states now?

There are many sources for the intermittent communal, religious and other sectarian conflicts across the country. An obvious one is the extreme poverty that the majority of the preponderantly youth population live in. It has made available a ready-made army of militias to be deployed at the whim and caprice of any patron. But more importantly the irresponsibility of the government through its security and other law and order agencies to bring perpetrators to justice, respect the rule of law and compensate victims has created a culture of impunity. Because the government is failing in this basic function of protecting all the citizens and residents of the country people are taking the law into their hands and putting their faith in sectarian militias. So instead of declaring a state of emergency the president should stop residing in Aso Rock and start presiding over the peace and security of the country.

The government alone does not and should not carry the blame. The various religious and community leaders must also assume their responsibility of being frank even at the risk of personal safety to ask their followers to stop 'killing in the name of God'. There is no faith whose God wants to be worshipped in the grave yard. The media must also stop justifying unlawful killing of fellow citizens as 'revenge'. ([email protected]; [email protected])

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General Secretary of the Global Pan African Movement, based in Kampala, Uganda and also Director of Justice Africa, based in London.

* Send your comments to [email protected]

The May 2004 issue of Forced Migration Review, on refugee and IDP
livelihoods, has just been published. As the number of uprooted people
in the world continues to rise, the international community faces
mounting challenges on how best to assist refugees in need.
Understanding people’s livelihood strategies is a prerequisite to
assisting them. The articles in FMR 20 discuss the issues at stake,
examine agency strategies and refugees’ experiences, and present lessons
learned and examples of good practice.

London's Metropolitan Police said they will create a special protection team to monitor the entry of unaccompanied children into Britain following the release of an official report Monday that found a number of youngsters who arrived alone are missing from official registers. Child welfare groups, including UNICEF, called for more concerted national action from the government to prevent the abuse of minors who are smuggled into the country. The 'Paladin Child' report monitored the arrival of minors at London's Heathrow Airport, the country's busiest entry port, between August and November last year.

Some 200 Angolan refugees began the journey home on Tuesday from Namibia, the first of some 10,000 displaced who are to return in the coming months, UN officials said. The Angolans will cross the border on Thursday to return home to the southern province of Cunene, UNHCR official Esegiel Xamseb told AFP by phone from the Osire refugee camp, north of Windhoek. Some 90,000 refugees from countries neighboring Angola are to return home in May and June as part of a second wave of repatriations organised by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and Angolan authorities.

The number of Burundian refugees living in camps in western Tanzania has fallen to a six-year low, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported on Tuesday from Geneva. UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said more than 40,000 refugees had returned to Burundi since the beginning of the year, bringing the number of those remaining in the camps to less than 300,000. He said UNHCR convoys carried most of the refugees who returned this year through two major border crossings in Burundi's eastern province of Ruyigi.

The University of Zambia Students Union (UNZASU) has warned management and lecturers to resolve their differences. UNZA management and lecturers were scheduled to meet and resolve their differences over improved conditions of service. UNZASU publicity and information secretary Brian Kashimu said that failure by the two parties to reach an agreement would lead to the institution being declared a no-go area for them.

Hate crimes against lesbians are on the increase, mainly in areas such as Soweto and Alexandra, the chief executive officer of the Forum for the Empowerment of Women has said. Speaking at the ninth international conference of the South African Association of Marital and Family Therapy at the International Convention Centre on Tuesday, Donna Smith said the hate crimes ranged from murder, assault and abduction to rape and other humiliating forms of sexual abuse.