As Duas Sombras do Rio (The Two Shadows of the River) is João Paulo Borges Coelho’s first novel, but the themes it explores are familiar to the body of his work as a historian of the Portuguese colonial wars, and of Mozambican postcolonial history in particular. Anyone familiar with his academic writing will notice that the setting for As Duas Sombras do Rio, Bawa and Zumbo, have repeatedly figured in his essays and publications. The novel explores Mozambique’s troubled past, and more specifically the human cost of endless conflicts between various political forces over the last decades of the 20th century.

The Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (IHRHL) has raised an alarm that over 4,500 persons are currently being unlawfully detained at Federal Prisons in Rivers State. While it viewed the plight of these persons with “deep regret,” IHRHL noted that most of these persons “have spent years ranging from one to fifteen years without any form of trial for whatever accusations levelled against them”. The Institute further noted that “section 36, sub-section 5 of our Constitution is clear and unambiguous when it provides that these persons are innocent until proven guilty by a competent law court”.

Britain said Monday it would change its anti-discrimination laws to allow for a stricter control of Somali asylum seekers, the largest group of would-be immigrants arriving yearly in the country. Home Office junior minister Beverly Hughes said the amendment to the Race Relations Act would allow immigration officers to "prioritise" the case of Somalis over travellers from other countries without being accused of unfair racial discrimination. Somalis arriving in Britain will thus be "examined more rigorously than would otherwise be the case", she said.

Export processing zones have come in for substantial criticism since the 1970's, when their number started to grow worldwide. Labour activists claim that the incentives offered to attract companies to these zones create an environment where virtually any corner can be cut in pursuit of profit. Now, these concerns are finding a voice in Kenya. This week (Feb. 17), the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) launched a book entitled - The Manufacture of Poverty: The Untold Story of EPZ's (export processing zones) in Kenya”. The publication documents the human toll taken by the country's 41 EPZ's.

Nearly 3,000 registered Liberian refugees have returned from neighbouring countries spontaneously since December, but with the capital Monrovia still in ruins, most have sought shelter in camps for displaced people, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said. It reported a noticeable increase in the number of refugees returning spontaneously from Sierra Leone since last week via the Mano river bridge crossing at Bo Waterside.

Scores of internally displaced people (IDPs) living in camps near Lira town, on Tuesday took flight to seek refuge in the town centre after Saturday's massacre, alongside students from a nearby boarding school who also flocked in to join the thousands of other IDPs already living there. President Yoweri Museveni, who arrived in Lira on Monday night, visited Lira Referral Hospital the following morning and made a public apology for the massacre.

After six years the 20,000 refugees from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) camp of Gihembe in Byumba (Rwanda) are not yet ready to return home because of continuing unrest in the eastern Congo. Most are Congolese Tutsis from Northern and Southern Kivu but also from the Nande and Hunde tribes of Northern Kivu and Bashis from Southern Kivu.

An open letter to the South African Government, endorsed by prominent civil society groups in South Africa, has been circulated and endorsed by South African organisations, on the eve of the first Conference of the Parties on the Cartegena Biosafety Protocol (BSP) being held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from the 23 to 27 of February. The BSP is the internationally negotiated UN supported agreement to manage the international movement of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). This letter calls for the South African government to halt its active undermining of the BSP by continuing to allow the promotion of the international trade of GMOs using South Africa as a conduit.

The Refugee Studies Centre has added six new titles to its Working Paper Series. Among the titles are "When Forced Migrants Return ‘Home': The Psychosocial Difficulties Returnees Encounter in the Reintegration Process", "Conceptualising Forced Migration", and "Addressing the Root Causes of Forced Migration: A European Union policy of containment?" These working papers are available to order, or download free of charge from the Refugee Studies Centre website.

Some 1,000 Rwandan refugees residing in Sangha department of northern Republic of Congo have said they are interested in being repatriated, Roger Bouka-Owoko, communications officer for the Observatoire congolais des droits de l'homme (OCDH), a national human rights NGO, told IRIN. Given that the majority of the refugees work in the agriculture and livestock sectors of their host communities, they asked for time to put their affairs in order before any repatriation programme begins.

Of recent, there has been hullabaloo about abolition of the Uganda Human Rights Commission, a debate ignited by the Cabinet proposal to the Constitutional Review Commission for the amendment for the 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda. The cabinet is proposing that the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) should be abolished and its functions transferred to the Inspectorate of Government; another government body which noses into corruption and mismanagement of government resources. The evolution and globalization of Human Rights cannot leave Uganda behind the rest of the world, argues the author of this article from the Peace and Conflict Monitor. "Pillars of democracy like human rights, accountability and good governance cannot be fully sustained without resource investment. The choice is for all Ugandans, whether to slide back to anarchy or to promote and protect democratic principles."

"This week, President Bush played host to President Zine el-Abidine ben Ali of Tunisia, giving this ruthless autocrat a long-coveted audience at the White House," writes exiled Tunisian journalist Kamel Labidi in the New York Times. "To his credit, Mr. Bush rebuked Mr. ben Ali for his violations of press freedom, but the United States is sorely mistaken if it believes that democracy and the rule of law can ever take hold under leaders like Mr. ben Ali ... Tunisia today is one of the world's most efficient police states." Before the presidential meeting on February 18, human rights groups and other Tunisian exiles also called for the U.S. to match rhetorical commitment to democracy with real pressure on Tunisia. But official statements following the meeting praised Tunisia's commitment to reform and stressed continuation of the close ties between the two countries. This latest issue of AfricaFocus Bulletin contains statements from Human Rights Watch and a background briefing from Reporters without Borders on press freedom and the internet in Tunisia, as well as links to other recent commentary and more extensive background on human rights and democracy in Tunisia.

The UN-backed war crimes court for Sierra Leone will open its doors March 10 ahead of trials of nine defendants in custody for alleged crimes against humanity during the West African state's decade-long rebel war, officials said. The court will hold special sessions in early March for the prosecution and defence to present a status report of their pre-trial preparations to the judges, who will then fix a date for trials, court spokeswoman, Alison Cooper told local radio. Observers say trials are likely to commence in late March or early April.

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, has said he will investigate the crimes committed on Saturday 21 February 2004 in Barlonya camp, North Eastern Uganda. The latest reports estimate the number of deaths at over 200. "These crimes are the most serious committed in the country since 1995, when 240 people were killed in Atiak, north of Lira," he said in a statement. The Court has responsibility for the prosecution of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, in order to bring an end to impunity for these crimes. "The Office of the Prosecutor will take steps to ensure that the crimes committed in Barlonya camp will be investigated and that those bearing the greatest responsibility will be prosecuted."

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has given himself powers of detention that allow his police to hold opponents of his regime in prison for up a month without legal process on charges of "subversion," the opposition Movement for Democratic Change said. The law applies to a wide range of offences under the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), including "attempting to coerce" the government through boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience or "resistance to the law," said MDC secretary for legal affairs David Coltart.

Gibson Sibanda, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) vice-president, this week walked out of the regional magistrates' courts a free man after the state withdrew charges against the former trade unionist and his colleagues who were facing charges of attempting to overthrow the government. The charges against Sibanda, Milton Gwetu, the MDC legislator for Mpopoma and other top executives of the main opposition party in Matabeleland were withdrawn before plea on Tuesday.

The persistence of human rights violations committed by the police makes a mockery of the government’s stated commitment “to retrain, equip and better remunerate police and other security services to ensure they are people-oriented and work efficiently, effectively and fairly,” says the Kenya Human Rights Network in a letter to Christopher Murungaru, Minister of State-National Security and Provincial Administration. "The prevailing culture in the rank and file encourages officers to commit human rights violations and expect no ramifications. This explains the persistence of numerous and serious human rights violations by police officers who enjoy impunity for their actions. To reverse this cycle, the K-HURINET recommends the establishment of a tribunal to hear about the violations committed by the police while demanding that the government heed the advise of the Task Force on Truth Justice and Reconciliation, which recommends the establishment of commission to deal with transitional justice."

According to Amnesty International and other credible human rights monitoring groups, the human rights situation in Western Sahara remains among the worst in the world. Any demonstration of support for independence is brutally suppressed. Even displays by the Sahrawis' of their distinct cultural identity is actively discouraged, says Stephen Zunes, an associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. Zunes was speaking about the crisis in Western Sahara to Jacob Mundy, a co- founder of Friends of the Western Sahara (www. friendsofthewesternsahara.org) in this interview reproduced on the pages of www.zmag.org.

Capacity building is necessary to address the root causes of insecurity and conflict, which derive from a complex amalgam of political, economic and social factors. The challenge for building capacity in Africa is, however, made greater when one considers the gender dimension. Commitment to capacity building will have to overcome an ethos that has over the years marginalized, and at times obstructed the involvement of women in issues of defence and security, and in this case in conflict prevention, management and resolution. Clearly, the sustainable implementation of the AU-NEPAD peace and security agenda will depend on the extent to which women, who comprise a critical constituency in Africa, engage fully in matters relating to peace and security in Africa and internationally. This is according to a presentation by Dr. Monica K Juma from SaferAfrica, an organisation that works to secure the long-term security and development needs of Africa and its peoples.

Prevent Genocide International is an Internet-based network of anti-genocide activists. The site contains some useful information and reports.