United States Africa Command Public Affairs Office 9 April 2012 USAFRICOM - related news stories

Good morning. Please see today's news review for April 9, 2012. This e-mail is best viewed in HTML. Of interest in today's report: - President Toure resigns, Mali junta to hand power over to interim government - Car bomb kills 38 in Central Nigeria - AU forces deploy outside of Mogadishu for first time in five years - Malawi's vice president sworn in as president, becomes second female head of state in Africa - New York Times' columnist Thomas Friedman examines environment, population and climate stresses that contributed to Arab Spring U.S. Africa Command Public Affairs Please send questions or comments to: [email protected] 421-2687 (+49-711-729-2687) Headline Date Outlet

Mali's President to step down, 04/09/2012 Reuters soldiers agree to restore civilian rule
Mali's President Amadou Toumani Tour resigned on Sunday, paving the way for the soldiers who ousted him in a coup to stick by a deal to restore civilian rule and hand power to the president of the National Assembly.

Mali's parliamentary Associated 04/08/2012 head returns Press from exile

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) -- Mali's parliamentary head, who was forced into exile after last month's coup, returned Saturday to this nation in crisis, marking the first step in Mali's path back to constitutional rule.

AU welcomes agreement of Bamako, Xinhua News prospects for 04/08/2012 Agency restoration of constitutional order in Mali
ADDIS ABABA, April 7 (Xinhua) -- The African Union (AU) on Saturday said it welcomed the signing of the

Framework Agreement of Bamako between the junta and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on April 6, which provides a series of steps ...

For Rebels in Mali, Odds of New York Establishing a 04/07/2012 Times Nation Are Slim
JOHANNESBURG -- Lines etched in sand are playthings of the wind. So it is no wonder that the nomadic Tuareg people of West Africa, who have for centuries plied caravan routes that crisscross the Sahara with little regard for national borders, have long believed

Mali attracts Islamist fighters, alWashington 04/06/2012 Qaida, in void Post left by coup, rebellion
NIAMEY, Niger -- Al-Qaida militants and other Islamist fighters are descending on northern Mali in the chaotic aftermath of a military coup, creating a potential haven for terrorists in a part of the Sahara bristling with heavy weapons looted from Libya.

Official: 38 Killed in Central Nigeria Car Bombing

04/08/2012

New York Times

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives Sunday morning on a busy road after apparently turning away from attacking Nigerian churches holding Easter services, killing at least 38 people in a massive blast that rattled a city lon...

Northern Nigeria lives Los Angeles 04/08/2012 in fear of Times militant group
KANO, Nigeria -- In an attack that didn't happen -- well, not officially -- a police inspector and four of his officers were ambushed by Islamist militants last month in this northern Nigerian city.

First UPDF soldiers deploy outside Mogadishu

04/06/2012 Daily Monitor

At least 50 UPDF soldiers yesterday deployed in Baidoa, the third largest city in Somalia, marking the first African Union forces' deployment outside Mogadishu in five years.

Women's activist Banda becomes 04/07/2012 Reuters Malawi's president

LILONGWE (Reuters) - Prominent women's rights campaigner Joyce Banda was sworn in as Malawi's president on Saturday, becoming southern Africa's first female head of state and raising hopes for a fresh start in the small, poor nation after the death of her ...

Op-Ed: The Other Arab Spring

04/08/2012

New York Times

ISN'T it interesting that the Arab awakening began in Tunisia with a fruit vendor who was harassed by police for not having a permit to sell food -- just at the moment when world food prices hit record highs? And that it began in Syria with farmers in the ...

Rwanda: At 18, The Nation Has Mature 04/08/2012 AllAfrica.com Lessons to Offer (Opinion)
All children love to get to that point where they can be considered to be adults and mature enough to make their own decisions. Once one clocks 18, in many societies they are considered an adult who can mange fine by themselves.

Libya is a lure for migrants, Los Angeles where 04/08/2012 Times exploitation waits
TRIPOLI, Libya -- Ahmed Mostafa and his friends paid thousands of dollars among them to get to Libya recently, traveling with gangs of smugglers through Western Africa. It was to be their escape from the sprawling slums of Ghana's capital city, Accra.

Many South Sudanese unable to return home

04/08/2012

Washington Post

WAU, South Sudan -- Teresa Adut Akol's new home is a small patch of concrete floor in a railway station outside this town. She shares the space with her eight children and stacks of their belongings, surrounded by dozens of other families whose return to S...

United United Nations News 04/08/2012 Nations News Centre - Africa Service Briefs
- Ban praises mediation efforts by West African regional bloc in Mali - Ban mourns death of Malawi President, welcomes peaceful transition of power - South Sudan: As civilian disarmament takes place, UN urges respect for human rights - UN official urges...

News Headline: Mali's President to step down, soldiers agree to restore civilian rule | News Date: 04/09/2012 Outlet Full Name: Reuters News Text: Mali's President Amadou Toumani Tour resigned on Sunday, paving the way for the soldiers who ousted him in a coup to stick by a deal to restore civilian rule and hand power to the president of the National Assembly. Neighbouring states meeting to discuss turmoil in Mali's north, a major reason for the military's ousting of Mr. Toure, said they would seek dialogue with the northern rebels, a mix of Tuareg separatists and Islamists with links to al-Qaeda, but warned they would consider military intervention if it failed. The twin crises a coup in the capital that led to a rebel seizure of vast tracts of the north have threatened Mali's previous reputation for democracy and widened a security void that regional and Western nations fear will exacerbate regional instability, terrorism and smuggling. Mali has been a focus of intense Canadian aid and attention in Africa, and received both military support and $110-million in aid annually over the last few years. Joseph Lavoie, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, said Sunday that Canada had been on track to deliver record assistance to Mali before the coup. Canada is very

concerned about the situation in northern Mali, Mr. Lavoie added in an e-mail. The area cannot become a haven for terrorists. We will work with a democratic Mali, and other partners, to that end. Already bracing for a food crisis that is set to hit millions across the Sahel this year, over 200,000 civilians have fled their homes in northern Mali and many are short of food and health care as the rebel push has swept with it looting. In a brief statement on his resignation, Mr. Toure said: I am doing it without any pressure, I am doing it in good faith and most of all for the love that I have for this country. He has been in hiding since his presidential palace was attacked by mutinous soldiers. Djibril Bassole, Burkina Faso's foreign minister and a leading mediator for West Africa's ECOWAS bloc, confirmed the resignation and said the appropriate steps would be taken. After three days of negotiations and growing international pressure to step down, Mali's junta announced late on Friday it would begin a handover of power in return for an amnesty from prosecution and the lifting of trade and other sanctions. According to the agreement signed with mediators, the junta must now make way for a unity government with Mali's parliament speaker Diouncounda Traore as interim president. It is not clear when elections, which had been due on April 29, can be held as the north is increasingly lawless and in the hands of separatist Tuareg-led MNLA rebels and Islamist fighters seeking to impose sharia, Islamic law, across Mali. A resident in Gao, one of the three northern towns seized, said a Tuareg gunman had his throat slit on Sunday by Islamist gunmen for trying to rob a bus. To the south, eyewitnesses said a truck loaded with 100 people fleeing the town crashed on Saturday, killing about 10. Most aid groups have fled the area but a grouping of northerners residing in the south met on Sunday and said they planned to dispatch aid up north. Frustrations over Mr. Toure's handling of the north are at the heart of Mali's crisis, with soldiers complaining that they were ill-equipped to fight rebels bolstered by guns and fighters returning from Libya's war last year. Mali's neighbours have also long complained that Mr. Toure did not do enough to strengthen his grip on Mali's north. After a day of security meetings, Mohamed Bazoum, Niger's foreign minister, said Mali's northern neighbours expected Bamako to shoulder its burden of responsibility for security in the region, an implicit dig at perceived weakness under Mr. Toure. Mr. Bazoum said dialogue would be sought but force remained an option: For those (groups in the north) who do not want to organize or take part in dialogue, we are convinced that what needs to be done (...) is to defeat them and to do so by the appropriate means, he said. Mauritania, Algeria, Niger and Mali had set up a joint military command headquarters before the lightning rebel push, although it had struggled to coordinate efforts against what they see as an Islamist threat in the Sahara. The separatist MNLA have declared an independent state of Azawad but they do not have any international backing or the control over large chunks of areas they claim, a zone the size

of France in Mali's desert north. They have an uneasy relationship with Ansar Dine, another Tuareg-led group that swept south but wants to impose sharia. Experts say Ansar Dine has links with al-Qaeda's regional wing, AQIM, which has made millions of dollars from ransom payments for kidnapped Westerners. Underscoring deepening confusion in the area, seven Algerian diplomats were kidnapped in Gao last week. Algeria's El Watan newspaper reported on its website on Sunday that the diplomats had been freed, but Algerian officials in Nouakchott were unable to confirm that.
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News Headline: Mali's parliamentary head returns from exile | News Date: 04/08/2012 Outlet Full Name: Associated Press News Text: BAMAKO, Mali (AP) -- Mali's parliamentary head, who was forced into exile after last month's coup, returned Saturday to this nation in crisis, marking the first step in Mali's path back to constitutional rule. The 70-year-old Dioncounda Traore was by chance in neighboring Burkina Faso on March 21 when disgruntled soldiers stormed the presidential palace in Mali's capital, ousting the nation's democratically elected leader and overturning two decades of democracy. While other ministers and associates of the toppled leader were immediately arrested, Traore remained free, though unable to return for fear of being detained. Under intense pressure from the nations neighboring Mali, the junior officer who seized power 17 days ago agreed to return the nation to civilian rule, signing an accord late Friday in the presence of ministers from Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. The accord is a milestone for Africa, and especially for the troubled western corner of the continent, where coups or attempted coups are still a regular occurrence. "I am leaving for Mali with my heart full of hope. My country has known enormous difficulties, but I am leaving with the hope the people of Mali will come together to face this adversity head on," Traore told reporters at the airport before leaving. The accord signed by coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo calls for the immediate application of Article 36 of the Malian constitution, which says that in the event that the president of the republic is unable to carry out his functions, the head of the assembly becomes interim president for a transitional period until new elections are held. If the transfer to civilian rule is successful, it will mark one of the only times when sanctions and international pressure succeeded in peacefully overturning a military power grab in the region. By contrast in Guinea, it took a horrific massacre by the military junta and the attempted assassination of the coup leader for the country to right itself following the 2008 coup. And months of sanctions in Ivory Coast failed to dislodge the country's illegitimate leader last year, who only released his grip on power after U.N. airstrikes. Sanogo signed the agreement inside the military barracks which has acted as the de facto seat of government ever since he and his men led a mutiny there. They broke down the doors of the armory and grabbed automatic weapons, using them to launch an attack on the

presidential palace. In his two-week tenure at the head of country, Sanogo had time to put up a portrait of himself on the wall of his office. The framed picture is designed to have the look of a presidential portrait, and includes his name, next to the title: "Head of State." It took only days for the sanctions to be felt after the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, decided on Monday to seal off landlocked Mali's borders. The country imports all of its gasoline, and neighborhoods in the capital stopped having electricity for half the day. State television announced that the energy company was running at 50 percent capacity and would need to prioritize which sections of the city received power, with hospitals and military installations taking priority over residential areas. At the Bamako airport after Traore's arrival on Saturday, Adama Bictogo, Ivory Coast's Minister of African Integration, read out a statement from the 15-nation regional bloc, stating that the sanctions had been lifted. "Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo," said Bictogo, "has launched the process to put into effect Article 36 of the Constitution of Feb. 25, 1992, allowing thereby a return to constitutional order in Mali. As a result, the president of ECOWAS ... has decided to immediately lift all the sanctions against Mali." Ever since the coup, Mali President Amadou Toumani Toure has been in hiding, and his whereabouts remain unknown. Article 36 of the constitution states that in the event of a vacancy of power, the head of the assembly becomes interim president for 21 to 40 days. However, the accord read out late Friday by Sanogo indicated that this timeframe will likely need to be extended. Besides the coup, Mali is battling a rebellion in the north. The ethnic Tuareg rebels took advantage of the post-coup chaos to make military gains, seizing the capitals of the three northern provinces last week. On Friday, they declared independence, stating that the northern half of Mali - an area larger than France - was now a new country. The military chiefs of Mali's neighbors met in Ivory Coast this week to prepare plans for a military intervention. Bictogo on Saturday stressed that the military operation would go ahead if the rebels do not back down. "In what concerns the armed rebellion in the north of Mali," he said, "(we) demand the strict respect of Mali's territorial integrity. In this regard, the committee of the heads of state of ECOWAS which met on April 5, 2012 has taken all the necessary preparatory measures for a rapid deployment of troops by ECOWAS in order to stop any further evolution" of the conflict, he said. --Associated Press writers Baba Ahmed and Martin Vogl in Bamako, Mali, and Brahima Ouedraogo in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, contributed to this report.
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News Headline: AU welcomes agreement of Bamako, prospects for restoration of constitutional order in Mali | News Date: 04/08/2012 Outlet Full Name: Xinhua News Agency News Text: ADDIS ABABA, April 7 (Xinhua) -- The African Union (AU) on Saturday said it

welcomed the signing of the Framework Agreement of Bamako between the junta and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on April 6, which provides a series of steps for restoration of constitutional order in Mali. Jean Ping, Chairperson of the AU Commission, urged all stakeholders concerned to implement, in good faith, the just- concluded agreement to enable the country to overcome the daunting challenges facing it, in order to restore democratic process as well as the authority of the state over its entire territory. The chairperson has reiterated AU's commitment to continue its endeavor towards strengthening the collective action of Africa as well as to mobilization of the international community on its side to ensure the process of the actual restoration of constitutional order in Mali and protection of the country's national unity and territorial integrity. The union has announced in a press statement that its Peace and Security Council would soon be appraised with these developments in the situation in order to take appropriate measures. The junta, under intense pressure from international communities, on Friday agreed to hand over power to an interim government that would organize elections, in return for the lifting of sanctions imposed by ECOWAS and an amnesty of its members from prosecution. It came two weeks after the junta toppled the President Amadou Toumani Toure on March 22 due to their anger at the government's handling of the rebellion in the north. The Tuareg-led rebels claimed independence of "Azawad" on Friday in the north, which has been met with immediate rejection and condemnation from Mali's neighbors, France and the United States. The AU on Friday voiced its total rejection of the declaration of "Independence" by the rebel group in northern Mali. Jean Ping condemned the announcement, saying it "null and of no value whatsoever." He reiterated AU's unwavering commitment to the national unity and territorial integrity of Mali, and that the AU and its member states would spare no efforts to contribute to the restoration of the authority of the Republic of Mali on its entire territory, and bring to an end the attacks being carried out by armed and terrorist groups in the northern part of the country.
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News Headline: For Rebels in Mali, Odds of Establishing a Nation Are Slim | News Date: 04/07/2012 Outlet Full Name: New York Times News Text: By Lydia Polgreen JOHANNESBURG Lines etched in sand are playthings of the wind. So it is no wonder that the nomadic Tuareg people of West Africa, who have for centuries plied caravan routes that crisscross the Sahara with little regard for national borders, have long believed in their right to their own state. And on Friday, by their lights, they got one: rebel fighters in the ancient crossroads of Timbuktu, Mali, announced the birth of a nation called Azawad. In a declaration on its Web site, the rebellious National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad said it proclaimed irrevocably the independent state of Azawad, starting from this day, Friday April 6, 2012. The declaration said the rebels recognized the inviolability of their borders with neighboring countries and promised to draw up a democratic constitution. But the declaration is unlikely to be embraced by anyone. The African Union has a nearironclad policy against the dismemberment of its member countries. Algeria, which shares a

desert border with Mali, and the West African regional trade bloc, known as Ecowas, were reported Friday to have opposed the nation's partition. The United Nations is all but sure to reject the claim, too. Western powers, concerned about vast, ungoverned territory in the desert being used by local affiliates of Al Qaeda, have already registered their displeasure. Defense Minister Grard Longuet of France said Friday that a unilateral declaration which is not recognized by African states would not have any meaning for us. The name Azawad refers to the areas where Tuaregs live in Mali, Niger and southern Algeria, and they base their claim to independence on the uniqueness of their lifestyle, language and history. A light-skinned, nomadic people never fully subjugated by French colonizers, they have always lived a life apart from the darker-skinned southerners who govern them in Mali and Niger. The rest of Mali is in disarray after a military coup that toppled the elected government last month, and even if the junta returns power to the nation's democratic institutions as it told reporters on Friday that it would there is little likelihood that anyone will defeat the Tuaregs on the battlefield anytime soon. Still, they face slim odds of establishing a nation. Just ask Ahmed Abdi Habsade, a government minister in Africa's other unrecognized state, Somaliland. We have many problems, Mr. Habsade said in a telephone interview from Somaliland's capital, Hargeysa. The country cannot get donations from the U.N. or other governments. We are not having a budget to develop our country. Somaliland, which sits in the northwestern corner of Somalia, has been a de-facto independent nation for the better part of two decades, and an oasis of calm in the chaos that has swept up Somalia. Its claims to independence date from the colonial era, when it was a British protectorate while Somalia was controlled by Italy. The two states merged after independence, but the Somalilanders had almost immediate regrets, and have been trying to break free ever since. Somaliland has had successes, including holding peaceful elections, yet it has struggled without an international stamp of approval on its nationhood. The country lacks many of the trappings of a state. It has no real banking services, leaving people dependent on the hawala money transfer system and a cellphone payment network to make small purchases. Its passports are largely meaningless. Najiib Hassan, 43, is a consultant to the Somaliland government and a proud citizen of it. But he travels on his United States passport when he is abroad he grew up in Oregon, where his parents had emigrated. Somalilanders who do not have a foreign passport have little choice but to go to Somalia to get travel documents, a great humiliation, Mr. Hassan said. It is unfair, he said. When it comes to Bosnia and other places in Europe, they recognize their claim. But when it is black people, they don't care or pay attention. An African Union fact-finding mission in 2005 said that Somaliland might have legitimate claims to independence, calling it unique and self-justified in African political history. Seven years on, the African Union has yet to change its position. The claim of the Tuaregs, who have risen up against the government repeatedly since Mali won its independence from France in 1960, has even less legitimacy, analysts say. Unlike Somalia, Mali is a functioning nation that, until the coup last month, had a functioning, democratically elected government.

Seeking to bolster their claim, the rebels on Friday cited the charter of the United Nations and separatist ambitions dating to 1958, two years before Mali's independence, and urged foreign powers to recognize Azawad as a new nation. But divisions are already emerging between the main rebel faction and an Islamist group fighting by its side, Andar ud-Dine. We are against independence, declared a man identified as the military chief of the Islamist group in Timbuktu this week, in a video released by Agence France-Presse. We are against all rebellions not in the name of Islam. Africa's borders are in many ways fictions. They are largely a creation of European colonial powers, who carved up the continent in the 19th century for their own convenience, paying no mind to ethnic, religious and linguistic borderlines that had existed for centuries before any white man set foot on the continent. But when African leaders formed the Organization of African Unity in 1963, one of the guiding principles was that the colonial borders, no matter how inconvenient they might be, should be sacrosanct. The alternative a continent smashed into thousands of shards, constantly at war was unthinkable. The organization, which came to be discredited as a club for despots, was disbanded in 2002, and restarted as the African Union. Much of the old structure was jettisoned, but the commitment to colonial borders remained. There have been a few exceptions. Eritrea won its independence in 1993 after a long and very bloody war with Ethiopia. South Sudan, which had been operating as all but independent from the northern half of Sudan, voted to become independent in 2011 as part of a peace deal that ended a 20-year civil war. But the story of separatism in Africa has been one of thwarted dreams and hard-won compromise. When the Igbo people of southern Nigeria tried to break free in 1967, the civil war was so brutal that no other group in that polyglot nation has tried with such force again. Separatist movements, both armed and peaceful, grind on in Ethiopia, Angola and Cameroon, among others, with little hope of success. The only real solution to the separatist problem in Africa is more development and integration, said Stephen Zunes, a professor at the University of San Francisco who has written about conflicts in northern Africa. Ultimately the best way would be to do what we have been seeing in Europe, he said. If there is great unity economically and cooperation, the national boundaries are not that important anymore. The less that these artificial boundaries are important in the grand scheme of things, the less that these groups feel like minorities.
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News Headline: Mali attracts Islamist fighters, al-Qaida, in void left by coup, rebellion | News Date: 04/06/2012 Outlet Full Name: Washington Post News Text: NIAMEY, Niger Al-Qaida militants and other Islamist fighters are descending on northern Mali in the chaotic aftermath of a military coup, creating a potential haven for terrorists in a part of the Sahara bristling with heavy weapons looted from Libya. Tuareg rebels declared an independent state in the region on Friday amid a power vacuum in the north created by the president's March 21 ouster. The rapidly unfolding events are turning the area, which the Tuaregs now call the Azawad nation, into a magnet for jihadists, much like Afghanistan was when the Taliban took power 15 years ago.

Witnesses in northern Mali and those who have fled to neighboring Niger say they have seen fighters from Algeria, Mauritania and Nigeria in the past week. In the late 1990s, terrorism training camps were set up in Afghanistan, where al-Qaida was able to operate openly and plot attacks largely unhindered. Now experts warn that Mali, a vast and impoverished Saharan nation in northwest Africa, could play a similar role. Witnesses in the northern city of Gao, which fell to rebels on March 31, said fighters include people speaking a Mauritanian dialect of Arabic and English. The English-speakers are Nigerians who are believed to belong to the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram, which bombed the U.N. headquarters in Nigeria's capital last year, killing 25 people. Earlier this week, a leader of Africa's al-Qaida branch, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, was spotted in Gao, according to the Malian Association of Human Rights and a Niger government source who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Belmokhtar, an Algerian, lost an eye in combat in Afghanistan and is known as the one-eyed sheik. From the Islamists point of view, northern Mali is an ideal operational hub, experts say. You've got this large territory and extremists can gather there, operate fairly openly, and they're going to have at least several months to dig in, said J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa program at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. It's going to be that much more costly in terms of arms and lives to dislodge them. Fighters from a third group, a breakaway branch of al-Qaida called the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, also have been seen in Gao, said refugees who fled fighting there and made it to Niger. The fighters who took Gao and two other key cities belong to a Tuareg rebel group that was formed in January and to Islamist Ansar Dine, another new group. The alliance between the groups is tense. The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, or NMLA, seeks an independent secular state for Mali's nomadic Tuaregs. Ansar Dine, also led by a Tuareg, wants a state governed by strict Islamic or Sharia law. It's unclear which one holds more sway in the stretch of the Sahara taken from the government, whose control was weak to begin with. In Timbuktu, the fabled Islamic intellectual center, which fell Sunday, Ansar Dine gained the upper hand and announced Sharia law. The NMLA had already hoisted its green, black, red and yellow flags over Timbuktu, but Ansar Dine fighters pulled them down, burned them and replaced them with their black flags. Timbuktu Mayor Ousmane Halle told The Associated Press that fighters there include people who do not speak local languages, have long beards and wear different clothes a description usually associated with al-Qaida militants or other foreign Islamists. Africa's al-Qaida branch, known as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, had already forged a foothold in Mali's remote north, kidnapping Westerners and turning much of the area into a no-go zone for foreigners. Its hand now appears strengthened, and it will be easier for its fighters to carry out money-making pursuits like cocaine-trafficking, gun-running and migrant smuggling. Their presence has attracted special forces trainers from France and the United States, countries jockeying for influence in an area rich in deposits of uranium, oil and gold.

In a meeting last month, NMLA leaders asked Iyad Ag Ghali, the leader of Ansar Dine, to join them in forming a secular state in the north and to distance himself from AQIM. Ag Ghali refused, according to local press reports. Ag Ghali is known to be an intermediary between hostage-paying European governments and AQIM. He fought in Mali's last two rebellions and, after a 2006 peace agreement, was sent as Mali's consul to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he apparently adopted the most extreme Salafi form of Islam. Experts warn of an ominous future for a region already awash in heavy weaponry. The Tuareg separatists and their Islamist allies will consolidate their hold on the north, potentially serving as a magnet for extremists as well as criminal elements, said The Soufan Group, led by former FBI agent Ali Soufan, who interrogated top al-Qaida operatives and supervised cases like the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Some of the embassy bombers fled to Somalia, which has been a hub for militants and terrorists for the past two decades. The militant group al-Shabab controls a large swath of south-central Somalia, but is slowly being squeezed by African Union troops deployed to the region, as well as U.S. and other Western forces. That makes a haven in Mali attractive. The chaos in Mali began in January with a rebellion led by Tuareg separatists, some of whom had worked for the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The battle-hardened troops reignited a long-simmering rebellion against Mali's government. The Tuaregs' domain stretches across a broad swath of the Sahara encompassing parts of Algeria, Chad, Libya, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali. Some Niger Tuaregs who fought for Gadhafi have joined their comrades in Mali, raising fears the rebellion could spill over Mali's border. The regional implications are extremely serious, starting with Niger, said Robin Poulton, who helped negotiate an end to the 1990s Tuareg rebellion in Niger and Mali. Poulton is now a senior fellow at the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research and a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University School of World Studies in Richmond. Alarmed by the developments, West African military chiefs met Thursday to draft a plan. Ivory Coast's army chief, Gen. Soumaila Bakayoko, said the possible link between the rebels and terrorists is reason enough to intervene militarily. The advance of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, associated with terrorist groups like AQIM and Ansar Dine and others, gives sufficient reason to the entire region to be put on notice, he said. The violence has forced some 200,000 civilians to flee their homes at a time when the entire Sahel region faces a possible famine, worrying aid agencies that already have difficulty reaching nomads in the desert. The Tuareg, a minority of perhaps 1 million of Mali's 15 million people and about a third of the population of northern Mali, have been fighting for independence or more autonomy since the 1950s, when Tuareg leaders wrote to France's Gen. Charles de Gaulle to argue for a country of their own when Mali became independent in 1960. They long have felt marginalized and find themselves increasingly in conflict with sedentary tribes as global warming shifts the Sahara slowly south, raising competition for water and

arable land.
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News Headline: Official: 38 Killed in Central Nigeria Car Bombing | News Date: 04/08/2012 Outlet Full Name: New York Times News Text: By The Associated Press LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives Sunday morning on a busy road after apparently turning away from attacking Nigerian churches holding Easter services, killing at least 38 people in a massive blast that rattled a city long at the center of religious, ethnic and political violence in the nation. The blast struck Kaduna, the capital of Kaduna state, leaving charred motorcycles and debris strewn across a major road in the city where many gather to eat at informal restaurants and buy black market gasoline. Nearby hotels and homes had their windows blown out and roofs torn away by the force of the powerful explosion, which engulfed a group of motorcycle taximen. The explosion damaged the nearby All Nations Christian Assembly Church and the ECWA Good News Church as churchgoers worshipped at an Easter service, the possible target of the bomber. Witnesses said it appeared the explosive-laden car attempted to go into the compound of the churches before it detonated, but was blocked by barriers in the street and was turned away by a security guard as police approached. "We were in the holy communion service and I was exhorting my people and all of a sudden, we heard a loud noise that shattered all our windows and doors, destroyed our fans and some of our equipment in the church," Pastor Joshua Raji said. While no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, suspicion immediately fell on a radical Islamist sect blamed for hundreds of killings in the oil-rich nation this year alone. And some fear the attack could further inflame tensions around Kaduna, a region on the dividing line between Nigeria's largely Christian south and Muslim north. At least 38 people were killed in the blast, said Abubakar Zakari Adamu, a spokesman for the Kaduna state Emergency Management Agency. Others suffered serious injuries and were receiving treatment at local hospitals, Adamu said. A witness, Augustine Vincent, said he was riding a motorcycle just behind the car when it exploded. "God saw our heart and saved us," he said. Churches have been increasingly targeted by violence on holy days in Nigeria, a nation of more than 160 million people of Christians and Muslims. A Christmas Day suicide bombing of a Catholic church in Madalla near Nigeria's capital killed at least 44 people. Police and soldiers quickly cordoned off the blast site, though citizens looked on at the flames and damage. Authorities said they had no immediately suspects in the attack, though a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram has claimed similar attacks in the past. Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of Nigeria's north, is waging an increasingly bloody fight with security agencies and the public.

More than 380 people have been killed in violence blamed on the sect this year alone, according to an Associated Press count. The sect, employing suicide bombers and assault-rifle shootouts, has attacked both Christians and Muslims, as well as the United Nations' headquarters in Nigeria. The sect has rejected efforts to begin indirect peace talks with Nigeria's government. Its demands include the introduction of strict Shariah law across the country, even in Christian areas, and the release of all imprisoned followers. The near-daily attacks by the sect and Nigeria's weak central government's inability to thwart them despite public promises has sparked anger and fear about the group's reach. The United Kingdom and the United States had warned its citizens living in the country that violence was likely over the Easter holiday. Nigeria's government dismissed the warning, with local newspapers quoting presidential spokesman Reuben Abati saying: "Easter will be peaceful for all." Abati did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday. In his Easter speech at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI mentioned the ongoing violence in Nigeria. Catholic churches have been targeted in previous attacks. "To Nigeria, which in recent times has experienced savage terrorist attacks, may the joy of Easter grant the strength needed to take up anew the building of a society which is peaceful and respectful of the religious freedom of its citizens," he said. Britain's Africa Minister Henry Bellingham condemned the attack, calling it a "horrific act." Meanwhile, authorities said an explosion struck the city of Jos in neighboring Plateau state on Sunday night, another city where religious and ethnic violence has killed hundreds in past years. Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency, said there were some injuries in the blast, but had no other details. State police commissioner Emmanuel Dipo Ayeni said the cause of blast was still being investigated. Kaduna, on Nigeria's dividing line between its largely Christian south and Muslim north, was at the heart of postelection violence in April 2011. Mobs armed with machetes and poison-tipped arrows took over streets of Kaduna and the state's rural countryside after election officials declared President Goodluck Jonathan the winner. Followers of his main opponent, former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim, quickly alleged the vote had been rigged, though observers largely declared the vote fair. Across the nation, at least 800 people died in that rioting, Human Rights Watch said. In the time since, heavily armed soldiers remain on guard on roadways throughout Kaduna. In December, an explosion at an auto parts market in Kaduna killed at least seven people. Though authorities said it came from a leaking gas cylinder, the Nigerian Red Cross later said in an internal report the blast came from a bomb. In February, bombs exploded at two major military bases near the city, injuring an unknown number of people.
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News Headline: Northern Nigeria lives in fear of militant group | News Date: 04/08/2012 Outlet Full Name: Los Angeles Times

News Text: By Robyn Dixon KANO, Nigeria In an attack that didn't happen well, not officially a police inspector and four of his officers were ambushed by Islamist militants last month in this northern Nigerian city. Two of them died, two crawled away and hid in a ditch, and the inspector, shot in the leg, called on his cellphone for help. It arrived eventually, but only after he had bled to death. Northern Nigeria is a region under siege. Boko Haram militants mount attacks almost daily and security forces retaliate in a scattershot way, often mowing down civilians. Authorities trumpet their success in killing militants, but often, such as in the recent ambush, neglect to mention their own losses, or those of civilians. In its bid to topple the Nigerian government and impose sharia law across Africa's most populous country, Boko Haram has killed a shocking 1,000 people since the beginning of 2011. The group, which modeled itself on the Taliban, has been implicated in kidnappings of foreigners, bombings of churches and markets, and burning of schools because of its hard-line opposition to secular education. It has launched suicide bombings in the capital, Abuja, and unleashed carefully coordinated attacks in Kano and Maiduguri, another city in the mostly Muslim north, that have disturbing echoes of those carried out by Al Qaeda, with which U.S. and Nigerian military officials believe the group is allied. The low-level war has unnerved the region and devastated its economy. Northern cities are gripped with fear of faceless Boko Haram informants; most dare not speak the group's name, instead referring obliquely to "the security situation." "There is so much fear," said Abdulatif Abubakar, a journalist with the Freedom Radio station. "You don't know who the person next to you is, who is watching you, who is monitoring you. Some people are leaving town." Boko Haram, whose names means "Western education is a sin," most commonly launches drive-by shootings aimed at police officers and soldiers. In a typical Kano attack, gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire recently on a group of people, including plainclothes police, who were playing cards in the cool shade of a tree. The next day, witnesses who were asked about the attack hurried away. "Just forget about it," one muttered. The mounting violence has sharpened political and secular tension between the north and the mainly Christian south. A sense of alienation permeates the north, which is the poorest part of Nigeria. The anger is deepened by a federal-state deal that provides southern oil-producing states a generous share of oil revenue to compensate for past neglect, a formula that could be a recipe for greater northern poverty, alienation and extremism. Boko Haram has found easy recruits among the poorly educated, unemployed men in the north. The government is "corrupt and insensitive to the plight of the common man. This insecurity we are having is the fallout of poor governance in Nigeria," said shopkeeper Abdul Garba. Peace talks between representatives of Boko Haram and the government collapsed last

month. * Boko Haram's weapons and attacks have become steadily more sophisticated. In January it sent an army of attackers into Kano to explode dozens of bombs before swarming on motorcycles and on foot to shoot down any men fleeing. At least 187 people were killed in the battle; local civil rights activists say the figure was at least 256. One Kano policeman who has twice narrowly escaped being killed in Boko Haram attacks said rank-and-file officers had lost confidence in the police force's leadership, who he said send junior members out to face the extremists while avoiding danger themselves. Many senior officers were terrified to sleep at home, staying in hotels and switching regularly, he said. Recently, he said, he was almost shot when gunmen ambushed a police patrol. His friends died in front of him. And in the January attack, he was at the roadblock outside the city police barracks when a Boko Haram suicide bomber drove an SUV into the gates, triggering a blast that killed dozens. "He was laughing and waving at us," said the policeman, who didn't give his name because of fear of reprisal by Boko Haram, and because he was not authorized by the police force to comment. "When he didn't stop, we ran in the opposite direction for refuge. [Other attackers] came on foot, well-armed. Their target was anyone running from the scene of the explosion. "They came in large numbers, hundreds of them, and cordoned off the whole area. Some had AK-47s, some had RPGs [rocket-propelled grenade launchers].They were shouting, 'Allahu akbar,' [God is great] and pronouncing words in Arabic." He said he escaped by finding shelter in the barracks. The policeman said there were frequent ambushes and killings of police, most never publicly reported by authorities. "We are all afraid. There's no confidence in the police command. There's no equipment, there's no morale, there's no mobility. People have started deserting." Margaret Frances, 37, with four children, was widowed in the January attack. She was at work and her husband, a plainclothes State Security Service agent, was at home with their oldest son, Charles, 10, and the other three children when the attack started. "He said, 'Charles, you are the oldest son. You have to take care of the family.' Charles said, 'Daddy, don't go anywhere, there are bomb blasts all over the place.' He said: 'No, I'm going. I won't be long.' " * Boko Haram's base is Maiduguri, a hot, dust-blown city that mixes upscale neighborhoods of high-walled mansions; squalid neighborhoods with open, running gutters; and crowded, rubbish-piled markets smelling of rotten fruit. The group's leader, a charismatic preacher named Mohammed Yusuf, was executed in police custody after the group staged an uprising here in 2009, mounting coordinated attacks in several northern towns. Dozens of militants were killed, some summarily executed, in what authorities then believed was Boko Haram's last gasp. But it has since gained recruits, increased the sophistication of its bombings and weaponry

and launched devastating suicide attacks, underscoring doubts about President Goodluck Jonathan's claim last month that the group would be crushed by June. In recent months, at least eight schools have been burned. In one charred Maiduguri school, smoke blackened the walls that had been hit by gasoline bombs thrown by men on bicycles. A young man nearby rocked under a tree in a trance, singing verses from the Koran. Umar, a teacher from another burned school, who, like others, preferred not to give his full name, fearing he could be killed, said that after the arson attacks many parents kept their children at home. "These people are very powerful," he said, referring to the militants. "They are plentiful. If you talk out loud about Boko Haram and they hear you, they will just kill you." A parent, Salisu, said that without a good secular education, his children would end up unemployed or in dead-end work. "My heart burned with anger when they burned the school," he said. "I was very angry at the Boko Haram people." He fervently supports his 10-year-old daughter's goal of being a doctor. His children are back at school, but many others are not. A student at one of the burned schools, Faisal, 15, said students feared they might be attacked. "I'm afraid if they see me going to school they might come to my house and do something, like killing," he said. "The security is bad. Even the government is afraid." The Kano policeman said he and colleagues had nursed hope that talks between the government and the militants would bring peace. He doesn't want to face death a third time. "Now we're just left hanging. What do we do next? If you stay [in the police force], you are in very grave danger," he said. "I feel like I'm trapped."
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News Headline: First UPDF soldiers deploy outside Mogadishu | News Date: 04/06/2012 Outlet Full Name: Daily Monitor News Text: By Risdel Kasasira At least 50 UPDF soldiers yesterday deployed in Baidoa, the third largest city in Somalia, marking the first African Union forces' deployment outside Mogadishu in five years. The Ugandan forces together with 50 Burundians were deployed in preparation for a take over from Ethiopians who on February 22 flashed al-Shabaab out of the city, 250 kilometres, northwest of Mogadishu. The African Union said in statement that the 100 soldiers are an advance team for 2,500 Amisom troops who will be deployed to Baidoa in phases. The rebels had taken control of the city since 2009. The deployment also marks the beginning of the second phase of the Somalia mission which is the expansion of Amisom frontiers outside Mogadishu.

This will be the second time Ethiopians are handing over control of grounds to Ugandans since 2007 when they withdrew from Mogadishu, exposing the thin 1,600 UPDF troops to deadly rebel attacks. Brig. Nduwumunsi said AU was building more strength to help the Somali government bring peace and stability to areas far from the capital. Together with the Somali army, we are defeating the violent extremists. They are losing ground and losing friends all over Somalia and this deployment will drive into the heart of territories controlled by al Qaeda-backed extremists, he said. The UN Security Council in February authorised the enlargement of Amisom troops to 17,731 troops, which saw the integration of Kenyan troops in the war effort.
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News Headline: Women's activist Banda becomes Malawi's president | News Date: 04/07/2012 Outlet Full Name: Reuters News Text: By Mabvuto Banda LILONGWE (Reuters) - Prominent women's rights campaigner Joyce Banda was sworn in as Malawi's president on Saturday, becoming southern Africa's first female head of state and raising hopes for a fresh start in the small, poor nation after the death of her mercurial predecessor. Banda, a 61-year-old policeman's daughter who has won international recognition for championing the education of underprivileged girls, had served as vice president under Bingu wa Mutharika, who died on Thursday following a heart attack. She succeeded him under the terms of the constitution. Aid-dependent Malawi had slid into economic crisis over the last year, as Mutharika, a professorial but temperamental former World Bank economist, squabbled with major western donors who then froze millions of dollars of assistance. Banda took the oath of office on Saturday in the Chinese-built National Assembly in the capital Lilongwe, as flags flew at half mast in mourning for Mutharika, whose death was only officially announced by Malawi's government on Saturday. "I want all of us to move into the future with hope and a spirit of unity," Banda, wearing a black, silver and pink robe and headdress, said amid loud applause and singing. The two-day delay in the official announcement of Mutharika's death had raised worries that there could be a power struggle. Banda had been expelled from his ruling DPP party in 2010 after an argument about the succession, though she retained her state position. But fears of a political crisis in the landlocked former British colony receded as top officials and the army backed the handover of the presidency to Banda under the constitution. In a sign that she has support across the political spectrum, opposition leaders had called for her to be swiftly sworn in as head of state and some 20 members of the national governing council of Mutharika's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) also expressed their backing for

her. Banda said she had already held a "good meeting" with Mutharika's cabinet. Malawians, many of whom had viewed Mutharika as a stubborn autocrat, appeared to welcome their first female president. "We now have a female president, this to me is the greatest day because she is a mother and a mother always takes care of her children," said Alice Pemba, a vendor in Lilongwe. "She will be able to do a good job and surmount the challenges to work with the IMF and World Bank and win back the donor support which we need," said a local businessman who gave his name only as Tiyazi. Earlier, Banda appeared at a news conference to dispel fears of a succession struggle and declare 10 days of official mourning for Mutharika, who had ruled since 2004. "I call upon all Malawians to remain calm and to keep the peace during this time of bereavement," Banda said, flanked by members of the cabinet, the attorney general and the heads of the army and the police. "As you can see, the constitution prevails," she said. Malawi's constitution says the vice-president takes over if the president dies, but Mutharika appeared to have been grooming his brother Peter, the foreign minister, as his de facto successor. Peter Mutharika did not attend Banda's swearing-in. Banda is expected to run the country until scheduled elections take place in 2014. DONORS EXPECTED TO RETURN The streets of the main cities Lilongwe and Blantyre were calm on Saturday, though police guarded strategic locations. There appeared to be little public sorrow at Mutharika's death. Many of Malawi's 13 million people held him personally responsible for an economic crisis that stemmed ultimately from a diplomatic row with former colonial power Britain a year ago. On news of Mutharika's death, the black market rate of Malawi's kwacha currency dropped from 285/290 kwacha to the dollar to 270/275, with people anticipating more foreign currency coming into the country. Major donors Britain and the United States had urged a smooth transition respecting the constitution. After rows with Mutharika over his economic policies and heavy-handed repression of dissent, Britain and others froze aid worth some 40 percent of government spending, fuel supplies dried up and food prices soared. This led to popular unrest and attacks on Mutharika's economic policies by bodies as diverse as the Catholic Church and the International Monetary Fund. "It's sad that he is leaving behind so many unsolved problems," said Stella Mataka, a waiter at a lodge near Blantyre's Chileka International airport. As reports of the death of the self-styled "Economist in chief" swept the capital, there were

bursts of drunken jubilation among those who accused Mutharika of turning back the clock on 18 years of democracy in the "Warm Heart of Africa". Medical sources said Mutharika's body was flown to South Africa because Malawi's energy crisis was so severe the Lilongwe state hospital would have been unable to conduct a proper autopsy or even keep his body refrigerated. Banda said the government would announce details of the return of Mutharika's body from South Africa and arrangements for the funeral.
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News Headline: Op-Ed: The Other Arab Spring | News Date: 04/08/2012 Outlet Full Name: New York Times - Online, The News Text: By Thomas L. Friedman ISN'T it interesting that the Arab awakening began in Tunisia with a fruit vendor who was harassed by police for not having a permit to sell food just at the moment when world food prices hit record highs? And that it began in Syria with farmers in the southern village of Dara'a, who were demanding the right to buy and sell land near the border, without having to get permission from corrupt security officials? And that it was spurred on in Yemen the first country in the world expected to run out of water by a list of grievances against an incompetent government, among the biggest of which was that top officials were digging water wells in their own backyards at a time when the government was supposed to be preventing such water wildcatting? As Abdelsalam Razzaz, the minister of water in Yemen's new government, told Reuters last week: The officials themselves have traditionally been the most aggressive well diggers. Nearly every minister had a well dug in his house. All these tensions over land, water and food are telling us something: The Arab awakening was driven not only by political and economic stresses, but, less visibly, by environmental, population and climate stresses as well. If we focus only on the former and not the latter, we will never be able to help stabilize these societies. Take Syria. Syria's current social unrest is, in the most direct sense, a reaction to a brutal and out-of-touch regime, write Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell, in a report for their Center for Climate and Security in Washington. However, that's not the whole story. The past few years have seen a number of significant social, economic, environmental and climatic changes in Syria that have eroded the social contract between citizen and government. ... If the international community and future policy makers in Syria are to address and resolve the drivers of unrest in the country, these changes will have to be better explored. From 2006-11, they note, up to 60 percent of Syria's land experienced one of the worst droughts and most severe set of crop failures in its history. According to a special case study from last year's Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, of the most vulnerable Syrians dependent on agriculture, particularly in the northeast governorate of Hassakeh (but also in the south), nearly 75 percent ... suffered total crop failure.' Herders in the northeast lost around 85 percent of their livestock, affecting 1.3 million people. The United Nations reported that more than 800,000 Syrians had their livelihoods wiped out by these droughts, and many were forced to move to the cities to find work adding to the burdens of already incompetent government. If climate projections stay on their current path, the drought situation in North Africa and the Middle East is going to get progressively worse, and you will end up witnessing cycle after

cycle of instability that may be the impetus for future authoritarian responses, argues Femia. There are a few ways that the U.S. can be on the right side of history in the Arab world. One is to enthusiastically and robustly support democratic movements. The other is to invest in climate-adaptive infrastructure and improvements in water management to make these countries more resilient in an age of disruptive climate change. An analysis by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, published last October in the Journal of Climate, and cited on Joe Romm's blog, climateprogress.org, found that droughts in wintertime in the Middle East when the region traditionally gets most of its rainfall to replenish aquifers are increasing, and human-caused climate change is partly responsible. The magnitude and frequency of the drying that has occurred is too great to be explained by natural variability alone, noted Martin Hoerling, of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory, the lead author of the paper. This is not encouraging news for a region that already experiences water stress, because it implies natural variability alone is unlikely to return the region's climate to normal. Especially when you consider the other stresses. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, the executive director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development in London, writing in The Beirut Daily Star in February, pointed out that 12 of the world's 15 most water-scarce countries Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Israel and Palestine are in the Middle East, and after three decades of explosive population growth these countries are set to dramatically worsen their predicament. Although birth rates are falling, one-third of the overall population is below 15 years old, and large numbers of young women are reaching reproductive age, or soon will be. A British Defense Ministry study, he added, has projected that by 2030 the population of the Middle East will increase by 132 percent generating an unprecedented youth bulge.' And a lot more mouths to feed with less water than ever. As Lester Brown, the president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of World on the Edge, notes, 20 years ago, using oil-drilling technology, the Saudis tapped into an aquifer far below the desert to produce irrigated wheat, making themselves self-sufficient. But now almost all that water is gone, and Saudi wheat production is, too. So the Saudis are investing in farm land in Ethiopia and Sudan, but that means they will draw more Nile water for irrigation away from Egypt, whose agriculture-rich Nile Delta is already vulnerable to any sea level rise and saltwater intrusion. If you ask what are the real threats to our security today, said Brown, at the top of the list would be climate change, population growth, water shortages, rising food prices and the number of failing states in the world. As that list grows, how many failed states before we have a failing global civilization, and everything begins to unravel? Hopefully, we won't go there. But, then, we should all remember that quote attributed to Leon Trotsky: You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. Well, you may not be interested in climate change, but climate change is interested in you. Folks, this is not a hoax. We and the Arabs need to figure out and fast more ways to partner to mitigate the environmental threats where we can and to build greater resiliency against those where we can't. Twenty years from now, this could be all that we're talking about.
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News Headline: Rwanda: At 18, The Nation Has Mature Lessons to Offer (Opinion) |

News Date: 04/08/2012 Outlet Full Name: AllAfrica.com News Text: By Allan Brian Ssenyonga All children love to get to that point where they can be considered to be adults and mature enough to make their own decisions. Once one clocks 18, in many societies they are considered an adult who can mange fine by themselves. It is now 18 years since Rwanda descended to the dark valleys of humanity. In a space of just 100 days, over a million people were murdered in what is now known as the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. When it all happened, there were no caring pronouncements from the then leaders of France, Britain and US as we see now with, Libya and Syria among others. When Rwandans were dying there was no George Clooney or Jason Russell (of the Kony 2012 video). People simply watched as an elaborate plan to exterminate the Tutsi was vigorously executed until the Rwanda Patriotic Force/Army, took charge and stopped the genocide then took charge of a lawless and destroyed society, both in terms of infrastructure as well as the social fabric. 18 years down the road, Rwanda has managed to dust itself and get back on the track and to surge forward much faster than other countries that never had to go through the horror that was the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. What happened in Rwanda 18 years ago continues to be a vital lesson for all Rwandans and other countries as well. Each time there is a major conflict in another country; commentators will be quick to say they do not want "another Rwanda" to happen. In the recent past it is Kenya. In 2007, an electoral contest that was seemingly going against the incumbent was quickly overturned by a series of tally sheets tampering. President Mwai Kibaki was sworn in at a private but hasty process. It was not long before the country was engulfed by violence that started as an expression of dissatisfaction with the electoral fraud that Bwana Samuel Kivutu of the now defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya had just engineered. The violence soon turned to targeted killings between tribes especially in the rift valley area. When the dust settled, over 1500 Kenyans had perished with hundreds of thousands displaced, many of whom have not been resettled since. It is now 2012 and our Kenyan brothers are warming up for another general election to replace president Kibaki. Tribalism is always common in some of the countries we belong to. And, rogue politicians with selfish interests always fan the tribal flames with their incendiary speeches. Right now, Leon Mugesera, a man who incited people to kill has resorted to delaying tactics by arguing that he should not be tried in Kinyarwanda (the language in which his poisonous remarks were made). The politicians, who incite others, love to use the language that is best understood. They employ emotive sentence constructions in order to convince the audience that they need to join hands and fight. The notion of "us against them" is one whose delivery they seem to have mastered effectively. With an election on the horizon, already, some Kenya politicians are talking carelessly. The games of us against them are already being rehearsed using tribal groupings such as

Gikuyu, Embu, Meru association (GEMA) and the Kalenjin, Maasai, Turkana and Samburu communities (KAMATUSA). Already the GEMA group has 'anointed' Uhuru Kenyatta as their leader while KAMATUSA prefer William Ruto to carry their torch. Such groups only serve to alienate other Kenyans as their focus on narrow political interests that can only divide the country further at a time when it needs to unite and vote people based on principles and not tribes. As Kenyans prepare for the next elections, they need to remember the lessons from Rwanda such as the fact that the best way to deal with genocide is prevention of the same. Politicians should talk about their programmes and not their tribes. Mature Rwanda has managed to go beyond all this and even offer inspiring lessons on governance by keeping corruption at near zero levels, while providing services to its people leaving many visitors to this country in admiration. It is very important to know your past if you are to determine a better future for yourself. This is why Rwanda remembers the events of 1994 annually so as to keep the NEVER AGAIN ideal alive.
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News Headline: Libya is a lure for migrants, where exploitation waits | News Date: 04/08/2012 Outlet Full Name: Los Angeles Times News Text: By Glen Johnson TRIPOLI, Libya Ahmed Mostafa and his friends paid thousands of dollars among them to get to Libya recently, traveling with gangs of smugglers through Western Africa. It was to be their escape from the sprawling slums of Ghana's capital city, Accra. Mostafa had heard rumors of arbitrary arrests and Libyan lynch mobs during the war last year in which longtime Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi was ousted and killed. But he was counting on luck: "It was not something I really thought about," he said. "I thought I would come and secure some work. Then send some money to my family." Instead, he and his 10 friends wound up in a government-run prison, Twoshi Detention Center, sleeping on small foam mattresses, dozens to a room. A militia had spied them two weeks earlier walking along a dusty road in the country's north and detained them. They remain in the prison, uncharged and without legal representation. In Libya, illegal migration is once again picking up, conducted through two primary trafficking corridors in the east and west of the country. A stream of Africans Somalis, Eritreans, Nigerians, Sudanese, Malians dreaming of a new life have made the perilous trip to Libya. But as turmoil continues to reign through much of the country, many of these migrants are being rounded up and detained, in some cases, to be exploited as forced laborers. "The going rate for a migrant is anywhere from 260 to 800 Libyan dinars," or about $210 to $645, said Jeremy Haslam, chief of the Libya mission for the International Organization for Migration. "One of the problems is that many detention facilities are not currently under state control, instead administered by local councils and even private parties. The latter may involve organized crime, running human trafficking operations modern-day slavery." At some detention facilities, staff members lease out black African detainees to employers,

who make a contribution to the jails to help cover costs. Other migrants are said to be sold outright to employers. "In some circumstances, it can appear like a legitimate transaction but is essentially exploitative," Haslam said. "And it's widespread." Migrants often "work off" the debt of their sale, Haslam said, and have no chance to negotiate hours or rates or the kind of work they do. "With no status in the country, the cycle can continue indefinitely, with the migrant re-traded once the employer no longer needs their services," he said. Libya's borders have long been haunted by smuggling rings that ferry drugs, weapons and migrants through an intricate web of clandestine trading routes. The country's relative wealth, gleaned mainly from its oil industry providing an annual per capita income of $12,000, the highest in Africa has ensured its place as a destination for illegal immigrants. Cleaner. Builder. Farmhand. Prostitute. Domestic servant. Libya's migrant workers, at least 1.5 million strong at the outbreak of last year's warfare, were all of these things, and the country depended heavily on them. Yet they were always viewed as outsiders, necessary for filling jobs that Libyans would not do. Some, meanwhile, were reviled as drug dealers and participants in a dark underworld of gang violence. In the end, they stood as exemplars of how Kadafi's focus on sub-Saharan Africa after numerous scuttled attempts to fit into the Middle East and North Africa came at the expense of his own people. And resentment grew. Libya has no legislative framework to protect migrants from abuse and exploitation. In its 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report, theU.S. State Departmentranked Libya in the bottom tier, reserved for countries that "do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts" to eliminate human trafficking. Racially motivated and xenophobic attacks, which occurred frequently before the insurgency, increased vastly over the last year as the country descended into chaos. Rumors swirled throughout Libya wildly embellished, according to Amnesty International that Kadafi was flying in mercenaries en masse, with terrifying consequences for the country's black migrant workers. Recently released undated video shows black Africans held in a cage, surrounded by a mob. They sit, feet tied and hands bound behind their backs. All have the green former Libyan flag stuffed into their mouths. Men shout "dogs" and "God is great" and force them to gnaw on the flags. The slide of a pistol is pulled back and a gunshot rings out. The men stand up and hop, like an act from a demented circus, in front of their tormentors. Another shot rings out. The video cuts. "I want to tell the guards that I am not a mercenary," said Mostafa, standing in a courtyard outside his cell. "But I cannot speak Arabic. I cannot express myself to them." Nearby, other migrants set to weeding a patch of grass, under the eyes of prison guards. No one really knows how many detention centers increasingly notorious for human rights abuses, including torture and rape of inmates are operating in Libya or how many people are being held.

The United Nations estimates that at least 7,000 people are locked up including migrants, Kadafi loyalists and criminals and has advocated for the issuance of temporary documentation to illegal migrants to offer some protection. According to Haslam, about 90% of illegal migrants have no valid identification, which complicates the process of repatriation, prolongs their detention and leaves them vulnerable to arbitrary arrest and exploitation. "They should give them all visas," said Mohammed Khoja, who supervises a team of four Nigerian street cleaners who are illegal immigrants. "We need them." His workers sift through the accumulated junk in their patch of the city long into the night. It chokes the edges of streets and comes in waves down alleyways. Three years now they have toiled, his four workers, amid Tripoli's waste. Wraith-like and filthy, they flit between stalls and parked cars, clutching brooms. Emaciated forms stooped in the night. A deathly odor rotten fruit, chicken feces and slaughtered animals clogs the air. Some people see the four of them as no better than the trash they collect or the pavement they clean, says one of the men, Abdallah. They bought cheap portable CD players to block out the abuse. Bob Marley and Rihanna accompany them long into the night, when family and friends back inNigeria's slums drift into their thoughts. They were smuggled into Libya. They say the trip through Western Africa was simple brutality as they were juggled between ruthless gangs of traffickers and corrupt, profiteering officials, mostly from Chad and Libya. "Everything you can imagine happened. Rape. Theft. Beatings," Abdallah said. Clashes in the remote southern town of Kufra, a staging post for traffickers, have escalated over the last few months. Rumors quickly spread that Chadian mercenaries were seeking to destabilize Libya. In fact, rival gangs of traffickers, many of them Libyan nationals, were battling for control over migration routes. The rumors fed into a cycle of discrimination in which anyone with black skin was subject to arrest and imprisonment. Like Mostafa. He is unsure what will happen to him. But he knows his dream of a world outside Ghana's slums is over. "I want to tell my family to come and rescue me," he says. "I want to go home." Johnson is a special correspondent.
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News Headline: Many South Sudanese unable to return home | News Date: 04/08/2012

Outlet Full Name: Washington Post News Text: By Andrew Green, Published: April 6 WAU, South Sudan Teresa Adut Akol's new home is a small patch of concrete floor in a railway station outside this town. She shares the space with her eight children and stacks of their belongings, surrounded by dozens of other families whose return to South Sudan also has stalled here. Millions of people fled the south during Sudan's decades-long civil war. Since a peace agreement in 2005 and South Sudan's independence last summer, many have returned, melting back into the areas they left years ago. But thousands of others have been unable or unwilling to reclaim their traditional homes. Many are stuck at transit sites across South Sudan train stations, ports and temporary camps with limited access to food and medical care. The situation is especially tenuous for women like Akol, who led their families back south. The approaching rainy season will make the situation worse, officials say, creating a potential humanitarian crisis as the world's newest nation faces a series of challenges. Food shortages have become widespread, and ethnic conflict has flared in recent months. And the government's decision in January to shut down oil production which accounts for 98 percent of its revenue following a feud with Sudan over transit fees will make confronting these issues even more difficult. Meanwhile, renewed tension and fighting along the border between Sudan and South Sudan have brought new risks to potential returnees seeking to make the journey back to the south. Glad to be back home' But the hardships haven't dampened Akol's eagerness to begin building a life in this new country. Even if I stay in the bush or wherever, I'm glad to be back home, she said. Akol was one of the millions of southerners caught up in the war. She fled north, where she met her husband, another displaced southerner, and started a family. Their oldest child, Martha Chol, said she grew up listening to her parents vow that they would move back to the south. That day came in December, five months after South Sudan celebrated its independence. A trip by barge and bus ended at the railway hangar in Wau, a bustling town along the Jur River. Without her husband, who stayed behind waiting for some money he was owed, Akol said she is unsure how to claim land in his family's traditional area. Hers has been a common problem for many of the women returning to the south, said Gregory Norton, program director for the Norwegian Refugee Council. While the transitional constitution allows women to own land, traditional customs of male-only land ownership dominate in some areas. Akol can appeal to local officials or higher authorities in Juba, the capital, but she said she can't afford to leave her children and is not convinced that she would be successful if she tried. Other returnees, used to life in urban areas in the north with consistent access to water, markets and schools, have refused to leave the transit sites for their traditional and often undeveloped villages. Some stay at transit sites

They basically said, There's nothing in my village; why would I go?' said Maureen Murphy, an officer with the American Refugee Committee. Instead, they are hoping that the government will find them a place near a city, where they can start businesses instead of farms. But that process has been incredibly slow, said Samantha Donkin, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM). As they wait, there is little for them to do except watch their resources dwindle. Most of the adults at the Wau railway station have given up on looking for work. Families are living off three-month food rations they received from IOM or are selling off the things they brought, such as beds, mattresses and bags of sugar. The rainy season, which can last six months or longer in some areas, will soon turn unpaved roads to mud, making it difficult for supplies to move and exacerbating the food shortages, according to the World Food Program. The scarcity will be particularly acute for people at the transit sites, who don't have communities or families to help them. There's a potential humanitarian crisis, Radhika Coomaraswamy, the United Nations' special representative for children and armed conflict, said after a visit to a returnee camp in the north last month. We really need to mobilize resources in case the numbers increase. Meanwhile, the fate of an estimated 700,000 South Sudanese in the north remains unclear. The two governments had agreed in March that southerners who were registered by Sunday could obtain residency or work permits in the north, or else they could repatriate to the south. But plans for the leaders of the two countries to sign the accord were aborted amid renewed fighting, and only a handful of the southerners have been registered.Observers fear that the uncertainty over their status could result in an increased hardship, and possible discrimination, for those who remain in the north, while complicating the efforts of undocumented returnees seeking to traverse a conflict zone to get back to the south. Starting over Nura Ismail Dokola said that with or without an agreement, southerners should come back. Like most of the returnees at the Wau station, she said the difficulties of starting over in South Sudan are outweighed by the opportunities. She and her four children arrived by train in August, although their luggage hasn't shown up. With all I'm suffering, I'm glad I'm back home, Dokola said. In mid-March, her family and several others living in the railway station were assigned a small plot of land in Alel Chok, a settlement a few miles outside Wau. But there's no infrastructure there, aside from some boreholes, latrines and a mobile health clinic. Wau, with its markets, is a two-hour walk away. When she first saw her plot, Dokola said she couldn't help comparing it with her home in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, where there is transport, latrines everything is available. Of the 29 families who received land in Alel Chok, 20 are headed by women. After they had a chance to look over the area, Dokola gathered them to talk about what was possible in their dusty new home. I'm appealing to them, Let us develop this like the town there,' she said, pointing to Wau.

They spent the ride back to the railway station making plans. Green is reporting from South Sudan on a fellowship from the International Reporting Project.
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News Headline: United Nations News Centre - Africa Briefs | News Date: 04/08/2012 Outlet Full Name: United Nations News Service News Text: Ban praises mediation efforts by West African regional bloc in Mali 8 April Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon commended the continued efforts by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to facilitate the restoration of constitutional order in Mali, and called on the country's military junta to immediately implement the accord it signed on Friday with the regional bloc. Ban mourns death of Malawi President, welcomes peaceful transition of power 7 April The Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today mourned the death of the President of Malawi, Bingu Wa Mutharika. South Sudan: As civilian disarmament takes place, UN urges respect for human rights 6 April The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) today urged South Sudanese security forces to ensure human rights are respected as the civilian disarmament process takes place in the country's Jonglei state. UN official urges greater support for peacebuilding efforts in Central African Republic 5 April The head of the United Nations peacebuilding office in the Central African Republic (CAR) today urged the international community to support ongoing efforts to restore stability in the country, saying that more $19 million is required to complete its disarmament, demobilization and reintegration process. Comments by Sudanese official could lead to further violence UN rights chief 5 April The top United Nations human rights official today warned that comments by the Governor of Southern Kordofan state in Sudan who was filmed telling his soldiers not to bring rebels back alive could amount to a serious crime and lead to an escalation of violence. Ban renews calls for immediate cessation of violence in Mali 5 April Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed the Security Council's condemnation of the seizure of power in Mali by military rebels, and its renewed call for the restoration of constitutional rule in the country.
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