U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Central and Eastern Africa

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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 198
12 - 18 June 2004


CONTENTS:

SUDAN: US considering whether Darfur displacements, killings constitute
   genocide
SUDAN: Kofi Annan planning to visit Sudan
SUDAN: Study ranks south worst in the world for women and children
SUDAN: Ebola outbreak in the south "contained" - WHO
ETHIOPIA: Application for WTO membership gets US backing
ETHIOPIA: Efforts to reduce poverty in five cities
ETHIOPIA: Democratic reform a new phenomenon, says think-tank
ETHIOPIA: Top athlete to campaign for more girls to go to school
SOMALIA: Committee formed to oversee creation of parliament
DJIBOUTI: Government repatriates asylum seekers from Awr Aoussa camp


ALSO SEE:

SUDAN: Breaches of cessation of hostilities agreement reported at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41725

ETHIOPIA: Child domestic work rampant in Addis Ababa at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41691

SUDAN: US considering whether Darfur displacements, killings constitute
genocide

The US government is considering whether the mass displacements and
killings in western Sudan's Darfur region constitute genocide, according
to US Secretary of State Colin Powell. Asked whether the term genocide was
more appropriate than ethnic cleansing, Powell said the matter was being
discussed "inter-agency" and that lawyers and policy officials were also
looking into it. "I don't think they have -[=85] come to a conclusion yet as
to whether all of the criteria that are used to make a determination of
genocide have been met yet... But I do know there is a review under way,"
he said in an interview with the New York Times on 11 June.

"You know these turn out to be almost legal matters of definition, and I'm
not prepared to say what is the correct legal term for what's happening.
All I know is that there are at least a million people who are desperately
in need, and many of them will die if we can't get the international
community mobilised and if we can't get the Sudanese to cooperate with the
international community. And it won't make a whole lot of difference after
the fact what you've called it," he continued.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide -
to which the US is a signatory - obliges the UN to act to prevent
genocide. The convention defines genocide as acts "committed with intent
to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, [ethnic], racial or religious
group". Such acts include killing; causing serious bodily or mental harm
to members of a group; and deliberately inflicting conditions of life
calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a group in whole or
in part. [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41651
]

"We do not intend to stand by while violence and atrocities continue in
Darfur," said Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Charles
Snyder in a statement before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
on Tuesday. "Our message to the government of Sudan is clear: Do what is
necessary now, and we will work with you. If you do not, there will be
consequences. Time is of the essence. Do not doubt our determination."

Snyder said the US administration was "exploring actions" it could take
against individuals responsible for the situation in Darfur, specifically
by "freezing assets they may have in the US and prohibiting the issuance
of visas to them".

He said the situation in Darfur was one of the US government's highest
priorities. "We have surprised the government of Sudan by our tough
actions on Darfur. Clearly, the government of Sudan had calculated that
our desire to see a north-south accord might lead us to adopt a softer
approach on Darfur. That was a major miscalculation, and the government
now understands that." [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41702 ]

Meanwhile, according to the head of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), Carol
Bellamy, the crisis in Darfur is worsening, and necessitates immediate
action to avert a "humanitarian disaster". "It is clear to me that a
worsening crisis is upon us," she said following a visit to Darfur. "The
number of displaced people - already estimated at close to one million
men, women and children - continues to grow."

"During my short visit to Darfur, it was clear that people are continuing
to flee their villages, if not on the same large scale as in previous
months," Bellamy said. The images of burnt-out villages and markets on the
road from al-Junaynah, the capital of Western Darfur, southward to Sisi
were stark in her mind, she said, and they were repeated hundreds of times
across Darfur. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41709 ]


SUDAN: Kofi Annan planning to visit Sudan

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Thursday he was planning to travel
to Sudan, adding that the UN was pressing the Khartoum government to allow
humanitarian workers freer access to Darfur. "I myself expect to visit
Sudan soon," Annan told reporters at UN headquarters in New York. He
called on the Sudanese government to protect its own civilians, saying:
"It is the responsibility of the government to protect the population, and
we need to encourage it and must insist it does it."

Annan added: "We have asked the Sudanese government to take steps to
contain the Janjawid militia, who are doing quite a lot of the killing and
destruction of the lives of the people in the region."

Asked if the situation in Darfur constituted a genocide, Annan said that,
based on reports he had received, he could not at this stage term it as
such. But there were "massive violations of international humanitarian
law," he added. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41752 ]


SUDAN: Study ranks south worst in the world for women and children

After 21 years of civil war, southern Sudan ranks worst in the world for
many key indicators of the wellbeing of women and children, including
rates of chronic malnutrition, immunisation, antenatal care and primary
school completion, according to a new study.

With net enrolment in schools at only 20 percent, southern Sudanese
children have the least access to primary education in the world,
according to the study, conducted by the New Sudan Centre for Statistics
and Evaluation (NSCSE), in association with UNICEF. [The NSCSE is a
technical wing of the de facto government of southern Sudan, the Sudan
People's Liberation Movement.]

The study, entitled "Towards a Baseline: Best estimates of Social
Indicators for Southern Sudan", says only one in five children of school
age attends class, while three times more boys are at school than girls.
Only 2 percent of children finish primary school, which is the lowest rate
in the world, says the report. With a population of 7.5 million, this
means that only 500 girls and 2,000 boys finish every year. [Full story
at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41724 ]


SUDAN: Ebola outbreak in the south "contained" - WHO

An Ebola outbreak in Yambio county, Western Equatoria, has been
"contained", according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). "We are
very happy with the situation. Our teams' work has been highly
appreciated," said Dr Abdullahi Ahmed, the head of the WHO's southern
Sudan office, on Thursday. Only seven people of 30 reported cases had died
(23 percent), he said, which was one of the lowest mortality rates in the
history of the Ebola virus. "Our main message is not to eat bush meat. One
hypothesis is that people get Ebola through bush meat," Abdullahi said.

Previous outbreaks in Equatoria in 1976 and 1979 had resulted in mortality
rates of 53 percent and 65 percent respectively, Abdullahi told IRIN. On a
global level, 1,261 people of 1,815 cases had died as a result of Ebola,
which was an average of 65 percent, he added.

Meanwhile, surveillance of the area, including 157 people who had had
contact with Ebola would continue for about two months, Abdullahi added.
Social mobilisation programmes were also ongoing in Yambio and surrounding
counties. [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41736
]


ETHIOPIA: Application for WTO membership gets US backing

The United States government has pledged to throw its weight behind
Ethiopia's efforts to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the embassy
in the capital, Addis Ababa, said on Monday. In a statement, the embassy
quoted US Trade Representative for Africa Florizelle Liser as telling the
Ethiopian government that the US was committed to trading with Africa and
assisting African countries achieve their goal of sustainable development.

"We believe Ethiopia can be an important leader within WTO, as it has been
in other regional and international organisations. Within the WTO,
Ethiopia can share in its benefits and responsibilities, and participate
in its decision-making," said Liser at the end of a two-day visit to
Ethiopia, one of the world's poorest countries, where the annual per
capita income is around US $100. Liser noted that Ethiopia's exports to
the US under Washington's trade initiative - the African Growth and
Opportunities Act (AGOA) - had increased by 38 percent.

But despite calls for trade improvements, Ethiopia maintains that it has
seen little benefit from trade deals like AGOA. Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi has said that the country has so far secured only $1.8 million by
exporting goods to the US under the AGOA terms. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41668 ]


ETHIOPIA: Efforts to reduce poverty in five cities

The government and the UN are spearheading a joint US $1-million pilot
initiative aiming to improve the lives of about 750,000 poor people living
in five cities, officials said.

Antonius Broek, the acting head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in
Ethiopia, speaking at a national conference on poverty on 11 June, hailed
the initiative as a "positive step" towards urban reform and
transformation in the cities, these being Adama and Jima in Oromiya State,
Awasa in the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional State,
Bahir Dar in Amhara State and Mekele in Tigray State.

Improving urban centres in Ethiopia is seen as a key strategy towards
meeting the global Millennium Development Goals, which set targets for
tackling worldwide poverty, including the helping 100 million slum
dwellers and improving access to clean water, by 2015. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41669 ]


ETHIOPIA: Democratic reform a new phenomenon, says think-tank

Democratic reform is a new phenomenon in Ethiopia, despite a history
stretching back over 3,000 years, and has been largely driven by local
pressure rather than by the international community, a new report says.
Recent reforms had consisted of the replacement of imperial rule, then the
emergence of opposition political parties and a private press that is just
over a decade old, the independent Ethiopian think-tank, the Forum for
Social Studies (FSS), said in a report entitled "Democratic Assistance to
Post-Conflict Ethiopia".

It said Ethiopia "had little to thank international donors for on the long
road to democratic reform", noting that aid and support for the country
had been largely in the form of emergency relief, with "little focused on
improving rights".

The Donors' Advisory Group, a forum where donors meet to address issues in
Ethiopia and is co-chaired by the World Bank and UNDP, declined to comment
on the report. But a source close to the group told IRIN that the
international community "plays and continues to play" a key role in
Ethiopia's democratisation process. He stressed that the criticism by the
FSS was "harsh" given that the organisation was "one of many civil society
groups" supported by the international community. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41728 ]


ETHIOPIA: Top athlete to campaign for more girls to go to school

One of Ethiopia's top female athletes announced on Thursday that she would
spearhead a nationwide campaign aimed at increasing the number of girls
attending school. The 10,000-metre world champion, Berhane Adere, joined
UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy in campaigning towards this
objective. Speaking in, Addis Ababa, the 30-year-old gold medallist told
of how she had been identified as a potential world-class athlete. "I was
in school when I was selected to participate in this sport. Being educated
is very important for doing well in sports," she said.

Bellamy told a press conference in Addis Ababa that not only was it every
child's right to go to school but it also made economic and developmental
sense. "The issue of education for children is not just something one
hopes should happen but is the right of every child," she said.

"A girl who gets a basic education will more likely grow to be a healthy
adult, her children are more likely to be healthy, so it will reduce
under-five mortality rates. A girl who continues on to secondary school is
less likely to be infected with HIV/AIDS. So an investment in a girl
getting educated is not only an investment in the girl but an investment
in the family." Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41753 ]


SOMALIA: Committee formed to oversee creation of parliament

Delegates attending the Somali peace talks in Kenya have nominated members
to a committee to oversee the setting up of a parliament for the
strife-torn country. The parliament will in turn elect the president. The
committee would ensure that the process of selecting members of parliament
was fair and serve as an arbitration forum to settle potential disputes
over the distribution of seats, sources close to the talks told IRIN on
Tuesday. It would also chair and coordinate the entire process of
selecting MPs.

"Most of the clans have presented their nominees to the committee. They
are taking the process seriously," said one of the sources.

Each of Somalia's four major clans had been allocated 61 seats in the
proposed parliament, while a fifth clan (an alliance of minority clans)
would have 31 MPs, bringing the total number of members of the country's
proposed new parliament to 275. A Speaker and two deputy Speakers would be
elected from among the MPs. The Speaker and his deputies would then
preside over the election of the president. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41673 ]


DJIBOUTI: Government repatriates asylum seekers from Awr Aoussa camp

The Djiboutian government has started repatriating nearly 4,000 asylum
seekers whose applications to stay in the country have been rejected,
Interior and Decentralisation Minister Abdoulkader Doualeh Wais said.
Those being repatriated were 3,091 Ethiopians and 521 from Somaliland.
"These people have been here for 10 years," Abdoulkader Doualeh told
reporters on 12 June. "There is no war, no combat, in Ethiopia now. There
is democracy," he added, referring to the Ethiopians.

The repatriation followed an ultimatum issued by the government in
September to about 100,000 illegal immigrants to either leave or apply for
asylum. An estimated 80,000 left voluntarily.

Over a period of five months, the country's refugee status determination
commission has sifted through 8,000 asylum applications to determine who
should stay. About half the applications were rejected. These were the
immigrants now being repatriated by road and rail from a temporary transit
camp at Awr Aousa in an operation due to end on Tuesday, the minister
said. Those remaining at Awr Aousa, whose asylum requests had been
accepted, were more than 4,000 Somalis and 100 Ethiopians, who would be
transferred to other refugee camps in the country. The Awr Aousa camp
would be closed, he added. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41666 ]


IRIN-CEA
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Fax: +254 2 622129
Email: IRIN@ocha.unon.org

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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004


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