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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-Up 272
26 March - 1 April 2005


CONTENTS:

SUDAN: Security Council refers Darfur crimes to ICC
SUDAN: Gunmen ambush AU monitors in South Darfur
SUDAN: Lack of clean water as thousands return to the south
DJIBOUTI: No challengers for Guelleh as presidential campaign kicks off
SOMALIA: Ministers unable to reach Baidoa due to fighting
ETHIOPIA: Fraudulent voter registration reported
ETHIOPIA: Gov't troops committed crimes in Gambella, says HRW



ALSO SEE:

SUDAN: Interview with UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46345

ERITREA: Mines and UXOs still a problem at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46374


SUDAN: Security Council refers Darfur crimes to ICC

NAIROBI, 1 April 2005 (IRIN) - The UN Security Council decided on 
Thursday, after weeks of deliberations, to try the suspected 
perpetrators of human rights abuses and war crimes in the western 
Sudanese region of Darfur in the International Criminal Court (ICC), a 
UN spokesman said.

"The Secretary-General welcomes the adoption today of Security Council 
resolution 1593 [2005], which refers the situation in Darfur since 1 
July 2002 to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court," Fred 
Eckhard, spokesman for the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, said in a 
statement on Thursday.

Annan commended the Council for using its authority "to provide an 
appropriate mechanism to lift the veil of impunity", which had allowed 
human rights crimes in Darfur to continue unchecked, Eckhard added

The resolution was made possible by last-minute concessions in the text, 
including assurances that would bar the ICC, or other courts, from 
prosecuting citizens within Sudan from countries that were not a party 
to the ICC, including the US.

The US, a staunch opponent of the international court, had threatened to 
veto the resolution for fears that Americans could become targets of 
politically motivated lawsuits.

"This historic step by the Security Council offers real hope of 
protection for people in Darfur," Richard Dicker, director of the 
International Justice Program of the advocacy organisation, Human Rights 
Watch (HRW), said in a statement on Thursday.

While welcoming the abstention of the US in the vote, the advocacy group 
opposed the exemption given to non-ICC states, however, as it violated 
long-established principles of jurisdiction.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=46416]


SUDAN: Gunmen ambush AU monitors in South Darfur

Unidentified gunmen wounded two African Union (AU) monitors on Tuesday 
near the town of Niteaga, northwest of Nyala, the capital of the western 
Sudanese state of South Darfur, an AU spokesman told IRIN. The monitors' 
sector team leader, an officer from Mali, was shot in the neck during 
the ambush, said Nourreddine Mezni.

Meanwhile the UN Security Council decided on Tuesday to freeze assets 
and impose a travel ban on those believed to have committed human-rights 
abuses, or violated the ceasefire agreement, in Darfur. The resolution 
also extended the current ban on the sale or supply of military 
equipment to non-governmental entities or individuals involved in the 
Darfur conflict to include the Sudanese government.

It further demanded that the government immediately cease conducting 
offensive military flights in the region. However, the Sudanese 
representative to the UN, Elfatih Mohamed Ahmed Erwa, said the Council 
had adopted an "unwise resolution" that might aggravate the situation in 
Darfur.

A committee, consisting of representatives of all Council members, was 
established to specify which individuals would be subject to the 
restrictive measures, and to monitor their implementation. In addition, 
the resolution requested UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to appoint a 
four-member panel of experts based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to assist 
the committee for six months.

According to relief agencies, over 2.4 million people have been affected 
by the conflict in Darfur between Sudanese government troops - and 
militias allegedly allied to the government - and rebels fighting to end 
what they have called the marginalisation and discrimination of the 
region's inhabitants by the state. Almost 80 percent of those affected 
have either been internally displaced or forced to flee to neighbouring 
Chad.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46372]


SUDAN: Lack of clean water as thousands return to the south

Civilians returning to southern Sudan will put serious pressure on the 
region's water resources, which can supply only 30 percent of 
southerners with clean water as it is, the UN warned on Thursday.

"No amount of food and medicine will keep people well if their water 
supply and environment are contaminated," Ben Parker, communications 
officer for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), told IRIN from Yambio, 
southern Sudan.

After decades of civil war in the region, some 500,000 refugees and an 
estimated four million internally displaced persons (IDPs) are expected 
to start returning home, now that a peace agreement has been signed. 
According to figures released by the UN Office for the Coordination of 
Humanitarian Affairs on Sunday, approximately 1,500 IDPs have been 
returning to southern Sudan every week. As more and more Sudanese begin 
to move, health risks related to water and sanitation are becoming an 
increasing concern.

Lack of clean water had led to "terrible social costs", according to a 
statement by Wendy Chamberlin, acting United Nations High Commissioner 
for Refugees on Tuesday. These have included an increased risk of sexual 
assault for women forced to fetch water from unguarded locations, and 
higher rates of disease due to the consumption of dirty water.

Much of southern Sudan consists of semi-arid land, and water-related 
problems occur throughout the year - flooding during the rains and water 
shortages in the dry season.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46313]


DJIBOUTI: No challengers for Guelleh as presidential campaign kicks off

Campaigning for Djibouti's forthcoming presidential election officially 
began at midnight on Friday, as stipulated by the country's 
constitution, despite the fact that incumbent President Ismael Omar 
Guelleh is the sole candidate.

Nonetheless, the election is expected to take place on 8 April as 
scheduled. Sources in the capital, Djibouti City, said pro-Guelleh 
posters and other campaign materials were being plastered on walls and 
circulated throughout the city on Friday.

Guelleh was elected as the second president of the tiny Horn of Africa 
nation in 1999, taking over from his uncle, Hassan Gouled Aptidon, who 
had ruled the country since it gained independence from France in 1977. 
Aptidon was forced by international pressure to introduce multi-party 
politics in 1992, ending 15 years of one-party rule in Djibouti, which 
has a population of just 712,000, according to the UN.

Parliamentary elections were most recently held in 2003, with Guelleh's 
Union for Presidential Majority coalition winning all 65 seats amid 
opposition claims of widespread rigging.

The main opposition coalition, the Union of Democratic Alliance (UDA), 
has called upon all its members to boycott April's election.

Djibouti served as an operations base during the 1990-1991 Gulf War, and 
France continues to have a significant military presence in the country. 
More recently, the US has stationed hundreds of troops in Djibouti as 
part of its effort to counter terrorism in the region.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46353]


SOMALIA: Ministers unable to reach Baidoa due to fighting

Insecurity in Somalia's south-central town of Baidoa, one of the two 
proposed seats of the transitional government, has prevented a 
ministerial delegation visiting the town, sources told IRIN on Tuesday.

The group of five ministers and two Members of Parliament instead went 
to Huddur, a town 100 km further north, after fighting erupted in Baidoa 
at the weekend. They had been sent by Somalia's transitional federal 
government (TFG) to assess the security situation in Baidoa.

The fighting involved militiamen loyal to two rival leaders of the 
Rahanweyn Resistance Army faction - Mohamed Ibrahim Habsade and Hassan 
Muhammed Nur "Shatigudud" - both members of the recently created TFG. 
Shatigudud, a minister in the TFG, was in the group that went to Huddur.

Clashes first erupted on 24 March, but the violence later died down - 
only to flare up again on 26 March. Several people were killed, dozens 
wounded and scores fled their homes. Reportedly, the fighting was 
sparked by a demonstration organised by supporters of Shatigudud, who 
backed the Somali cabinet's recent decision to temporarily relocate from 
its current base in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, to Baidoa and Jowhar. 
Habsade had reportedly opposed the move to relocate the new government.

Militiamen from both sides shot at each other during the demonstration 
and later engaged in full-scale warfare. They used rocket-propelled 
grenades, heavy artillery and assault rifles to pound each other's 
positions, according to residents contacted by telephone.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46392]


ETHIOPIA: Fraudulent voter registration reported

The head of Ethiopia's National Election Board (NEB) said on Monday that 
although over 25.6 million people had registered to vote in the 
country's third-ever democratic ballot, some abuses of the registration 
process had occurred.

Kemal Bedri, the NEB's chairman, told reporters at the board's 
headquarters in the capital, Addis Ababa, that irregularities had been 
reported in the south. Children had been registered to vote, and 
multiple ballots had been given to some people.

An election official was now facing criminal charges, he added, after 
handing out bundles of registration cards to children. "Because of that, 
we cancelled the registration in that locality, and a new registration 
will be carried out," Kemal announced.

The incident took place in the district of Hadiya, 200 km southwest of 
Addis Ababa, where the 2000 national elections had to be rerun because 
of similar abuses.

Thirty-five political parties are due to contest the 15 May 
parliamentary elections this year. Elected Members of Parliament will 
then choose a prime minister. Of Ethiopia's 71 million population, 30 
million are thought to be of voting age by the NEB. Thus over 85 percent 
of possible voters have registered - apart from the Hadiya rerun, 
registration has now closed in the rest of the country. Some 1,845 
candidates - 271 of them women - will stand for elections, with almost 
half of them running for the EPRDF.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46348]


ETHIOPIA: Gov't troops committed crimes in Gambella, says HRW

Ethiopian troops committed widespread killings, rape and torture against 
the indigenous Anyuak population in an oil-rich western province, a 
rights group said on Thursday. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said numerous 
attacks by soldiers and civilians from other ethnic groups killed more 
than 500 people in the Gambella region in 2003 and 2004, bordering 
Sudan.

However, the government dismissed the report. "The situation in Gambella 
is settled and everything is peaceful now," government spokesman, 
Zemedkun Teckle, told IRIN. "The people there are living peacefully 
right now. We are very surprised [and] do not understand why Human 
Rights Watch is now trying to ignite this issue."

The allegations come in a 64-page report entitled, "Targeting the 
Anyuak: Human Rights Violations and Crimes against Humanity in 
Ethiopia's Gambella Region". It details the killing of more than 400 
Anyuak in December 2003, adding that the killings and rape continued 
into mid 2004. More than 100 people were killed after the initial 
fighting.

The violence erupted after Anyuak gunmen allegedly ambushed a government 
vehicle, killing eight people. The Anyuak were then targeted in reprisal 
killings.

Gambella, which has a total population of 228,000, is ethnically diverse 
with people from the Nuer, Anyuak, Majanger, Komo and Opo tribes. HRW 
said the abuses detailed in the report could amount to crimes against 
humanity, a claim rejected by the Ethiopian authorities.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46322]


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 
2005


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