* Nigeria. Nouvelle prise d’otages — Des hommes en armes se sont rendu maîtres de deux plates-formes pétrolières de la compagnie américaine ChevronTexaco au large du sud du Nigeria et y détiennent 14 employés nigérians depuis mardi 18 novembre, a indiqué l’entreprise. Quatre autres personnes ont été libérées. ChevronTexaco a indiqué que les preneurs d’otages appartiennent à une équipe recrutée par ses soins au sein de la communauté locale Ijaw pour assurer la sécurité de ses installations, comme le font souvent les autres compagnies pétrolières opérant dans la région. Les équipes de sécurité ne sont pas armées par les firmes, mais la région regorge d’armes de contrebande, payées grâce à la piraterie, les trafics et le pétrole brut volé sur des oléoducs vandalisés. Les salariés sont régulièrement pris en otages, mais sont généralement libérés sains et saufs, bien que les compagnies affirment ne jamais payer les rançons réclamées. — Le jeudi 20 novembre, la marine nigériane a libéré les 14 employés retenus. Les preneurs d’otages, qui réclamaient une forte somme d’argent, doivent être transférés à Abuja où ils seront poursuivis en justice. (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 22 novembre 2003)

* Nigeria. Polio vaccine passes test — 20 November: Independent research carried out in Nigeria has found no traces of HIV or anti-fertility agents in the polio vaccine being used there. Immunisation campaigns in the northern states had almost stopped because of fears that the vaccine was unsafe. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says it hopes that immunisation schemes can now resume. The polio virus has already spread from Nigeria to neighbouring countries which had been free of the disease. The controversy over the safety of the oral polio vaccine started after some Islamic leaders alleged that it contained a contraceptive that would render children infertile, as part of a western plot to curb the Muslim population. WHO maintains the vaccine is safe, saying it is made to the same high quality world-wide; but religious leaders demanded independent studies. The tests carried out at the National Hospital in Abuja and the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital were witnessed by representatives of WHO, religious leaders and state health officials. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 20 November 2003)

* Nigeria. Seeking lost airline money — 24 November: Nigeria demands the return of some $400 million, which it says has gone missing from the state-owned Nigeria Airways. Details of a 18-month-old report into alleged corruption at the firm are made public in a white paper. Those ordered to return money include two former ministers and former officials. One minister is said to have sold two planes without authorization. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 24 November 2003)

* Nigeria. Central bank warns on naira’s fall — Nigeria’s central bank has warned that the sharp fall of the naira against the US dollar is a sign of heavy government spending that could destabilise the wider economy. The bank said demand for dollars remained strong despite its attempts to inject hard currency into the system over the past few weeks. The Reuters inter-bank rate exchange rate touched 149.65 naira to the dollar earlier this month, the lowest recorded level and down from 130.1 at the end of June. The naira has also fallen on the black market and at the government’s twice-weekly foreign exchange auctions, where it weakened again on 19 November to N138.2 to the dollar —against N135.22 a fortnight ago. Some $152m were supplied to the market, against demand of $223m. The finance ministry has attempted to soothe concerns over the currency’s decline, but government officials and international observers are privately concerned that high public spending could undermine long-awaited economic reforms. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the new finance minister, faces a huge task to overcome revenue shortages, $31bn of foreign debt and a political system still notorious for corruption despite a clean-up campaign long promised by President Olusegun Obasanjo. «The heavy spending is a cause for concern,» the central bank said. «Excess liquidity in the system will destabilise not only the foreign exchange market but the whole economy.» (Financial Times, UK, 25 November 2003)

* Rwanda. West’s failure during genocide — The BBC‘s Mark Doyle, who covered the genocide in Rwanda, reviews Shake Hands with the Devil, by Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire, Commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, during which an estimated 800,000 people were killed. (...) He says: «This is a book about failure. An estimated 800,000 people were killed between April and July 1994 when an extremist ethnic Hutu-dominated government pursued a policy of trying to annihilate the minority Tutsi and their moderate Hutu allies. The book is about failure because a UN peacekeeping force present in Rwanda at the time, commanded by the author, failed to stop the killing. But there were other failures as well — the failure of powerful countries to step in to help stop the genocide; the failure of the UN system in Nairobi and New York to back its small group of beleaguered peacekeepers; and the failure of the media adequately to highlight the scale of the killing until it was too late. There was also, of course, the failure of moderate Rwandan politicians to stop the rise to power in the first place of the génocidaires, and the failure of tens of thousands of ordinary Hutus to say «No» when they were told by their leaders to go out and kill. (...) This book goes some way to dealing with these issues, and since it is written by the UN commander on the ground at the time, it does so with some authority. It names the men who led the genocide —the leaders of the army, militia groups and extremist political parties, some of whom are currently in jail or facing prosecution at the Rwandan War Crimes Tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania. It also explains the role of western governments which failed to act despite knowing what was going on. These included the government of Bill Clinton but also Britain, France — which was close to the Hutu extremists —and Belgium, the former colonial power which withdrew its UN peacekeepers shortly after the mass killings began. General Dallaire’s book also names the UN bureaucrats responsible for foot-dragging when it came to mobilising action against the massacres. These included one Kofi Annan, then a top official in the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. (...)» (Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, by Romeo Dallaire, is published in Canada by Random House). (BBC News, UK, 21 November 2003)

* Rwanda. Journalistes arrêtés — 20 novembre. Reporters sans frontières dénonce l’arrestation de Robert Sebufilira, directeur de publication d’Umuseso, le seul hebdomadaire indépendant au Rwanda. Il a été arrêté le mercredi 19 novembre près de la frontière ougandaise, où il s’était rendu pour récupérer les 4.000 exemplaires de la dernière édition, imprimée en Ouganda pour des raisons économiques. Il a été ensuite transféré à Kigali. Le lendemain, son adjoint et trois autres collaborateurs venus s’enquérir de la situation, ont été eux aussi interpellés. Ils sont accusés d’avoir publié “de fausses rumeurs, dans le cadre de la loi qui interdit l’incitation au divisionnisme et la diffamation”. Il semble, dit RSF, que les arrestations soient liées à la publication dans Umuseso d’un article faisant état d’un “projet de démobilisation” du général Nyamwasa Kayumba, ancien chef d’état-major de l’armée et actuel directeur du Service national de sécurité. RSF a demandé la libération des journalistes. — 21 novembre. Les journalistes arrêtés mercredi ont été remis en liberté provisoire vendredi à Kigali, après 48 heures de garde à vue. (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 22 novembre 2003)

* Sudan. Garang hopes for peace deal — 22 November: Sudanese rebel leader John Garang says there is a good chance of reaching a peace deal by the end of the year. Mr Garang — leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) — was speaking after talks with US Secretary of State Colin Powell. The US wants a deal to be reached by the end of December. Mr Garang said he considered that date more of an expression of hope than a formal deadline for the peace talks resuming in Kenya on 30 November. The talks, aimed at ending two decades of civil war, were adjourned for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The 20 years of fighting pitting rebels from the Christian and animist south against the Islamic government has left more than 1.5 million people dead. «We hope that we will reach a final, just and comprehensive agreement before the end of the year,» Mr Garang said after a meeting Mr Powell in Washington. Outstanding issues are: Whether Islamic law will apply in the capital, Khartoum; How oil revenue is shared out; What type of international supervision will take place; The status of three central areas: Abyei; Blue Nile State and Nuba Mountains (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 22 November 2003)

* Sudan. Rebels in western Sudan — 22 November: Rebels in western Sudan have accused the government of violating a truce with airstrikes and militia raids that killed 30 people, mostly civilians. The government said it knew nothing of the attacks in the arid Darfur area, where the rebels of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) emerged as a fighting force in February, saying Khartoum had marginalized the impoverished region. «It’s been very bad. Attacks by government militias and the air raid have killed 30 people and lots of livestock,» SLM/A Secretary-General Minni Arcua Minnawi told Reuters by phone from western Sudan. Minnawi said 24 of the dead were civilians and the rest rebel fighters. He said the attacks had started on 20 November and continued into 22 November in the west of Northern Darfur state, about 850 kilometres west of the capital, Khartoum. «They used an Antonov airplane to bomb civilians areas today (22 November),» he said. In Khartoum, Internal Affairs Minister Major General Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein said he had not heard of any attacks in the area. 24 November: Rebels in the west of Sudan have released four aid workers, and a Sudan government employee they said they rescued from another militia who kidnapped them. An official from MEDAIR, a Swiss-based aid agency, confirmed four of its Sudanese workers and the government employee had been handed over on the night of 22 November, on the border with neighbouring Chad, and were now in good health in Chad. President of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement, Khalil Ibrahim, told Reuters from the Netherlands: «We released the workers in the town of Tina to officials from Médécins Sans Frontières, witnessed by the Chadian government.» He said his group had rescued the workers after they were captured in the western Darfur region by Arab militias. His group did not release them immediately for fear they would be kidnapped again, he said. The Khartoum government had accused the SLM/A of abducting the workers and killing two of them, a charge that group denied. (CNN, USA, 23/24 November 2003)

* Soudan. HRW dénonce les exactions — Un nouveau rapport de Human Rights Watch (HRW) dénonce les violations des droits de l’homme au Soudan et épingle le rôle trouble des compagnies pétrolières. “Le gouvernement soudanais a utilisé l’argent du pétrole pour conduire ses campagnes de terre brûlée, destinées à évincer des centaines de milliers de fermiers et pasteurs de leurs terres, qui renferment du pétrole”, écrit l’ONG. Et “les compagnies pétrolières opérant au Soudan étaient informées des tueries et pillages”, mais ont “continué à opérer et à gagner de l’argent”. HRW demande que le retour des déplacés des zones pétrolières du Haut Nil sur leurs terres, “avec garanties pour leur sécurité et compensation des pertes subies”, soit placé au centre des négociations de paix, qui se déroulent actuellement au Kenya entre le gouvernement et les rebelles du Sud. (D’après La Libre Belgique, 25 novembre 2003)

* Sudan. Oil companies and human rights abuses — «The Sudanese government’s efforts to control oilfields in the war-torn south have resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Foreign oil companies operating in Sudan have been complicit in this displacement, and the death and destruction that have accompanied it. The report, «Sudan, Oil, and Human Rights,» investigates the role that oil has played in Sudan’s civil war. This 754-page report is the most comprehensive examination yet published of the links between natural-resource exploitation and human rights abuses. «Oil development in southern Sudan should have been a cause of rejoicing for Sudan’s people,» said Jemera Rone, Sudan researcher for Human Rights Watch. «Instead, it has brought them nothing but woe.» The report documents how the government has used the roads, bridges and airfields built by the oil companies as a means for it to launch attacks on civilians in the southern oil region of Western Upper Nile (also known as Unity state). In addition to its regular army, the government has deployed militant Islamist militias to prosecute the war, and has armed southern factions in a policy of ethnic manipulation and destabilization. Human Rights Watch urged that the current peace negotiations deal comprehensively with the legacy of Sudan’s oil war, particularly the ethnic divisions that persist in oilfields of the south and threaten the long-term peace. (HRW, 25 November 2003)

* Uganda. MPs walk out over conflict — 20 November: MPs from north and east Uganda, worst hit by a 17-year brutal rebellion, are boycotting parliament until the security situation improves. The 34 MPs accuse the government of not taking the conflict seriously. Last week, a senior United Nations said the humanitarian situation in northern Uganda was worse than anywhere in the world, even Iraq. Lord’s Resistance Army rebels are notorious for abducting children to be sex slaves and fighters. Cecilia Ogwal, MP for Lira, scene of several recent attacks, said President Yoweri Museveni should call for international help or resign. Another MP accuses the army of sending soldiers to Congo RDC instead of protecting civilians in the north and east. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 20 November 2003)

* Ouganda. Massacres sans fin — Ces huit derniers jours, aux alentours de Lira (nord du pays), des “dizaines” de civils ont encore été tués lors des attaques menées contre des villages par les rebelles de l’Armée de résistance du Seigneur (LRA) et leurs combats contre l’armée. L’armée a tué dix rebelles de la LRA dans le même secteur, un soldat a été tué et trois autres blessés. (Le Figaro, France, 25 novembre 2003)

* Zambia. Bishops and constitutional review — On 20 November, Zambia’s Roman Catholic bishops released a Pastoral Letter entitled: «Let My People Go», asking President Levy Mwanawasa to submit amendments to the Constitution, to a constituent assembly. The bishops want the government to address four main issues in the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, to which the Catholic Church wants economic and social rights added. They also asked for the right to employment, labour relations, housing, education, health, culture to have «a clear place in the Zambian government’s priorities and the Constitution.» They also insist that the new Constitution be very clear about the protection of the electoral process to «ensure free and fair elections.» They called for an end to the discrimination against presidential candidates whose parents were not born in Zambia — a clause that was specifically inserted by former president Frederick Chiluba. They also want a return to the requirement that a presidential candidate be declared winner only if he attains the minimum of 51 percent of the vote. (PANA, Senegal, 20 November 2003)

* Zambia. Free land offer — On 21 November, Zambia’s central bank governor tried to woo foreign farmers, including white landowners forced to leave Zimbabwe, to the country with an offer of free land in a bid to revive the agricultural sector. Food shortages have affected a number of countries across southern Africa in the past two years, increasing governments’ eagerness to attract commercial farmers with access to the capital needed to create large, productive farms. «There are two areas where a total of 200,000 hectares of farmland is ready for occupation,» central bank governor Caleb Fundanga told journalists. «The government is ready to give farmers from 50 hectares to 2,000 hectares depending on the size of the land they want.» He hopes crops such as vegetables and roses will reduce Zambia’s dependence on copper and cobalt mining. Treasury data shows that 70 percent of Zambia’s arable land is not being used. Fundanga said some established farms were also up for sale or lease to interested investors, but gave no further details. He said Zambia had invited over 100 foreign and local farmers to an agricultural investment conference starting on 24 November in a bid to boost the agricultural sector. Growing numbers of white farmers have already settled in Zambia, bringing more than $100 million in investments with them, a Zambia Investments Centre official said last month. (CNN, USA, 21 November 2003)

* Zambie. Naufrage: 26 morts — Un bateau de passagers surchargé a chaviré sur le lac Mweru en Zambie, faisant 26 morts et 14 disparus, a-t-on appris auprès des autorités. L’accident s’est produit par mauvais temps dans l’après-midi du lundi 24 novembre, selon le porte-parole de la police. 51 passagers et leurs bagages se trouvaient à bord du navire, d’une capacité de 36 personnes. Onze personnes ont survécu. Les efforts de secours ont été retardés, les autorités n’ayant été averties que mardi. (AP, 26 novembre 2003)

* Zimbabwe. Grim budget unveiled — On 20 November, Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa presented a grim national budget for 2004 in Parliament, in which inflation is projected to top 700 percent in the first half of the year, among other worrying macro-economic indicators. He told MPs the economy, steeped in its worst crisis since independence from Britain in 1980 declined by 30 percent this year, surpassing even the most pessimistic projections. This is the fourth year running that Zimbabwe’s economy has registered negative growth, and the registered 12.4 percent slump in growth is the steepest year-on-year fall yet. Murerwa blamed the crippling depression on rising inflation, lack of fiscal restraint and widespread corruption. He pledged an invigorated government-led recovery plan with tight control on spending, anti-graft campaigns and the development of agriculture. «Inflation remains our number one enemy whose containment requires concerted efforts,» he urged. The minister said inflation would top 600 percent at the end of the year, and rise further to around 700 percent in the first quarter of next year before a variety of planned fiscal and monetary measures hopefully begin to bring it down. He said weak fiscal controls were largely responsible for the inflation spiral, adding that in the new budget, «unbudgeted spending would be limited to national emergencies.» (PANA, Senegal, 20 November 2003)

* Zimbabwe. Budget inflationniste — Le 20 novembre, le ministre zimbabwéen des Finances, Herbert Murerwa, a présenté au Parlement un budget 2004 aux sombres perspectives, dans lequel il est prévu un taux d’inflation de 700% dans la première moitié de cette année, en plus d’autres indicateurs macro-économiques alarmants. Il a déclaré devant les parlementaires que l’économie, plongée dans sa crise la plus grave depuis l’indépendance, a régressé de 30% au cours de l’année 2003, dépassant même les prévisions les plus pessimistes. Il a préconisé un plan de redressement rigoureux, avec un contrôle strict sur les dépenses, des campagnes de lutte contre la corruption et le développement de l’agriculture. M. Murerwa s’en est pris au gouvernement et au secteur privé, précisant que “l’éthique et la déontologie dans le travail et les affaires sont en train de disparaître”, laissant placé à “une économie fantôme créée par des personnes avides au détriment du pays tout entier”. (PANA, Sénégal, 20 novembre 2003)

* Zimbabwe. No invitation for Mugabe — 25 November: President Mugabe has not been invited to the Commonwealth Summit to be held in Abuja, Nigeria, 5-8 December. Nigeria’s President Obasanjo who is hosting the summit says: «He will not have an invitation. If there is no invitation, they (Zimbabwe) will not come». (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 25 November 2003)

* Zimbabwe. Patchy strike — 20 November: A two-day general strike has not shut down Zimbabwe, as unions had hoped. Reports say that the centre of the capital, Harare, is as normal, although some factories and industries are closed in the second city, Bulawayo. There is a heavy police presence in both cities. The strike was called after the arrest of more than 80 people during protests on 18 November. Unions are upset about the economic crisis and called the strike to coincide with today’s budget. The slow start to the strike illustrates the trouble non-government bodies have in reaching the general public. The government controls all radio and TV stations and has shut the only privately-owned daily newspaper. 21 November: A court has released 52 activists and union leaders. Among those freed is the head of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Lovemore Matombo. They are due to return to court to face charges of organising illegal demonstrations. 24 November: The police say that trade unionists and pro-democracy leaders arrested during the strike, have all been released. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 24 November 2003)