africom related news clips december 21, 2010

8/8/2019 AFRICOM Related News Clips December 21, 2010

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United States Africa CommandPublic Affairs Office21 December 2010

USAFRICOM - related news stories

TOP NEWS RELATED TO U.S. AFRICA COMMAND AND AFRICA

Obama Pursues 'Aggressive Diplomacy' to Promote Successful Referendum(AllAfrica.com)(Sudan) U.S. President Barack Obama has written to African leaders to reiterate thatSudan is a foreign policy priority for his administration, both during the lead-up to the

January 9 referendum on independence for the south, and in response to the continuingcrisis in Darfur.

The United States and Africa Security Cooperation and the Africa Command

(AFRICOM)(Foreign Policy Journal)Post-Cold War United States-Africa security cooperation has been transformed from thehumanitarian efforts of President George Bush Sr. that ended with the Somalia debaclein 1994, through the selective engagement policy of President Bill Clinton that avoidedthe Rwandan civil conflict to what could be viewed as a more structured relationshipwith clearly defined priorities under President George Bush Jr. since the newmillennium.This has been amplified with the establishment of the Africa Command(AFRICOM)

US orders embassy staff out of Ivory Coast(AFP)The United States on Sunday ordered non-emergency staff to leave Ivory Coast andwarned Americans not to travel to the West African country, which is in the grip ofgrowing post-election violence.

Sharia law to be tightened if Sudan splits - president (BBC)The north of Sudan will reinforce its Islamic laws if the south secedes as a result of nextmonth's referendum, President Omar al-Bashir has said.

Al Qaeda Strengthening in North-West Africa (Fox)(North Africa) Fox News has obtained video from North African security services thatshows some of the first images of Al Qaeda's growing African branch known as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb or AQIM. This comes as the United Nations brokeredpeace talks continue in New York between Morocco and Polisario.


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Islamic Sudan Envisioned if South Secedes (New York Times)(Sudan) President Omar Hassan al-Bashir promised Sunday to turn Sudan into a stategoverned by Islamic law if the south chooses to secede in a referendum next month.

MP Files Motion Against U.S. Envoy (Daily Nation)

(Kenya) MPs will this week move a motion in Parliament seeking to expel USambassador Michael Ranneberger from Kenya.

UN condemns intimidation of staff in Ivory Coast (Associated Press)(Ivory Coast) The top U.N. envoy in Ivory Coast on Monday condemned intimidationtactics against U.N. personnel, saying armed men were threatening staff after theUnited Nations ignored Laurent Gbagbo's demand that thousands of peacekeepersleave the country.

Ivorian Supporters say They Will 'Fight to Death' for Gbagbo (Voice of America)

(Ivory Coast) Supporters of incumbent Ivorian president, Laurent Gbagbo, say they areready to fight to the death to keep him in power, while the United Nations points togrowing evidence of "massive violations of human rights" since last month's disputedpresidential election.

Guinea's Alpha Conde to be sworn in on Tuesday (AFP)(Guinea) Guinean President-elect Alpha Conde will be sworn-in on Tuesday inConakry in the presence of several African leaders, bringing the curtain down on 26years of military rule in the west African nation.

The tragedy of Algeria's 'disappeared' (T

he Independent)(Algeria) US Special Forces officers from their camp near Tamanrasset are said to be"observing" the Kabyle operation. Why not? After all, only last week Washington's topmilitary commander in the region, US Africa Command General David Hogg, wasshowering praises on the Algerian security services for their "impressive progress andleadership" in fighting "terrorism".

Militia in Somalia Abandons Key Positions to Radical Group (New York Times)(Somalia) An Islamist militia abandoned several key positions in and outside thiscapital late Sunday, the latest indication that it has proven the weaker in its rivalry withthe Shabab, the radical militant group that now controls much of Somalia.

The Ocampo Six are Kenyans, But Rwanda, Uganda Need to Worry (The East African)(Pan Africa) Last Wednesday, International Criminal Court chief prosecutor LuisMoreno-Ocampo kicked up a political storm in Kenya when he announced his intentionto charge six Kenyans with murder, rape, and other related crimes.

Zimbabwe Politics Grows More Volatile During 2010 (Voice of America)


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(Zimbabwe) Zimbabwe's appears to be in for more political turmoil with talk of freshelections earlier this month at the conference of President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PFParty. Most Zimbabweans indicate they do not want elections next year because theymay interfere with the political stability and economic progress made since the unitygovernment came to power nearly two years ago.

UN News Service Africa Briefs

Full Articles on UN Websitey UN project helps West African farmers cut pesticide use, boost incomesy Security Council calls for funding for civilian protection in eastern Chady Darfur mediation team calls on Sudan, rebels to attain ceasefire by years endy Chief UN monitor urges all sides to ensure credible South Sudan referendumy Rejecting call for withdrawal, Security Council extends UN mission in Cte

dIvoire-------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPCOMING EVENTS OF INTEREST:

WHEN/WHERE: Tuesday and Wednesday, February 8-9, 2011; National DefenseIndustrial Association, Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington, DCWHAT: Defense, Diplomacy, and Development: Translating Policy into OperationalCapabilityWHO: Keynote Speakers include ADM Michael Mullen, USN, Chairman, Joint Chiefsof Staff; BG Simon Hutchinson, GBR, Deputy Commander, NATO Special OperationsForces Headquarters; ADM Eric T. Olson, USN, Commander, U.S. Special OperationsCommand; Gen Norton A. Schwartz, USAF, Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force

Info: http://www.ndia.org/meetings/1880/Pages/default.aspx----------------------------------------------------------------------------------FULL ARTICLE TEXT

Obama Pursues 'Aggressive Diplomacy' to Promote Successful Referendum(AllAfrica.com)

U.S. President Barack Obama has written to African leaders to reiterate that Sudan is aforeign policy priority for his administration, both during the lead-up to the January 9referendum on independence for the south, and in response to the continuing crisis inDarfur.

"This is yet another element of an ongoing aggressive diplomatic effort with the partiesin Sudan and with its neighbors reflecting our intense interest in having a successfulreferendum," White House National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said ina statement.


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"We believe that an on-time referendum is the best means of preventing the resumptionof a full-scale war between northern and southern Sudan," Hammer said.

"Over the past four months, the Administration has redoubled our efforts to supportreferendum preparations and peace negotiations between the two parties."

The letter from Obama was sent to Egypt, Chad, Uganda, Kenya, Libya, Ethiopia, SouthAfrica, Nigeria and Rwanda, as well as the African Union, a senior White House officialtold AllAfrica.

Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Libya's Muammar al-Gaddafi are scheduled to visitKhartoum on Tuesday for discussions with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir andsouthern Sudanese leader Salva Kiir aimed at resolving outstanding issues relating tothe referendum and the post-referendum period.------------------

The United States and Africa Security Cooperation and the Africa Command(AFRICOM) (Foreign Policy Journal)

(An excerpt of the document is provided below. For the full text visit Foreign PolicyJournal.)

Abstract

Post-Cold War United States-Africa security cooperation has been transformed from thehumanitarian efforts of President George Bush Sr. that ended with the Somalia debacle

in 1994, through the selective engagement policy of President Bill Clinton that avoidedthe Rwandan civil conflict to what could be viewed as a more structured relationshipwith clearly defined priorities under President George Bush Jr. since the newmillennium.This has been amplified with the establishment of the Africa Command(AFRICOM) nearly three years ago. Against the backdrop of the September 11, 2001terrorist attacks on the United States, different interpretations have been adduced forthese developments. Efforts towards building trusted allies towards containinginternational terrorism, the quest for Africas natural resources, particularly oil in theGulf of Guinea and the desire by the United States to help transform Africa on a moresustained developmental path have been assigned. The study appraises theseperspectives, examines the different nodes and forms of security cooperation betweenthe United States and Africa in the recent past and the motivating factors for theestablishment of the Africa Command (AFRICOM). It argues that the thrust of UnitedStates interest in Africa is in conformity with classical realist interpretation, thus apursuit of her national interests within contemporary geo-strategic calculations.

Introduction


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United States security engagement in Africa, whether historical or contemporary, couldbe viewed from a strictly strategic consideration, thus intrinsically, the pursuit of itsnational interest on the continent and, by extension, globally. For instance, during theCold War, the United States engaged herself in African affairs in the context ofsuperpower rivalry. The intense ideological competition between the then Soviet Union

and the United States shaped the policy choices and relations that the latter forged withindividual African governments. Indeed, some policy choices by the US within thecontext of the Cold War generated antagonistic relations with the then Soviet Union,manifested in the ideological and political entanglements in the civil conflicts in Angola(support for Jonas Savimbi), the altercation with governments in the Horn of Africa,particularly Somalia under Siad Barre and Ethiopia under Mengistu Haile Mariam.There were other instances that manifested in the uncanny support for military regimeson the continent such as Liberia under President Samuel Doe and Mobutu Sese Seko offormer Zaire. Additionally was the obnoxious ideological stance on apartheid SouthAfrica under then President Ronald Reagan and his associate Prime Minister Margaret

Thatcher, with the assertion that UN sponsored economic sanctions would hurt themajority South African blacks the most, not excluding their indifference to theapartheid regime holding on to Namibia, despite UN resolutions on the issue. Theperiod was thus counter-productive to Africas long-term interests and did not promoteregional security in terms of laying the foundations for political stability, peace andeconomic development.[1]

In a realistic sense though, the United States entered Africa during the Cold War as anew actor pursuing her superpower ambitions on the continent, since she had nevercolonized an African territory in its Eurocentric manifestation. The exception was

the historical example of American nationals who, acting through the AmericanColonization Society (ACS), secured land on the West Coast of Africa for the settlementof American freed slaves in the 1820s under the presidency of James Monroe. NowLiberia, the capital Monrovia was named reverently after the then president of theUnited States. This realistically marked Americas historical relations with thecontinent; yet, she was quite hesitant to intervene forcefully in Liberia during the civilwar that engulfed Liberia in the 1990s.

United States relations with her only African enclave therefore contrasted sharply withthose of the European powers which actually maintained prolonged foothold on thecontinent. For instance, the benchmark of Franco-African relations was the enactment ofextensive strategic security pacts, even after these colonies attained formal politicalindependence. On the other hand, Great Britains security relations with its formercolonies took on a characteristically manage your own affairs approach. Of course,this attitude did not rule out security assistance with various Anglophone Africancountries through sponsorship and training programs for personnel in the securityservices in prestigious institutions in Great Britain and elsewhere. The other colonialpowers such as Portugal unabashedly engaged their former colonies, thus


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Mozambique, Angola, Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde in armed struggles against thepopular movement for political emancipation. Belgium likewise adopted politicalintrigue and subterfuge in the resource-rich Zaire (now the Democratic Republic ofCongo) to overturn the popular choice of the people for political leadership andeconomic emancipation, resulting in the death of Patrice Lumumba in 1960. Similarly,

French military engagement in Algeria and the British outpost in Rhodesia encounteredprolonged armed resistance, signifying examples of the unwillingness of the colonialiststo vacate settler colonies on the continent. Notwithstanding, African nationalism andpolitical assertiveness in various forms towards continental unity and economicemancipation became the popular theme throughout the Cold War, though not withoutthe debilitating effects of superpower rivalry that often broke the front of its leadership.------------------US orders embassy staff out of Ivory Coast (AFP)

WASHINGTON - The United States on Sunday ordered non-emergency staff to leave

Ivory Coast and warned Americans not to travel to the West African country, which isin the grip of growing post-election violence.

The US State Department also ordered relatives of its staffers to leave Ivory Coast,where at least 50 people have been killed in recent days.

The US government cited a "deteriorating political and security situation" and "growinganti-western sentiment" in the West African country.

"The State Department recommends that US citizens who are concerned about their

safety take advantage of commercial means of transportation while they are availableand while borders remain open," it added as tensions reached a boiling point in IvoryCoast, the world's biggest cocoa producer.

Both strongman Laurent Gbagbo and his rival Alassane Ouattara claim to have won lastmonth's presidential vote. But while the latter has been recognized as the victor by theinternational community, the incumbent is doggedly clinging to power.

The US embassy's consular section in Abidjan, meanwhile, has "temporarily curtailedall consular services except emergency services for US citizens," the State Departmentadded.

"Due to drawdown of consular staff, the embassy has diminishing ability to assist UScitizens wishing to depart the country."

It added that "hostility against westerners, including US citizens, cannot be ruled out."


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The State Department had authorized the departure of its non-emergency personneland families on Thursday, but Sunday's statement marked the first such order.

The United Nations, United States, former colonial power France, the African Unionand Ivory Coast's West African neighbors in the ECOWAS regional bloc have all

demanded that Gbagbo step aside and allow Ouattara to assume office.

Instead, there is every sign that the regime is hardening its stance.

Gbagbo ordered the 10,000-strong UN mission to leave on Saturday, accusing it ofarming rebels loyal to his rival Alassane Ouattara, but UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon dismissed the ultimatum and urged him to step down.

The UN peacekeeping force's determination to stay threatens to provoke a showdownwith Gbagbo's hardline supporters, but leaders of the world body said it would remain

and investigate reports of death squad killings.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed concern about "thegrowing evidence of massive violations of human rights" in the restive West Africancountry since Thursday.

More than 200 other people have also been injured over the past three days, she said ina statement issued in Geneva, vowing "to ensure that perpetrators are held accountablefor their actions."

T

he US embassy was damaged by an "errant" rocket-propelled grenade duringThursday's fighting.

Ivory Coast has been split since 2002, when a failed putsch against Gbagbo sparkedcivil war, but there has been a truce since 2003.------------------Sharia law to be tightened if Sudan splits - president (BBC)

The north of Sudan will reinforce its Islamic laws if the south secedes as a result of nextmonth's referendum, President Omar al-Bashir has said.

Mr Bashir said the constitution would then be changed, making Islam the only religion,Sharia the only law and Arabic the only official language.

Correspondents say his comments are likely to alarm thousands of non-Muslimsoutherners living in the north.

They are currently protected from some of the stronger aspects of Sharia.


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"If south Sudan secedes, we will change the constitution," Mr Bashir told a gathering ofhis supporters in the eastern town of Gederef on Sunday.

"Sharia and Islam will be the main source for the constitution, Islam the official religion

and Arabic the official language," the president added.

The imposition of Sharia on the non-Muslim south was one of the reasons for the longcivil war, which ended when a peace deal was signed in 2005, the BBC's James Copnallin Khartoum reports.

Under the accord, an interim constitution was drafted that removed Sharia law fromthe south and also recognised Sudan's cultural and social diversity, our correspondentsays.

President Bashir said on Sunday there would be no question of this diversity when anew constitution was drafted, if the south became independent

Senior northern officials are just starting to acknowledge publicly that South Sudan -where most people follow traditional beliefs and Christianity - are almost certain tochoose to separate in the referendum.

Separately, Mr Bashir also commented on a recent high-profile case in which a videoposted on the internet showed a woman being flogged by police in the north.

"If she is lashed according to Sharia law, there is no investigation. Why are some peopleashamed? This is Sharia," the president said.

Human rights activists have accused the police of treating the woman in a particularlybrutal way not compatible with Islam.------------------Al Qaeda Strengthening in North-West Africa (Fox)

Fox News has obtained video from North African security services that shows some ofthe first images of Al Qaeda's growing African branch known as Al-Qaeda in theIslamic Maghreb or AQIM. This comes as the United Nations brokered peace talkscontinue in New York between Morocco and Polisario. Front officials over the future ofAfrica's longest running territorial dispute in the Western Sahara a region that analystssay is increasingly becoming a hot bed of Al Qaeda activity.

A former Spanish colony in the north west of Africa, Western Sahara was annexed byMorocco 35 years ago which led to years of violent attacks against Morocco by the mainWestern Sahara independence group called The Polisario Front. This situation lasted


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until a United Nations brokered cease-fire in 1991. Talks have continued ever since butwithout any final agreement. Yet it's this lack of agreement which worries terrorismanalysts who say the disputed area is increasingly being used by Al Qaeda as a base forrecruiting new members and planning attacks.

Walid Phares, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies inWashington, and a Fox News terrorism analyst says "Al Qaeda is very pragmatic in itsmoves. Eventually it moves like a strategic force even though it is made of small cellsand networks. In fact its aim is to reach the Atlantic from the Sahara. They spoke aboutit in their chat rooms. Hence trying to offer their services to the Polisario or evenpenetrating it are part of its strategy." Indeed North African security sources confirm toFox News that fifty-nine Polisario officials and soldiers have recently been linked toAQIM.

Phares who has just released a book called ""The Coming Revolution: Struggle for

Freedom in the Middle East " says that given the fact that AQIM has alreadysuccessfully penetrated the bordering countries such as Mali, Mauritania and Niger thatit has "certainly showed interest in moving its cells or recruiting in the Sahara. It tellsthe people of the area that it will fight Morocco's presence and stand by them. In fact itis trying to install its own bases. It aims at creating something between a Somalia and aYemen in the whole area."

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb which was founded in Algeria has a long and deadlyrecord of attacks in the region. In 2007 they were behind a double suicide bombing inthe Algerian capital which killed 41 people including 17 United Nations workers.

Reports also describe AQIM being behind a failed attempt to sink US ships offGibraltar, bomb the US embassy in Mali, as well as numerous kidnappings of foreignnationals and deadly attacks against countries in the region.

Indeed a recently leaked U.S. cable released by wikileaks echoed such concerns askingembassies in the so called "Sahel" region to be on the look out for "Al Qaeda in theIslamic Maghreb and other terrorist-related individuals and organizations." It wentonto ask for reports on "plans and intentions for operations against U.S. or alliedpersonnel or interests. -- Links to weapons of mass destruction or related materials" and" Indications that international terrorist groups are seeking to take advantage ofpolitical, ethnic, tribal, or religious conflict."

Steve Emerson a leading terrorism analyst and Executive Director of The InvestigativeProject on Terrorism (IPT) tells Fox News that he believes the Administration has notunderestimated AQIM and that they are getting up to speed very fast on them.Emerson says that AQIM is definitely a threat to the West and to the US havingtargeted American interests in the last year alone. He says "It's a new war front for the


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US and unless aggressively attacked in the beginning, it has the potential to grow likeAl Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula."

Phares, like Emerson agrees that the administration is aware of the threat but isconcerned that the overall U.S. national counter terrorism strategy "lacks the perception

of AQIM's strategic threat to the whole area in terms of coordination and recruitment."He says "there is concern about what AQIM is doing but not about what it can and willdo across the region." He says that "the projection capacity of our national securityanalysis is limited because it does not factor in the power of an ideology. It does notrecognize the existence of an ideology. It doesn't name it to begin with. I call it asystemic failure in understanding, thus estimating al Qaeda's strategies."

While the United Nations peace talks continues into a second day sourcesknowledgeable on the negotiations worry that a final peace deal is still a long way off.Polisario has said that if they do fail AQIM will take advantage, but Walid Phares says

"this is a pressure used tactically by the armed group." The Fox News terrorism analystconcludes that "Morocco is arguing that AQIM is moving into the area regardless.Hence UN talks must continue anyway for the benefit of peace, but AQIM will continueto penetrate into the Western Sahara, and even more if a Polisario state is established.These are the facts stated by al Qaeda."------------------Islamic Sudan Envisioned if South Secedes (New York Times)

JUBA, Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir promised Sunday to turn Sudan intoa state governed by Islamic law if the south chooses to secede in a referendum next

month.Well change the Constitution, he said in a televised speech. Shariah and Islam willbe the main source for the Constitution, Islam the official religion and Arabic the officiallanguage.

The comments were some of Mr. Bashirs strongest words to date seeming toacknowledge the likelihood of an independent southern Sudanese state and outlininghis vision for the northern half, which would stay under his control.

While northern Sudan is already largely governed by Islamic law, or Shariah, an interimconstitution adopted as part of a 2005 peace agreement recognized the countrys ethnicand religious diversity. That agreement ended generations of civil war between thepredominantly Arab and Muslim north and the mainly Christian and animist south.

The interim constitution expires next year, and with it the constraints and obligations ofthe peace agreement.


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If South Sudan secedes, we will change the Constitution, and at that time there will beno time to speak of diversity of culture and ethnicity, Mr. Bashir said.

Southerners are expected to overwhelmingly support secession in the vote, whichbegins on Jan. 9.

The government has sought to keep the country united, but in recent days seniorofficials have seemed resigned to the inevitability of a split. We must not deceiveourselves or cling to dreams, Nafi Ali Nafi, a senior member of the governing party,said last week.

The strong words were not out of keeping for Mr. Bashir, who faces internationaleconomic sanctions and has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for warcrimes and genocide in Darfur, in Sudans west.

The incendiary comments are no surprise, said Eliza Griswold, an expert on conflictand human rights at the New America Foundation. Bashir relishes the role of standingup to the West, and the souths secession gives him the chance to pander to his base inSudan and beyond.

But some analysts feared his comments presaged a future of repression for non-Muslims and southerners who remain in the north.

Mr. Bashir faces his own political obstacles, in addition to the indictment and pressurefrom the West.

Last week, an American diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks quoted Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as saying that Mr.Bashir had smuggled $9 billion out of Sudan. The government dismissed the allegationas propaganda.

Also last week, a member of Mr. Bashirs party publicly criticized him for misleadingthe country, and Sudans former prime minister said the referendum signaled the endof the current political era.------------------MP Files Motion Against U.S. Envoy (Daily Nation)

Nairobi MPs will this week move a motion in Parliament seeking to expel USambassador Michael Ranneberger from Kenya.

Imenti North MP Silas Ruteere has filed the motion, which could be prioritised fordebate this week by the House Business Committee.


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"We must ensure this man (Mr Ranneberger) goes before we break for Christmas,"Ndaragwa MP Jeremiah Kioni said on Sunday. The US envoy is accused of meddling inthe country's internal affairs.

Some MPs are said to be infuriated by America's move to slap a blanket ban on

members of the Parliament's Finance, Trade and Planning Committee after theyrecommended the re-opening of Charterhouse Bank.

Mr Ranneberger claims the bank is involved in money laundering and tax evasion.

One of the MPs on the committee is said to have been turned back at the Jomo KenyattaInternational Airport in Nairobi when he attempted to travel to the US about threeweeks ago.

Contacted for comment on the impending Motion, Mr Ranneberger said: "I don't know

(about it)."

Gem MP Jakoyo Midiwo, a member of the committee, has confirmed that he was aware"up to six MPs have had their visas revoked."

"I am aware one of us was denied a visa to the US about one to two weeks ago," he said.

The US ambassador has been on the spotlight in recent weeks over a number of actionsand utterances regarding the state of affairs in the country.

Mr Ranneberger first ran into trouble last month after whistle-blower websiteWikiLeaks released cables he wrote to his superiors in Washington, describing Kenya asflourishing swamp of corruption.

Pumping a lot of money

In an angry rejoinder, Government Spokesman Alfred Mutua hit back, accusing aforeign power, suspected to be the US, of pumping a lot of money to youthorganisations across the country to topple the Coalition Government.

Mr Ranneberger later denied that the US Government planned to overthrow thegovernment, saying the money channelled by USaid was aimed at empowering theyouth.

More secret cables on Kenya emerged on December 9 where Mr Rannebeger accusedPresident Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga of doing nothing to end impunity.


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The two principals hit back at the US envoy during their respective speeches onJamhuri Day.

Mr Odinga said Kenya does not deserve people masquerading as friends during theday, but turning into enemies at night.

The president on his part dared the schemers to try and topple his leadership,promising they would face the full force of his administration.------------------UN condemns intimidation of staff in Ivory Coast (Associated Press)

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast The top U.N. envoy in Ivory Coast on Monday condemnedintimidation tactics against U.N. personnel, saying armed men were threatening staffafter the United Nations ignored Laurent Gbagbo's demand that thousands ofpeacekeepers leave the country.

A spokesman for Gbagbo in Paris on Monday said he doubted soldiers or thosesupporting Gbagbo would be involved in such tactics.

Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council called on all parties to recognize oppositionleader Alassane Ouattara as Ivory Coast's president.

A resolution adopted unanimously Monday by the council stepped up pressure onGbagbo to concede defeat, which he has refused to do. The resolution urges all Ivorianparties and stakeholders "to respect the will of the people and the outcome of the

election" in view of the recognition of Ouattara by the African Union and the WestAfrican regional group ECOWAS "in order to ensure peace" in Ivory Coast.

The United Nations has also vowed to continue its mission despite the order fromGbagbo for its peacekeepers to leave.

"Armed men have been coming to the personal houses of United Nations employees,asking them to leave and searching their houses under the pretext of looking for arms,"U.N. Special Representative Choi Young-jin said at a news conference Monday inAbidjan.

Toussaint Alain, an adviser for Gbagbo, said he didn't believe soldiers or people close toGbagbo would carry out such acts.

"The U.N. is trying to manipulate public opinion and is looking for a pretext for amilitary intervention," he told The AP in Paris.


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Gbagbo's demand that peacekeepers leave has raised fears that U.N. personnel andother foreigners could be targeted in violence. Over the weekend, masked gunmenopened fire on the U.N. base in the West African nation, though no one from the globalbody was harmed in the attack. Two military observers were wounded in anotherattack.

The U.S. State Department on Sunday ordered most of its personnel to leave IvoryCoast because of the deteriorating security situation and growing anti-Westernsentiment.

The U.N. says more than 50 people have been killed in recent days, and that it hasreceived hundreds of reports of people being abducted from their homes at night byarmed assailants in military uniform. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights NaviPillay said there is growing evidence of "massive violations of human rights."

Alain, the Gbagbo adviser, said he doubted if the allegations of kidnappings were true,but if they were, they were being carried out by supporters of his opponent, disguisedin military uniforms.

In a statement read on state television Saturday, a Gbagbo spokeswoman said that 9,000U.N. peacekeepers and another 900 French troops supporting them were to leaveimmediately. Gbagbo accused the U.N. mission of backing his opponent, Ouattara, andarming rebels who support him.

The U.N. and the international community recognize Ouattara as the victor of last

month's presidential runoff vote.T

he U.N. had been invited by the country itself tosupervise the vote and certify the outcome following a peace accord after Ivory Coast's2002-2003 civil war.

About 800 U.N. peacekeepers are protecting the hotel from which Ouattara is trying togovern the country. They are in turn encircled by Gbagbo's troops. On Monday, theU.N. said that the hotel had been completely blockaded and that people inside had notbeen able to get needed medication.

Meanwhile, the European Union said Monday it would impose an assets freeze and avisa ban on Gbagbo and his wife after a Sunday deadline for him to step down elapsed.

Gbagbo's adviser said Europe should not interfere.

"Europe must understand that this is not the colonial period," said Alain, Gbagbo'sadviser for EU relations. "Or if Europe wants to colonize Ivory Coast, if Europe wants tosubdue Ivory Coast, then let's be clear about it and we'll become European citizens."


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The United States is also prepared to impose targeted sanctions on Gbagbo, hisimmediate family and his inner circle.

Sanctions, though, have typically failed to reverse illegal power grabs in Africa in thepast.

Ivory Coast was once an economic hub because of its role as the world's top cocoaproducer. The civil war split the country in a rebel-controlled north and a loyalist south.While the country officially reunited in a 2007 peace deal, Ouattara still draws hissupport from the northern half of the country where he was born while Gbagbo's powerbase is in the south.

Gbagbo claimed victory in the presidential election only after his allies threw out half amillion ballots from Ouattara strongholds in the north, a move that infuriated residentsthere who have long felt they are treated as foreigners in their own country by

southerners.

National identity remains at the heart of the divide. The question of who would even beallowed to vote in this long-awaited election took years to settle as officials tried todifferentiate between Ivorians with roots in neighboring countries and foreigners.

Ouattara had himself been prevented from running in previous elections afteraccusations that he was not Ivorian, and that he was of Burkinabe origin.------------------Ivorian Supporters say They Will 'Fight to Death' for Gbagbo (Voice of America)

Supporters of incumbent Ivorian president, Laurent Gbagbo, say they are ready to fightto the death to keep him in power, while the United Nations points to growing evidenceof "massive violations of human rights" since last month's disputed presidentialelection.

In Ivory Coast, incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo refuses to cede power to AlassaneOuattara, who was recognized by the United Nations and much of the internationalcommunity as the winner of the November 28 presidential run-off.

The United Nations is reporting a wave of killings and abductions since the poll. U.N.High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay issued a statement Sunday sayingmore than 50 people have been killed and more than 200 injured in violence sinceThursday.

The announcement came a day after the United Nations said it would not abide by Mr.Gbagbo's demand that U.N. peacekeepers withdraw from the country.


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Africa security analyst J. Peter Pham of the New York-based National Committee onAmerican Foreign Policy says the situation is entering a critical phase.

"On a strategic level, it certainly does not help Gbagbo to create the chaos which mightjustify an armed international intervention," said Pham. "In fact, his endgame might be

to maintain the political pressure but actually stop short of the threshold that wouldprovoke an intervention. Now, whether he can maintain that balance, I think, is the keyquestion for the next several days and weeks."

Regional efforts at mediation and threats of international sanctions have done little toease the political gridlock that looks increasingly close to plunging the country backinto a civil war that in 2002-2003 split the country between a rebel-held north and agovernment-held south.

International Crisis Group's Ivory Coast analyst, Rinaldo Depagne, says there is no

negotiation on the horizon and the situation could disintegrate into an intense conflictin the days, weeks or months ahead. He says there is not much to negotiate, other thanthe departure of Gbabgo, who has carried out what Depagne calls an institutional coupd'etat.

Depagne said failed official disarmament and subsequent unofficial rearmament onboth sides since the 2007 Ouagadougou peace accords makes current tensions all themore dangerous.

A spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that the U.N. mission in

Ivory Coast will fulfill its mandate and warned that "any attack on U.N. forces will bean attack on the international community and those responsible for these actions will beheld accountable."

The U.N. Security Council is set to meet to discuss the mandate of the U.N. mission inIvory Coast, which is to expire December 31st and currently charges the peacekeepingmission to protect civilians. Ouattara's camp has called for the U.N. mission's mandateto be renewed and strengthened.

The European Union has agreed to ban Mr. Gbagbo and 18 of his allies. ECOWAS andthe African Union have suspended Ivory Coast. The United States and Canada havethreatened sanctions.

The United States has advised Americans not to travel to Ivory Coast and ordered non-emergency staff out of the country, citing the deteriorating situation and what it called"growing anti-western sentiment."


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Original electoral commission results said Mr. Ouattara won the run-off election with 54percent of the votes, but the constitutional court, which is led by a Gbagbo ally,annulled 10 percent of ballots as fraudulent and proclaimed Mr. Gbagbo the winnerwith 51 percent.

Both men have set up rival governments and have the support of rival armed forces.Gbagbo controls state media and government buildings under the protection ofgovernment troops, while Ouattara's government is based out of an Abidjan hotelunder the protection of U.N. peacekeepers and former rebel fighters.------------------Guinea's Alpha Conde to be sworn in on Tuesday (AFP)

CONAKRY Guinean President-elect Alpha Conde will be sworn-in on Tuesday inConakry in the presence of several African leaders, bringing the curtain down on 26years of military rule in the west African nation.

At least eight African presidents are to attend attend the ceremony, according to agovernment source.

They are Senegal's Abdoulaye Wade, Mali's Amadou Toumani Toure, Burkina Faso'sBlaise Compaore, Sierra Leone's Ernest Bai Koroma, Liberia's Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,Gabon's Ali Bongo, Angola's Eduardo Dos Santos and Jacob Zuma of South Africa.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, head of the ECOWAS (Economic Community ofWest African states) will be represented by former president Olusegun Obasanjo, the

source added.The swearing-in ceremony is scheduled to begin at 1100 GMT at the People's Palace,headquarters of the National Assembly which was dissolved after a 2008 coup.

The event will be broadcast live on radio and state television, according to theinformation ministry.

In Conakry preparations for the celebration were underway with squads of womensweeping the area around the People's Palace.

Alpha Conde, 72, from the Malinke ethnic group, has opposed all regimes sinceGuinea's independence from France in 1958.

He won 52.5 percent of the votes against rival Cellou Dalein Diallo to become the firstdemocratically elected president in the country which has known half a century ofdespotism and military rule.


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Guinea's interim leader Sekouba Konate stepped down last week and urged the army toback Conde and remain apolitical.------------------The tragedy of Algeria's 'disappeared' (The Independent)

They are all over the wall of Naseera Dutour's office, in their hundreds, in theirthousands. There are cemeteries of them, bearded, clean shaven, the youth and theelderly of Algeria, veiled women, a smiling girl with a ribbon in her hair, in colour forthe most part; the bloodbath of the 1990s was a post-technicolor age so the blood camebright red and soaked right through the great revolution that finally conquered Frenchcolonial power.

There's a powerful irony that Naseera's cramped offices "SOS Disparu", it's called, inconscious imitation of the searches for the "disappeared" of Chile and Argentina should be on the ground floor of an old pied noir apartment, beyond a carved wooden

door and patterned tiles, at No.3 rue Ghar Djebilet, just off Didouch Mourad St.Didouch, too, was a martyr of the first revolution, the one we were supposed toremember in Algiers this month rather than all those faces on Naseera's walls. ForNaseera, too, has a martyr to mourn.

No talk at Algeria's anti-colonialism conference of the 6,000 men and women who diedunder torture at the hands of the Algerian police and army and hooded security men inthe 1990s. For across at Sidi Fredj yes, just up the coast where the French landed in1830 le pouvoir was parading a clutch of ancient ex-presidents from the mystical landsof the anti-colonial struggle, to remind us of Algeria's primary role in the battle against

world imperialism.T

here was old Ahmed Ben Bella more white-haired skeleton thanAlgeria's first leader, coup-ed out of power in 1965 (although they didn't mention that).There was poor old Dr Kenneth Kaunda, who mercilessly tried to sing a song under thewondrous eyes of Thabo Mbeki. And then there were the Vietnamese whose victory atDien Bien Phu taught the FLN (National Liberation Front) that they could beat theFrench here, which they did in 1962 at a cost of, say, one and a half million "martyrs".

In theory, this was all staged to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the UN GeneralAssembly's Resolution 1514, which demanded the right of independence to allcolonised people (special emphasis in Algiers, of course, on the Palestinians and theSahrawi refugees). But the real reason le pouvoir "the authorities" gathered theseelderly ex-presidents in Algeria was to build a new foundation wood or concrete Ihaven't yet decided over the mass graves of the 250,000 "martyrs" of another conflict,the barbarous civil war of 1990-98, if indeed it has yet ended. Le pouvoir has invented awonderful new expression for this bloodbath. It's called Algeria's "National Tragedy",as if the government's suspension of elections and the brutal, family-slaughtering,throat-cutting war with the savage Islamists of the Armed Islamic Group, the GIA, was


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a Shakespearean play, Othello perhaps, or Hamlet in which, I suppose, Ben Bella staresat his own skull. More like Titus Andronicus, if you ask me.

Naseera Dutour's brave little team of girl volunteers tap away on their laptops, listingyet more families who seek the remains of those victims of the security forces for whom

all hope is gone. The cops drop by the office from time to time for a spot of harassment,but they have no need to worry. Amina Beuslimane, a pretty 28-year-old civil servant,supposedly taking snapshots of cemeteries and blown-up buildings perhaps forevidence of government crimes was arrested by security police on 13 December 1994.Her family were told they would not see her again and she apparently ended up in thespecial interrogation and rape centre at the Chateauneuf barracks. The butchers ofChateauneuf can relax, however, because a post-war referendum that granted anamnesty to the "Islamists" also purged the security forces of their crimes. And besides,Amina's mum died a few days ago, so there's one less memory to worry about.

I walked through the laneways of Algiers for several days, in places a foreigner wouldnot have survived 16 years ago. In the Casbah, I visited the spot where poor OlivierQuemener, a French television journalist whose camera sticks I had carried the previousday, was shot dead by bearded "Islamists" in 1994, his reporter colleague found lyingwounded beside him, weeping over his dead friend. Compared with all the civiliansbeheaded and raped by the GIA outside Algiers, I suppose Quemener was spared thevery worst. As for the tough old cops of the 1990s who used to blast water throughmen's throats until their stomachs burst, most must be dead themselves, a few enretrait, as they say.

And some of the rapists from Chateauneuf, who knows, through trails of promotion,may have been guarding the equally old conference delegates at Sidi Fredj. And by theway, Jacques Vergs was there, he whose wife was so cruelly treated by the French andwho defended the Nazi butcher Klaus Barbie. Ironies pile up here like old bones. Andyes, the government won the civil war, didn't they, and anyway who would havewanted the bearded Islamic Salvation Front to have ruled back in the 1990s, imposingsharia law and veiling women and murdering every opponent and, besides, is not thepouvoir the real inheritor of the old National Liberation Front, the FLN? In Algeria,they have a phrase for these arguments. They call it "heating up old soup".

And so art comes to the rescue of memory. There is a spring of new books beingpublished in Algeria, novels of great richness and beauty and sadness, the only wayauthors can confront those mass graves of the 1990s. A veiled woman in a bright newAlgiers bookshop advises me to buy two of them. In Amin Zaoui's Bed of the ImpureVirgin, old florist Momou plying his trade, yes, on the same Didouche Mourad St laments the 1973 murder of his old poet friend Jean Snac. Believing that he will portraySenac in a movie, Momou he loves only Algiers, flowers, wine and poetry slowlygoes mad, reciting Senac's verse in the streets and tea-shops, ending in a small city


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courtyard beneath a tree where he quotes night and day the words of Senac, a realanarchist and poet and friend (yes, again!) of that old phantom Ben Bella who made hisreturn from the grave last week. But the courtyard is used for prayers by the Islamists ofthe 1990s and because Senac was a "homo" (their words) and because this is againstIslam and because Momou might have been Senac's lover, they string up the crazy

florist from the tree, and his body hangs there for three days and three nights as thebearded men say their dawn prayers beneath his corpse. Do I smell Camus here?

And then there's Adlne Meddi's novel of Algiers today in which two old soldiers(graduates of Algeria's Cherchell Military College) reminisce of the 1990s and one ofthem tells the other of a nightmare experience. In the Arab world, novels are oftenfiction dusted with truth. In Algeria, they are truth cloaked in fiction. Read then withappropriate horror Meddi's description of the fate of an Algerian army commandant,Djaafar Rahb, commander of the 2nd Armored Division at Tlegema, who deserts to the"terrorists" and is caught and tied to a tree. The army commander arrives from

Constantine by helicopter, the soldiers are lined up, the man's wife and two children arebrought to the scene and the soldiers pour petrol on Rahb and set him on fire, the cadetsvomiting at the stench of carbonised flesh.

What lies behind such writing? Meddi's hero is Sjo, a retired cop who goes back to workto pay off his debts and starts a murder enquiry that brings back all the ghosts of the1990s. His journalist friend Ras, still mourning his professional colleagues who hadtheir throats slit by the GIA, walks with him down an Algiers street, still fearful of thepast. "Ras walked like Djo. One eye in front, the other behind his head... Followed bydeath for years, he had developed a strong sense of prudence and impending disaster.

Everything leaves its traces..."And that is exactly how le pouvoir feels and acts today, one confident eye to the future,one terrified eye to the past, acting with prudence and with fear that the nightmares ofthe 1990s may yet return. The earlier, great anti-colonial struggle of which all Algeriandelegates spoke was fought against the French. Yet not once was the word "France"mentioned at the Sidi Fredj conference. It cannot be, for while delegates were truckedoff to the concrete ghastliness of the 1954-62 "Martyr's Monument" to the anti-Frenchwar of independence, another little journey by a certain Abdelaziz Belkhadem, specialrepresentative to President Bouteflika, who couldn't quite make it to the conference said a lot more about modern Algeria.

Having stunned delegates with a speech of mind-numbing boredom ("undeniableprogress after the heavy burdens of the colonial era", etc, etc), he sped off to the gauntsepulchre of the newly restored French cathedral of Our Lady of Africa, consecrated atthe height of French power in 1872, which still towers gloomily over the city of Algiers.Desecrated by Islamists, broken by a more recent earthquake, the whole place, once asymbol of French Catholic domination of Muslim Algeria, has been magnificently


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patched up and re-painted and re-tiled at a cost of more than 4m by the EuropeanUnion, the French Embassy and numerous Algerian benefactors and reopened,heritage-style, as a monument to coexistence. And there the man who had justcondemned the heavy burdens of colonialism stood with the French to commemoratethis great church and refused to read his speech.

Because, for so it was hinted, he didn't think the French had given the Algerians enoughcredit for the restoration? Or because he was standing next to another ghost, the braveex-archbishop of Algiers, Monseigneur Henri Teissier, he who received the phone callon 21 May 1996 that the seven monks of Tibherine now immortalised on film hadbeen decapitated? "Three of their heads were hanging from a tree near a petrol station,"he told me then. "The other four heads were lying on the grass beneath." Now theFrench suspect the Algerian army tried to free the monks from their GIA captors, killedthem by mistake and covered up their disaster by burying the bullet-riddled bodies andleaving their heads behind as another GIA "crime".

The next Catholic edifice to be dusted off will be the basilica of Saint Augustine atAnnaba. For, like it or not, the French have fallen in love with Algeria again and theAlgerians have fallen in love with the profits of a new relationship with France. FormerFrench prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has just been here to support long-termindustrial projects a new Renault factory is soon to open on the outskirts of Algiers and Claude Guant has been chatting up President Bouteflika on behalf of NicolasSarkozy. And, now that France can join in the famous "struggle against terror", ex-General Christian Quesnot has been visiting, while the lyse has been busily handingover maps of French colonial minefields to the Algerian army. French and Algerian

chiefs of staff regularly talk on the phone. Can this new affair last? In Blida, the ancientguerrilla fighters are trying to persuade the mayor to rename local streets after theseven Algerians killed by French troops in a July 1961 anti-French demonstration. Otherguardians of the war the one before the "National Tragedy", of course have beenmoving the grisly old French guillotine to the Tlemcen museum so that "the youth ofAlgeria realise that their independence came not as a gift but at a price". In his lastinterview, the surviving French servant of this infernal machine explained theimportance of speed when decapitating Algerians for if the victim struggled, the blademight not cut his neck and it would be necessary to finish the job with a knife.

And all the while, the guns can be heard from Tizi Ouzou. Yes, sure enough, theIslamists are still out there, the GIA having long ago morphed into "al-Qa'ida in theMaghreb", currently fighting off a division of Algerian troops beyond the Berber capital,subject to a rattisage of armoured vehicles and helicopter attacks, the villages maroonedwithout food and with all local mobile phones shut down by the government. "Twelveterrorists killed", a headline reads in Al-Moujahed.


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And where have we heard that before? Why, in Iraq, of course. And in Afghanistantoday. And throughout the "National Tragedy". Only "terrorists", mark you. The armyis rumoured to have killed Abdelmalek Droukdel (alias Abu Mousaab Abdelouadoud),al-Qa'ida's top man in Algeria, and thus, according to the daily Liberte, "the operation ...constitutes a turning-point in the anti-terrorist struggle". But we've heard all this before

too, after the government killed the "monster" Antan Zouabia and after they shotDroukdel's predecessor Nabil Sahrawi. No "embeds" with the Algerian army of course.

And if rumour is correct, there's every good reason for this: because US Special Forcesofficers from their camp near Tamanrasset are said to be "observing" the Kabyleoperation. Why not? After all, only last week Washington's top military commander inthe region, US Africa Command General David Hogg, was showering praises on theAlgerian security services for their "impressive progress and leadership" in fighting"terrorism". He wants more co-ordination with neighbouring Arab states which iswhy Tunisia's top intelligence spook, one of Tunisian dictator Ben Ali's most trusted

acolytes, turned up to talk to his Algerian opposite number this week.

And what, I asked Naseera Dutour, did she think when she heard US officers praisingthe security services who tortured and killed so many Algerians during the civil war?She pulls out an old photograph of her 21-year old son Amin, kidnapped on 31 January1997 (he would be 35 today), never seen again, and holds it to her bosom like a shield.She speaks in French but only one word escapes her lips, loudly and with greatemotion. "Scandale!"------------------Militia in Somalia Abandons Key Positions to Radical Group (New York Times)

MOGADISHU, Somalia An Islamist militia abandoned several key positions in andoutside this capital late Sunday, the latest indication that it has proven the weaker in itsrivalry with the Shabab, the radical militant group that now controls much of Somalia.

Fighters loyal to the militia, Hizbul Islam, controlled large swaths of territory insouthern and central Somalia, including in Mogadishu, but were steadily losing groundto the Shabab. Both groups were united in the fight against the weak transitionalgovernment and the forces of the African Union Mission in Somalia but had a differentpolitical agenda and leadership.

The Hizbul Islam forces left our neighborhood around 4 to 5 p.m. today, saidMohamed Awale, a resident in the Wardhigley neighborhood, an area previouslycontrolled by Hizbul Islam. I dont know where they have gone. I think, they mighteither join the Shabab or leave with their guns.


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A senior commander of Hizbul Islam in southwestern Somalia near the border withEthiopia announced Sunday that his fighters in the town of Luuq have united with theShabab.

The Hizbul Islam fighters here are officially united with our brothers of the Shabab in

the cause of God, said the senior commander, Sheik Farhan Abdi Ciilmooge.

Hizbul Islam and the Shabab are two of the most powerful insurgent groups in Somaliaand were once closely allied.

The Shabab, the most fearsome insurgent group in Somalia and an affiliate of Al Qaeda,have been systematically attracting fighters from Hizbul Islam and took over severalkey towns without a fight.

Two weeks ago, the Shabab attacked Hizbul Islam forces in Buur Hakaba, about 110

miles south of the capital. The Shabab had demanded the rival group stop collecting atax from public transport vehicles going to Baidoa, a main Shabab stronghold. Afterdays of intense gun battles, during which dozens of fighters from each side were killed,the Shabab took over the town.------------------The Ocampo Six are Kenyans, But Rwanda, Uganda Need to Worry (The East African)

Nairobi Last Wednesday, International Criminal Court chief prosecutor LuisMoreno-Ocampo kicked up a political storm in Kenya when he announced his intentionto charge six Kenyans with murder, rape, and other related crimes.

The intended charges arise from the violence that followed the disputed 2007 elections.Nearly 1,300 people died and more than 500,000 fled their homes in the violence.

The six are Henry Kosgey, Minister for Industrialisation; Deputy Prime Minister andMinister of Finance Uhuru Kenyatta; William Ruto, suspended Education Minister;Secretary to the Cabinet Francis Muthaura, former police chief Mohammed Hussein Aliand Joshua arap Sang, a journalist with Kass FM, a community radio based in the RiftValley town of Eldoret that broadcasts in the Kalenjin language.

In the peace deal that ended the violence and resulted in a power-sharing coalitiongovernment between President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, it wasagreed that its perpetrators would face justice in Kenya or at the ICC in The Hague.

However, Kenyan MPs shot down any attempt to set up a local tribunal. Now, the samelegislators who rejected a local solution to the Kenyan situation want the government towithdraw from the Rome Statute that created the ICC.


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Ocampo's release of the names of what has quickly become known in Kenya as "TheOcampo Six," couldn't have come at a worse time for the Kenya political class.

It points to an ongoing but unspoken, fundamental shift in power in Kenya that couldfracture the political elite and dynasties that have ruled the country over the past 47

years.

"What is so interesting to me in the heat and noise of the ICC's announcement is thereaction of the political class; the Ocampo Six being named, though anticipated forweeks now, somehow seems to come as a surprise," said Martin Kimani, a writer, in apost to a listserve that circulates among Kenyan intellectuals, "A surprise to power thathas been so insular and free of challenge that its owners are unable to believe thatcontrol could ever leave their hands, or that any process against them could possiblysucceed."

In the past two weeks, US diplomatic cables leaked by the whistleblower site Wikileakshave revealed scathing criticism of the Kenyan leadership.

Kenya is referred to as a "swamp of corruption" and the Cabinet as easily being Africa'smost corrupt, and all them crooked. The cables portray a country with a political systempartly fuelled by drug money.

The leaks also demonstrate an elaborate plan to break the political elite's grip on powerby fanning a democratic revolution by the youth.

America's ambassador in Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, speaks of how the "culture ofimpunity" perpetuated by Kenya's political and economic elite that links directly toPresident Kibaki and Raila, continues to frustrate genuine reforms, warning that thiscould lead the country back into a civil war situation in 2012.

"While the culture of impunity and the grip of the old guard political elite on the leversof state power and resources remain largely intact, hairline fractures are developing intheir edifice which -- if we continue to work them intensely -- will develop into broaderfractures and open up the potential for a peaceful process of implementation offundamental reforms," he wrote.

This stung both President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga to attack Ranneberger andwhat they termed American hypocrisy.

Ocampo's list and the WikiLeaks revelations have together undermined the collectiveKenyan political class and, more shocking, revealed that the Americans are working onencouraging a total different crop of youthful leaders to oust the old guard.


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The WikiLeaks cables, in particular, blew apart a common assumption in politics -- thatPrime Minister Raila was, somehow, the blue-eyed boy of the West, particularly theAmericans, and their diplomatic machines were all primed to ensure that he becomespresident in 2012.

However, the US cables surprised many when they put Raila and Kibaki in the sameboat as patrons of corruption.

In addition, though Ocampo said the ICC was not going after Kibaki and Raila becauseit did not have a mandate to prosecute those who might have "political responsibility,"in the same breath he said that if indeed that was the standard, then the two men wouldbe in the ICC noose.

Obsevers though, consider that the inclusion of Muthaura, Kibaki's right hand manwith whom he has a special bond, was slapping a charge on Kibaki by proxy. Likewise,

for Raila, whose right hand man in the 2007 elections was Ruto (although they havenow fallen out), and whose place seems to have been taken by Kosgey, was equallyrepudiated by having his close allies on the list.

Indeed, many MPs on the Kibaki side of the Kenyan divide have lately been arguingthat Raila, who called for "mass action" following the election dispute, should bedragged to The Hague. On the other hand, the Raila camp is arguing that Kibaki, whothey say stole the election and thereby caused the violence, should be taken off to TheHague.

Ocampo's list, and the WikiLeaks cables, therefore, could limit the ability of the Kenyanpolitical dynasty to maintain its grip on power by handing over to an anointedsuccessor.

Unlike its East African Community partners, Kenya's politics feels like a monarchy.Raila is the son of Kenya's first vice president, and the father of the country's oppositionpolitics, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.

Uhuru is the son of the country's founding president, Jomo Kenyatta, whose vicepresident for a while was Odinga.

Kibaki, who won't be eligible to stand in 2012 because of the two-term limit, has his sonJimmy Kibaki and daughter Judy Kibaki angling to join politics -- one of them willpossibly inherit his Othaya constituency. Raila has been grooming his son Fidel to joinpolitics, and currently he is his father's fixer, and has been in the news doing deals withfringe political groups.


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If the ICC and the intentions of the Americans revealed in the leaked cables damage thispolitical elite, it could scuttle their attempt to build a political dynasty. Some analystssay that would be a good thing, because it would "finally free Kenya."

But other presidential palaces and State Houses in East Africa should worry too. For

there is a pattern in the ICC indictments. Farther north, Sudanese President Omar alBashir has been indicted by the ICC for crimes against humanity in the western Darfurregion.

In DR Congo, warlords Jean Pierre-Bemba, Thomas Lubanga, Germain Katanga, andMathieu Ngudjolo Chui, are currently being tried at the ICC for war crimes.

Northern Uganda rebel Joseph Kony, who heads the brutal Lord's Resistance Army,which is now a roving bandit force sowing terror from Southern Sudan to the CentralAfrican Republic, has also been indicted. Kony was indicted with nearly all of his

military command; his deputy commanders Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo, DominicOngwen, and like their boss, remain at large. Another, Raska Lukwiya, died in August2006.

There has been, and there continues to be pressure by international groups to haveUgandan officials and military officers tried in the ICC for war crimes in eastern DRC.Between 1997 and 2008, the armies from the two protagonists occupied, or madefrequent military invasions into eastern DRC.

They are partly blamed for the direct and indirect death of, going by conservative

estimates, 3.9 million Congolese.Humanitarian organisations put the fugure at 5.4 million, but critics say this numberhas been inflated by aid agencies to attract funding.

As one observer put it: "If the ICC has gone for six Kenyans for the death of just over1,200 people and the displacement of 500,000; and Bashir is indicted for the death ofabout 250,000, it becomes difficult to continue ignoring calls to bring RwandanPresident Paul Kagame and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni to book for the death of 5million."

The observer also noted that "Burundi, where tens of thousands of people were killed inmuch the same circumstances as in Kenya, should also be a country of interest to theICC."------------------Zimbabwe Politics Grows More Volatile During 2010 (Voice of America)


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Zimbabwe's appears to be in for more political turmoil with talk of fresh electionsearlier this month at the conference of President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF Party.Most Zimbabweans indicate they do not want elections next year because they mayinterfere with the political stability and economic progress made since the unitygovernment came to power nearly two years ago.

Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for DemocraticChange have been discussing elections in the final months of 2010. Much of the talk onthe streets of Harare is very different from the noise coming from political leaders.

Blessings Sibanda works for a Harare company that sells agricultural supplies. He saidthat for him and many others, 2010 was one of the better years since Zimbabwe'spolitical and economic crisis began a decade ago.

"We have seen a little improvement, increasing capacity and seen it in government

where revenues have gone up to a point where government has given salary increasesfor next year, which means the festive season is going to be better, merrier," saidSibanda.

He said with a measure of economic stability many people now have more disposableincomes and will be able to buy extras for their families during holiday period,especially food. He and others say the talk of elections is worrying.

"The only damper will be after this festive season [if] we go into election mode and itwill scuttle some of the benefits we have seen from the stabilization," said Sibanda.

Earlier in the year, Tsvangirai and Mugabe were getting on much better than at the endof the year.

In September, in Johannesburg, Tsvangirai described the slow progress and manyfrustrations of the unity government, but said people should remember the despair andcatastrophe of Zimbabwe before it came to power.

"We are making progress. Zimbabwe is moving forward, it is slow, but it is there. Wehave health workers and medicines in our hospitals, teachers and books in our schools,food in our supermarkets, water in our taps and fuel in our petrol stations."

Tsvangirai later became angry when Mugabe awarded several top civil servant jobs toZANU-PF supporters instead of to the MDC, as spelled out in the political agreement.

More important than allocation of these jobs, according to many political analysts, wasthe lack of progress in electoral reform and better governance, so that the next pollswould be undisputedly free and fair.


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A political scientist at the University of Zimbabwe, Eldred Masunungure, said he wasthoroughly disheartened by the state of the unity government at year end.

"I would say the coalition government is in a very perilous state and the marriage

between the old regime ZANU-PF and its coalition partners, the two MDC formations,is approaching a stage of irretrievably breaking down," said Masunungure.

Tsvangirai ended the year also talking about elections. He said he wants a re-run ofpresidential elections because they were disputed by violence at the last polls in 2008.

Elections would end the inclusive government, but the local public affairs watchdog,Veritas, said the constitution does not allow a presidential election to be held on itsown.

Veteran political analyst, Brian Raftopoulos, who is also director of the Solidarity PeaceTrust, said senior security officials within ZANU-PF, whom he called securocrats, havestrong influence within ZANU-PF. They want elections to protect the massive assetsthey acquired under Mugabe's rule since 1980 independence.

"They would feel endangered if any other party came to power because of the massiveabuses they have inflicted on Zimbabweans over the last 30 years," said Raftopoulos."They have a terrible history of terror, torture, violence, throughout post-colonialZimbabwe."

ZANU-PF ministers in the inclusive government introduced controversial laws in early2010 that say black Zimbabweans must own 51 percent of any company worth morethan $500,000.

There was a storm of protest and the unity government moved quickly to water downand delay the so-called indigenization laws. By year-end no action had been takenbeyond the continued threats from ZANU-PF leaders.

At the ZANU- PF conference, Mugabe linked indigenization to the targeted sanctionsby the United States and European Union against senior ZANU-PF leaders and about adozen mostly state-owned companies.

"In some cases we must read the riot act to the British and others, and say to them, thisis only 51 percent we are taking," said Mugabe. "Unless you remove sanctions we willgo for 100 percent."


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Despite Mr. Mugabe's threats about indigenization, the unity Cabinet recently allowedforeigners to buy a 53 percent stake in a state company, the Zimbabwe Iron and SteelCompany.

The Southern African Development Community, which mediated and guaranteed the

power-sharing government agreement, has not commented on the election talk byeither Mugabe or Tsvangirai. SADC indicated last month it will hold a meeting inJanuary to discuss the unity government's progress in implementing the politicalagreement.

Mugabe relishes criticizing London and Washington, but he has shown in the past thathe can be influenced by SADC. Many people are wondering what action SADC willtake if Mugabe unilaterally dissolves parliament and declares elections next year beforea new constitution can be put in place as called for by the power-sharing accord.

Raftopoulos is concerned SADC is running out of patience with Zimbabwe's politicalin-fighting.

"SADC in a sense are looking to bring this to some kind of finality, and so are all threeparties [in the Zimbabwean government]. From SADC's point of view they would likean election that is reasonably free and fair that they can sell as legitimate," saidRaftopoulos.

Raftopoulos said Zimbabwe has a long way to go in order to have reasonably free andfair elections.

Despite slow progress in 2010, businessmen are enjoying the stability that came with theinclusive government and believe 2011 is too early for elections.

The managing director of a chain of Harare retail shops, Paul Hanyani, says recent year-end bonuses for civil servants have improved sales and says the economy hasimproved.

"From the experience we had in our country, we are not yet ready for such kind of aprocess because we have seen things that are not good, violence and so on,retrogressiveness in terms of the economy. Personally I think we needed more timebefore we get to such a process again," said Hanyani.

Zimbabwe's unity government has no limit to its existence, but the constitution sayselections must be held every five years - or by March 2013.


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Experts say progress in implementing the political agreement, most of which is nowenshrined in the constitution, is due for review before any of the three political partiesin the unity government can unilaterally bring the inclusive government to an end.------------------UN News Service Africa Briefs

Full Articles on UN Website

UN project helps West African farmers cut pesticide use, boost incomes20 December A project executed by the United Nations Food and AgricultureOrganization (FAO) in West Africa has succeeded in slashing the use of toxic pesticides,increasing yields and incomes, and diversifying farming systems.

Security Council calls for funding for civilian protection in eastern Chad20 December The Security Council today called on Member States to ensure sufficientfunding for the Chadian unit that will be responsible for protecting some 600,000

refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) when the United Nations missionthere departs at the end of the year.

Darfur mediation team calls on Sudan, rebels to attain ceasefire by years end20 December The mediation team involving the United Nations that is working toadvance the Darfur peace process has called on the Sudanese Government and the rebelJustice and Equality Movement (JEM) to conclude a ceasefire before the end of this year.

Chief UN monitor urges all sides to ensure credible South Sudan referendum20 December With less than three weeks before the holding of the referendum on thestatus of Southern Sudan, the head of the United Nations panel tasked with monitoringthe vote today urged all parties to ensure the credibility of the process.

Rejecting call for withdrawal, Security Council extends UN mission in Cte dIvoire20 December Rebuffing a demand by Cte d'Ivoires president that the United Nationsmission leave after it certified his electoral defeat, the Security Council today renewedthe nearly 9,000-strong force for another six months, foreshadowed a possible increaseand threatened sanctions against those imperilling peace.

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