A report published on Tuesday by the influential centre-left think tank, the Institute of Public Policy Research, shows that people are driven to seek asylum by war, ethnic violence, repression, and human rights abuses, rather than by poverty. In order to identify the 'root causes' of forced migration to the European Union, the IPPR focused its attention on the ten countries from which the majority of asylum seekers have come over the past decade.

There is no sanctuary here. Across West Africa, the bleak settlements of people fleeing war have become military recruiting grounds. With a spreading web of interrelated conflicts raging through the region, rebel and government forces alike have been drafting refugees to fill their ranks. The new recruits include refugees fleeing to foreign countries as well as those displaced within their own. Bored, hungry, impressionable teenagers appear to be among those in greatest demand. On the outskirts of the Liberian capital, Monrovia, a camp for internally displaced people has been so plagued by the conscription campaign of government militias that residents recently created a neighbourhood watch group, aid workers in the camp said. When the telltale pickup trucks of militia forces are seen approaching the camp, word is spread and young men are sent to hide in the woods.

Since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 the refugee regime has evolved with our modern state system, reflecting changes in international law, politics, economics and ideology. Responding to a history of religious and political persecutions, a comprehensive refugee regime finally emerged under the League of Nations after World War I. This regime underwent dramatic change during World War II to create a permanent framework to cope with the refugee problem through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The Cold War had an overwhelming influence on the norms and rules of this regime, and in the post-Cold War era the regime has struggled to reflect and adapt to emerging global concerns - from internally displaced persons to gender and race distributional issues. As UNHCR is forced to reconsider its definitions, laws, and policies, the larger evolving regime must give way to a form of global governance in which the international authority of the UN body has more meaningful influence on the implementation of national law and policy.

Up to 10,000 people have escaped Liberia after the latest upsurge in fighting, the United Nations refugee agency has said. The newly-formed rebel Movement for Democracy in Liberia (Model) says it captured the south-eastern town of Harper over the weekend.

The treason trial of 22 alleged members of the rightwing Boeremag organisation was postponed in the high court here for a week to address problems with legal aid. Judge Eben Jordaan directed that a meeting be held this week between defence lawyers, the prosecution and the Legal Aid Board to resolve issues in dispute.

A series of meetings involving African leaders and representatives from the United States and Britain have taken place in Southern Africa aimed at forcing the removal of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. The plan is to bring in a transitional government in Zimbabwe made up of the ruling Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that will then adopt economic emergency measures. The US is taking a more prominent role in Zimbabwe in exchange for British support for the war in Iraq.

Despite the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Ethiopians are in no better position today than they were in the 1940’s when it comes to bringing human rights violators to justice. This time, however, we only have the Ethiopian Government to blame. Thus far, close to 90 states (at least 19 states from Africa, including Djibouti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Zambia) are parties to the ICC Statute and a number of other states are expected to join soon. Ethiopia does not appear in either list, says this article from the Addis Tribune.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has put the number of refugees who have fled into Uganda to escape fighting in the Ituri District of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at between 15,000 and 20,000, the UN agency reported on Monday. Earlier reports had estimated the number of refugees entering Uganda through the border districts of Nebbi and Bundibugyo at 60,000 between them.

Namibia's president Sam Nujoma has again said he won't be standing in the 2004 elections for a fourth term, The Namibian newspaper reported last Friday. Speaking at his farm earlier this week, Nujoma said he would stick to the constitutional limits of only two five-year terms, and was only serving his current third term due to a "unanimous" request from the Namibian population.

A government-appointed Task Force on a possible Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Kenya is likely to face controversy over former president Daniel arap Moi, says Task Force chairman Professor Makau Mutua. "I think there are strong currents in the country that suggest perhaps that the former president Mr Daniel arap Moi, if he is implicated, should be treated somewhat differently as a former head of state," said Makau, a lawyer and head of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.

The Ugandan government has been urged to adopt a consistent approach in dealing with the rebel Lords Resistance army (LRA), and avoid contradictions which have so far undermined trust between the parties during peace efforts for northern Uganda. The Civil Society Organisations for Peace in Northern Uganda (CSOPNU), a coalition of 40 non-governmental organisations working with civilians affected by the conflict, also urged the two sides to renew their commitment to peace building and national reconciliation.

A total of 600 internally displaced people (IDPs), among them 400 teachers and their families, returned home on Saturday from Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), to comply with a government directive to resume schooling.

The administration in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland and opposition forces signed a peace deal on Saturday aimed at ending conflict in the region, a local journalist told IRIN on Monday.
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The main opposition party in Zimbabwe, the Movement for Democratic Change ( MDC), says it has plans to make the country "totally ungovernable" with future rounds of mass action. The ratcheting up of pressure on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is "a promise, not a threat", MDC spokesman Paul Themba-Nyathi said.

The 'quiet giant’ of the South African liberation struggle against apartheid, Walter Sisulu, was laid to rest at Croesus Cemetery near Soweto, Saturday, in the same way he lived his life - with quiet dignity and honour. Earlier, thousands of mourners gathered at Orlando Stadium in Soweto to pay their last respects to Sisulu. In a dignified, emotional and nostalgic ceremony, tinged with grief and sadness, South Africans bid "hamba kahle" ("go well") to one of their country’s foremost anti-apartheid heroes in a special funeral, witnessed by his grieving widow Albertina, 84, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as well as close friend and former jailmate Nelson Mandela.

Two warring factions in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) agreed on Sunday to cohabit in the town of Bunia, riven by weeks of ethnic clashes, UN sources said. A long-running feud between the majority Lendu and minority Hema groups has become even more deadly since the onset of DRC's wider war in 1998 led to an influx of weapons and numerous politico-military groups eager to recruit fighters and more than willing to exploit deep-seated animosities.
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The Swaziland monarchy has retracted a statement that caused a mass resignation of the country's appeals court judges last year and plunged the tiny southern African country into a constitutional crisis. The six judges, who are all South Africans, had said they would return to the bench only if King Mswati III undertook to comply with court orders, which the monarchy repeatedly refused to do until now.

A global initiative to end the trade in "blood diamonds" has been a mixed success in war-ravaged Sierra Leone with a sharp rise in export earnings but illegal mining flourishing nonetheless. A decade of atrocities and the illegal trade in the tainted stones, popularly known as "blood" or "conflict diamonds", have helped make Sierra Leone one of the poorest countries in the world.

Liberia faces a humanitarian disaster, with war preventing aid workers from helping hundreds of thousands of people and threatening to further destabilise an already fragile region, the chief of the U.N. refugee agency said.

A ZNet Commentary by Mandisi Majavu

While the Texan ranger, George W. Bush and his loyal companion, Tony Blair were on their murderous mission in Iraq, the Congo war that has been going on for four years, and is reported to have killed more than 3-million people in that country, came to an official end. Dubbed "inter-Congolese dialogue", the negotiations that brought the government and the rebels to a give and take communication table, lasted for 14 months, resulting on 02 April 2003 in a "final peace agreement".

However, two of the heavyweights in the talks failed to turn up for the proceedings on the day of signing the final peace agreement. It's the same leaders who brought the first round of talks last year to a stop by signing an exclusive agreement: President Joseph Kabila and leader of the Ugandan-backed Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), Jean-Pierre Bemba. That exclusive agreement was meant to make Bemba a prime minister; however, the deal went sour and now Kabila sees Bemba as his main threat. It is reported that after Kabila heard that Bemba was not going to make it for the signing of the final peace agreement, he cancelled -- fearing a coup.

Bene M'Poko, Congolose ambassador to South Africa, explains the absence of Kabila as a trivial issue. "The president did not need to be there, for it was just a closing ceremony. Everything that was of importance had been agreed on in his presence," he said.

The main points of the final peace agreement are that the four-year-old war must come to an end, and that the Ugandan and Rwandan troops must leave the DRC. When the war broke out in August 1998, Rwanda and Uganda sent troops to back the rebels who were seeking to oust the late Laurent Kabila. They claimed Laurent Kabila was backing insurgents who were threatening their national security. Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia sent troops to back Kabila -- splitting the country into rebel and government-held areas.

Further, the final peace agreement demands that Joseph Kabila, with a "follow-up committee" for the inter-Congolose dialogue, pave the way for the transformation process that will last two years. At the end of that two years, it is hoped that the first democratic elections in 40 years will take place in that country.

Also, the final peace agreement demands that four deputy presidents be nominated who will be working closely with the president through the two-year transition to elections. As one of his deputies, Kabila has nominated Yerodia Abdoulaye Ndombasi, a former foreign minister once sought by a Belgian court for inciting genocide. From the Rassemblement Congolaise pour la democratic (RCD-Goma rebel movement), Joseph Mudumbi has made it clear that "it will be a real problem for all Congolose who want national reconciliation to work with someone who called for the massacre of one section of the Congolose people."

The three vice-presidents are Jean-Pierre Bemba, the leader of the MLC, Arthur Z'Ahidi Ngoma, from the unarmed political opposition and Azarias Ruberwa Manywa, a founder of the Rwandan-backed Rassemblement Congolais pour la democratic (RCD-Goma rebel movement), an advocate for the recognition of the Banyamulenge, Congolose of Rwandan origin, as Congolose citizens. At one stage, in 1981, the notorious -- to say the least -- Mobutu Sese Seko, the Congolose president at the time, stripped the Banyamulenye of their citizenship, rendering them stateless, and thus preventing them from running for national political office. Their citizenship has since been restored, according to M'Poko.

The four vice-presidents are due to take the oath of office on 28 May in the DRC capital, Kinshasa. Also, on the same day, the installation of the government comprising "all parties" will take place. The parties referred to are the two main rebel groups: the MLC and the RCD-Goma, and, also, the unarmed political opposition, plus the RCD-Kisangani / Mouvement de Liberation.

Although all the plans are being put in place, it has been reported that fighting in the northeastern part of the DRC, Bunia, is still going on. MONUC -- the UN mission in the DRC -- has been reported as saying it "greatly deplored" renewed hostilities in Bunia, the principal city of Ituri district in the northeastern of the country. MONUC explains the objective of the fighting between armed factions of ethnic Hemas and Lendus as a battle to seize control of Bunia in the wake of the Ugandan People's Defence Force pull-out. The fighting in Ituri erupted on 03 April, the day after five African leaders, including the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, decided at a summit held in South Africa, that Uganda should withdraw its troops from the DRC by 24 April. According to reports, "between 150 and 300 people" died on the first day of the fighting, which lasted three hours in about 15 villages. Be that as it may, M'Poko assures us that the war is over, and what we are witnessing now is just a "skirmish". As if this is suppose to put us at ease.

In a move to bring about peace and stability, about 800 Uruguayan UN troops have been deployed to northeastern DRC, ahead of the deployment of 2 000 Bangladeshi peacekeepers, Gen. Mountanga Diallo, the force commander of the UN operation, was reported saying. Another stumbling block in the way of the "follow-up committee", which has the potential of reversing the whole peace process, is the quarrelling among the parties for the post of defence minister. As has become a tradition in African politics, whoever controls the army has state power.

The mediation, which is South African, proposed that the defence minister post, including the post of command of ground forces, be granted to the RCD-Goma. However, the MLC, the RCD-Kisangani / Mouvement de Liberation and the government do not agree that the RCD-Goma should hold the two posts. As the rebel forces are going to be united with the national military, the military issues remain the sensitive ones. Although it should come as no surprise, the Kabila government has already secured itself the post of chief of staff of the military.

As if this is some sort of a chess game, South Africa's leading newspaper, Mail and Guardian, reported that if the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, and his team succeed with an internal settlement in the DRC, "it will arguably be South Africa's finest diplomatic achievement to date." One would be compelled to conclude that even the parties involved in the peace process entertain the same idea. After the Cape Town summit on 08 April, which Mbeki masterminded, at the post-summit press conference, one of the journalists asked how relations were between Uganda and Rwanda. The Ugandan president, Museveni, declined to comment; instead he asked Mbeki to do so. While these "no I do not want to speak, you speak" games are being played, it's a matter of life and death for the 50-million people in Congo.

As the civil war is officially over, yet another war awaits the Congolose -- the economic war. At the beginning of July last year, the World Bank promised to loan Kabila $420-million if he continues with his "economic reforms". The reforms of course are none other than privatisation, creating an environment where everything is commodified, and exploitation made legal. Need I say more?!

There is a lot of pressure on the shoulders of Kabila, only 30 years old, no political experience, not much education, but an extensive military background. He spent most of his youth in exile -- in Tanzania and Uganda, where he received military training. As a young officer, it is reported that he had a reputation for brutality. When he came into power in January
2001, after his father's death, he was a commander-in-chief of the land forces.

However, with education or not, political experience or not, on 07 April, Kabila took the oath of office as head of a transitional government that aims to bring peace and liberty in that country. Under the new constitution drawn up by delegates from the government, rebel movements, militias, civil society and the political opposition, Kabila enjoys all the prerogatives of head of state.

For that reason only, the hopes and eyes of the young and old in Congo rest on him. The hopes and eyes of the world not only rest on Kabila, but on Uganda and Rwanda. Be that as it may, I say the same of Joseph Kabila as Che Guevara said of his father: "Nothing leads me to believe he is the man of the hour."
(http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2003-05/13majavu.cfm)

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LINKS:
* CONGO FIGHTING DASHES HOPES FOR PEACE
* MBEKI BACKS USE OF DEADLY FORCE
* MOVEMENT AROUND BUNIA "IMPOSSIBLE"
* UN SECURITY COUNCIL DISCUSSES CRISIS IN BUNIA
- See the Conflicts Crises and Emergencies section of Pambazuka News.