The scale of the slave trade is staggering, says UNICEF. According to the Centre for International Crime Prevention, 12 million Africans were sold as slaves to the New World over a period of three hundred years, between the 16th and the 19th centuries.

As the four-month-long Somali Peace and Reconciliation Conference resumes at a new Kenyan venue and with a new chairperson, Somali human rights activists have issued an important declaration founded on their many years of mostly unacknowledged and risk-fraught human rights defence work. Somali human rights defenders from 23 organizations, meeting in Hargeisa from 10 to 18 February 2002, declared that they will "increase the struggle against human rights abuses, such as arbitrary killings, torture, arbitrary detention and kidnapping, and work for the equal rights of all, with full protection for vulnerable groups such as women and minorities".

Amnesty International issued a press release last week detailing the abuses of the regime of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, as that leader landed in Paris for an African-Franco summit. The press release detailed recent violations of human rights and urged world leaders to come out strongly against the abuses.

The road to the ballot box in Liberia's political contest seems to be rocky as insecurity, violence and intimidation of political opponents rise in the run up to October's general elections. The race kicked off a few days ago with attacks, arrests and intimidation of political opponents and in one case the shooting of an opposition activist - raising the questions of insecurity, unhindered canvassing and level-playing field in the forthcoming elections.

Despite the slow progress at peace talks aimed at ending more than a decade of anarchy in Somalia, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) is optimistic about the future - even if the war continues. Steven Lauwerier was UNICEF's project officer based in Baidoa, in southern Somalia, until fighting broke out there late last year. He says progress is being made because UNICEF are now investing in people rather than infrastructure.

How far will Mozambique go with its promising economic recovery if the price is a damaged environment, nature conservationists are asking? ''From a proposed new highway that will devastate the rainforest in the Inhambane province, to the potential destruction of coral reefs in the Indian Ocean, sacrificed to shipping, mining and tourism, red warning flags are being raised all over this beautiful country,'' conservationist Manuel Chissano told IPS.

The defence in the trial of Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on treason charges Wednesday demanded evidence that a political consultancy firm that exposed the alleged plot to kill President Robert Mugabe, is a bonafide company.
Advocate George Bizos argued that the key witness Ari Ben Menashe, whom he has previously labelled a fraudster, must provide documentary evidence that his firm is not bogus.

The human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell will file a complaint with the general prosecutor of Paris, requesting that Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean President, be arrested on torture charges when he arrives for a two-day summit of African leaders. The legal action, using the UN Convention Against Torture, which France has signed, is likely to be symbolic because there is no precedent of a foreign leader being prosecuted in France while in office.

One of the first draft laws the South African Parliament will debate this year is the Anti-Terrorism Bill. This article from the Freedom of Expression Institute says the bill poses a threat to domestic activism and betrays the political history of the ruling ANC by preventing other international liberation movements from charting a similar course to its own.

A 20-year-old man was arrested in Pretoria on Monday in connection with an alleged racially-motivated attack on a group of black children. A group of seven black boys between the ages of 14 and 16 were allegedly assaulted by a group of whites, police reported.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu delivered inspirational messages about overcoming racism in South Africa and America to two very different audiences during recent speaking engagements. He reminded students that racism not only fueled apartheid - the legal discrimination against nonwhites in South Africa - but also fueled slavery and lynchings in America and the Holocaust in Germany. He told students that skin color doesn't say anything about a person's intelligence, compassion or ability to have fun.

Southern Sudanese civilians have been displaced by recent fighting between warring sides in Sudan, said a US civil protection monitoring team, reports AP. In areas in Western Upper Nile, the team said many thousands of civilians were forcibly displaced by direct military attack despite a cease-fire, adding that the government bore most of the responsibility.

A new campaign was launched on Valentine's Day aiming to persuade consumers in the United States not to buy diamonds mined in African war zones and to urge U.S. lawmakers to quickly pass legislation barring the import of "conflict diamonds."

Issue 16 of Forced Migration Review for January 2003, published by the Refugee Studies Centre in association with the Norwegian Refugee Council/Global IDP Project, is now available online. Entitled African Displacement: Roots, Resources and Resolution, titles of articles include 'Camps and freedoms: long-term refugee situations in Africa', 'Western Sahara and Palestine: shared refugee experiences' and 'IDP protection in Angola: has momentum been lost?'

About 34,000 Liberian returnees and refugees fleeing fighting in neighboring Ivory Coast are said to be facing severe hunger in Maryland County.

President Yoweri Museveni has recommended that Uganda should open up to multiparty politics. Top Movement sources told 93.3 Monitor FM Newsnight programme that the president announced the new direction on Tuesday, 18 February 2003, during a meeting at State House.

It was no surprise to many observers when the US led war on terror turned its spotlight on Somalia during their operation in Afghanistan. But any confrontation between the most industrialized country and a country at the bottom of the human development index would be a catastrophe beyond imagination, says this commentary on the web site of the African Conflict Journal.

As the new Government takes office Amnesty International has called on the newly-elected leaders to commit themselves to respect and uphold the fundamental rights and freedoms of the people, enshrined in domestic law as well as in the international human rights treaties signed and ratified by Kenya.

Communal disturbances in Nigeria displaced 750,000 people in the last two years, Vice President Atiku Abubakar said on Monday. Atiku revealed these figures while declaring open a workshop on the "United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement" in the central city of Jos, organised by the National Commission for Refugees. He said Nigeria has had its own "unenviable share" of displaced people in recent years.

The top United Nations envoy for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has said he would seek Security Council action if a rebel group did not stop blocking peace efforts in the Ituri region, where half a million people have been displaced, women raped and many children enlisted as soldiers.
Related Link:
* Ituri peace accord postponed
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32359