Human Rights & Democracy Building

Arms ship heads for Congo

The Times 8/5/2008
The cargo of Chinese arms destined for Zimbabwe is now heading for Congo Brazzaville, according the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union, where the union believes a further attempt will be made to unload the weapons ... The Durban-based inspectorate of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), which has been monitoring the cargo ship Au Yue Jiang, is itself flying to Brazzaville to make sure that the weapons are not off-loaded there. A Satawu statement issued today said that the union could confirm that the ship docked in the port of Lobito in Angola and off-loaded building materials only ... Satawu said it condemned the Chinese government and the ship owners China Ocean Shipping Company (Cosco) for creating a false impression around the world that they had recalled the vessel. "This so-called recall was clearly only intended to deceive and remove the massive groundswell of political pressure ... "Both the Chinese government and Cosco have regrettably demonstrated that profiteering remains the overriding consideration over human solidarity and saving lives ... Satawu again called on all African governments and dock workers to refuse the vessel docking access and to refuse to handle the weapons with a view to ensuring that the vessel leaves African shores immediately ...

LILONGWE (Reuters) - Malawi's parliament has been suspended while the government and opposition hold talks to avert a political crisis that threatens to derail international donor programmes, senior officials said on Friday. "Parliament has not met for three days now because of the talks and I have been asked to adjourn until next week," parliament speaker Louis Chimango told Reuters ... Chimango has come under pressure to resign for not expelling more than 70 MPs who defected to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The United Democratic Front (UDF) and Malawi Congress Party (MCP), which together form a majority in parliament, want to remove the defecting DPP lawmakers under a constitutional provision that bans parliamentarians from switching parties. Chimango's refusal to remove the MPs for three years has led to political uncertainty. The latest dispute may delay debate of the 2008/2009 budget ... The UDF representative at the talks, George Ntafu, said that unless the government agreed to implement the provision banning party defections, the talks would fail. If the ban takes effect, the opposition would have the two-thirds majority needed to impeach wa Mutharika, but opposition leaders say they do not plan to seek his removal ...

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Armed groups in Congo's violence-torn east have ignored pledges made this year to stop recruiting children to fight and to free minors already in their ranks, the United Nations said on Wednesday. Dozens of rebel movements and local militias signed up to a January 23 peace accord with Congo's government meant to end a lingering decade-old conflict in North and South Kivu provinces. However, daily ceasefire violations have rocked the plan and U.N. officials say armed groups have flouted their obligations to respect human rights and stop using child soldiers. "This solemn engagement, which demanded nothing more than good will on the part of the leaders of these armed groups, is still far from being a reality," Kemal Saiki, spokesman for Congo's U.N. peacekeeping mission, MONUC, told journalists. UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency, said it had reports of continuing recruitment by local Mai Mai militia, Tutsi insurgents, and Rwandan Hutu rebels in North Kivu. "We believe recruiting is still taking place, without question," Jaya Murthy, UNICEF's spokesman for the eastern part of Democratic Republic of Congo, told Reuters ... the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced it was seeking the arrest of Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda for conscripting children during a bloody ethnic conflict in the district of Ituri to the north of the Kivus. Ntaganda is now the military chief of renegade General Laurent Nkunda's North Kivu-based Tutsi rebellion ... At least 43 people were killed in fighting between Nkunda loyalists and the PARECO Mai Mai faction between April 20 and 28 in three villages around 100 km (64 miles) northwest of North Kivu's provincial capital Goma, MONUC said on Wednesday. At least 16,000 villagers fled those and other clashes in the province over the same period. North and South Kivu are still charged with racial tensions rooted in Rwanda's 1994 genocide ... the U.N. estimates around 75,000 refugees have fled violence since the deal was signed ...

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party and the opposition MDC have contested half the results of the March 29 parliamentary election, state media said on Wednesday, extending a stalemate that has triggered widespread violence. Official results showed ZANU-PF lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since independence in 1980, while the Movement for Democratic Change and a breakaway faction together secured enough seats to control the assembly ... The challenge will have no effect on the result of a parallel presidential ballot, however, which showed MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai won 47.9 percent against President Robert Mugabe's 43.2 percent, triggering a run-off since neither candidate won an absolute majority. The MDC has not said whether it will participate in the run-off. It believes Tsvangirai won the election outright ... The state-run Herald newspaper said ZANU-PF and the MDC had lodged 53 and 52 petitions respectively with the electoral court, citing irregularities they believed had affected the results. The challenges come after a recount of original results in 23 constituencies confirmed ZANU-PF's defeat ... independent Zimbabwean election monitoring group ZESN expressed doubt about the credibility of the results of the presidential election and accused ZANU-PF of attacking observers ... U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday he was talking to African states about how the world body could help make a run-off credible and expressed concern about the violence ...