In the News Page 8 April - May, 2001

Articles are in chronological order. Click on the link for the full article, as most are not quoted in full.

WHY ROAD ACCIDENTS HAPPEN (BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1260000/1260165.stm
This is a more general article from the BBC on road
fatalities in Africa.

Sierra Leone and diamond conflict

Thanks to those who have sent info./ ideas for the Amnesty International group. One of the students recently found some interesting websites about the war and diamond conflict in Sierra Leone. For those interested in learning more about the history of the conflict and perhaps becoming
active in Amnesty (or other groups that oppose the sale of diamonds from the Sierra Leone/ Liberia region), check out the following:

www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/2000/06/02sierraleone
www.hrw.org/campaigns/sierra/index.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1301000/1301506.stm

Saturday, 28 April, 2001, 07:06 GMT 08:06 UK

Diallo officers escape punishment

Diallo's death strained relations with the black
community

Police in New York have said four officers will not be
punished for shooting dead an unarmed West African
immigrant in 1999, an incident which sparked
protests among the city's black population.
The four policemen were acquitted last year of
criminal charges in connection with the death of
Amadou Diallo, who was hit 19 times. They said they
had mistaken the wallet he had taken from his pocket
for a gun.

McMellon and Boss: Free to resume their careers

The New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik said
the officers would not be allowed to carry their guns
or badges until it was decided they were fit for
regular duties. "This decision does not minimise in
any way my sympathy for the Diallo family... the death
of their son... was in all respects a terrible,
terrible
tragedy," said Mr Kerik. The shooting on 4 February
1999, severely strained relations between the
police and the city's black community and sparked wild
protests and allegations of endemic police brutality.

Reaching for wallet

The officers stopped and shot Diallo in front of his
apartment building when the 22-year-old African
reached his breast pocket for what they thought was a
gun. Diallo, who was in fact unarmed. Mr Kerik
accepted the recommendations of two police
investigative
panels, concluding that the officers acted within
departmental guidelines. The panels said the officers
believed their lives were in danger because they
thought Diallo had a gun.

Civil lawsuit

Although cleared of criminal charges the four officers
- Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon, and
Richard Murphy - still face an $81m civil lawsuit
brought by the victim's family.

Amadou Diallo: unarmed

Mr Kerik's decision means the officers are free to
resume their police careers. Boss and Carroll have
said they wish to remain on the force, while McMellon
and Murphy have applied to the Fire Department.
Anthony Gair, attorney for the victim's mother
Kadiatou Diallo, declined comment on the decision
until he could study it."We need a chance to digest
this," he said.
Mother seeks justice On Thursday, Mrs Diallo said she
was not surprised the officers would not be
disciplined. "It's been over two years since I came to
America. The only thing that I can claim still is
justice," she said. "Unfortunately, it is not
happening, and I don't understand why."
Attorneys for the officers said their clients were
relieved this process was over. "It's been a long
road, and the officers are pleased that the department
has vindicated their actions," said Stephen Worth,
McMellon's attorney.

UNHCR, May 8

FIRST UNHCR RELOCATION CONVOY DEPARTS IN GUINEA

Twenty-five UNHCR trucks left the Guinean town of Kissidougou early
today to begin the evacuation of thousands of Sierra Leonean
refugees from the isolated Parrot’s Beak region in the southeast of
the country. The evacuation was scheduled to begin in Kolomba, at
the furthest tip of the Parrot’s Beak. Up to 30,000 refugees are
gathered around Kolomba.

As many as 1,000 refugees are expected to be taken in the first
convoy today from Kolomba to Katkama camp, a 120-km journey.
Nearly one-third of the eight-hour journey will be on unpaved roads.
Katkama is north of the southern town of Gueckedou and on the
fringes of the Parrot’s Beak region, a thumb of Guinean territory
jutting into Sierra Leone. The area has been largely cut off from
humanitarian aid since last September because of fighting in the
region. UNHCR and Guinean authorities want to move the refugees
inland to safer and more accessible camps.

Those relocating will be given dry rations for the trip to Katkama,
which is being used as a transit camp where they will spend two to
three nights before transferring further north to new sites in Dabola
and Albadaria Prefectures. The new sites are some 200 kms from the
volatile border area.

As of Tuesday evening, UNHCR staff in Kolomba had registered 600
refugees who had volunteered to relocate. Some refugees in Kolomba
are, however, still reluctant to move, saying they prefer to wait a little
longer in hopes the security situation will improve so they can return
home. Some have been refugees in the region for a decade and their
original homes are close to the border. UNHCR has explained that it
cannot provide regular assistance to the volatile border area and can
only assure aid in the new sites. It is hoped that the start of the
relocation convoys today will help buildrefugees’ confidence in
relocation as the best immediate option. UNHCR is continuing an
information campaign in Kolomba and other camps to inform refugees
of the evacuation plan and the reasons for it.

The relocation movement had been expected to start on Monday but
was postponed because of last-minute concerns among refugees
over plans to have most of them walk to Katkama because of a lack
of vehicles. Under the initial plan, only vulnerable refugees would be
trucked to Katkama while the able-bodied would have to walk,
assisted by aid stations along the way. Because of refugee
opposition to walking, UNHCR is now trying to obtain more trucks so
all refugees can be given transport.

The duration of the relocation operation, initially scheduled for
completion by the end of May, will now depend on the provision of
additional trucks. UNHCR has already devoted a fleet of 50 vehicles
to the evacuation. Twenty-five trucks are to be used daily to transport
refugees from Kolomba to Katkama, while the other 25 trucks will
continue the relocation from the transit site at Katkama to the new
camps further north.

GUINEAN JOURNALIST IMPRISONED AND FINED FOR
"DEFAMATION"
http://allafrica.com/stories/200105140735.html

Publication Director Sentenced for Defamation,
Journalist Released

Rapid Action Network
PRESS RELEASE
May 14, 2001
Posted to the web May 14, 2001

Conakry

The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN is gravely
concerned by the second imprisonment of a journalist in Guinea this year.
Tibou Camara, the publication director of the weekly L'Observateur, was
sentenced on 24 April 2001 to six months in prison and ordered to pay a
fine of one million CFA francs (approx. US$536) for "defamation". He was
subsequently arrested on 8 May 2001 near his newspaper's offices in
Conakry and taken to the city' s central prison to start his prison term.

Camara has stated that he was beaten by the police as they arrested him,
a claim confirmed by several of his colleagues who witnessed his arrest.
The trial came as a result of a complaint filed by the secretary-general of
the Ministryof Tourism, Malick Sankhon, who took exception to an article
which accused him of planning to kidnap Camara. Five L'Observateur
journalists were also sentenced at Conakry's High Court in the same case,
putting them all in danger of imminent arrest.

Meanwhile, the publisher of Le Nouvel Observateur, Aboubacar Sakho,
who was sentenced on 14 February 2001 to ten months' imprisonment,
and fined a total of six million CFA francs (approx. US$3216) is reported to
have been released after serving one month of his sentence.

International Pen considers the charges against Tibou Camara to be a
violation of his right to free expression, as guaranteed by Article 19 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Guinea is a
signatory, and calls for his immediate and unconditional release and for the
overturning of the verdicts given against the five L'Observateur journalists.

Please send appeals: - welcoming the release of Aboubacar Sakho -
calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Tibou Camara and
for the verdicts handed down to the five L'Observateur journalists to be
quashed - urging the government of Guinea to review the country's libel
laws

Political Ban on Freed Guinean Opposition Leader
(Reuters)
Guinean opposition leader Alpha Conde, who was freed
from prison on Friday on the orders of President
Lansana Conte, cannot engage in political activity
because of his criminal record, Guinea's attorney
general said.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-05-14-corps-usat.htm

05/13/2001 - Updated 08:25 PM ET

Peace Corps security in question

By Elliot Blair Smith, USA TODAY

MEXICO CITY — After meeting with his Peace Corps
supervisor, Walter J. Poirier walked out of La Paz's
ramshackle City Hall on the afternoon of Feb. 22 onto
the Bolivian capital's colonial plaza. He hasn't been
seen since.

The disappearance of the 23-year-old Notre Dame
graduate brings into focus the dangers the USA's 7,300
Peace Corps volunteers sometimes face as they engage
in development work in 77 countries around the world.

In the agency's 40-year history, 20 volunteers have
been murdered. But over the past six years, six Peace
Corps volunteers have been murdered in places such as
Africa and the Philippines. Now, Poirier is missing
and feared dead. Some Peace Corps volunteers and their
families also complain of a high rate of unpublicized
criminal assaults, particularly sexual assaults. The
families of some victims, and some former volunteers
who were the victims' friends, say Peace Corps
security and supervision measures are inadequate.

Since it was formed in 1961 by President Kennedy to
relieve poverty in the Third World, the Peace Corps
has posted 169,000 volunteers abroad.

They are sent to developing areas to teach English,
build schools and infrastructure and improve health
and nutrition. Too often, critics say, this
enthusiastic corps of recent college graduates and
retirees is exposed to conflict, natural disaster and
crime.

Peace Corps spokeswoman Ellen Field says, "There is no
correlation between any of the crimes nor is there an
explanation for the increases" in violence in recent
years.

Field notes that Congress allocated $8.3 million to
the 1999 budget to improve safety and security at the
developmental agency's posts.

But in testimony to Congress on March 15, Peace Corps
Inspector General Charles Smith identified continuing
flaws in the security efforts, including housing in
dangerous areas and cases of inadequate supervision.
Smith said the agency failed even to distinguish
between medical and security concerns until 1998, when
the corps created the Office for Volunteer Safety and
Overseas Security.

Volunteers and their families wonder whether better
security measures might have averted several tragedies
in the field. They offer these examples:

Nancy Coutu, 29, of Nashua, N.H., was raped and
murdered before dawn on April 9, 1996, while bicycling
to a Peace Corps meeting on a rural road in
Madagascar.
Coutu's mother, Constance Coutu of Kissimmee, Fla.,
says her daughter should not have been stationed alone
in the remote Madagascar countryside and should not
have been required to commute in pre-dawn hours to
attend Peace Corps functions. "If there had been two
(volunteers living together), there would be two of
them going to the meeting," the mother says.

Kevin Leveille, 26, of Ventura, Calif., was beaten to
death at his home in Tanda, Ivory Coast, in February
1998, allegedly after having reported house robberies
on three occasions to local police and to his Peace
Corps supervisor.
Karen Phillips, 37, of Philadelphia was raped and
stabbed to death while walking to her home in Oyem,
Gabon, late one night in December 1998, after
attending a Peace Corps mixer for new volunteers and
then stopping at a bar with friends.
Brian Krow, 27, of Fremont, Calif., died after falling
from a bridge in Cherkasy, Ukraine, in July 1999.
Krow's death was reported as a suicide and later was
ruled an accident by police. Family members suspect
foul play.
Peace Corps spokeswoman Field says volunteers have
three months of intensive training in the country of
service that focuses on cultural issues and exercising
judgment.

Field notes that female volunteers are counseled to
travel in pairs. She says Krow's death was ruled an
accident.

Brant Silvers, a former Peace Corps volunteer
stationed in Africa, says, however, that the Corps is
not as forthcoming as it should be about security
matters. Silvers says an "outrageous" number of sexual
assaults were reported by about 100 Peace Corps
volunteers stationed in the Ivory Coast during his
two-year tenure.

The Peace Corps confirms volunteers reported seven
sexual assaults, including at least two rapes, in the
Ivory Coast from 1997 to 1999, and says four rapes
were reported there from 1993 to 1999.

"I think security matters could have been dealt with
in a more open way," Silvers says. "There was an
informal grapevine of volunteer information. We found
out a lot of things that were happening in the country
that weren't told to us by the administration and felt
a responsibility to tell each other from a safety
aspect."

In the case of Poirier's disappearance, his mother,
Sheila Poirier, of Lowell, Mass., says Peace Corps
officials failed to report her son was missing for two
weeks.

Poirier adds: "When we put out the alarm, the Peace
Corps didn't even know where he was living. Their
protocols and policies are totally lacking."

The Peace Corps is offering a $10,000 reward for
information on the missing volunteer, who was
stationed in the rugged Zongo Valley near La Paz. The
FBI recently sent six agents to Bolivia to search for
him. They returned with no information about his
whereabouts.

UNCHR FINISHES WORK IN PARROT'S BEAK (BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1357000/1357807.stm

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR,says it has completed its work in the Parrot's
Beak area of southern Guinea.

The agency said that it has transferred more than 50,000 Sierra Leonean and Liberian
refugees caught up in the border fighting tosafer areas in Guinea's interior.

The UNHCR said that a small number of people preferred to stay in the area waiting for a
chance to go back to their country.

The fighting betweenforces in Guinea, SierraLeone and Liberia threatened to createone of the world'sworst humanitarian crises earlier this year.

The UNHCR has been trying to sort out the refugee problem on
Guinea's southern border since last September when attacks began.

Continued fighting hindered the agency's progress and at times it was forced to suspend
aid supplies.

The UNHCR is now terminating its assistance programmes in the Parrot's Beak region.

The fighting in southern Guinea is mainly between the government army and rebels
made up of local forces and mercenaries recruited in neighbouring countries.

Some of the clashes have been over military targets but others have been raids for food or
moves to protect the diamond mines in the region.

OPINION PIECE ON THE POLITICAL INTRIGUES IN THE
SUBREGION (The Perspective)

The Perspective (Smyrna, Georgia)
EDITORIAL
May 23, 2001
Posted to the web May 23, 2001

Abdoulaye Dukule

The burden of bringing peace in the West African sub-region rests on
nobody's shoulders than that of our President, Charles G. Taylor. The war
that is going on now in Sierra Leone, Liberia and in Guinea could have
been averted had Taylor kept his promise to his colleagues of the Mano
River Union, Presidents Kabbah and Conteh. To understand this situation,
one needs to go back in time and take a look at the relationship between
Conteh and Taylor.... http://allafrica.com/stories/200105230124.html

A Mother and Child Reunion
Africa's wars have ripped thousands of children from
their homes. TIME's Nadya Labi finds hope in one mother's tale
By Nadya Labi, May 14   http://www.time.com/time/2001/refugees/

It is a custom in some parts of West Africa to plant a seed when a child is
born. The seed is buried deep in the ground along with the umbilical cord.
It takes root, slowly growing into the sturdiness of a coconut or a mango
or a kola-nut tree. The tree is the certificate that proves this child existed
in this village. It is stability in a region that has been rent by war for more
than a decade. In its shade, no fighting, no hurt should come.

In Coyah, a town in Guinea blessed with springs of the
purest water, Ibrahim and Marie ignored the tradition. Not defiantly but
without thought, because Aisha was their first child
and they were distracted by worries. No one was buying the beds Ibrahim
built, and refugees from Liberia and Sierra Leone were spilling into the
country, carrying with them tales of brutality.

Life seemed full of grace nine years ago, when Ibrahim caught sight of a
slim schoolgirl at the local Muslim academy. Marie carried herself with
such ease that Ibrahim, 22 years eager, proposed on the spot. She
demurred at first, but later, over her guardian uncle's opposition, she
married him.

Marie began to grow full at the waist two years later. Secretly she hoped
for a girl. The bellyache came and passed — the labor lasted not even an
hour — and she called the baby Aisha. Aisha was a lively child with huge
brown eyes and a flashing smile. She ate whatever Marie prepared,
whether it was a stew of pounded cassava leaves or a soup of ground
peanuts; but like all children, she loved sweets — and would charm her
mother into buying her cakes at the market. She slept in the same bed
with her mother, always staying close. And when her little sister came
along, she nicknamed her Bobo.

When Aisha was five, Marie left her daughter in the care of her husband's
aunt while she visited nearby Conakry for a few days. While she was
away a woman named Fatim appeared in the village. She told everyone
that she was Marie's sister and settled in. Then, the day Marie was to
return, Fatim roused Aisha, promising the child goodies if she came
along quietly. When the neighbors asked Aisha where she was going,
she responded lightly, "I'm going to get some fried doughnuts."

Aisha didn't return. It was the kind of disappearance that is all too
common in this part of West Africa, where war and chaos are as routine
as the peace of an American suburb. Children disappear, sometimes
kidnapped like Aisha by traders who sell them into slavery, sometimes
split accidentally from their parents at refugee camps or nabbed by
passing soldiers to join the fight. Thousands of children have been
separated from their families by the civil war that started in Liberia in
1989, spread to Sierra Leone in 1991 and has now infected Guinea.
Children with no parents and no protection roam the streets of Conakry.

The situation is worsening. Guinea became the battlefield last fall as
rebels from all three countries attacked and burned the refugee camps
that line the country's southern borders. Everyone ran whichever way
seemed away from the sounds of gunfire: south to Liberia, north to
Guinea's interior and south to Sierra Leone. The 460,000 refugees,
added to tens of thousands of newly displaced natives, amounted to a
crisis.

The refugees in Parrot's Beak, a region in southeastern Guinea that
borders Sierra Leone, inhabit a lush tropical splendor that belies
encroaching danger. The Revolutionary United Front, the rebels in Sierra
Leone who mutilate civilians to instill fear — double arm amputations are
a favored tactic — may be approaching if U.N. troops push them to the
north. Humanitarian agencies hope to transfer the refugees by truckloads
to Guinea's interior — an ambitious plan that is sure to tear apart more
families. "You cannot avoid separation," says Alfonse Munyanza, who
works for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. "You can minimize
it, but there is no exodus that is done with people smiling." There are
things that can be done by donors in other countries to help stitch these
families back together. But for now, West Africa is filled with parents and
children searching desperately for one another.

When the bad woman came for Aisha, she didn't understand what had
happened. One day there was food and Bobo and Mamma, braiding her
hair, washing her, cuddling her. And then nothing except angry shouts in a
strange tongue and hard hands. Hands that landed on her backside and
her face, hitting her if she cried or walked too slowly or asked for food or
just because. She walked with the woman, who talked about doughnuts
that never appeared. She walked and walked until she ended up in a
strange place where no one spoke Susu. She spent her days cleaning
and helping with domestic tasks. The time passed.

Then they started walking again. The woman took her to a store with big
bales of dried fish and posters of a big man in a yellow robe, the
President. They went to sleep and woke to an angry man shouting. He
didn't want them dozing on his fish. The angry man took them to another
place. Then the bad woman left.

Aisha tried to keep quiet so the bad woman wouldn't come back. She
stayed with the angry man and his wife and children. She began to feel
very bad and hot all over. She didn't eat. She didn't play. She just kept
very quiet in the corner.

A child without an identity cannot be found. In the refugee camps and the
streets of Guinea there is no tree that locates a child and acts as an
address. It is for humans to find the roots of a lost child.

After Aisha's disappearance, Marie refused to eat for a week. Ibrahim
went to all the mosques in the area, offering sacrifices for his daughter's
return. He gave 5,000 kola nuts and 5,000 Guinean francs to each
mosque that he visited. He asked all the local radio stations to publicize
Aisha's disappearance. After six months and six mosques, he ran out of
money and hope. Marie, for her part, believed her daughter had died.

The International Rescue Committee specializes in this kind of detective
work from the other end of the equation — starting with the child. Since
1999 it has identified more than 1,600 separated children in Guinea.
"The family is the best guarantor for the protection of these children,"
says Jacqueline Botte, the country program director for child tracing. If no
biological relatives can be found, the IRC places the children with foster
families or, as a last resort, at a transit center. But blood and memory
exert a special pull. Kids separated from their families for as long as 10
years want to go home — home to the community of their earliest
remembrance.

The journey back usually begins at a mosque or a church or a camp,
when the names of children — and whatever scraps of information can be
ascertained — are read over a loudspeaker. At an outdoor mosque in
Conakry on a recent Friday, an IRC worker, Sheku Conteh, intoned the
names of some 30 children. A lizard scurried up a tree whose base was
ringed with well-worn plastic sandals and sneakers, while a woman
performed her ablutions with a kettle. The men stood barefoot on a
makeshift dais; women wearing scarves on their heads sat on the ground
behind them; all listened intently. "If you don't know anything, it's O.K.,"
Conteh blared out. "But if you know something, anything, about this child,
this is a big, big blessing."

The blessing of a reunion begins with the business of tiny scraps. A man
faintly recalls the name of a child and thinks he might know the family. A
woman remembers seeing a child with bright eyes heading off with that
woman who sold cassava leaves. And with this small scrap, the IRC
teams begin to try to undo a heartbreak. The work is painstaking, as it
takes days and perhaps weeks to check out every lead.

By the time Esther Touré, an IRC worker, collected Aisha in Kissidougou,
in southeastern Guinea, the child was running a fever from malaria. She
barely spoke except at night, when she would cry out in her nightmares
and wet her bed. She had been found only because the storekeeper with
whom she had been abandoned called the local police. Amid the tidal
wave of refugees moving from place to place, Aisha had been parked for
a crucial moment in the vicinity of someone who cared enough to help
her. Esther took Aisha back to Gueckedou, about an hour's drive south,
where she and her family spoke Susu. She gave Aisha peppermints to
gain her trust. Finally, one day Esther asked, "Who is your mother?" and
Aisha responded, "My mother is Marie."

The word went out. On the radio stations in Kindia, Forecariah and
Coyah, every place in Guinea where Susu is spoken, the announcement
was made that a young girl named Aisha whose mother was Marie had
been found. Ibrahim's brother Mamadouba heard the news. He went to
the station to look at the accompanying picture of the girl. It was Aisha.

The family sent Mamadouba, the most educated of them all, to
Gueckedou with a family picture of Aisha, her birth certificate and Marie's
identification card. As he approached Esther's house, Mamadouba saw
Aisha eating at the table and shouted her name. She continued eating.
He showed Esther the papers, but she was wary. Why didn't the girl
respond? She refused to let him take Aisha. He wept in disappointment.

Marie and Ibrahim were desperate. They pressed the IRC for Aisha's
return. Esther decided to bring Aisha to Coyah to find out if Aisha's
mother had truly been located.

This time there could be no mistake. As the IRC jeep approached the
yard, Marie flew to meet it. She rushed for her daughter with no thought of
the metal tonnage heading toward her. She raced to the vehicle as it
braked to a halt and slammed into the door. So as not to be knocked
over, Esther took Aisha out the other side.

Aisha began to run. She met Marie's waiting arms and cried, "Oh,
N'Gah." Oh, my mother.

Weeping, Marie responded, "Woh, M'Deeh." Oh, my daughter.