By Kylie M Tsudama

Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

VENTERSDORP, South Africa – Racial tensions mounted on Tuesday in front of the Ventersdorp courthouse where two men accused of killing a white supremacist were scheduled to appear.

Eugene Terreblanche was beaten to death on Saturday night in bed.  A 15-year-old and his 28-year-old coworker are suspected of killing Terreblanche because he hadn’t paid them in months.

Eugene Terreblanche Killed (Source:CNN)

The proceedings will not be made public and the police have not released either suspect’s name because the younger of the two is a minor.

Nearly 2,000 people faced off outside the courthouse located nearly 100 miles west of Pretoria.  The groups, split along racial lines, were there in support, the white group supporting Terreblanche’s family and the black group supporting the suspects’ families.

The situation escalated into a confrontation when a middle-aged white woman sprayed a drink on the group of black people who were singing the Zulu choruses of the country’s national anthem.  Just before the confrontation, a group of white militants sang “a rendition of the apartheid-era anthem” in Afrikaans and “waved old flags signifying white rule.”

Police rushed in and used coils of razor wire to separate the groups.

After the groups were pacified, Pieter Steyn, AWB provincial leader, apologized for the woman’s actions, explaining that AWB condemns violence and pulling away from threats that the militants would “avenge Terreblanche’s death.”

According to Steyn, threats were made “in the heat to the moment.  We have spoken to every one of them and told them to be calm.”

The AWB blames the African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema, saying that his “public performances of an anti-apartheid song that includes lines about killing white farmers” was the cause of Terreblanche’s death.  Malema maintains that the song is “part of its heritage.”

Regional Director of the South African National Civic Organization Bomber Matinyane called Malema’s song the equivalent of the display of old flags, and said both contributed to escalated racial tensions.

Terreblanche was a white supremacist and the founding militant leader of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging movement (AWB), which fought against abolition of apartheid.

He was once convicted of beating Paul Motshabi, a former security guard, so badly that he was left brain damaged, paralyzed, and unable to speak for months.  He was sentenced to six years in jail, but was released after serving three.

Brenda Abrams, a black businesswoman outside the courthouse Tuesday, noted the “big fuss” over Terreblanche’s death.

“But nobody says anything when black farmworkers are killed,” she said.

For more information, please see:

AFP – White Supremacists Rally at S.Africa Court – 06 April 2010

AP – Tensions Rise in SAfrican White Supremacist Case – 06 April 2010

CNN – S. Africa Murder Suspects to Face Court – 06 April 2010

Guardian – Terre’Blanche Murder Suspects to Face Charges as Tensions Rise Outside Court – 06 April 2010

By Kylie M Tsudama

Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

NIAMEY, Niger – Niger is in need of at least $190 million in international assistance in order to meet the food needs of its people.  In a matter of weeks that number has risen more than $65 million.

Poor harvests have left the people of Niger in desperate need of food.  Half of Niger’s population are already vulnerable to food shortages and that number only increases as food shortages increase.  Children and pregnant women are especially vulnerable and more likely to succumb to malnutrition.  Relief officials scrambled to prepare an emergency action plan.

These severe food shortages are also causing children to stop going to school.

“Because of the food insecurity that prevails in our country, cases of mass abandonment have been registered in some schools,” said a government statement.

Abandonments came specifically in the central southern Zinder region.  The government has called this a “very worrying” situation, adding that “the departures are the consequence of the exodus of families” facing this crisis.  The food crisis has had the worst impact on the Zinder region this year.

According to Oxfam International, almost 10 million people can be affected by this crisis.

Today, UN aid agencies and organizations in Niger appealed for $132 million to support West African humanitarian programs.  The total amount of aid needed is $190.7 million.  $57.8 million has already been secured, leaving a shortage of $132.9 million.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released a revised emergency humanitarian action plan that estimates 4.7 million people so far have fallen victim to malnutrition.

Later this month, OCHA will conduct a comprehensive humanitarian survey, which could cause funding requirements to increase depending on the findings.

The humanitarian team in Niger has aligned its priorities with those of the government, prioritizing “food security and nutritional aid, and support in health, water, sanitation, hygiene, and logistics.”

Food shortages also fuel the country’s political instability.  Niger’s military rulers, who staged a coup and took charge in February, understand the risk of famine and are afraid that famine may disrupt future plans for elections.  The military government has appealed for international assistance.

While Lo N’Diaye and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon both acknowledge the importance and necessity of resolving the government’s political crisis, they agree that the food shortage crisis is a top priority.

“The main focus for the UN is to save lives in Niger… this support would go directly to the population and allow them to participate fully in the democratization process,” said Lo N’Diaye.

Executive Director of the UN World Food Program (WFP), Josette Sheeran, called the food crisis a “major humanitarian challenge.”

The WFP has already increased its food aid to more than double.

For more information, please see:

UN News Centre – UN Appeals for More Funds to Assist People Facing Food Crisis in Niger – 05 April 2010

AFP – Famine Closes Schools in Southern Niger – 02 April 2010

ReliefWeb – Niger Emergency Humanitarian Action Plan: Food Crisis – 02 April 2010

VOA – Humanitarian Need in Niger Growing – 31 March 2010

ReliefWeb – Press Conference by Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator on Situation in Niger – 30 March 2010

UN Dispatch – Niger: Can Political Changes Help Alleviate Food Crisis? – 26 March 2010

VOA – People in Niger Heading Toward Capital in Search of Food – 26 March 2010

Oxfam – Failed Rains Put 10 Million People at Risk of a Food Crisis Across West Africa – 17 March 2010

By Kylie M Tsudama

Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

MAPUTO, Mozambique – Seven people suspected of trafficking women from Mozambique to South Africa have been arrested.  They are part of a gang that specializes in trafficking women who are to become prostitutes.

On March 17,the police intercepted a young woman who was being transferred to two supposed buyers and arrested the three Mozambicans who were handing her over.  Four more gang members were arrested later in the day.

The police worked with reporters from Johannesburg, who infiltrated the organization by posing as people interested in buying Mozambican girls to be taken back to South Africa to work in the sex industry.  The Johannesburg media group, Media24, had one team member pose as a nightclub owner interested in purchasing Mozambican girls for his patrons.  He was taken to Maputo to meet four other traffickers in Mozambique, when he secretly recorded their conversations.

Media24 released tape recordings between their team and the traffickers.  The tapes reveal that the gang has been working in Mozambique since at least 2004 trafficking women to South Africa at a rate of thirty to forty women a month.  The trafficking gang is made up of 15 Mozambicans and several Chinese citizens, with the main trafficker being Nando Matsingi of Rosettenville, Johannesburg.

Matsingi claims to have police contacts who make sure transportation goes smoothly.  “Friendly policemen” help him smuggle the women across the South Africa-Mozambique border every week.

“I do this very often,” said Matsingi.  “I took three girls last week.  One was Chinese and the other two were Mozambicans.”

Two other traffickers told Media24 that Mozambican girls were available “at any time” but that the trafficking ring went as far as China and Chinese girls were also being sent to South Africa.  The girls from China come to Maputo on cargo ships before being sold.

The women are sold for about $670 each.

The women are as young as 16-years-old.  They happily pose for pictures when buyers come to see them.  They believe that they are being sent to South Africa to work in hotels and restaurants as waiters.  Instead, when they arrive they are forced to become prostitutes.  If they resist they are raped and beaten into submission.

On March 30, a Maputo judge released the seven traffickers.  A Mozambican police spokesman said he did not know why the judge released them.  However, their release does not mean that the case against them is dropped.  The public prosecutor’s office can still press charges against the men but in order to detain them there must e a serious risk that they will flee the country.

Jurist Abdul Carimo, chair of the South African Network against Trafficking and Abuse of Children (SANTAC), said that Mozambique has laws that deal with human trafficking.

“The law passed in 2008 is in accordance with United Nations conventions against trafficking,” he said.  “It protects whistle-blowers and witnesses.  It guarantees anonymity to whistle-blowers.  It penalizes those who help the traffickers.  It protects the victims and does not depend on them making a complaint first.”

When asked about why the law isn’t being used, Carimo responded, “You’ll have to ask the police that.”

He added, “The general problem in Mozambique is not any lack of laws.  It’s lack of implementation.  It’s not because of any lack of legislation that the police don’t act.”

For more information, please see:

AllAfrica – Judge Releases Traffickers in Women – 30 March 2010

AllAfrica – Network of Human Traffickers Exposed – 26 March 2010

AP – 7 Suspected Human Traffickers Exposed – 26 March 2010

Fox News – 7 Suspected Human Traffickers Exposed – 26 March 2010

By Jennifer M. Haralambides
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

KHARTOUM, Sudan – On the verge of Sudan’s first multi-party election in over twenty years, the opposition Umma party announced that it will boycott the elections if President Omar al-Bashir cannot ensure that they will be “free and fair.”

The Umma party, in conjunction with other opposition parties, gave authorities four days to implement reforms.  If the reforms are implemented, the opposition parties have said they will participate in the elections.  If the reforms fail, the election will be boycotted.

The major impetus for the opposition’s possible boycott stem from allegations of fraud against President al-Bashir.  The opposition is demanding, among other things, the end of “repressive security measures” and a four-week delay in the election, so that a new supervisory body over the election commission may be set up.   Additional demands include “equitable access to state media, public funds for political parties and a commitment to Darfuri representation in the presidency.”

President al-Bashir, who came to power in a coup in 1986 and currently is wanted for alleged war crimes in Darfur, has resolutely refused to extend the date of the elections.

For their part, Sudanese citizens appear to support having the elections, as opposed to the alternative.  One citizen, and English teacher, told AFP reporters that “[w]e don’t know if this boycott is final or not, but we don’t like the idea . . . It’s better to have the elections. With elections comes change, and we need change. Better to have elections than nothing at all.”

The war-torn country has not seen a democratic election since the coup that brought al-Bashir to power some twenty-four years ago.  Since that time 1.5 million Sudanese have died in the religious conflict between the mainly Muslim North and the South, which is populated mainly by those who follow traditional beliefs or are Christian.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Sudan Opposition Party Suggests Election Compromise – 2 April 2010

BBC News – Sudan:-Umma Opposition Party Gives Bashir Ultimatum – 2 April 2010

Independent Online  – Sudanese Not Bothered by Election Boycott – 2 April 2010

Reuters – End Violent South African Protests: Deputy President – 2 April 2010

By Jared Kleinman

Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa Desk

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Hundreds of Somalis took to the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia, protesting against Al-Shabaab militants this Monday.

The protests began a few days after Al-Shabaab fighters, led by their commanders, began a destruction of the graves of revered religious leaders from the Sufi branch of Islam in the capital. This was only the nation’s second public demonstration against Al-Shabaab.
 
The protesters were mostly women and children, along with traditional warriors wearing white clothes, armed with spears and wooden shields.  The protesters chanted anti-Al-Shabaab slogans including ‘death to the monster’ and waving the Somali flag in the mainly government-held areas of Mogadishu. Some of the demonstrators carried posters with slogan such as “Down and defeat to Al-Shabaab,” observers said. They also carried slogans to support the transitional government such as “Support Peace and Government.”

The demonstration was staged in a government-controlled area of the city and was guarded by government forces, according to Yusuf Mohamed, who works for Shabelle Radio in Mogadishu.

“People were really disturbed by the move of Al-Shabaab to destroy the tombs of the revered sheikhs of Ahlu Sunna” said Mohyadin Hassan Afrah, who leads a civil society umbrella group in Mogadishu.

Al-Shabaab follows the strict Saudi Arabian-inspired Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, rather than the Sufi Islam of many Somalis. “We call for a holy war against them,” said Sheikh Abdulkadir Somow, from the Sufi Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama group, which recently signed a deal with the government in neighboring Ethiopia.

Al-Shabaab argues that graves were being worshipped and that it is un-Islamic. Ali Mohamed Husein, the head of al-Shabaab explained to reporters his disapproval of people worshipping the remains of the dead bodies in tombs. “That is why we want to eradicate them, because there is nothing to worship or to ask help from but Allah.”

Al-Shabaab, which is in the list of Washington’s most wanted foreign terrorist group, is fighting the UN-backed government in a bid to overrun the Horn of African nation and subject it to strict version of Sharia Law.

Somalia has not had an affective government since warlords overthrew long time dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

For more information, please see:

Africa News – Hundreds Kick Against Al-Shabaab – 30 March 2010

Garrowe Online – Mogadishu residents protest against Al-Shabaab – 30 Mar 2010

CNN – Hundreds protest against Al-Shabaab in Somalia – 29 March 2010