By Kylie M Tsudama
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

KAMPALA, Uganda – David Matsanga resigned on Friday from his post as chief negotiator for the Lord’s Resistance Army in order to run for President in the country’s 2011 elections.

“I decided to resign as the chief negotiator and leader of the LRA peace delegation,” he said.  “I will return to Uganda to challenge for the presidency in 2011.  I will take my stake for president of the Republic of Uganda as an independent candidate.  I will unseat President (Yoweri) Museveni with a campaign for peace.”

Matsanga was a controversial negotiator for the LRA.  During peace talks in southern Sudan he claimed to have ended the conflict in northern Uganda with a peace agreement.

“I have fulfilled my mandate,” said Matsanga.  “The mandate was to silence the guns in northern Uganda and I have done it.”

However, LRA leader Joseph Kony was promised to Ugandan and United Nations officials for a peace agreement signing but he repeatedly failed to appear.  Ugandan officials lost confidence in Matsanga with the faltering peace process.  According to Paddy Ankunda, a former Ugandan military spokesman who also participated in southern Sudan, Matsanga was a “comedian” who never communicated with Kony.

Negotiation team member Justine Labeja also resigned.  The two cited President Museveni and Kony’s lack of commitment to peace agreements aimed at ending Uganda’s decades-long civil war as the reason for their resignations.  They said they could not “chase” Kony through the Central African Republic for his signature and that the Ugandan government failed to grant a ceasefire that would have allowed Kony to come out and sign the Final Peace Agreement (FPA).

“Museveni says Kony must sign the FPA, but he has refused to grant him a temporary ceasefire.  How does he expect Kony to sign the agreement?,” Matsanga said.

The peace talks lasted from 2006 to 2008 and a final agreement was made.  In April, President Museveni went to Sudan to sign the agreement but chief negotiator Salva Kiir postponed the signing when Kony failed to come.

Kony has previously been indicted by the International Criminal Court on 12 counts of crimes against humanity and 21 counts of war crimes.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Uganda Rebel Negotiator Says to Run for President – 15 August 2009

AllAfrica – Uganda: LRA Team in Peace Talks Resigns – 15 August 2009

VOA – Chief Negotiator for Ugandan Rebel Leader Quits – 15 August 2009

By Jennifer M. Haralambides
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

NIAMEY, Niger – Niger rights activist, Marou Amadou, has been arrested twice in one week.  Some suspect the new claims have been falsified in order to silence his protest.

Amadou has been placed in police custody and will faces new charges after having been jailed and then released on Tuesday.   He was originally arrested for calling for a protest against President Mamadou Tandja’s extension of his hold on power in a controversial referendum on extending presidential term limits.

Reports from Niamey say that while Amadou was preparing to leave the Niamey prison he was picked up by armed men in pick-up trucks.  He was subsequently faced with new charges claiming that created an illegal association.  This comes of course after he was released from custody on Tuesday for breaching state security, only to be released a day later.

Fellow activist say that when they saw Amadou through the prison gates he looked to have sustained injuries.

Justice Minister, Lompo Garba, reassured sources by saying that the government in Niamey was “at work, conducting investigations on the allegations of torture against Marou Amandou.”

Amadou’s activist group is called the United Front for the Protection of Democracy (FUSAD).  The group is allied to opposition parties that have been campaigning against a new constitution that extends Mr. Tandja’s term by three years.  The new constitution was approved earlier this month in a referendum that allows the president to run in subsequent elections, potentially giving him the opportunity to stay in power for life.

The European Union and France have both criticized this referendum and called on Niger to restore a more democratic framework.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Niger Rights Activist Faces New Charges After Release – 12 August 2009

BBC – Niger Vows Inquiry into “Beating” – 12 August 2009

VOA – Niger Opposition Vows to Continue Challenging President Tandja – 12 August 2009

By Kylie M Tsudama
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

KINSHASA, DR Congo – Gregoire Ndahimana, the man accused of planning a massacre that killed at least 2,000 Rwandan Tutsis during the 1994 genocide, was arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said a government official.

(Source:About.com)

He has been hiding for 15 years.

Congolese Information Minister Lambert Mende said, “He was discovered by our units operating in North Kivu … He was hiding among the FDLR.”

Ndahimana was not arrested while fighting, however, but was caught by surprise during a civilian operation.  A UN-backed operation to stamp out Hutu rebel group FDLR (the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) led Congolese soldiers into North Kivu on Sunday when they discovered him.

“He was captured while he was coming to look for some food within the local population,” said national army spokesman Olivier Hamuli.

During the 1994 genocide Ndahimana was a local administrator in the Rwandan town of Kivumu.  He was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for the bulldozing of a local church where at least 2,000 Tutsis were being held.

The ICTR, based in Arusha, Tanzania, sought Ndahimana’s arrest for genocide or complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, and crimes against humanity for extermination.  According to Mende, “(Ndahimana) is now in the hands of the military’s operational authorities awaiting his transfer to Arusha.”

Rwandan and Congolese officials call this one of the “largest achievements in military operations against the Hutu rebels to date.”

“He’s one of the big ones,” said Rwanda’s justice minister Tharcisse Karugarama, adding that the arrest was the first of its kind in recent time. “But others are still out there.”

Twelve other ICTR indictees remain at large.  The UN Security Council has given the court until the end of 2010 to complete its prosecutions, an extension from the original completion date of 2008.

For more information, please see:

BBC – Genocide Suspect Found in Congo – 12 August 2009

Daily Nation – Top Rwanda Genocide Suspect Captured in Congo – 12 August 2009

NY Times – Congo Arrests Rwandan Genocide Suspect – 12 August 2009

Reuters – Congo Arrests Rwandan Genocide Suspect – 12 August 2009

By Kylie M Tsudama
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

BANGUI, Central African Republic – According to the UN Children’s Fund, 700,000 Central African Republic children under the age of five are suffering from severe malnutrition.

“In both the conflict-affected north and the more stable south, almost 700,000 children under five are living below acceptable standards, and now many are moving toward the outer edge of survival.  The situation of children in the south is of particular concern due to the rapidly deteriorating nutritional status in tandem with an increasingly bleak funding outlook,” said UNICEF’s acting representative in CAR Jeremy Hopkins.

Three provinces – Mambere Kadei, Sangha Mbaere, and Lobaye – were preliminarily assessed.  An estimated 16,710 children there are at risk.  The assessment found that 16 percent of children under five are acutely malnourished and 6.6 percent are severely acutely malnourished.

This comes on top of already high rates of malnutrition where more than one in ten children aged between 6 and 59 months suffers from global acute malnutrition and 2.3 percent suffer from severe acute malnutrition.  These alarming rates are attributed to devastating poverty, the ongoing conflict and lack of security, and the loss of income due to the decline in diamond mining affected by the global economic downturn.

According to UNICEF, this is “far above the emergency thresholds of two per cent for severe acute malnutrition.”  The risk of death is nine times higher for severely malnourished children.

UNICEF has appealed to donors for $1.5 million.  The agency would like to use the funding for lifesaving supplies, food, and drugs.  In addition, UNICEF wants to conduct a national nutritional survey and use some of the money to train community health workers in early detection for compromised nutritional status.

“These children’s lives, their ability to learn, to earn, and to lead productive lives is being stunted by this tragic crisis,” said Hopkins. “These children could be leading normal lives. We must try harder to fulfill their rights.”

For more information, please see:

AFP – 700,000 Children Malnourished in Central African Republic: UN – 11 August 2009

UNICEF – Malnutrition Among Children in Southern CAR Alarming – 11 August 2009

UN News Centre – UN Seeks $1.5 Million to Tackle Rising Malnutrition Among Central African Children – 11 August 2009

VOA – Children Acutely Malnourished in Central African Republic – 11 August 2009

By Kylie M Tsudama
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – During trial proceedings on August 4, Charles Taylor denied the existence of any secret bank accounts.  He is accused of hiding large sums of money in secret bank accounts around the world.  The money is said to have been gained through illicit diamond trading with Sierra Leonean rebels from the RUF (Revolutionary United Front).

“I challenge the prosecutor to bring any evidence of a bank account that I have — they know it’s a lie but they keep repeating it.  I ask anyone on this planet, if you know of any account that I opened or if you know anyone who was acting in my interest, you are obliged to come forward and say it,” said Taylor.  Adding, “What bank account has the UN found out for me?  Nobody ever brings factual evidence but it is repeated, repeated and repeated, and you can never put things straight.”

The prosecutor is and has been working with the UN Sanctions Committee to discover and recover any moneys and assets that might be hidden.  Taylor maintains that they will not find any and evidence proving his innocence might take a while to emerge.

“I may be dead and gone before somebody will say Taylor did not have any money or assets all over the world,” he said.

Taylor also denied allegations that he aided RUF in attacking diamond fields.  When questioned by lead defense counsel Courtenay Griffiths about what he had to gain from helping the rebels, he said, “absolutely nothing. The allegation is false. I had everything to lose in the process if anything like that happened.”

The former Liberian President also called on the United States and Britain to declassify and release radio intercepts.  He says that these recordings could clear him of the crimes charges and that the US has the power to “unravel this case.”

Charles Taylor is facing 11 counts of murder, rape, sexual enslavement, torture and recruiting child soldiers and of aiding Sierra Leonean rebels during the civil war that lasted from 1991-2002.

For more information, please see:

CharlesTaylorTrial.org – Taylor Tells Court He Has No Secret Bank Accounts; Says He Did Not Give Orders to RUF Commander Sam Bockarie – 08 August 2009

AP – Ex-Liberian Chief Pushes Back at US Government – 07 August 2009

AP – Ex-Liberian Prez Wants to Hear US Radio Intercepts – 06 August 2009

CharlesTaylorTrial.org – Taylor Dismisses Allegations of His Hidden Wealth as Lies – 04 August 2009