Some more catching up

Some updates on a couple of places I've been neglecting of late.

- The situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo has turned threatening again.

It started with the brutal massacre of more than 150 Congolese Tutsi refugees in Burundi, fracturing a period of relative quiet. On Thursday, the BBC said

[o]n Wednesday, a meeting of eight regional leaders declared the Burundi Hutu rebel National Liberation Forces (FNL) a "terrorist group" after it admitted responsibility for the massacre.

However, both Rwanda and Burundi say a coalition of anti-Tutsi groups from all three countries [DR Congo being the third] was involved.

The refugees - many of them women, children and babies - were shot or hacked to death with machetes.

In the wake of the massacre, Rwanda and Burundi said they could send troops into DR Congo, the Beeb said on Wednesday.

Both Rwandan and Burundian troops fought in DR Congo's five-year war, which officially ended in 2002, after the death of some three million people.

DR Congo-based Hutu rebels are still fighting Tutsi-dominated armies in both Burundi and Rwanda. ...

Rwanda and Burundi say that armed groups based in DR Congo took part in the massacre, even though the FNL has admitted responsibility.

The presidents of DR Congo and Burundi are holding bilateral talks in an attempt to reduce tensions - but even if they do, a renewed threat has come from another old source.

A Democratic Republic of Congo rebel leader has threatened to resume hostilities if the government does not do more to protect ethnic Tutsis. ...

He told the BBC that the massacre was a "planned genocide" of Congolese Tutsis called the Banyamulenge.

"We cannot wait to be exterminated," he said, speaking from his base near Goma, north of Bukavu.

"We are going to solve it by means of a gun unless the government acts now. We are tired of waiting."

The cycle of revenge and counter-revenge only increases the difficulties facing African leaders as they try to broker a peace deal to end 11 years of strife in Burundi that have seen the deaths of 300,000 people. Tutsis have been the dominant force in Burundi, controlling the government and the army, despite making up only 15% of the population. A proposed deal would guarantee them 40% of the seats in the parliament - but many resist giving up control to the majority, fearing reprisals. I can't imagine that these latest developments will do anything to assuage those fears.

- A trial in Haiti has raised questions about the nature of the new regime installed in the wake of the fall of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Another BBC report, this one from Wednesday:

The former paramilitary leader Louis-Jodel Chamblain has been acquitted of murder at a retrial in Haiti.

Mr Chamblain and his co-defendant, a former police chief Jackson Joanis, were found not guilty by a 12-member jury in a trial that ran from late Monday until early on Tuesday morning. ...

The US state department said it was "deeply concerned".

"We deeply regret the haste with which their cases were brought to retrial, resulting in procedural deficiencies that call into question the integrity of the process," said spokesman Adam Ereli.

A Haitian human rights group told the Associated Press news agency that eight witnesses were called by the prosecution, but only one turned up in court, saying he knew nothing about the case. ...

Human rights group Amnesty International called the trial a "mockery of justice" - saying "false" witnesses had been called to testify and there had been no proper preparation.

It said key witnesses were "in hiding for fear for their lives".

"This is a very sad record in the history of Haiti," it said.

Chamblain, a notorious human rights violator, was one of the murderous thugs who took part in the coup that overthrew Aristide in 1991 and second in command of the new group of thugs that forced Aristide out this spring. His rapid acquittal on his retrial may be a "sad record" causing "deep concern," but it can hardly be considered a surprise.

A month ago, July 16, Salon published a lengthy, excellent article by Max Blumenthal outlining how the US enabled a network of right-wing Republicans with ties to the White House foment anti-Aristide insurrection in Haiti. The results are clear:

To be sure, Aristide was a corrupt, problematic leader - but since his ouster, the situation in Haiti appears to have deteriorated to a point lower than at any moment during his tenure. The looting that followed Aristide's departure has cost Haitian businesses hundreds of millions of dollars; most of the Haitian national police force's weapons and equipment were stolen and over half of its officers quit; and the price of rice, essential to the diet of Haiti's poor, has more than doubled in the last four months. Moreover, recent reports describe rampant human rights abuses and extra-judicial killings filling the power void.

For the majority of Haitians who live on one meal and less than a dollar a day, regime change has only brought more violence, chaos and starvation.

You should read the article or at least the transcript of an interview with Democracy Now! Even if it's too late for Haiti, it won't be the last and forewarned is still forearmed.

- Darfur continues to suffer.

Despite its promises to abide by a July 30 UN Security Council measure in search of a resolution to the crisis, on August 11 the Sudanese government "carried out fresh helicopter gunship attacks in Darfur ... while militia forces attacked refugees," according to a UN account quoted in the Christian Science Monitor's Daily Update, which links to a Toronto Star article.

In a strongly worded statement, the U.N. said that, despite recent pledges, the Sudanese government was hampering humanitarian access to hungry Darfuris by restricting relief flights and causing "major delays" in deployment of aid workers.

"Fresh violence (yesterday) included helicopter gunship bombings by the Sudanese government and Janjaweed attacks in South Darfur. The violence has already led to more displacement," the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement.

Khartoum may have been emboldened by an Arab League statement opposing any sanctions on Sudan and calling for "adequate and suitable" time for the government to implement its promises. Which, as near as I can tell, translates to "don't do anything at all; just leave the murdering sons of bitches to their own devices to take their own sweet time about things."

Still, by mid-August a small contingent of 300 troops from the African Union had arrived to protect AU ceasefire monitors; Sudan had earlier rejected a proposal for a force of 2,000 AU peacekeepers, leading some to wonder why, if indeed the situation and the janjaweed militias who are committing most of the atrocities are actually beyond Khartoum's control, as it insists they are, the government would not welcome such a force to help it deal with the crisis. (I recall that there's a Chinese saying that "some questions need only be asked.)

In the meantime, the hunger and the flight of refugees both continue.

The UN is airlifting food to remote communities in Sudan's troubled Darfur region cut off by heavy rains. ...

Our [BBC] correspondent says the population of Beida, like many towns in Darfur, has grown dramatically in recent months.

Thousands of people fleeing the Arab militias have sought refuge there.

Now they are cut off from their villages and their fields and are unable to harvest their crops

as well as being isolated from most aid by wadis filled with rain and turned into rivers that block the roads. Meanwhile, the UN warns that many as 30,000 additional refugees, fleeing from the upsurge in military activity, will cross over into Chad, further straining the already-stressed UN relief operation there, which is trying to provide food and shelter for 180,000 living in desperate conditions in camps there.

Talks sponsored by the African Union are due to begin on Monday in Nigeria, between the Sudanese government and two black African rebel groups it has been fighting in Darfur.

Sudan denies backing the Arab Janjaweed militias and says the rebel groups are responsible for the crisis,

but a new Human Rights Watch report describes the government of Sudan as "hardly a credible actor" in the matter while documenting continuing human rights abuses. The report, titled "Empty Promises? Continuing Abuses in Darfur, Sudan," can be found here.