In Venezuela, Faith in Chávez Starts to Wane

Venezuelans waited to buy subsidized food last month in San Antonio de Tachira. The nation is facing food shortages. (European Pressphoto Agency)

CARACAS, Venezuela: Feb. 9th. (NY Times) — These should be the best of times for Venezuela, blessed with the largest conventional oil reserves outside the Middle East and oil prices near record highs. But this country’s economic and social problems have become so acute lately that President Hugo Chavez is facing an unusual onslaught of criticism, even from his own supporters, about his management of the country. In a rare turnabout, it is Mr. Chávez’s opponents who appear to have the political winds at their backs as they reverse policies of abstention and prepare dozens of candidates for pivotal regional elections. Mr. Chávez, for perhaps the first time since a recall vote in 2004, is increasingly on the defensive as his efforts to advance Venezuela toward socialism are seen as failing to address a growing list of worries like violent crime and shortages of basic foods. While Mr. Chávez remains Venezuela’s most powerful political figure, his once unquestionable authority is showing signs of erosion. Unthinkable a few months ago, graffiti began appearing here in the capital in January reading, “Diosdado Presidente,” a show of support for a possible presidential bid by Diosdado Cabello, a Chávez supporter and governor of the populous Miranda State.

Outbreaks of dengue fever and Chagas disease have alarmed families living in the heart of this city. Fears of a devaluation of the new currency, called the “strong bolívar,” are fueling capital flight. While the economy may grow 6 percent this year, lifted by high oil prices, production in oil fields controlled by the national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, has declined. Inflation soared by 3 percent in January, its highest monthly level in a decade. In fact, some economists see a slow-burning economic unraveling playing out in a country flush with oil revenues. But as Mr. Chávez embarks on his 10th year in power, it is becoming harder for him to blame previous governments for the malaise. This holds true especially in poor areas where voters failed to turn out in support of the president in a December referendum on a constitutional overhaul that would have vastly increased Mr. Chavez’s powers, a stinging defeat from which the president has yet to recover. “I cannot find beans, rice, coffee or milk,” said Mirna de Campos, 56, a nurse’s assistant who lives in the gritty district of Los Teques outside Caracas. “What there is to find is whiskey — lots of it.”

The contrast between revolutionary language and the consumption of imported luxury items by a new elite aligned with Mr. Chávez’s government, known as the “Bolivarian bourgeoisie,” has led to questioning of the priorities of his political movement. “Chávez’s revolution has stalled, but it can move forward if he can solve some problems,” said Daniel Hellinger, a political scientist at Webster University in St. Louis who follows Venezuela. “I don’t envy him the challenge of trying to make the country’s government more effective in people’s daily lives.” Mr. Chávez highlighted the challenge after his defeat at the polls when he called for a year of “revision, rectification and relaunching.” He issued an amnesty decree for opponents who had been charged with supporting a brief 2002 coup and shook up his cabinet, replacing his vice president and ministers in charge of the economy and fighting crime. But for each minor policy shift or good economic statistic from the government, Mr. Chávez has stirred deeper anxiety by intensifying threats to expand state control of the economy and society. For instance, Mr. Chávez warned Monday that he would nationalize large food distributors caught hoarding groceries.

Pedro E. Piñate, an agricultural consultant in the city of Maracay, said: “We live in two countries, one inhabited by officials who think they can alter reality by sending soldiers to intimidate citizens. The other country is where the rest of us live in fear of being killed or kidnapped or of our businesses being seized.” This fear is reflected in a statistic that is illegal to publish in Venezuela: the black-market value of the strong bolívar, or bolívar fuerte, put into circulation at the start of the year to replace the old bolívar. Its value hovers around 5.2 to the dollar according to currency traders here, less than half at the official rate, 2.15. For other domestic problems, Mr. Chávez’s approach has been equally erratic. After the recent outbreak of dengue fever, which reached into his cabinet to infect Culture Minister Francisco Sesto, the president did not shake up the public health system. Instead, he called for an investigation of claims that the disease may have been altered into a more virulent strain as part of an attack on Venezuela by unidentified enemies. Enemies of Venezuela have rarely been more threatening than in recent weeks, according to Mr. Chávez, who has elevated a political dispute with President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia to the point of mobilizing troops. Last month, Mr. Chávez claimed Colombian military officials were conspiring with American officials in Bogotá to kill him. It was the 25th time that Venezuela’s government said that Mr. Chávez was the target for assassination since 2002, according to Tal Cual, a newspaper here.

As these domestic and economic troubles accumulate, Mr. Chávez faces a new test this year in state and municipal elections, with a reinvigorated opposition. Mr. Chávez stands to lose some authority if opponents win just a handful of important states or cities, almost all of which are now controlled by his supporters. Even more unpredictable are the dynamics within the president’s own movement, with insurgent candidacies clamoring to challenge the status quo. “Chavismo is most vulnerable at the local and state level,” said Steve Ellner, a political scientist at Oriente University in eastern Venezuela. “That opens great opportunities for the opposition to erode Chávez’s power and influence, beginning with big gains in the elections held at the end of this year.” Amid growing calls for debate and the grooming of new leaders in the Socialist Party he created last year for his followers, Mr. Chávez is trying to instill discipline within its ranks. He called for party members to be expelled if they initiated candidacies too soon for coming elections. The rule apparently does not apply to Mr. Chávez, whose bid to remove term limits for the presidency, along with other proposals to transform Venezuela into the hemisphere’s second socialist state after Cuba, was rejected by voters in December. He mentioned a proposal last month to hold a vote in 2010 to allow him to run for re-election in 2012, when his current term expires. Billboards proclaiming “Por Ahora” — “For Now” — have gone up in the capital, reminding Venezuelans that Mr. Chávez will not give up his quest to reconfigure society.

Mr. Chávez has also not given up on his efforts abroad to deepen alliances with like-minded leaders. For instance, even as Venezuela struggles with a shortage of oil-drilling rigs, the government has sent two rigs to Ecuador, whose president, Rafael Correa, is a Chávez supporter. This foreign aid, once tolerated by Mr. Chávez’s supporters, is emerging as a source of resentment among those left out of the country’s oil boom. “I see Chávez traveling and traveling abroad, and the money ends up somewhere else,” said Jesús Camacho, 29, who sells coffee on the street in Catia, an area of slums here, making about $8 a day. Mr. Camacho said he had always voted for Mr. Chávez but had recently lost faith in politics. “This situation will be fixed by no man,” he said. “Only God.”
By Simon Romero
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Chad - A Regime Saved, for the Moment

For France and the UN, better the devil they know than the rebels they don't
Nairobi, Kenya: Feb. 7th. (Economist) - A FEROCIOUS rebel attack this week on Chad's capital, Ndjamena, seems to have been turned back by the country's president, Idriss Déby. The local Red Cross says hundreds of civilians have been killed. Rotting bodies are being gathered from the deserted streets. The city centre has been looted and thousands of Chadians have fled across the Chari river into neighbouring Cameroon. But it was a close-run thing. Mr Déby was holed up in the presidential palace, rejecting French offers to airlift him out, and was saved only by the determined resistance of his army's elite units. Defiant, the president has dismissed the idea of negotiations with the rebels, who have retreated to positions around the capital. “They don't exist any more,” says a government official. “With whom should we sign a ceasefire?”

Chad is one of Africa's poorest and least stable countries and Mr Déby one of the continent's worst presidents. He has taken advantage of the fighting to arrest the country's peaceful opposition politicians. Human-rights campaigners fear they may be next. Still, Mr Déby is almost certainly right in saying that the rebellion was organised more in neighbouring Sudan than in Chad. The Sudanese government armed the rebels and sent them on their way. There may also be truth in his claims that Sudanese Antonov bombers strafed the town of Adre in eastern Chad. Now he is hopeful that France, the former colonial power, will stand by him. This may seem odd. Though Mr Déby was groomed by France and studied at the École Militaire in Paris, he is exactly the sort of African ruler that France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, wants to distance himself from. Mr Sarkozy says he is opposed to the old French habit of propping up dubious African regimes. “Françafrique”, as the policy was called, was meant to support African development by guaranteeing stability. Instead, it often provided carte blanche for leaders to become dictators and bleed their people dry.

Mr Déby is one such. The World Bank thought it had an agreement with him to spend Chad's new-found oil wealth on education and health. Instead, Mr Déby used a weak parliament to divert money to the military and enrich his narrow tribal elite. He changed the constitution to allow himself a third term in office. Indeed, the last time he was in big trouble, in 2006, the then French president, Jacques Chirac, wasted no time in ordering fighter jets to swoop over a rebel column, deterring an earlier assault on the capital. So why is Mr Sarkozy backing Mr Déby? Simply because the alternative would be worse. Mr Déby's demise would probably mean a freer hand for Sudan in eastern Chad and the ravaged Sudanese region of Darfur. That, in turn, would worsen the already dire humanitarian situation on the border between the two countries.

Keeping Mr Déby in office, on the other hand, should make it easier for a 3,700-strong European (in essence, French) peacekeeping force to deploy in eastern Chad to prevent the frequent incursion of Sudanese-backed militias, known as the janjaweed, where they have been attacking the Darfuri refugees. And besides, Mr Déby had said he will pardon six French aid workers convicted of trying to fly 103 children out of the country. The Sudanese government may have feared that the EU force would strengthen Darfur's rebels, some of whom are backed by Mr Déby. If so, it may have miscalculated. Mr Sarkozy has hinted that France might use military force against the Chadian rebels, should they attack Ndjamena again. It would not be a Gaullist action of old, for France has already won the approval of the UN Security Council, which worries equally about the humanitarian calamities in Darfur and eastern Chad.
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Annan Sees Progress in Kenya Talks

NAIROBI, Kenya: Feb. 9th. (NY Times) - Kofi Annan, the former United nations secretary general who is brokering peace talks in Kenya, said Friday that no deal toward a durable political solution had been reached, but that progress was steadily being made. Mr. Annan has spent the past week trying to nudge Kenya’s government and top opposition leaders toward a compromise that could end the turmoil and violence that exploded in December after a disputed presidential election. More than 1,000 people have been killed, and Kenya’s economy and reputation for stability have taken a beating. “We have agreed that what is needed is a political solution,” Mr. Annan said. “We are actively discussing the terms of that solution.” He added, “I hope next week we’ll have firm details.”

Kenyans had been hoping for more. On Friday, rumors raced through Nairobi, the capital, that a breakthrough had been reached and that the two sides would come together in a government of national unity. People huddled around television sets and fine-tuned the antennas of their radios, eager for news. Kenya plunged into turmoil in late December after the country’s electoral commission declared that the incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, had narrowly beaten the top opposition leader, Raila Odinga. Many election observers have said there was widespread evidence of vote rigging. Some observers contended that the government had interfered with the vote-tallying process to give Mr. Kibaki the edge. A person close to the political negotiations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said Friday evening that the two sides were close to sealing a deal. The opposition has agreed to recognize Mr. Kibaki as the president and drop its demand for a new election, the person said, and the president’s negotiators have reciprocated by talking of a “broad-based government.”

Many Kenyans have said that a meaningful political settlement is the only way to end fighting between opposition supporters and those who back the government. A power-sharing agreement has been one of the possible solutions floated in recent days, and Western officials, including American diplomats, have tried to throw their weight behind this. Though Mr. Annan said Friday that talk of a coalition government was “premature,” he emphasized that “there is ground for optimism” and that “we have narrowed down the issues.” The election controversy has stirred up deep-seated grievances over political, economic and land issues, pitting opposition supporters against members of the president’s ethnic group and groups perceived as supporting the government. Many people in Kenya tend to vote along ethnic lines, and much of the postelection bloodshed seems to have been ethnically driven, though many participants insist that their motives are political. Western governments have been increasingly alarmed about the unrest in Kenya, which until December was celebrated as one of the most stable and promising countries in Africa. The American Embassy in Kenya recently sent letters to 10 politicians and businessmen in the government and the opposition, warning them that they would be barred from the United States if the embassy determined that they had instigated or taken part in violence.

The Canadian and British governments have said they are considering similar measures. The pressure may be working. Mr. Odinga said Thursday that he was willing to back off his initial demand that Mr. Kibaki step down. Ngari Gituku, a spokesman for Mr. Kibaki’s political party, said this could be a welcome step forward. “The president doesn’t have a problem with a government of national unity, but the modalities of sharing responsibilities have to be carefully worked out,” Mr. Gituku said. “That’s going to take some time.”
By Jeffrey Gettleman - Kennedy Abwao contributed reporting from Nairobi.
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Bhutto’s Party Disputes Scotland Yard’s Findings

Stickers of Benazir Bhutto on sale in Karachi on Thursday. (Akhtar Soomro for The New York Times)

KARACHI, Pakistan: Feb. 9th. (NY Times) — The party of Benazir Bhutto insisted Friday that she had been killed by gunfire, despite a report by British investigators that supported the government’s view that she had been killed when the force of a suicide blast caused her to strike her head. Sherry Rehman, a spokeswoman for the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, said the party did not reject the report outright and would give a final reaction when it had fully reviewed the report, which was presented to the government and a lawyer for the Bhutto family on Friday. But, she said, the party was still pursuing its demand for a United Nations investigation and was now looking into hiring its own private international investigators. “We are seeking a larger probe into the hidden hands that organized, financed, sponsored and perpetrated this event,” she said, reading a statement. Ms. Rehman said that the investigators from Scotland Yard had been working in Pakistan under constraints that could call their conclusions into question. “Critical forensic evidence had been destroyed by the government within hours of the event,” she said, referring to the washing of the street before all the evidence had been collected, “and they were confined to working under the aegis of the Pakistan police.”

The British investigators were called in to settle a controversy over the differing accounts given by the government of how Ms. Bhutto had died. An executive summary by John MacBrayne, detective superintendent of the Counter Terrorism Command, was given to the news media on Friday as well. On the night of Ms. Bhutto’s death on Dec. 27, a government spokesman was reported as saying that Ms. Bhutto was killed by a bullet. Two days later, the Interior Ministry said she was thrown by the bomb blast and hit her head on the vehicle. Later, President Pervez Musharraf also said it seemed she was killed by a bullet. The varying accounts added to suspicion of the government and the widespread belief among Ms. Bhutto’s supporters and others in Pakistan that the government was behind the assassination. The uproar forced Mr. Musharraf to accept international help in the investigation. Even so, distrust of the government is such that few Pakistanis seem to believe that Baitullah Mehsud, a militant with links to Al Qaeda, was behind the assassination, as the government has alleged. The Central Intelligence Agency has also said he was the most likely culprit. Despite the lack of a full post-mortem and limited X-rays and other forensic material, the two British forensic investigators leading the team were able to draw reliable conclusions, the executive summary said. The investigators also concluded that a single attacker was responsible for the gunshots fired and for the bomb blast that followed, largely ruling out news reports suggesting that the attack was carried out by both a gunman and a suicide bomber.

“Ms. Bhutto’s only apparent injury was a major trauma to the right side of the head,” the summary said. “The U.K. experts all exclude this injury being an entry or exit wound as a result of gunshot.” The wound was so severe that it could not have been caused by a mere bump on the head, but had to be caused by the power of a bomb blast, the report said. “The only tenable cause for the rapidly fatal head injury in this case is that it occurred as the result of impact due to the effects of the bomb blast,” concluded Dr. Nathaniel Cary, the British Home Office pathologist. “In my opinion, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto died as a result of a severe head injury sustained as a consequence of the bomb blast and due to head impact somewhere in the escape hatch of the vehicle,” he said, using the courtesy title with Ms. Bhutto’s name. One of the British investigators, an expert in analyzing and assessing video material, studied myriad photographs, video and cellphone images taken at the time of the attack, according to the British summary.

The investigators said that only one person’s remains were still unclaimed from among the more than 20 people killed in the bomb blast. The man who fired the shots was caught on camera standing close to the rear of Ms. Bhutto’s vehicle, looking down immediately before the blast. The forensic analysis indicated that the blast occurred within a yard or two of the car, and the investigators concluded that the gunman was also most likely the suspected suicide bomber. The report said Ms. Bhutto ducked down into the car as the bullets were fired at her, but her head disappeared only 0.6 seconds before the bomb blast occurred, and the investigators concluded that she did not manage to get completely inside the car before the blast. “Ms. Bhutto’s injury is entirely consistent with her head impacting upon the lip of the escape hatch,” the report said. After the attack, Ms. Rehman took Ms. Bhutto in her car to the hospital, stayed there and was present for the ritual washing of her body. She said Ms. Bhutto bore a wound behind her right ear, and Ms. Rehman said all those present had believed she was hit by a bullet, including the government officials present. The government had changed its position only after the burial, and after Ms. Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who believed the cause of death was evident, had waived the need for an autopsy, she said. “The whole confusion did not start until after she was buried,” Ms. Rehman said.
By Carlotta Gall
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Challenger to Mugabe in Zimbabwe

JOHANNESBURG, Feb. 6th. (NY Times) — A senior member of Zimbabwe's ruling party, Simba Makoni, announced Tuesday that he would run for president against Robert G. Mugabe, the man who has kept a mighty hold on power for nearly 30 years and presided over one of the world’s most horrific economic free falls. Mr. Makoni, Zimbabwe’s former finance minister, said that though he would run as an independent in the March 29 election, he had held “intensive consultations” with fellow members of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, ZANU-PF, and others before deciding.

This is a significant twist. Mr. Mugabe had been expected to coast to victory, especially after the nation’s main opposition group — the splintered Movement for Democratic Change — failed last weekend to unite behind one presidential candidate. Mr. Mugabe, 83, may still win handily in his bid for a sixth term. But Mr. Makoni, 57, represents a credible rallying point for Zimbabwe’s disaffected. “Let me confirm that I share the agony and anguish of all citizens over the extreme hardships that we all have endured for nearly 10 years now,” Mr. Makoni said at a news conference. “I also share the widely held view that these hardships are a result of failure of national leadership,” he said, and that change is necessary. He did not identify those hardships, though he might well have referred to an official inflation rate of 26,470 percent, grocery shelves empty of bread and gas stations without fuel.

Mr. Mugabe blames Britain and other Western nations for Zimbabwe’s economic woes, saying these countries have punished his government for seizing land from white farmers. In the past decade, Mr. Mugabe’s best-known political opponent has been Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the larger faction of the Movement for Democratic Change. In 2000, a year after the movement was founded, it nearly won control of Parliament. In 2002, Mr. Tsvangirai waged a strong enough presidential race to force Mr. Mugabe to resort to what many Western governments called widespread fraud and voter intimidation. But the M.D.C. split in two in 2005. A consensus seemed near recently, but talks collapsed over which candidates would seek which seats in Parliament.
By Barry Bearak
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A Spreading Conflict In Central Africa

Feb. 5th. (The Economist) - Bodies lay in ditches and on the streets; the injured nursed their gunshot wounds at home, too terrified to venture to hospital. Abandoned cars and burned-out tanks were scatted on the roadways. Phone lines were cut. Hundreds of thousands of refugees were said to be pouring from the city, many seeking sanctuary in camps and across the border in Cameroon. Several hundred expatriates, fleeing as bullets rang out, were whisked away by French soldiers. The chaotic and bloody scenes in Ndjamena, Chad’s capital, in the past few days are sadly familiar. The conflict which brought rebels to the capital, in an effort to overthrow the government of Idriss Déby, is an extension of long-running violence in neighbouring Sudan.

By Tuesday February 5th the rebels and government soldiers had, apparently, called a halt to the fighting, with only scattered gunfire reported in the city. Over 1,000 rebels had arrived on the edge of the capital a few days earlier, and then all but overran it, before being forced back by government troops possibly—though the French deny it—with air-support from the former colonial power. The rebels may threaten another attack, but are said to have withdrawn from the capital for now. It is unclear how many died in the past few days. It is not the first time that rebels in Chad have launched an assault on Mr Déby's government, but it is the closest they have come to toppling it. A similar attack in 2006 petered out when disorganised rebels in the capital fled—this time it appears that the fighters were better prepared and more expertly led. That may be the result of guidance from the rebels' patrons in Khartoum, the capital of neighbouring Sudan. Sudan's government, despite denials, is said to want Chad's government overthrown because of Mr Déby's support for rebel fighters in Darfur, in the west of Sudan. Chad is home to at least 200,000 refugees from Darfur, and to some bases used by Darfuri rebels.

The violence this weekend in Chad's capital on the western edge of the country—and also in smaller towns farther east—is really a symptom of a conflict spreading from Darfur which has already caused instability in neighbouring Central African Republic and in the east of Chad. The timing of this particular outbreak of hostilities may be explained by efforts to install a European Union peacekeeping force in Chad in an effort to contain the conflict in Darfur. The force of 3,700 soldiers EU troops, plus a few hundred UN policemen, was ready to deploy but has been prevented from doing so by the latest fighting. Rebels—and their backers in Sudan—may have decided to act before the Europeans at last got their boots on the ground.

It is possible that the latest violence may actually encourage the active deployment, sooner rather than later, of European soldiers in Chad. France's government now says it is willing to intervene with soldiers to tackle any new rebel attack on the capital. On Monday the UN Security Council agreed that France, which anyway has some 1,100 soldiers in the country (usually kept in barracks) and some aircraft, should be allowed to intervene. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said on Tuesday that “If France must do its duty, it will do so.” It may be that by threatening to intervene forcefully, Mr Sarkozy has made it less necessary to do so. Ideally, however, a diplomatic solution is needed. African diplomats are beginning to shuttle between neighbouring countries in an effort to mediate between rebels and the Chadian forces. The price of conflict is evidently high: a $300m aid programme in Chad risks being disrupted; humanitarian efforts for Darfur are largely conducted through Chad.

The plight of those displaced by fighting in Darfur is likely to worsen as food-aid deliveries are suspended. But the temptations for the rebels, and Sudan, are high too. Chad is oil rich and potentially a serious threat to the dominance of Sudan's government in Darfur. The rebels argue, too, that Mr Déby's government is corrupt and dictatorial, far from a model of benign rule for Africa. Nobody believes that the rebels are fighting for better government, but nor is peace and wise rule on offer from the government of the day.
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Myanmar Plans Secret Trials for Democracy Activists, U.S. Says

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Myanmar's regime is planning secret trials of U Gambira, a Buddhist monk who helped lead opposition protests last year, and 10 other pro-democracy activists, the Bush administration said today. The trials are an example of actions by the regime that are "unacceptable to all those who value freedom,'' White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement. She offered no details on where or when the trials would take place. What Perino described as Myanmar General Than Shwe's "defiance'' of international demands for democracy prompted President George W. Bush to expand financial sanctions today against Myanmar businesses and individuals accused of aiding military rule. Bush "has made clear that we will continue to take action against the military junta and those who prop it up so long as human rights violations continue and democracy is suppressed,'' Adam Szubin, head of the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement. The steps announced today target Htoo Group of Companies, "which carries out key projects'' for Myanmar's junta, such as the buying of military equipment and aircraft, Treasury said in a statement. Treasury lists Tay Za, identified as an arms dealer, as Htoo's leader. The sanctions freeze any U.S. assets held by the designated individuals and companies and bar all financial and commercial transactions with them in the U.S. The action widens penalties the U.S. has imposed to protest rights violations in the Asian nation.

The military of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, crushed the biggest opposition protests in almost 20 years in September. The United Nations says at least 31 people died in the clashes. Za allegedly used his connections with Aung Thet Mann, director of Htoo Group and son of a senior official in Myanmar's government, to win favorable contracts from the country's junta, Treasury said. Mann is also named as a target of today's sanctions. Neither Za nor a representative for him could be located immediately to respond to the U.S. penalties. Treasury said it has had no contact with anyone who represents Za. Designated companies include Myanmar Avia Export Company Ltd.; Ayer Shwe Wah Company Ltd. and Pavo Aircraft Leasing Pte. Ltd. in Singapore, Treasury said. Four spouses of senior Myanmar government officials also were named. Other actions that prompted the U.S. decision include Myanmar's continued defiance of a UN Security Council resolution calling on the regime to release pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest and its refusal to allow UN Special Adviser Ibrahim Gambari to return, the White House said today. Min Ko Niang and Ko Ko Kyi are among the activists for whom the regime is planning secret trials, according to the White House.
By Nadine Elsibai
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Chad’s Capital Eerily Quiet as Rebellion Falters

The remains of a burned vehicle in Ndjamena, Chad. The city’s streets were virtually empty after recent fighting left at least 1,000 people wounded and thousands had fled to Cameroon. (Pascal Guyot/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)
NDJAMENA, Chad: Feb. 6th. (NY Times) — A rebellion aimed at toppling Chad’s president appeared to falter Tuesday as France declared that it would intervene to protect the Chadian government if called upon, and a Darfur rebel group with close ties to the Chadian government said it had sent troops to help bolster the president, Idriss Déby. French military officials in Chad said the rebels were far from Ndjamena, the capital, and the streets of the city were quiet. For the first time since the weekend, the sound of automatic gunfire disappeared. But the streets were virtually empty — many thousands have fled into neighboring Cameroon, and most people who remained stayed indoors, according to French soldiers who patrolled the city. The bodies that had been putrefying in the streets were removed, but evidence of the previous day’s gun battles remained in the blackened husks of pickup trucks used by government and rebel fighters. Recent fighting in the city has left at least 1,000 people wounded, a spokesman for the International Red Cross said Tuesday, citing reports from a team that visited several hospitals in Ndjamena, but it could give no estimate of the numbers killed by the fighting and cautioned that many of the wounded might not have been able to reach hospitals.

French support, along with help from fighters of a Sudanese rebel group with ties to Mr. Déby’s family, strengthened the government’s position markedly. Responding to questions from journalists in France as to whether French soldiers would intervene to help Mr. Déby’s government, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said: “If France must do its duty, it will do so. Let no one doubt it.” A commander from the Justice and Equality Movement, a Darfur rebel group that has been fighting Sudan’s government and its allied militias in the war-ravaged region for the past five years, said some of the rebel troops had left their base in eastern Chad, along the border with Sudan, to reinforce Chadian government troops. The addition of Darfur rebels to the fray adds new confusion to a tangle of conflict in Chad and Sudan, two of the most violent African countries. They have accused each other of fostering rebellions against them, and events in recent days point to evidence that both are probably right. The Chadian rebels once advancing on Ndjamena have found shelter in Sudan, something that would certainly require Sudanese government approval, analysts and diplomats say. The Darfur rebels operate openly in eastern Chad, though this is the first time they have publicly admitted to helping Mr. Déby militarily.

Despite what was apparently the retreat of the rebels, the situation remained tense. Government television and radio remained off the air, and cellphone networks that were taken down to hamper rebel communication were still off Tuesday. At least four leading opposition figures have been arrested in the past few days, including Ngarlejy Yorongar, a member of Parliament who once lost a presidential election to Mr. Déby. Reed Brody, a lawyer at Human Rights Watch, said government soldiers had burst into Mr. Yorongar’s house, shot and wounded his driver and hauled off Mr. Yorongar, one the government’s most strident critics. Three other opposition leaders were also arrested, and none have been heard from since Sunday, human rights workers said. “These opposition leaders are at grave risk of being tortured or forcibly disappeared,” Tawanda Hondora, director of the Africa program for Amnesty International, said in a statement. “The Chadian government seems to be using the current conflict with the armed opposition as a cover for arresting people peacefully opposed to government policy.”

Up to 20,000 people have fled across the Chari River to the town of Kousseri, in Cameroon, according to staff members of the United Nations refugee agency, who reached it on Monday. The agency was preparing for the arrival of more refugees. Some had found shelter with relatives, others at schools, but 6,000 to 7,000 had reached a former refugee camp near the river and were the most vulnerable, most of them spending the night in the open, the agency said. Despite the lull in the fighting on Tuesday, agency staff members said civilians were still moving toward Cameroon, while others searched for food and other supplies that have become increasingly scarce and expensive. The agency said it was about to airlift 90 tons of supplies to Cameroon from Dubai and was preparing to move people to a site that can hold up to 100,000 people.
By Lydia Polgreen - Cumming-Bruce contributed reporting from Geneva, and Basil Katz from Paris.
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Death Toll in Kenya reaches 1,000

Internally displaced Kenyans hold on to distributed clothes.
NAIROBI, Kenya Feb. 5th. (CNN) -- Kenya's government Tuesday announced it will find and prosecute anyone who sent "hate text messages" that helped incite ethnic tensions after the contested election in December. The violence has left more than 1,000 people dead, according to Red Cross figures released Tuesday. Speaking at a news conference in Nairobi, Kenyan Minister of Information Samuel Poghisio said the government has been tracking such text messages -- sent from inside Kenya and neighboring Uganda -- that the government believes helped to incite violence. Without offering details on how many people they are tracking, Poghisio said those found guilty will be prosecuted. The minister also said a government task team will also look into whether Kenyan media reports helped inflame ethnic tensions. The ministry allowed Kenyan TV and radio to resume live broadcasts on Monday. Some Kenyan journalists expressed their reservations at the move, concerned the government is trying to curb press freedoms. The announcement came as government and opposition politicians held discussions that could eventually lead to a power-sharing agreement.

The two sides resumed talks on Monday. Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is in Kenya to oversee efforts to resolve the crisis, was meeting with senior business leaders on Tuesday, a government spokesman said. The diplomacy efforts followed reports of further atrocities in the troubled east African state. Attackers smeared with clay and armed with spears, machetes, bows and arrows burned and looted a children's home for 130 children with troubled pasts, The Associated Press reported. One child at the Sugoi-Munsingen Children's Home and School heard an attacker mention President Mwai Kibaki, who is accused of stealing the Dec. 27 election, during the incident last weekend in western Kenya, the agency said. Peace efforts took a hit Monday as South African businessman Cyril Ramaphosa withdrew as the chief negotiator after the government expressed reservations about him. Ramaphosa, was instrumental in talks to end apartheid in his own country, told The Associated Press he could not function as mediator "without the complete confidence of both parties." A spokesman for Annan said he had "reluctantly accepted" Ramaphosa's withdrawal.

The latest discussions came as violence across Kenya pushed the death toll to more than 1,000, according to the Kenyan Red Cross. At least 140 people have died since Friday when leaders of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement reached an agreement with the government to stem the violence that has taken on ethnic overtones. As many as 350,000 people have been driven from their homes in bloody street battles that have broken out between supporters of President Mwai Kibaki -- a member of the Kikuyu tribe -- and opposition leader Raila Odinga, who belongs to the Luo tribe. Following late December elections, Odinaga accused Kibaki of rigging the vote to win re-election, sparking the breakdown in civil order. In the midst of the violence, the government faces new difficulties -- finding a way to get migrant workers back to their ancestral homelands, a senior U.N. official told CNN. Ethnic violence is forcing minority tribal members to flee, putting a strain on an already disrupted transportation system. The quickly approaching rainy season could also add to a brewing humanitarian crisis if farmers -- sidetracked by the violence -- can't get their crops in before the rains come.

On Sunday, the opposition party asked the United Nations and the African Union to send in peacekeepers. Odinga requested the peacekeepers during a meeting with Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. "The level of violence in Kenya is unprecedented. It's on a terrifying scale and it has not really diminished," Salim Lone, spokesman for the Orange Democratic Movement, told CNN from London. "People who have lived together for generations have, after the fraudulent election, turned on each other," he said. "The security forces seem incapable of stopping this carnage, and in some cases, they actually stand by while the killing goes on," Lone said. "For sure, international assistance is needed."
CNN's David McKenzie contributed to this report.
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Millions Demand Colombian Rebels Free Hostages

Tens of thousands of Colombian Americans in Miami filled several blocks around the Colombian Consulate in Coral Gables Monday to say 'no more' to the Colombian rebel group FARC.
BOGOTA, Columbia: Feb. 5th. (Miami Herald) -- In 165 cities from Bogotá to Tokyo, millions of Colombians and supporters marched Monday to demand that leftist FARC guerrillas free all their hostages in one of the largest protests ever against rebel abuses. Rivers of people wearing white T-shirts and chanting ''No more FARC'' and ''Freedom'' filled the main avenues of 45 Colombian cities while other marches went on in Coral Gables, Japan, London, Panama, Spain, India, Argentina, Sweden, Venezuela, Hungary, France and Italy. ''I hope . . . the FARC listens,'' said Clara Rojas, a politician freed last month after six years as a FARC hostage in the jungles of Colombia. ``With all my soul, I ask them to listen to this message that Colombia sends them.''

More than 2 million turned out in Bogotá, said city police chief Gen. Rodolfo Palomino. All public offices and schools were closed and TV and radio stations broadcast the marches live. ''Our gratitude to all those Colombians who today have expressed, with dignity and strength, their rejection of kidnappings and the kidnappers,'' President Alvaro Uribe told the marchers in the northwestern city of Valledupar. But relatives of those held by the FARC did not join the marches, instead gathering in churches to pray for their loved ones out of concern that publicly attacking the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, would only lead the rebels to dig in their heels. ''All of us who are in the government understand that this march also is a demand of us by the Colombian people, that we deploy all our energies, all our efforts, for the definitive eradication of kidnappings,'' Uribe added. The idea of a day of Colombian marches against the FARC started on the Internet site Facebook but quickly spread around the world as Colombians and supporters abroad signed up for protests in their own cities.

FARC fighters are holding an estimated 700 hostages, most of them for ransom to finance their war but about 45 of them are well-known personalities whom they want to exchange for some 500 jailed rebels. The hostages include three U.S. citizens and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. The FARC unilaterally released Rojas and another politician last month -- and have promised to release another three hostages soon -- as a sign of good will toward leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. But it has denounced the marches as an attempt by Uribe to divert attention away from criticisms that he has not done enough to negotiate the broader "humanitarian exchange.'' ''If the suffering of those in captivity has been unjustifiably prolonged . . . that has been because of the inhuman intransigence and worthless pride of President Uribe,'' the rebels said in a statement last week. Uribe opponents have complained that the conservative president has said little about the estimated 550 persons held hostage by right-wing paramilitaries. But even Carlos Gaviria, president of the opposition Alternative Democratic Pole, a left-of-center coalition, turned up at the Plaza Bolivar in downtown Bogotá, where the marches ended. Organizers reported 35 marches in U.S. cities, including one four-hour march in front of the Colombian consulate in Coral Gables that drew thousands of people wearing white T-shirts and waving the flags of Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela, and other Latin American nations. ''I am here making a small sacrifice for peace in Colombia,'' said Otília Díaz, who works nights but gave up a part of her morning sleep to attend the march. because several of her relatives have been kidnapped by the FARC. ''Some day I'd like to return to a safe Colombia, without the risk of being kidnapped, extorted, or murdered,'' added Diáz, a Colombian who has lived in the United States for 20 years, as tears rolled down her cheeks.

''This is not a political act or a show of support for President Uribe, but an act of support for the country because we all have to fight against the FARC's terrorism,'' said Dolcey Martínez, 37, a Colombian who said he came to Miami in 1999 and knew several kidnap victims. Some of the signs at the Coral Gables march also attacked Venezuela's Chávez for his support of the FARC. ''FARC, Chávez and Terrorism, All the same,'' said one. Another said ``Venezuela wants peace. Chavez wants war.'' Cubans, Venezuelan and Nicaraguans also turned up for the Coral Gables march in solidarity with their Colombian neighbors. ''It is a privilege to accompany the Colombian people in this struggle for the rule of law and against the FARC,'' said Miami Republican Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart. Juan Fernández, a Chávez critic fired from a senior position in Venezuela's state-owned oil company, said it was time ``to tell the world that the FARC and Chávez are in cahoots against peace in Colombia.''
El Nuevo staff writers Guillen and Ocando reported from Bogotá and Miami, respectively.
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Thousands Flee Fighting in Chad’s Capital

Chadians escaped into Cameroon fleeing fighting in Ndjamena. (Emmanuel Braun/Reuters)
NDJAMENA, Chad: Feb. 5th. (NY Times) — Shelling and small arms fire erupted here in this capital on Monday, the third day of fighting between government troops and rebel forces, as thousands of residents fled the city in fear, the United Nations said. Government troops struggled Monday to control Ndjamena. The Security Council demanded an immediate end to the violence, urging nations in the region on Monday to help thwart the rebels’ “attempt to seize power by force.” The fighting has raised the specter of deeper chaos in one the most war-scarred and fragile regions of the world. United Nations officials are particularly worried that the instability in Ndjamena could threaten major relief efforts elsewhere in the country.

Chad has become a temporary home to nearly a quarter of a million refugees from the conflict in the Sudanese region of Darfur, and tens of thousands more refugees from the Central African Republic, according to the United Nations. Beyond that, almost 200,000 Chadians have been displaced by fighting, much of which has spilled into the country from Darfur, making for a vast pool of desperate people who depend heavily on international aid. “They are at the end of a very tenuous aid lifeline that flows through Ndjamena,” said Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. “We are extremely concerned about the impact on that aid pipeline of extended instability.” A rebel army intent on deposing President Idriss Déby entered Ndjamena on Saturday, after days of battle a few dozen miles outside the city. The government has fought back in an all-out attempt to defeat the rebels, a coalition of three groups that have taken shelter in Sudan for the past few years. The government had earlier claimed that it had beaten back the rebels and that they had withdrawn from Ndjamena. The rebels said they had made a strategic retreat to allow civilians to flee. Fighting resumed Monday.

As gun battles have erupted around the presidential palace and across the city, the Chadian military has struggled to regain control of Ndjamena, using tanks and helicopter gunships, officials said. The rebels have fought back with automatic weapons, truck-mounted machine guns and artillery, witnesses said. The United Nations refugee agency evacuated most of its non-local staff from Ndjamena to neighboring Cameroon over the weekend on flights operated by the French military. On Monday, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees said that its staff was reporting that the situation in Ndjamena was now too dangerous for civilians to move about the city. Doctors Without Borders said in a statement Monday that it had treated 70 wounded people in the capital over the weekend, but the group noted that many hundreds of other wounded people were reported to be in other hospitals in the city. The group also said that it had been unable to reach many hospitals since roads were being blocked by the “masses of people” fleeing the city. It estimated the number of refugees in the tens of thousands.

Ndjamena residents fleeing the city were pouring into Cameroon, Mr. Redmond said, adding that United Nations workers were headed to Kousseri, a town in Cameroon linked by bridge across the Chari River to Ndjamena, to prepare for the arrival of more refugees. The Cameroon Red Cross has opened a former transit center to receive refugees in Kousseri, and the United Nations agency will reopen a field office there, Mr. Redmond said. The United Nations agency had sent two truckloads of supplies from Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé, to Kousseri but they will take at least two days to make the journey of more than 600 miles, Mr. Redmond said. Tensions have long been high between Chad and Sudan, which share a porous border along the war-ravaged region of Darfur. Chad accuses Sudan of arming rebels seeking to overthrow Mr. Déby, who has ruled Chad since he took over in a military putsch in 1990.

Sudan, meanwhile, accuses Chad of harboring and helping the Sudanese rebels who have been fighting the government and its allied militias in Darfur, a conflict that has killed at least 200,000 people and displaced more than two million. The latest violence in Chad has forced the postponement of the deployment of a 3,700-member European Union force aimed at stabilizing the tense borders between Chad, Sudan and the Central African Republic. Chad is one of Africa’s most unstable nations, its history a litany of military coups, foreign incursions and brutal dictatorship. Mr. Déby seized power from Hissène Habré, who is believed to have tortured and killed tens of thousands of people during his eight-year rule. Mr. Déby planned his insurgency while living in Darfur, just as Mr. Habré before him seized power from a base in Darfur. Mr. Déby was re-elected president in 2006 after pushing through a constitutional amendment to lift a two-term limit. Opposition politicians boycotted the election. Several rebel movements are seeking to push Mr. Déby from power. One of them is led by Timane Erdimi, a nephew of Mr. Déby.
Lydia Polgreen reported from Ndjamena and Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva. Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York, and Warren Hoge from the United Nations.
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Kenya Ends TV Ban, Says Violence Easing

NAIROBI, Kenya: Feb. 4th. (AP) — Kenya said violence over disputed elections had eased enough to lift a monthlong ban on live television broadcasts, while the country's political rivals sat down for new talks Monday despite the withdrawal of a leading mediator. The fighting has killed more than 1,000 people and made 300,000 homeless since the Dec. 27 presidential election, which foreign and local observers say was rigged. Protests have deteriorated into ethnic clashes, with much of the anger aimed at President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe, long resented for dominating politics and the economy. "The live coverage ban was lifted because the security is better," government spokesman Alfred Mutua told The Associated Press. In late December, he said the ban was implemented to prevent the incitement of violence. Rights groups said it was an attack on free speech.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan brought Kibaki and his chief rival, Raila Odinga, together for more negotiations. The two sides signed a two-page agreement pledging to help people return to their homes safely and provide food and shelter for the displaced. They also welcomed a U.N. human rights team to investigate the violence, and agreed on the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission. Both sides have expressed trust in Annan's efforts, but chief mediator Cyril Ramaphosa — Annan's choice — withdrew from the process because of objections by Kibaki's government and ruling party. Ramaphosa, a South African businessman who played a leading role in talks in his own country to end apartheid, said he could not function as mediator "without the complete confidence" of both parties. "I thought I should withdraw and go back to South Africa, so I don't become a stumbling block myself," he told reporters outside the hotel where the negotiations were being held. The government gave no indication of why it objected to Ramaphosa, but in his statement, the South African denied that he had any business dealings with Odinga. News of his departure came as ethnic fighting flared in western Kenya, scene of some of the worst bloodshed since the election. At least seven people were killed overnight in battles between Kisii and Kalenjin communities in a region 155 miles west of the capital, said district commissioner of Sotik town, Humphrey Nakitare. Later, hundreds of youths, armed with bows and arrows and machetes, attacked one another in an area where 2,000 people have fled their homes during nine days of clashes, Rift Valley Provincial Commissioner Hassan Noor said. Dozens of houses were burned overnight, witnesses said.

The Kenya Red Cross said the conflict's overall toll stood at more than 1,000 killed and 304,000 homeless, according to spokesman Tony Mwangi. Annan said he was proud of the negotiation teams but said the next step — resolving the political disputes that set off the conflict — "is going to take hard negotiations, understandably give and take." On Friday, the two sides said they would complete talks within 15 days on measures to resolve the political crisis, but Annan said it would take up to a year to solve deeper problems. Both sides continue to talk tough. Kibaki has accused opponents of orchestrating the violence, and Odinga insists Kibaki step down. Kibaki has said his position as president is nonnegotiable. U.S., British and other officials have suggested the two share power to resolve the crisis.
By Matti Huuhtanena: Associated Press writers Katy Pownall in Chebilat, Katharine Houreld in Eldoret and Malkhadir M. Muhumed in Nairobi contributed to this report.
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Fighting Rages for Second Day in Chad’s Capital

The Chadian government fought rebels on Sunday for control of the capital, Ndjamena, where bodies have been left in the streets.
CASABLANCA, Morocco: Feb. 4th. (NY Times) — Fighting raged for a second day in the capital of Chad on Sunday, with the government making an all-out attempt to beat back rebels who had overrun the capital on Saturday, Chadian officials said. The country’s president, Idriss Déby, remained defiant in the presidential palace and directed counterattacks, the officials said. The French military evacuated more than 500 citizens of France, the United States and other foreign countries as rebels fought Sunday for control of Ndjamena, the capital of Chad. The Chadian military struggled to regain control of the capital, Ndjamena, using tanks and helicopter gunships, officials said. Rebels fought back with automatic weapons, truck-mounted machine guns and artillery, witnesses said. French military officials said there was open fighting across the city, and news agency photos showed bodies in the streets. On Sunday evening, the interior minister, Mahamat Bashir, said the capital was “entirely under control. The savage mercenaries are fleeing, and our forces of defense and security are at their heels,” he said on Radio France International. “They tried to attack, but they were pushed back with the last energy, and we put them off-track once again.” Chad’s minister of mines, Gen. Mahamat Ali Abdallah Nassour, said earlier that Chadian rebels and Sudanese forces had attacked the eastern border town of Adré. Speaking on R.F.I., he called the attack a “declaration of war” by Sudan.

A rebel spokesman, Henchi Ordjo, said that Adré had been “liberated” and that rebels had also captured the northern town of Faya Largeau, Reuters reported. Another rebel spokesman, Abderaman Koulamallah, said that Mr. Déby was trapped at his presidential palace, surrounded by tanks and armored vehicles, and that the rebels controlled the rest of the capital after two days of fierce fighting, The Associated Press reported. Neither rebel claim was able to be independently verified.

Diplomats and analysts in the region worried that the escalating violence could lead to a civil war in Chad and a war between Chad and Sudan. Either possibility would be devastating to a region that was already suffering one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises, with more than 2.5 million Sudanese and Chadians displaced by the conflict in Darfur and its reverberations in Chad. “It is a very tense moment, and nobody knows how this will play out,” said David Buchbinder, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who specializes on Chad. The French military evacuated more than 500 foreigners from Ndjamena, flying them to Libreville, Gabon, and it provided protection to the American ambassador, Louis J. Nigro Jr., and the German ambassador, Helmut Rausch, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman said. The State Department reported Sunday evening that the American Embassy had “sustained indirect fire,” but there were no reports of American casualties. Karl Duckworth, a spokesman, said that all American officials had been accounted for and that 100 had been evacuated. Mr. Nigro and a small staff remained at the airport to help Americans leave, he said.

About 1,000 foreigners remained in Ndjamena, several hundred of them at five French military camps and the rest at their homes, according to French officials. Thousands of Chadians have fled to neighboring Cameroon, crossing the Chari River in cars and on foot, Chadian officials said. The French government said that Mr. Déby planned to remain in the capital, and that there had been no discussion with French officials about evacuating him. With telephone lines down in the capital and state radio off the air, little concrete information was available about the state of battle. Reports trickled out from aid workers and witnesses using satellite phones, French military officials in communication with their forces in the country and government and rebel officials speaking outside of the country. “Small arms continue to fill the air with sounds of battle,” wrote an American aid worker, Gabriel Stauring, who was trapped in Le Méridien Chari hotel, on a blog updated via satellite phone. “Every so often we can hear a helicopter and then their guns firing upon the rebels who have now taken almost the entire city.” A French national who had been evacuated told R.F.I. that “things shook, there were a lot of shots, bullets whizzing by.” French officials said the fighting eased after dark on Sunday, as it had the previous night. They said the number of casualties among Chadian troops, rebels and civilians was unclear.

Fighting has prevented many people from getting to hospitals, and a cellphone blackout has made getting casualty estimates all but impossible. Several civilian targets have come under attack, including Le Méridien in Ndjamena, where about 50 foreigners were extricated by French soldiers and taken to a military base to be evacuated. The aid group Doctors Without Borders said that it had treated 50 wounded people in the past two days, mostly civilians, and that the Chadian Red Cross had sent 150 more victims to other hospitals in the capital. In El Fasher, Sudan, the United Nations Special Representative for Darfur, Rodolphe Adada, said in a statement that aid workers in the region had been attacked and that the attacks had “led to the crippling of humanitarian activities” there. He said that most of the United Nations staff had been evacuated from the town of Guéréda in eastern Chad. Mahamat Assileck, a spokesman in Paris for the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development, one of the three rebel groups, told Agence France-Presse on Sunday that the fighters planned to attack the Ndjamena airport within the next 24 hours. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, which has colonial ties to Chad, said the 1,500 French troops in Chad were not taking part in the fighting, although the Chadian government said French forces protecting the airport allowed it to be used as a base for Chadian helicopters. In Brussels, European Union officials decided Sunday to delay sending a peacekeeping force to Chad. Last month, the union said it would send 3,700 troops to Adré to protect civilians from the violence spreading from Darfur. The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, called for an immediate cessation of hostilities and said in a statement that he was “profoundly alarmed by the dangerous situation in Chad.”
By Lydia Polgreen. Eric Pfanner contributed reporting from London, Basil Katz from Paris, and Ginger Thompson from Washington.
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CAFOD says Free Trade Agreement Will Destroy Poor Farmers' Jobs

Independent Catholic News: Feb. 2nd. - The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) yesterday expressed concern that this month's full implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will result in job losses for poor Mexican farmers and make their wages worthless. It was claimed NAFTA would boost the economic prosperity of the Latin American country when, in fact, CAFOD believes it has pitted poor Mexican farmers against US and Canadian heavyweights.

CAFOD backs the bold statement of the Mexican Bishop's Social Action Commission which said: "There is a very real risk of greater impoverishment in rural and indigenous areas," if the issues surrounding NAFTA are not addressed. CAFOD, which has worked in Mexico for more than 30 years and has campaigned to raise awareness of the plight of small farmers affected by NAFTA since 2001, supports the bishops' call for the Mexican government to guarantee its people have enough food to eat, to protect national production and to consider renegotiating NAFTA. Roisin O'Hara, from CAFOD's Latin America and Caribbean team, said: "CAFOD welcomes the bishops' powerful statement condemning the free trade system and applauds their expression of solidarity with Mexico's poorest communities. Trade liberalisation has filled Mexico with cheap alternatives, leaving small producers unable to compete. Every hour the country imports an estimated 1.5 million dollars worth of agricultural and food products, almost all from the US. During the same hour, 30 people leave their homes in the Mexican countryside to seek work in the US". "We have witnessed first-hand the devastating effects unfair trade policies are having on the poor and agree we have a moral responsibility to speak out and support them out of poverty." Indigenous coffee farmer, Vicente Gómez, whom CAFOD supports through a partner organisation in the south of Mexico said: "Since NAFTA we get very little for what we sell. Now coffee only brings in 6 pesos a kilo but a pair of trousers is 100, shoes 150, hat 50".

The bishops' statement also said: "Mexico cannot close its borders indefinitely, not only because we are not self-sufficient in everything but also because the market now exceeds national limits in both its benefits and limitations. "However, when the laws of the market impose upon the rights of the people and communities, profit becomes the supreme value and serves the large interest groups, excluding the poor and generating a global economic system which is both unjust and inhumane." It continued: "It is necessary to seek paths, in the sphere of international commerce, which change those systems which generate injustice and exclusion in those countries or sectors of society which are less developed. No system is untouchable when it generates death."

The bishops warned:
* More farmers may abandon their farms and migrate to cities or to the US which "currently has a very strong and inhumane anti-immigration programme".
* More farmers may be tempted to cultivate illegal crops which will open the door to insecurity and violence.
* The increasing demand for fuel for industry is stimulating the production of bio-fuels derived from grain which has serious consequences for the ability of the country to feed itself.
The bishops concluded their statement by referring to the words of Pope Benedict XVI: "The just ordering of society and the state is the principle task of political bodies and not the Church. However the Church cannot remain at the sidelines in the fight for justice".
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Spreading Banditry Dilutes Benefits of a Plan for Ethnic Peace in Kenya

NANDI HILLS, Kenya Feb 2nd. (NY Times) - The road from Eldoret to Kericho used to be one of the prettiest drives in Kenya, a ribbon of asphalt threading through lush tea farms, bushy sugar cane and green humpbacked hills. Now it is a gantlet of machete-wielding teenagers, some chewing stalks of sugar cane, others stumbling drunk. On Friday there were no fewer than 20 checkpoints in the span of 100 miles, and at each barricade — a downed telephone pole, a gnarled tree stump — mobs of rowdy young men jumped in front of cars, yanked at door handles and pulled out knives. Their actions did not seem to be motivated by ethnic tension, like much of the violence that has killed more than 800 people in Kenya since a flawed election in December. It was much simpler than that. “Give us money,” demanded one young man who stood defiantly in the road with a bow in his hands and a quiver of poisoned arrows on his back. On other fronts, there were signs of progress. The government and the opposition, who had been blaming each other for Kenya’s rapid plunge, signed a peace plan for the first time on Friday night to help defuse tensions and bring an end to the violence. And despite fears that Kenya would explode again after a second opposition lawmaker was gunned down on Thursday, there were no reports of mass revenge killings. The volatile slums ringing Nairobi, the capital, seemed to be quiet.

Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, visited Kenya on Friday and said he was “encouraged by the constructive spirit that has prevailed throughout my discussions so far,” though he said he was still very concerned about the unrest. "It has led to an intolerable level of deaths, destruction, displacement and suffering,” he said. “It has to stop.” To help stem the violence, the agreement reached on Friday outlined specific steps to build peace, including refraining from provocative statements, holding joint meetings to promote stability and disbanding militias. But it was unclear how the plan would address the thornier fact that both sides still claim to have won the election. There is also a question at this point about how well Kenyans are following their leaders. Far from the political negotiations, Kenya’s countryside seems to be settling into a bizarre state of lawlessness, uncharacteristic of this country and more reminiscent of the checkpoint culture in Somalia or Darfur, in Sudan. Roadblocks have been a problem since the elections, with angry mobs demanding to see the identification cards of passers-by to determine their ethnic identities. Such clashes led to the deaths of several people a few weeks ago. But now a different kind of roadblock seems to be taking root, one based more on opportunism than on politics. After one young man extracted a toll of sorts, he quickly examined the bill and stuffed it into his pocket. In case there were any questions, another armed teenager stood nearby, wearing fatigues and a jaunty skipper’s hat.

Kenya’s troubles started in late December when President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of an election that outside observers called deeply flawed. Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader, who narrowly lost, said the government had rigged the election, and some Western observers agree. Many people here tend to vote along ethnic lines, and this election, perhaps more than any other in Kenya’s history, polarized the country. Mr. Kibaki is Kikuyu and Mr. Odinga is Luo, two of the bigger ethnic groups, and in the mayhem that erupted after the disputed vote, members of ethnic groups that backed Mr. Odinga slaughtered hundreds of Kikuyus and drove them off their land. Kikuyus eventually took their revenge, killing Luos and others. Throughout all this, Mr. Kibaki has mostly kept quiet, leaving the opposition-bashing to his inner circle of advisers. But on Friday he accused opposition leaders of instigating “a campaign of civil unrest and violence,” a statement that seemed to go against the spirit of the peace agreement. “There is overwhelming evidence to indicate that the violence was premeditated, and systematically directed at particular communities,” Mr. Kibaki said while attending a summit meeting of African leaders in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

In Kericho, a stunningly fertile area where much of Kenya’s tea is grown, young men rampaged across the hillsides on Friday, looting and burning dozens of homes. They said they were avenging the death of their representative in Parliament, David Kimutai Too, who was killed Thursday by a policeman. Police officials quickly announced that Mr. Too’s death was a “crime of passion,” saying a policeman shot his girlfriend and Mr. Too for seeing each other behind his back. But many opposition supporters reject that, especially because another opposition lawmaker was gunned down on Tuesday in suspicious circumstances. Many of the men burning homes in Kericho were Kalenjin, the ethnic group of Mr. Too, and the houses crackling in flames belonged to Kikuyus. Kenya’s security forces are struggling to contain this. On Friday a police squad dismantled roadblocks along the Eldoret-Kericho road, sending the young men with the bows and arrows scattering into the tea bushes. The police arrested several suspects looting a burned truck that had been hauling fish. Hundreds of pounds of partly seared fish were spilled across the road. “Look at this,” said Joseph Mele, a police commander. “We are destroying our own economy.” But then Mr. Mele brightened. “Don’t worry — we’ll get a handle on this. Tell the tourists to come back,” he said, referring to the exodus of safarigoers who have left Kenya because of the turmoil. “We’ll protect them.”
By Jeffrey Gettleman
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Fighting in Chad’s Capital as Rebel Forces Storm In

DAKAR, Senegal. Feb. 3rd. (NY Times) — A rebel army swarmed the capital of Chad on Saturday, and gun battles erupted around the presidential palace, according to Chadian and Western officials, in an attack that raised the specter of deeper chaos in one the most war-scarred and fragile regions of the world. A coalition of three rebel groups that have taken shelter in Sudan for the past few years entered the capital early Saturday, after days of battle dozens of miles outside the city, Chadian officials said. The suddenness and stealth of their arrival appeared to take the military by surprise. A spokesman for the three rebel groups, Abderamane Koullamalah, said in a statement posted on a rebel Web site that they were in the capital and were “ready to facilitate, with the guarantee of the African Union, the negotiated departure of President Idriss Déby and avoid a pointless blood bath.”

But Chad’s ambassador in Washington, Mahamoud Adam Bechir, said in a telephone interview that the rebels who reached the capital were a small group that had split from the main column of rebels headed toward the city. The group had circumvented counterattacks by the Chadian military and stolen into the capital, Mr. Bechir said, but was being chased by Presidential Guard forces. “They were able to infiltrate the capital, panic the population, fire at the presidency and give the impression there is fighting going on at the presidency,” Mr. Bechir said. “But everything is under control. President Idriss Deby is in the palace. The Chadian military forces are chasing the insurgents.” He said that the airport had been closed to civilian flights and that cellphone networks had been shut down to hamper rebel communication lines. As a result, his account of the fighting could not be verified. The timing of the attack appeared to be linked to the planned arrival of a European Union force that was to begin deploying on the border in an effort to protect refugees from Darfur and eastern Chad and to prevent Chad from sliding into bloodshed, said Reed Brody, a lawyer at Human Rights Watch who has studying Chad for many years.

A vast, arid, landlocked nation in the heart of Africa, Chad has suffered through years of civil war, military coups and tyrannical rule. But with the crisis on its eastern border with Darfur and conflict over a booming oil business in the south, the country has become increasingly unstable. Ndjamena was plunged into confusion Saturday, with gunfire echoing through the streets while residents hunkered down in their homes, waiting for news. The United States, France and the United Nations made preparations to evacuate expatriates. Gabriel Stauring, an American antigenocide activist, was among about 50 people pinned down in a luxury hotel in the capital that came under heavy fire. In an e-mail message, Mr. Stauring said that French military personnel had exchanged heavy fire with rebels outside the hotel. “Bullets flew over our heads and parts of the walls and objects around us came raining down on us,” he wrote. The fighting in Ndjamena will surely further destabilize what is already one of the most volatile regions of Africa. Chad and Sudan are locked in a tangle of conflict and have traded accusations and bombs in the past four years as the conflagration in the Sudanese region of Darfur has increasingly consumed Chad as well.

Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees from Darfur are living in Chad, and militia attacks from across the Sudanese border in 2006 forced tens of thousands of Chadians to flee their homes as well. Ethnic violence in Chad between Arab and non-Arab ethnic groups, echoes of the conflagration in Darfur, has forced still more to flee. Chad’s president, Mr. Déby, shares clan links to some of the leaders of the Darfur rebellion, and the rebels operate from bases in Chad with near-total impunity, which has angered the Sudanese government and raised tensions between the countries. Chad meanwhile accuses Sudan of sponsoring rebellions against Mr. Déby. The three groups that are currently attacking the capital all had bases in Sudan, according to analysts and diplomats, something that would be impossible without the tacit approval of the Sudanese government. Many advocates and analysts have worried that if the Chadian rebels take power, they would take a pro-Sudan stance and block a planned European Union peacekeeping force for Chad and Central African Republic. Mr. Brody said that many Chadians feared a violent takeover by a shadowy group of rebels, many of whom have ties to repressive past regimes. “Nobody is going to miss Déby, but these guys aren’t exactly fighting for freedom and democracy,” Mr. Brody said.

In the past, France, the former colonial power in Chad, has used its military forces in Chad to bolster Mr. Déby.But on Saturday, French troops were focused on protecting expatriates, said Capt. Christophe Prazuck, a spokesman for the French military. “At the present time, the French military forces are not involved in the fighting,” he said. France maintains more than 1,200 troops in Chad, and in the past two days added 350 more to help protect its citizens, according to French officials. The United States State Department posted a message on its Web site urging Americans to seek safety at the embassy if they wished to be evacuated. The current fighting has forced the European Union to delay its deployment of a 3,700-troop peacekeeping force to protect refugees living on borders of Chad and Central African Republic. The delay of that force is a blow to France’s ambitions to use European military power more forcefully, and senior French officials worked to keep other contributors on board. “Politically it could be a little blow for our European operation in the eastern part of Chad,” a senior French official said. “The others are totally terrified.”
By LYDIA POLGREEN
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Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
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