China, in New Role, Presses Sudan on Darfur

A restaurant in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, is among the signs of China’s active commercial and diplomatic role in the country. (Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)

KHARTOUM, Sudan: Feb. 23rd. (NY Times) — Amid the international outrage over the bloodshed in Darfur, frustration has increasingly turned toward China, Sudan’s biggest trading partner and international protector, culminating in Steven Spielberg’s decision last week to withdraw as artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympics. And it may be working. China has begun shifting its position on Darfur, stepping outside its diplomatic comfort zone to quietly push Sudan to accept the world’s largest peacekeeping force, diplomats and analysts say. It has also acted publicly, sending engineers to help peacekeepers in Darfur and appointing a special envoy to the region who has toured refugee camps and pressed the Sudanese government to change its policies. Few analysts expect China to walk away from its business ties to Sudan, but its willingness to take up the issue is a rare venture into something China swears it never does — meddle in the internal affairs of its trading partners. “China in my view has been very cooperative,” said Andrew S. Natsios, the former special envoy of President Bush to Sudan. “The level of coordination and cooperation has been improving each month.”

For all of China’s billion-dollar oil contracts, multimillion-dollar arms shipments and Security Council veto protection of Sudan, the global power with the biggest influence over the country has scarcely a dime invested here, has no ambassador on Sudanese soil and has slapped progressively tougher sanctions on its government: the United States. While conventional wisdom holds that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have sapped America’s prestige and power, especially in Muslim countries, the United States remains the gatekeeper to international respectability in the eyes of the Sudanese government, and its power to influence top officials here — through threats or inducements — remains unmatched, diplomats, Sudanese government officials and analysts say. “Coming to some sort of agreement with the United States is the Holy Grail of Sudanese politics,” said a senior Western diplomat in Khartoum, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “No one has been able to deliver it.” This holds true though Sudan is awash in investments from Asia and the gulf that would, in theory, allow the oil-rich but development-poor country to prosper more broadly than it has despite American opprobrium.

American approval and acceptance would transform Sudan in a way the billions of dollars from China, India, Malaysia, Iran and the gulf have been unable to: by opening the spigots of Western development aid and with it a deal to reduce its nearly $30 billion in external debt, along with technical assistance to manage the tide of money rushing in. “We are receiving billions of dollars in foreign investment that we are not even prepared to absorb,” said Ali al-Sadig, a senior diplomat and Sudanese government spokesman who worked on the China desk of Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for many years. “We don’t have the capacity. We need Western expertise. Sudan wants, above all, a normal relationship with the United States and the West.” But the Bush administration seems divided on what to do about Darfur. On one hand, there is heavy pressure from advocacy groups, Congress and others to take a tough line with Sudan, stepping up sanctions and hammering the government over new attacks.

At the same time, because Sudan is a crucial ally of the United States in fighting terrorism, some in the administration argue that it cannot be allowed to become more isolated and further beyond the West’s orbit than it already is, diplomats and analysts say. Sudan’s relationship with the West has been troubled ever since Omar al-Bashir seized power in 1989 and embraced militant Islam, playing host to a variety of jihadists, including Osama bin Laden. The relationship hit its lowest in 1998 when the Clinton administration bombed a Khartoum pharmaceutical factory it claimed was producing chemical weapons, though the allegation has never been proved. After Sept. 11, Sudan reached out to the United States, realizing that it could find itself in the cross hairs of America’s military might just as Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and Iraq later did. The two countries have since cooperated on counterterrorism issues, even though Sudan remains on an American list of nations that sponsor terrorism. Mr. Bush sent John C. Danforth, the former Missouri senator, to help negotiate a deal to end the civil war in southern Sudan that had lasted two decades and claimed two million lives. Sudan had many reasons for wanting to end the war — its military was exhausted, and a stalemate was helping neither side — but the chance to improve relations with the United States was a big inducement for Sudan’s government. Then “Darfur happened,” the diplomat said.

At first, the conflict in Darfur seemed a fly in the ointment, a distraction from the main work of securing peace between the north and south. But five years later, the Darfur crisis is undermining the peace agreement and threatens to tear Sudan apart. More than 200,000 have died in Darfur, according to international estimates, and 2.5 million have been pushed into camps here and in Chad, sowing chaos in one of the world’s poorest regions. Sudan’s government says the toll has been greatly exaggerated. The conflict has also inspired one of the largest protest movements in the United States since the battle to end apartheid in South Africa. China, with its vast commercial interests and sensitivity to criticism around the Olympics, presents a unique leverage point for this movement. Like Mr. Spielberg, Mia Farrow, an actress and Darfur activist, has said China can do more, specifically by pushing for the full deployment of 27,000 peacekeeping troops in Darfur, supplying some of the helicopters needed for the mission and demanding an end to aerial bombardment of civilian areas. But some diplomats and analysts argue that offering concessions, not demands — a chance to come off the state sponsor of terrorism list or easing sanctions — may offer the best opportunity to get Sudan’s government to strike a deal in Darfur.

There are grave risks to that strategy, not least of which is that Sudan’s government has a history of making agreements and not fully putting them in place. “What this government responds to is pressure,” Jerry Fowler, executive director of the Save Darfur Coalition, said of Sudan’s leaders. As a senior Western diplomat in Khartoum put it, the West’s stance on Sudan must be “mistrust but verify,” a twist on Reagan’s posture on the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the Sudanese government is far from unanimous in its craving for international respectability. The small cadre who have ruled this country since the National Islamic Front seized power in a coup in 1989 have tried a variety of guises — radical Islamism, Arab nationalism and garden variety despotism — in their quest to hang on to power. The relative moderates who were crucial to negotiating a deal with the south have been largely sidelined, and analysts and diplomats say that hard-liners in the military and elsewhere are increasingly less interested in Western ties.

As for China, analysts warn, there are limits to how far it will go. Olympics or no, China’s leadership simply has too much at stake in Sudan. “Their political fortunes are tied to their ability to deliver a constant stream of economic goods at home,” said Christopher Alden, a senior lecturer at the London School of Economics who has studied China-Africa relations. “They can’t say, ‘O.K., we have sunk billions over the long term in Sudan and we are just going to walk away from it because of Darfur.’ It is just not going to happen.” China, along with Iran, Russia and others, is still selling weapons to Sudan. While China says it is abiding by a United Nations embargo on sending weapons directly to Darfur, an analysis of shell casings and vehicles found in Darfur by a panel of United Nations experts found that Chinese weapons were making their way to Darfur. Fractures among the rebel groups in Darfur and threats from Sudan’s neighbors, like Chad, may have more impact on the quest for peace than anything Washington or Beijing does. Still, John Prendergast, a former Clinton administration official, advocate and writer on Sudan for two decades, said that China and the United States needed to be engaged. “Unless China and the U.S. are both exerting much more pressure on Sudan, the crisis will continue to spiral out of control,” he said in an e-mail message. “China has unique economic leverage, while the U.S. retains leverage based on its ability to confer or withdraw legitimacy.”
By Lydia Polgreen
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Kenya - After the Violence

Nairobi, Kenya: Feb. 21st: Arriving in Nairobi some weeks after the post election violence one is aware of normality slowly returning to that city. What strikes one is that it is the poor areas, the slums that have been most affected. As I walked through Mathare, Huruma, Korogocho, and Kariobangi, there was plenty of evidence of the violence which occurred, houses and churches had been burned, homes and stalls abandoned from where people of different tribes had either been evicted or had fled in fear.

There were also long queues of women and children outside stations where food was been handed out. In talking with some of the people they shared feelings of anger, fear, hopelessness and shame for what had happened. Now that the violence has calmed down people were asking, how could these things have happened? Why did neighbour turn against neighbour? What ignited such destruction? In one of the camps which I visited with the local Chief, people sat around still bewildered at what had happened. Some of these people had lost all their property and source of income, others worried about missing family members. In one of the tents I came across a mother who had given birth to triplets on the night the violence started. The babies were the centre of attention as they smiled and gurgled, but the comments of others were, "why should these lovely innocent babies be born into such a violent world". An elderly man wondered, "is this the Kenya I fought for during the war of independence and worked so hard to build up Kenya". In one of the areas where Sr Lydia and her team had gathered displaced children I looked at the drawings these children had done of their experience of the post election days. A sense of dismay and sadness came over me when I saw what these children had drawn, homes and churches on fire, people waving sticks and pangas, people lying dead on the streets, some beheaded, other injured.. One could not but help wonder the impact of such violence had on these vulnerable children.

But what impressed me most were the good stories and the presence of so many good Samaritans. Somehow the response to the evil had also evoked great good, but these are the stories that rarely make the headlines. For example - the Kikuyu woman who when she saw Kikuyu youth threatening to kill a Luo man, threw her arms around him and started crying and pleading to save her husband, and succeeded in saving the stranger’s life; - or the Luo woman who hid five Kikuyu children in her home; - or the Christians who hid their priests who were of a different tribe. In the camps and affected areas one meets volunteers both local and international, missionaries and Non Government Organizations who are assisting those affected with food, blankets, clothing and tents, as well as assisting others to get back home or to repair their homes. Some of this has been possible due to grants that have been received from IMRS/Irish Aid. At present the mediation meetings with Kofi Annan continue. People are anxiously awaiting the outcome. What is very evident is that the ordinary person on the street wants a peaceful solution. They want to get on with their lives. We continue to pray that the Leaders who sit in comfortable hotels, whose families have not experienced the violence and destruction, will come together to work for the good of the people of Kenya and united will address some of the underlying causes for the unrest and discontent. To- morrow I move on to Nakuru.
Sr. Miriam. From Nairobi
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Child Sexual Abuse in the Philippines

OLANGAPO CITY, Philippines, Feb. 22 nd, (ICN) - Anna Maria aged 15, is recovering at the Preda Centre. She goes to school and loves to learn. She travels to school with 35 other children who are also recovering and overcoming the trauma of abuse. Given care, affirmation support and good therapy, victims are not damaged forever. They can recover and make a success of life. That is the goal of the Childhood for Children Life Recovery Programme. There are 53 children recovering in Preda at present, not all are ready for school. Arriving from school on the Preda bus, they are laughing, boisterous and full of life, simply happy. They have a meeting on their return to Preda and tell about their experience at school. The staff members listen and help them deal with any school problems. It is so important to listen to children. After the meeting and story telling, they all go to wash up and have a shower and change clothes. They come together for a meal. A buzz of noisy conversation and chatting fills the room. Some of the girls are assigned to wash the dishes, others clean the dining room and sweep the floor. The Preda social worker helps and encourages them. teaching by example. Others are allowed to watch a serial story on TV for 40 minutes. Only positive inspirational and education programmes are viewed.

Then it,s time for homework. Some of the children work on the computers. A teacher arrives in the study hall and Anna Maria is always eager to do the home work. The children know that education is the only way out of the pit of poverty. After doing their homework, the children have evening prayer and a reading from the gospel. Through the Gospel, the children learn that every individual is important, precious and valuable, and has rights as a member of the Family of God, as a human person and especially as a child. It is not only the group that is important, but each individual. Taken for granted today, it was a revolutionaryidea 2000 years ago. An individual can never be sacrificed for the sake of group or family interest. This is a typical day in the life of Anna Maria. She is happy and laughing and doing well in school. But when she first came to Preda, she was depressed, suicidal and filled with fear and anxiety. She was alone and lost, far from her parents and home. She was a victim of forced child prostitution.

It all began when she was taken out of school at 14 by her impoverished parents to work as a domestic helper in the city to send money home. They did not know that the owner, Dom Pedro, was a member of the political elite and a wealthy sex club owner. She washed and cleaned in his sumptuous private mansion. Anna Maria never received any payment and was not allowed to leave the compound. There was no escape. One night, Anna Maria was set upon by the 20 year old son of her employer. A week later she was taken out to his friends and they abused her too. Soon after she was brought to the sex club and made work serving drinks in the club. A foreign sex tourist fancied her, paid the manager and dragged her to a back room where she was sexually abused again and again. She was traumatised, shocked and crying. In desperation, she climbed out a toilet window and ran away. A good hearted woman vendor in the market heard her story and immediately sent a text message to Preda. She was a member of the "defenders of children, a group trained by the Preda Community Education Team to report child abuse. Within twenty minutes, the Preda child rescue team van arrived and Anna Maria was saved. She is now a strong minded young lady and empowered to testify against her abuser.

It is only a government that is corruption free and cares for the dignity of women and children that will close the sex industry and stop supporting it. They can do it, with political will, and by canceling the operating licenses and permits. That will save thousands of children like Anna Maria. It can,t come soon enough.
Contact Fr Shay Cullen at the Preda Centre, Upper Kalaklan, Olongapo City, Philippines. E-mail: preda@info.com.ph
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Peace Deal Nearly Done in Kenya

NAIROBI, Kenya. Feb. 22nd. (NY Times) — Kenya’s rival political parties have nearly completed a deal to end the crisis that has kept this country on edge for almost two months, with the government agreeing to create a prime minister position, one of the opposition’s chief demands, a high-ranking government official said Thursday. Not all the details have been worked out, the official said, but lawyers were drafting language on Thursday evening that would outline the job description of the prime minister position and how it would be incorporated into Kenya’s political framework. An opposition official confirmed that a deal was close, but was a bit more cautious, saying that the amount of power given to the new prime minister position had not yet been pinned down. “It’s a major achievement,” said the opposition official, on the condition of anonymity because both sides had been asked by international mediators not to speak to the press. “The next challenge will be to put meat on the bone.” Many Kenyans were glued to their televisions and radios on Thursday for the latest developments, and they seemed to be keeping their fingers crossed. The consensus here is that a political compromise between the government and the opposition is the only way to end the fighting between each side’s supporters.

The trouble started in December after the national election commission declared Mwai Kibaki, the incumbent, the winner of a presidential election over Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader, despite widespread evidence of vote rigging. The unrest has killed more than 1,000 people and threatened Kenya’s reputation for stability in a turbulent region. Mr. Odinga claims he won the election and has demanded that his party be given a meaningful role in the government. He has said the minimum he would accept was a role as prime minister. Over the past few days, the two sides have argued intensely over exactly what that position would look like. On Thursday, they agreed that the prime minister would “coordinate and supervise government functions,” said the government official. “It’s quite a substantial and reasonable role,” the official said. “I didn’t see anyone unhappy.” The president would still remain head of state and head of government, with the prime minister reporting to him, according to the current proposal. It was not clear on Thursday evening if the president would be able to fire the prime minister, something that the opposition has adamantly opposed, or if that would be up to Parliament. Opposition leaders are also pushing for guarantees that Parliament has real muscle, arguing that there is not an adequate separation of powers between the president and the Parliament.

Still, Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, who has been in Kenya for a month trying to broker a political truce, seemed optimistic that all this could be sorted out. In a short statement on Thursday, he said he could finally see “the light at the end of the tunnel.” Other officials close to the talks said that many of the thorniest issues had been resolved and that the government had agreed to give the opposition at least a dozen cabinet posts. But a deal had seemed close several other times recently, only to evaporate. Both sides described the prime minister proposal as a temporary solution, and have vowed to change the country’s laws to address long-festering problems. The disputed election stirred up decades of grievances about land, power and economic opportunity, and set off battles between ethnic groups supporting the president and those backing the opposition. Many Kenyans vote along ethnic lines. Lawmakers have also promised to work together to rewrite the Kenyan Constitution, which vests enormous powers in the presidency and is seen as one of the root causes of this crisis.

But the biggest hurdle was a power-sharing agreement. Mr. Odinga and his team said the only fair solution was to make him the prime minister, but Mr. Kibaki seemed intent on shutting him out, saying this week that any deal had to be consistent with Kenya’s Constitution, which does not specifically authorize a prime minister position. But Mr. Kibaki has come under international pressure to compromise. On Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Kenya and said that “real power sharing” was needed, a clear signal to Mr. Kibaki that Washington wanted him to give the opposition a significant role. The high-ranking government official cautioned that serious issues had to be to overcome before completion of the deal, which some people close to the talks said could be as early as Friday. Tough issues include how the prime minister job would be created — whether by Parliament, as the government wants, or by a constitutional amendment, as opposition leaders had sought, though on Thursday they seemed to back down. Who would have more power, the prime minister or the vice president, currently a former opposition member who switched sides? Other questions include how long the position would last and whether there would be another election before Mr. Kibaki’s term expires in five years. “No deal is done until it is done,” the government official said.
By Jeffrey Gettleman with Kennedy Abwao contributed reporting.
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C.I.A. Confirms Rendition Report

LONDON, Feb. 22nd. (NY Times) — In tones freighted with frustration, Britain’s foreign secretary, David Miliband, on Thursday told the House of Commons that “contrary to earlier explicit assurances” the CIA had confirmed using an American-operated airfield on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for refuelling two American “rendition” flights carrying terrorism suspects in 2002. The American acknowledgment of the flights, each carrying a single detainee, contradicted previous assurances by the United States to Britain’s Labor government that no such flights had landed on British territory or passed through British airspace. Although the C.I.A. attributed its earlier denials to a “flawed records search,” the admission could add to the animosity the government here has aroused, particularly with Labor’s left wing, over its alliance with the United States in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr. Miliband’s statement prompted protests from members of Parliament from various parties and from British-based human rights groups that had contended for years that Britain had been a knowing or unknowing partner in the American use of rendition flights. The term has been used to describe the secret transport of prisoners from one country or jurisdiction to another without formal extradition proceedings. It gained much of its notoriety from the American practice after Sept. 11, 2001, of transporting terrorism suspects secretly to other countries for interrogation.

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Michael Hayden, informed British officials of the 2002 flights during a visit to London last week. He issued a statement to the agency’s staff in Washington on Thursday saying that a fresh review of agency records had shown that the C.I.A. had erred in assuring Britain previously that “there had been no rendition flights involving their soil or airspace” since the 2001 attacks in the United States. Mr. Miliband said he had received a personal apology from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who had told him that she shared his “deep regret” about the earlier false denials. “That information, supplied in good faith, turned out to be wrong,” General Hayden said, adding, “This time, the examination revealed the two stops in Diego Garcia. The refueling, conducted more than five years ago, lasted just a short time. But it happened. That we found this mistake ourselves, and that we brought it to the attention of the British government, in no way changes or excuses the reality that we were in the wrong. An important part of intelligence work, inherently urgent, complex and uncertain, is to take responsibility for errors and to learn from them. In this case, the result of a flawed records search, we have done so.”

Mr. Miliband told the House of Commons he was “very sorry indeed” to have to revise the Labor government’s repeated assurances in recent years that it knew of no American rendition flights involving British airspace or airfields. The British assurances, on numerous occasions in 2005, 2006 and 2007, were given, among others, by the former prime minister, Tony Blair, who said in 2005 that he was “not prepared to believe” that the Americans had broken faith with Britain over the issue, and by a former foreign secretary, Jack Straw, who dismissed the accusations as “a very old story,” and a discredited one. “The House and its members will be deeply disappointed at this news, and about its late emergence,” Mr. Miliband said in his Commons statement. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, visiting Brussels, spoke in similar terms. “It is unfortunate that this was not known, and it was unfortunate it happened without us knowing that it had happened,” he said, adding that Britain would press for procedures to ensure that such a breach could not happen again. For Mr. Brown, the information about the flights came at a politically awkward moment, when he has been struggling with low poll ratings driven by a series of government mishaps, and by months of uncertainty over the future of the troubled Northern Rock bank, which was finally nationalized in legislation rushed through Parliament on Monday. Mr. Brown, a silent skeptic during the Blair years about Britain’s military commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, has also been working to replace the close relationship Mr. Blair had with President Bush with a more wary stance and moving rapidly to draw down Britain’s remaining 4,200 troops in Iraq.

In his account, General Hayden, the C.I.A. director, said that neither of the two detainees carried aboard the rendition flights that refuelled at Diego Garcia “was ever part of the C.I.A.’s high-value terrorist interrogation program.” This appeared to be his way of saying what Mr. Miliband, in his Commons statement, made explicit, that the suspects on the two flights were not taken to any of the C.I.A.’s network of secret prisons, some of them in eastern Europe, and that they were not subjected to stress techniques that critics of the C.I.A. program have described as tantamount to torture, including waterboarding. General Hayden said one of the detainees “was ultimately transferred to Guantánamo,” the American military prison on the eastern tip of Cuba, while the other “was returned to his home country,” identified by State Department officials in Washington on Thursday as Morocco. “These were rendition operations, nothing more,” General Hayden said. He also used the statement to refute accusations by human rights groups that the C.I.A. “had a holding facility” for terrorist suspects on Diego Garcia, a 40-mile long island leased by Britain about 1,000 miles southwest of the southernmost tip of India. “That is false,” he said.

For more than 30 years, the United States has operated a military air base on the island under an agreement with Britain, using it mainly for refuelling and as a forward base for long-range bombers, including B-52’s, that have been used in military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. As many as 2,500 American military personnel are said to be stationed at the base, while Britain has only a few hundred. More than 2,000 islanders were transferred elsewhere after Britain leased the island, many of them under bitter protest. For years, governments and Parliaments across Europe have been roiled by accusations that the C.I.A. has used European airspace and airfields for rendition flights, but in the face of insistent American denials much about the practice has remained murky. The nations listed by human rights groups as having been involved in the flights — or of turning a blind eye to use of their airfields — have included Britain, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, among others. One British rights group, Liberty, contended in 2005 that aircraft operated by or chartered by the C.I.A. had used 11 British airports and air bases since 2001, involving 210 flights. The CIA’s acknowledgment that it misled Britain about the two flights revived those accusations, and not only among the rights groups. Mr. Miliband said the foreign office was compiling a list of flights that protest groups have cited in their accusations of British complicity in the C.I.A. rendition program, which would be passed to the United States for “their specific assurance that none of these fights were used for rendition purposes." William Hague, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Conservatives, espressed support for that plan. “As America’s candid friend,” Mr. Hague told the BBC, Britain should insist that the Bush administration clear up all the uncertainties surrounding rendition, and not only the details of the flights, but whether it was prepared to “adopt a definition of torture” that met the standards laid down in international conventions.
by John F. Burns
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Pakistani Victors Say They Agree on Coalition

Supporters of Benazir Bhutto’s party shouted protests in Karachi over election results for a party linked to the president. (Max Becherer/Polaris, for The New York Times)

Feb. 22nd. (NY Times) - Pakistan's two main opposition parties announced Thursday that they would work together to form a coalition government. The apparent breakthrough came after the leaders of the two parties, the victors in Pakistan’s parliamentary elections, held make-or-break talks in Islamabad, the capital. “We will work together to form the government," former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told a joint news conference in Islamabad, after the talks with Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, the assassinated former prime minister, news agencies reported. "We intend to stay together and be together in the Parliament,” Mr. Zardari said at the news conference, The Associated Press reported. “We intend to strengthen Pakistan together.” The leaders said they had agreed in principle to the restoration of the judiciary that had been swept away by President Pervez Musharraf under emergency rule last November. But they did not immediately say whether they would push for the ouster of Mr. Musharraf, The A.P. reported.

Both the future of Mr. Musharraf and the restoration of the judges had been divisive issues for the two parties in their coalition negotiations. Some analysts had expected that instead of working with Mr. Sharif, Mr. Zardari, who leads the party with the largest number of seats in the new Parliament, would reach out to the remnants of Mr. Musharraf’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q. Since the election on Monday, Mr. Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, which came in second to Mr. Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party, has been adamant about trying to bring impeachment proceedings against Mr. Musharraf, who removed Mr. Sharif from power in a 1999 coup. Mr. Sharif also argued for the immediate reinstatement of the judiciary, in particular the former chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who has been under house arrest for three months. To show his solidarity with Mr. Chaudhry, Mr. Sharif joined a noisy demonstration on Thursday outside the judge’s Islamabad home. Mr. Sharif, speaking through a bullhorn to cheers, said he would make sure in the next few days that the chief justice and dozens of other judges “illegally” fired by Mr. Musharraf would be restored to the bench. Mr. Sharif then asked the protesters to disband.

Later, Mr. Chaudhry spoke from his home by mobile phone to lawyers gathering in Karachi and Lahore, calling for the reinstatement of the judges, The A.P. reported. Mr. Zardari has taken a somewhat softer line on the restoration of the judiciary, saying it should be a matter for the new Parliament. Several days after Ms. Bhutto was assassinated in December, Mr. Zardari lashed out at Mr. Musharraf’s party, accusing it of masterminding her death and calling it “the killer party.” But since the election on Monday, Mr. Zardari has taken a less hostile approach. By Wednesday he had dropped his harsh references to Mr. Musharraf and his defeated party. As the maneuvering between the political parties has intensified in the last several days, the perception has grown among Pakistanis that the Bush administration would much prefer Mr. Zardari to join forces with the followers of Mr. Musharraf than with Mr. Sharif’s.

The United States ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, met with Mr. Zardari on Wednesday at the American Embassy, an encounter that bolstered the belief among Pakistanis that Washington was in the thick of the political negotiations. Statements from the White House and the State Department encouraging a broad consensus in a new government also added to the sense that the administration was eager to try to preserve some power for Mr. Musharraf, an ally in the campaign against terrorism. Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, confirmed Thursday that Mr. Bush took time during a tour of African states to telephone Mr. Musharraf on Tuesday after his party’s losses in the parliamentary elections. The call was made during Mr. Bush’s flight from Rwanda to Ghana, but Ms. Perino would not say what the two leaders discussed. She said it was up to the Pakistani people to decide whether Mr. Musharraf retained his position.

Some Pakistanis warned Thursday that the United States must stand back. The leader of the opposition lawyers’ movement in Pakistan, Aitzaz Ahsan, who has been under house arrest for more than three months but is now able to speak by telephone, said he had told a visiting American diplomat on Wednesday, “The guy is history; please don’t prop him up.” He said he pointed out to the diplomat, Bryan Hunt, the United States consul general in Lahore, that Mr. Musharraf’s party had won only a small fraction of the 272 parliamentary seats. Mr. Ahsan has become a folk hero among the lawyers who opposed President Musharraf in his battle with the Supreme Court chief justice and the judiciary in general. Mr. Ahsan’s steadfast stand behind the restoration of judges appeared to be a motivating force behind the surprisingly strong showing in the elections for Mr. Sharif. Mr. Ahsan argued that in terms of the campaign against terrorism, which is Washington’s priority in Pakistan, the restoration of the judiciary and the end of Mr. Musharraf’s rule were essential. Weapons of war were not the primary ingredients for success against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, he said. “The only effective weapon is an empowered people with enforceable rights, and you can’t have those rights without an independent judiciary,” he said.

Mr. Ahsan is a senior member of the Pakistan Peoples Party, although he had a prickly relationship with Ms. Bhutto, who appeared to resent his independent streak. One of Pakistan’s most sought-after lawyers, Mr. Ahsan defended Mr. Zardari and Ms. Bhutto in court when they faced corruption charges after her first term as prime minister, and won acquittals for the couple in 18 cases between 1990 and 1993, he said. Mr. Zardari currently faces corruption charges in Switzerland. He said in an interview last week that corruption cases against him in Pakistan were still pending. Mr. Ahsan warned that if a new parliamentary coalition did not heed the call to reinstate the judiciary, he was preparing a campaign to pressure the new Parliament to do so. On March 9, the anniversary of Mr. Musharraf’s first suspension of the Supreme Court justice, Mr. Chaudhry, Mr. Ahsan said he would lead a long caravan of vehicles, coming from Lahore and other major cities, into Islamabad. The caravan would include scores of judges who had been dismissed late last year, at the same time Mr. Chaudhry was removed for a second time.
By Graham Bowley. Jane Perlez contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan
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Irish soldiers to leave for Chad tonight

(Pat Nash left, to command EU force in Chad and Central African Republic)
Dublin, Ireland: Feb. 20th. (The Irish Times) - Fifty members of the Irish Army's elite Ranger Wing are due to leave for Chad tonight after weeks of delays. The mission has been delayed twice over a lack of medical and logistical resources, and more recently because the rebel advance on the capital N'djamena closed the main airport. The main contingent of 400 Irish troops is due to be in place in Chad in mid-May as part of the 3,700-strong EUfor peacekeeping force. They will protect refugees in Chad and those displaced by the conflict in Darfur in western Sudan. About 200 EU troops, including eight Irish soldiers, are already on the ground, having arrived prior to the rebel offensive. Representatives of the Chadian rebel alliance warned last week Irish troops will be considered a hostile force if they deploy alongside French forces.

On their arrival, the Rangers face a difficult 900km journey by land across Chad's arid interior to the eastern regions of Abeche and Goz Beida. About 400,000 refugees from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region are crammed into camps along the border. Deployment of the 14-nation EU force began last week with Swedish Special Forces and French logistical units arriving at the reopened N'Djamena airport. Lieut Gen Pat Nash, the Paris-based Irish commander of EUfor said an information campaign aimed at explaining the role of Eufor was already under way in Chad.

The Irish Anti-War Movement will hold a protest outside the Dáil this afternoon over the deployment. It claims the Irish Army is helping support "a French colonial adventure to prop up the corrupt undemocratic regime" of Chad's President Idriss Déby. It also accuses Ireland of taking sides in a proxy war that is raging between Sudan and Chad. "It is utterly wrong and contrary to Ireland's tradition of military neutrality to put Irish troops in harms way by sending them into this situation," said IAWM chairman Richard Boyd Barrett. "The Government is putting the lives of Irish troops at risk to serve the interests of French colonialism and a corrupt and undemocratic regime." © 2008 ireland.com
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UN Envoy Welcomes Burma Timetable

(Mr Gambari left, has visited Burma twice since the September protests)
Beijing, China: Feb. 19th. (BBC News) - The UN's special envoy for Burma says the nation's plan for a constitutional referendum and multi-party elections is a "significant step". Ibrahim Gambari said this was the first time the Burmese government had set out a timetable for political reform. It marked the first "established timeframe for the implementation of (Burma's) political roadmap", he said. But the UN envoy said the referendum had to be credible and include genuine political participation. Last week, Burma's military leaders announced that a referendum on a new constitution would be held in May, followed by national elections in 2010. The main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, was not involved in drafting the constitution, and analysts believe it is likely to bar the party's detained leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, from standing.

Mr Gambari is in Beijing to enlist Chinese help in persuading Burma to establish a more democratic and open political system. He spoke to journalists following what he described as "open and constructive" talks with Chinese officials. During the press conference, Mr Gambari was careful not to suggest China had more influence over Burma than any other country. But afterwards he admitted China and India were the countries with the most leverage. Mr Gambari will next visit Indonesia, Singapore and Japan as part of his efforts to push forward reform in Burma. He was last in Burma in November last year, but said he hoped to return before April. "The authorities had said they would receive me after the middle of April, but we have reason to believe they are reconsidering," he said. Although the envoy said he was not frustrated by the apparent lack of progress, he added that there needed to be tangible results. These included lifting restrictions on Ms Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, and establishing a more inclusive political system. The UN envoy has been working on a political settlement since Burmese troops used force to end anti-government protests in September last year.
By Michael Bristow
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Kenyan Opposition Warns of More Protests

(Evelyn Hockstein for The New York Times)
NAIROBI, Kenya. Feb. 21st. (NY Times) — Kenya’s leading opposition party on Wednesday accused the government of stonewalling in negotiations to resolve the country’s festering political crisis and threatened to resume protests if a power sharing agreement was not reached within a week. At the same time, Kenya’s president, Mwai Kibaki, seemed to send out mixed signals whether he would approve the creation of a prime minister post for the opposition, which is one of its chief demands. All in all, the political situation in Kenya remains tense and difficult to predict, with mediators from both sides engaged in heated talks about how to lift the country out of a post-election crisis that has claimed more than 1,000 lives and destabilized the country. The trouble erupted in December after Kenya’s election commission declared Mr. Kibaki, the incumbent, the winner of a presidential election over Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader, despite widespread evidence of vote rigging.

On Wednesday, leaders from the Orange Democratic Movement, Mr. Odinga’s party, said that unless the government supported a constitutional amendment to create a new position of prime minister, giving them a meaningful role in government, they would take to the streets. “If we do not see any progress in one week,” said Najib Balala, an opposition leader, “we are resolved for mass action.” Mass action has been the opposition’s leverage of choice, but despite opposition leaders’ repeated insistence that protests will be peaceful, many have turned into riots, with property destroyed and dozens of people killed.

Mr. Kibaki has so far rejected the prime minister idea. He has indicated that he is willing to bring opposition leaders into his cabinet, but he has balked at the suggestion of making Mr. Odinga the prime minister and sharing executive power with him. Kenya’s constitution, which many Kenyans feel needs to be revised anyway because it vests too much power in the hands of the president, does not authorize a prime minister position, and Mr. Kibaki has said that any political settlement must obey the constitution. “It would be a dangerous precedent for the country if decisions were made that were outside the constitution,” said a statement issued by the presidential press service on Wednesday. But Mr. Kibaki also said, “It is possible to have a comprehensive constitutional review within a year,” and that he was receptive to making changes that Kenyans want.

Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general who has been in Kenya for the past four weeks trying to broker a truce, tried to reassure Kenyans that a solution was still in sight. “Despite discouraging reports prompted by statements from one side or the other,” read an e-mail message issued by Mr. Annan’s team on Wednesday evening, “the talks are going well and we are on track.”
By Jeffrey Gettleman. Kennedy Abwao contributed reporting
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Kenyan National Park Longs For Tourists

NAKURU, Kenya, Feb 19 (Reuters) - There are about 1.5 million pink flamingos at Lake Nakuru National Park but hardly anyone to admire them majestically walking along the shoreline during Kenya's high tourism season. The country's post-election tribal violence has scared away hundreds of thousands of visitors and few people are feeling the squeeze more than the staff at the picturesque park. Guide Timothy Letema is normally standing at the edge of the lake explaining the behaviour of flamingos, pelicans and other bird species by mid-morning. Instead Letema told a reporter that he and others would be taking extended leave to cushion the financial blow of bloodshed that has killed more than 1,000 people, displaced 300,000 and hurt Kenya's image as a regional tourism and trade hub. A lazy buffalo looked on, free of the usual throngs of excited tourists with binoculars who deprive it of peace. After two years of studying to be a tour guide, Letema is just another casualty of ethnic clashes that erupted after the disputed Dec. 27 poll that have hammered the $1 billion a year tourism industry, Kenya's biggest foreign currency earner. He enthusiastically points to a rhino in the distance, an instinctive reaction from better days when rival Kenyan tribes were not hacking or burning each other to death not far from the sanctuary's peaceful woodlands, grasslands and rocky hillsides. Deputy park warden Paul Opiyo puts on a brave face despite a massive fall in sales. Visitor numbers in January dropped by more than 70 percent from a year ago. A night-time curfew forces many employees to go home early. The park's restaurant is empty.

"We do not care about tribal problems or politics. The staff morale is high even though they are from many tribes," he said, adding that violence had forced 300 terrified families to take refuge in the park about 160 km (100 miles) north of Nairobi. Security guards in camouflage fatigues stood near the lake with rifles in case lions charge the few tourists still drawn to the park's 450 species of birds, rhinos and other animals. Baboons, always on the lookout for food dropped by tourists, are lonely these days, strolling through the grass. Two students from Dubai seemed to have the 62 sq km (24 sq miles) park all to themselves, relaxing on a steep cliff overlooking the lake as the smell of marijuana from their pipe drifted through the air. Asked if he was concerned about his safety, Salim Hashim just smiled. "God is with us," he said, oblivious to thousands of Kenyans taking refuge from the bloodshed in a soccer stadium a few hundred metres beyond the park's gates.
By Michael Georgy

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UNHCR Evacuates Staff from Chad Border after Air Strikes in Darfur

ABECHE, Chad, Feb. 19 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency on Tuesday morning evacuated staff from a section of eastern Chad's border with Sudan after earlier air strikes against targets just across the frontier in Darfur. The nine staff members were caring for newly arrived Sudanese refugees in the Birak area. "It is extremely frustrating to have to withdraw staff from the border... It is not only sad, but frustrating, because we cannot provide the protection assistance we wish to give to these newly arrived refugees," said Jorge Holly, head of the UNHCR field office in the eastern Chad town of Guereda." I want to send my staff back to the border as soon as the security situation allows; there is so much we have to do for these people," Holly added. The team left hours after a group of seven Sudanese refugees from West Darfur turned up at Birak health centre and asked the UNHCR staff for help. The refugees were carrying a 55 year-old woman whom they said had lost both her legs during an air raid Monday by Sudanese Antonov planes on the Aro Sharow camp for internally displaced people (IDP) in West Darfur. She later died. One of the refugees told UNHCR protection officers in Birka that the planes started bombing the site at about 10 in the morning. "We counted 18 bombs in total, six directly into the IDP camp," the refugee reportedly claimed. UNHCR staff in Birak heard bomb explosions coming from Sudan on Monday.

"This morning's bombing was a terrible experience," said a UNHCR protection assistant, one of the nine evacuated to Guereda. "We could hear them fall and we felt the battle on the ground. It was so close. "There are normally 4,000-5,000 IDPs at Aro Sharow, but there are unverified reports that most had fled after bombings around Abu Suruj, Siliea and Sirba in West Darfur earlier this month. The refugees who carried the injured woman to Birak said more people would now be fleeing to Chad.As of yesterday, refugees from Darfur were still crossing into Chad. Some of those who arrived a week ago told UNHCR protection staff that over the past few days they had tried to go back at night to Sileah and Sirba to collect food they had buried to prevent it from being looted. "We wanted to go back to collect our food, but we were stopped by the Sudanese military," a female refugee alleged. Others claimed that young women were being frocibly prevented from leaving Sirba and Sileah since the recent attacks started on February 8, causing an estimated 10,000 people to flee across the border into eastern Chad. The UN refugee agency on Tuesday reiterated a call for the new arrivals to be relocated away from the border to safer areas deeper inside Chad. "For protection and security the refugees need to be moved urgently away from the border. We are still discussing the transfer to existing camps near Guereda with the Chadian authorities," spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis said in Geneva. "The women and children we talked to want to be moved to safety, they want to be transfered to a camp," added the protection assistant in Guereda.

Before the latest development, UNHCR successfully conducted an assessment mission at the weekend to the Birak and Korok areas to locate newly arrived refugees from West Darfur. The refugee agency now estimates there have been at least 10,000 new arrivals since February 8. Most of the refugees are in Figuera, with smaller numbers in Birak, Djange and Korok. Several children were reunited with their families in Figuera after earlier being separated from their kin. Refugees in the town took the children into care and put out the word that they were safe and could be collected. UNHCR is registering vulnerable cases such as unaccompanied and separated children, pregnant women, the elderly and sick refugees. Some cases have been transferred to the hospital in Guereda. The agency is also interviewing women who have suffered sexual abuse. Some refugees have brought supplies with them from Sudan, others have nothing. The majority of the new arrivals had already been internally displaced in West Darfur.

On the other side of Chad in neighbouring Cameroon, meanwhile, UNHCR on Saturday began moving Chadian refugees from the Madana transit site in the border town of Kousseri to Maltam 1 camp, located 35 kilometres away.So far, some 1,400 refugees have been transported to the new camp. They were among up to 30,000 Chadians who fled fighting earlier this month in the streets of the Chad capital, N'Djamena, between government troops and rebels.A pre-registration exercise undertaken on Saturday by UNHCR teams and the Cameroon Red Cross showed that 20,000 people want to be relocated to Maltam 1. Refugees said they still did not feel it was safe to return to N'Djamena. Chad declared a state of emergency last week following the unrest.
By Annette Rehrl In Abéché, Chad
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Winners Uncertain as Clashes Mar Pakistan Vote

A polling place in Lahore, Pakistan, on Monday. (Tyler Hicks/The New York Times)
LAHORE, Pakistan. Feb. 19th. (NY Times) — Fearful of violence and deterred by confusion at polling stations, Pakistanis voted Monday in parliamentary elections that may fail to produce clear winners and could result in protracted postelection political skirmishing. A number of clashes among polling officials and voters resulted in 10 people being killed and 70 wounded, according to Pakistani television channels. Suppressed by fears of violence and vote rigging, turnout was low, which was expected to favor President Pevez Musharraf and the faction of the party that supports him, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q. Within hours of the polls closing, however, several major defeats were reported for Mr. Musharraf’s party, which some of his party workers took as a harbinger of bad news to come. Though no official results were yet announced, those parliamentary seats appeared to go instead to the Pakistan Muslim League-N, the opposition faction of the same party, which supports the president’s main rival, the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. By early Monday night, crowds of Sharif supporters had already begun celebrating as they paraded through the streets of Rawalpindi, the garrison town just outside the capital, Islamabad. Riding on motorbikes and clinging onto the back of minivans, they played music and waved green flags of Mr. Sharif’s party decorated with the party symbol, a tiger. “The tiger has come!” shouted one man on a motorbike making a victory sign. “Long live Nawaz!”

At stake in the election is the question of what kind of elected government will emerge in Pakistan after eight years of military rule under President Musharraf. Mr. Musharraf, who stepped down as army chief last November after being re-elected to another five-year term, has seen his popularity plummet as the country has faced a determined insurgency by the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and a deteriorating economy. Nonetheless, the opposition was handicapped by restrictions placed on campaigning after the assassination late last year of the head of the other main opposition party, the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. In the early going, at least, the opposition appeared to be overcoming the obstacles. Nosheen Saeed, information secretary of the women’s wing of Mr. Musharraf’s party, was watching results come in at the Pakistan Muslim League-Q party headquarters in the capital. She conceded the early losses. “Some big guns are going to lose,” she said. While the rural vote, which is slower to come in, was expected to favor the president’s party, she nevertheless conceded that the “Q” league appeared to have lost the two seats in the capital, and several seats in Rawalpindi, she said. Two former ministers were among the losers. She put it down to a large protest vote. “Whoever is the last government is unpopular,” she said. The former Minister of Railways and a close friend of President Musharraf, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, conceded defeat to his party members in the two constituencies he was contesting in his home town of Rawalpindi, the teeming old city that adjoins the capital.

The chief returns officer in one of the constituencies, Shaukat Mehmood, said that 75 percent of the votes had been counted, and Hanif Abbasi, the candidate for Mr. Sharif’s party, was ahead. At Mr. Rashid’s headquarters, his supporters sat gloomily in chairs under an awning, listening to the cheers of their opponents. “Q is finished,” said Tahir Khan, 21, one of the party workers. They said Mr. Ahmed was popular but had suffered from a resounding protest vote against Mr. Musharraf and his governing faction. The shift against Mr. Musharraf’s faction came despite the low turnout and other modest irregularities. In the North-West Frontier Province, which abuts the lawless tribal areas, it was only 20 percent, according to election officials. In Peshawar, the provincial capital, Islamic militants intimidated many women enough to keep them from voting. In Lahore, the political capital of Punjab Province, lines were thin, and many voters complained they could not find their names on the voting lists. Despite the reports of some violence, election officials said that nationwide voting had been relatively calm compared with past elections. “We had more violence in one by-election in Karachi last year than across the country today,” said Staffan Darnolf, the country director for I.F.E.S. (formerly the International Foundation for Election Systems), a nonpartisan group based in the United States that has been advising Pakistan for more than a year on election procedures. Nervousness about suicide bombers was most palpable in Peshawar. “We were thinking of not coming; people are afraid because of bombs and suicide bombers,” said Huma Shaqwell, 22, a college student. Heavily armed police were posted at many polling stations, and the army deployed more than 80,000 soldiers to keep law and order. But hot tempers and deep suspicions about vote rigging created a tense election day, reflected in some places by the temporary closings of polling stations to restore calm.

The voting got off to a poor start in Punjab, the most important province, with 148 of the 272 contested parliamentary seats. On election eve, a Pakistan Muslim League-N candidate for the provincial assembly, Chaudhry Asif Ashraf, was shot to death, and three others injured when gunmen opened fire on his car. In Lahore, Fasih Ahmed, a businessman, said that by noon he had still not found his name on any list at the polling station. In the general atmosphere of insecurity in Pakistan, he was nervous, he said, standing in the open on the street as he waited to check voting lists. Early in the day, voting in Rawalpindi, the sprawling city adjacent to the capital, Islamabad, was sluggish. “Of course people are scared,” said Naheed Khan, a longtime assistant to Ms. Bhutto who was traveling with her in her car when she was killed. “The government has failed to control the law-and-order situation,” she said. Nevertheless, Ms. Bhutto’s party would prevail, she said. “If there is no government rigging, the Peoples Party will win because people want to come out in her memory,” she said, wiping away tears as she listened to Ms. Bhutto’s voice from a speech played over loudspeakers in the street. A number of those voting in Rawalpindi said they wanted change. “We know who is going to win — ‘Q’ is going to win, by cheating,” said Ammar Khalid, 23, an economics student, referring to the party backing Mr. Musharraf. “But we are still voting, for P.P.P. We want that there should not be a dictator. He is illegal and unconstitutional.”

Danish Sardar, 26, a businessman, voted for Mr. Sharif’s party, which has the symbol of a tiger on the ballot paper. “You will see the change,” he said. “The tiger will bring it.” In Gujrat, the stronghold of the Chaudhry clan, which includes the most powerful supporters of Mr. Musharraf, several polling stations were closed for periods of time because of arguments over voter lists. In many places in Gujrat, basic election commission rules were flouted as police officers stood inside polling stations, and many such stations looked like campaign headquarters for the incumbent candidate, Chaudhry Shujaat, who is also chairman of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q. Many green flags of his party decorated the entrances to polling places. Men in civilian clothes with armbands saying “special security” and long sticks patrolled many of the schools that were serving as voting stations. The men said they had been hired by the local government, which is controlled by a relative of Mr. Shujaat’s. A worker for Ahmad Mukhtar, the Pakistan Peoples Party challenger to Mr. Shujaat, complained that the procedures at one of the biggest polling stations were so chaotic that voters had been turned away. “By 11:30, only 70 votes have been cast, and 100 people have been turned away,” the worker, Shahida Naeem, who is the candidate’s sister, said as she argued with polling officials.

Groups of international observers, including three United States senators and a team of more than 100 observers from the European Union, watched the voting at various places across the country. One senator, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph Biden Jr., a Democrat from Delaware, said that if the vote went smoothly, he would argue for increased funding for economic development in Pakistan. “If the vote is viewed as credible, there should be a democratic dividend,” Mr. Biden said. He said he was prepared to recommend that the $500 million that Pakistan receives annually from the United States for development be tripled to $1.5 billion a year if the election was a fair. But, he said, if the poll is deeply flawed, he will seek to curtail Washington’s large military support of Pakistan, particularly expensive weapons.

For Washington and Pakistan to forge a successful strategy against the insurgency, Mr. Biden said, it is critical that the election result in a democratically elected government that can rally popular support against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Hyderabad, a major city in Sindh Province and the stronghold of the Pakistan Peoples Party, army rangers arrested police officers who had invaded a polling station, according to Umair Chandio, a Peoples Party worker. The police had joined forces with workers of the Muttahida Quami Movement, a junior partner in the last Musharraf government, inside a polling station to stuff the ballot box with about 700 false ballot papers, Mr. Chandio said. When word spread that the police were cooperating in the rigging, a truckload of army rangers turned up at the polling station, arrested the police officers and confiscated the ballot papers, he said.
By Jane Perlez reported from Lahore, Pakistan, and Carlotta Gall from Islamabad. David Rohde contributed reporting from Peshawar, and Salman Masood from Rawalpindi.
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HUMAN TRAFFICKING: THE SLAVERY OF MODERN TIMES

VATICAN CITY, 15 FEB 2008 (VIS) - On 13 February, Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, participated in a "Forum to Fight Human Trafficking" held in Vienna, Austria, from 13 to 15 February.

Speaking English, Archbishop Marchetto defined human trafficking as "one of the most shameful phenomena of our era. ... It is well known", he went on, "that poverty, as well as the lack of opportunities and of social cohesion, push people to look for a better future despite the related risks, making them extremely vulnerable to trafficking. "Moreover", he added, "it should be emphasised that, nowadays, several factors contribute to the spread of this crime, namely, the absence of specific rules in some countries, the victims' ignorance of their own rights, the socio-cultural structure and armed conflicts.

"The Holy See encourages all kinds of just initiatives aimed at eradicating this immoral and criminal phenomenon and at promoting the welfare of the victims. The Palermo Protocol and the successive regional conventions have introduced an exhaustive international legislation against trafficking in human beings. Moreover, the Holy See notes with satisfaction the coming into force, at the beginning of this month, of the Council of Europe's Convention against trafficking in human beings".

In this context, the archbishop recalled that the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples also monitors "the issue of the victims of human trafficking, considered to be the slaves of modern times".

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