Somalia Seeks UN Force to Restore Order

United Nations: April 16th. (Financial Times) - Somalia’s western-backed transitional government on Tuesday appealed for the United Nations to dispatch a multinational force to establish peace and security in the lawless east African state while its factions pursued reconciliation after more than a decade of war. Ali Ahmed Jama, foreign minister, made the call in New York on the eve of a summit called by South Africa, current UN Security Council president, to discuss greater co-operation between the world body and the African Union. “We call on the Security Council to assume its rightful role and replace Amisom [the existing small AU force] with a multinational force,” he said. “We have asked the Security Council to take that decision as soon as possible.” UN troop contributors have been reluctant to become involved in Somalia since US peacekeepers withdrew in 1993 after militias shot down two Black Hawk helicopters and killed 18 US personnel.

However, factors increasing the concerns for stability in the Horn of Africa, including the recent seizure of a French vessel by pirates, have focused attention on how the UN might work to prevent the situation in Somalia worsening. “We live in a globalised world and the linkage is clear,” said Mr Jama. “Many of the tactics we see in Somalia have been imported from Iraq.” Last month Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, UN special envoy for Somalia, appealed to the Security Council to increase its commitment. “I am not asking outside countries to become active for moral or altruistic reasons. They have a clearly mandated responsibility to become involved in a country where there are widespread violations of human rights and humanitarian law.” Although approval for the early dispatch of a UN force looked unlikely, Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, said in a recent report that troop contributors should be ready to send an 8,000-strong force if a broad-based political settlement were reached, rising to 27,000 if security were assured. The larger deployment would allow the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces that entered Somalia more than a year ago to support the transitional government in its war against Islamists.

Mr Jama called reconciliation with opposition groups an ongoing process, although UN officials note progress has been limited. He said that while the transitional government was pledged to negotiate with opposition factions, “the people you see that are killing innocent people are the spoilers who don’t want to see peace and security in Somalia”. The state department last month placed the allegedly al-Qaeda-linked military wing of Somalia’s Council of Islamic Courts on the US list of foreign terrorist organisations. A spokesman for the faction told Associated Press the group welcomed the designation and accused the US of targeting it because it was “fighting against Ethiopia, a Christian nation that had invaded our country”.
By Harvey Morris
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South Africa Joins Call for Release of Zimbabwe Vote

April 18th. (NY Times): - In a change of tone, Sth. Africa urged Zimbabwe's government on Thursday to release results from the disputed March 29 presidential election that has thrown the nation into political crisis. Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s president who has acted as a mediator between the opposition and government, had until now largely played down the political stalemate in Zimbabwe and counseled patience in dealing with its autocratic president, Robert Mugabe. But on Thursday, a government spokesman described the situation in Zimbabwe as dire. “When elections are held and results are not released two weeks after, it is obviously of great concern,” the spokesman, Themba Maseko, told reporters. Mr. Maseko was speaking in Cape Town after a cabinet meeting. “South Africa, like the rest of the world, is concerned about the delay in the release of the results and the anxiety that this is generating,” Mr. Maseko said.

Mr. Mbeki has been a strong supporter of Mr. Mugabe, and it was not immediately clear whether Mr. Maseko’s statement Thursday reflected a change of position by Mr. Mbeki himself. But Mr. Mbeki has been under criticism at home and abroad for his insistence on quiet diplomacy in dealing with the crisis in Zimbabwe, where the currency is nearly worthless and the economy has collapsed, bringing shortages of food and fuel and 80 percent unemployment. Millions of people have fled to South Africa, the biggest regional power. Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader in Zimbabwe, insists that he beat Mr. Mugabe outright in the elections, but the governing party says that neither man won and that a runoff may be necessary. Zimbabwe’s Electoral Commission continues to refuse to make the final figures public. In a press conference in Johannesburg on Thursday, Mr. Tsvangirai issued strong criticism of Mr. Mbeki’s role in the crisis, saying that Mr. Mbeki “needs to be relieved from his duty" as chief mediator with the Mugabe government, Reuters reported. At the weekend, Mr. Mbeki flew to Zimbabwe’s capital for a meeting with Mr. Mugabe, after which the two leaders emerged holding hands and Mr. Mbeki declared that he did not think Zimbabwe was facing a political crisis. Despite Mr. Mbeki’s position, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress has described the situation in Zimbabwe as “dire.” On Wednesday, Jacob Zuma, the A.N.C. leader, showed apparent widening disagreement with Mr. Mbeki over the country’s troubles. “The region cannot afford a deepening crisis in Zimbabwe,” he said, in a speech to South Africa’s Chambers of Commerce, Reuters reported. Adding to the international expressions of concern, Secretary of Stat e Condoleeza Rice said Thursday that Zimbabwe’s African neighbors had to do more to solve the crisis, as she described Mr. Mugabe’s last few years of rule as an “abomination.”

On Sunday, southern African political leaders in a meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, urged Zimbabwe’s government to let representatives of the opposition be present when vote tabulations were verified and to ensure that a presidential runoff, if needed, would be held ”in a secure environment.” Earlier Thursday, Mr. Mugabe’s government accused Mr. Tsvangirai of working with Britain, the former colonial power, to topple Mr. Mugabe, who led Zimbabwe to independence and has been its leader for 28 years. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council on Wednesday that he was “deeply concerned” by the delay in releasing the election results and said that international observers should monitor any second round of voting. “The credibility of the democratic process in Africa could be at stake here,” Mr. Ban said. Addressing the same meeting, Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, said it was obvious that Mr. Mugabe was trying to overturn an election that had gone against him. “No one thinks, having seen the results at polling stations, that President Mugabe has won this election,” Mr. Brown said. ”A stolen election would not be a democratic election at all.”
by Graham Bowley
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After Protests, Haitian Leader Announces Rice Subsidies

(Photo Below - Port-au-Prince, Haiti: UN peacekeepers protect the national palace after Haitians stormed the building, throwing stones and demanding the resignation of their president over soaring food prices)
MEXICO CITY: April 13th. (NY Times) — Responding to violent street protests against rising food prices that ground Haiti to a halt over the last week, President Rene Preval announced subsidies on Saturday that he said would cut the cost of rice by more than 15 percent. But the emergency move was not enough to stop Haitian senators from voting to remove Mr. Préval’s prime minister, Jacques-Édouard Alexis, who has been blamed for handling the struggling economy ineptly. The demonstrations had begun in the southern city of Les Cayes and spread across Haiti, drawing tens of thousands of people into the streets, spurring a looting spree and causing five deaths. On Saturday the commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti told reporters that calm was returning to the country. But within hours, a United Nations policeman from Nigeria was pulled from his marked car and killed in Port-au-Prince.

Mr. Préval, a former agronomist who is in his second term as president, met earlier in the day with food importers at the presidential palace and emerged to announce new measures that he said would knock the price of a 50-pound bag of rice from $51 to $43, a nearly 16 percent reduction. In the poorest country in the hemisphere, that discount could mean the difference between eating and going hungry for many destitute families. Rice is a Haitian staple, often mixed in the slums with chicken feet to create a flavorful stew. To reduce prices, Mr. Préval said he would use international aid money combined with commitments from the private sector to reduce profit margins. The vote against Prime Minister Alexis means Mr. Préval must reconstitute his government, which he said he would do promptly. Mr. Alexis had managed to withstand a previous no-confidence vote but this time 16 of the 17 senators voted against him, wire services reported. The tumult is nothing new in Haiti, a fragile country with a history of political turnover that is being held together largely through the presence of the United Nations peacekeeping mission. The Bush administration considers Mr. Préval’s 2006 election and Haiti’s relative stability in recent years to be one of its success stories, although State Department officials caution that the country remains volatile. With the recent demonstrations, the Coast Guard has said it is on the lookout for mass emigration. It is unclear how the president’s move will affect tensions. Even after the United Nations police officer was killed, much of Port-au-Prince seemed largely tranquil. But in the clothing market where the police officer was killed, other peacekeepers took up positions as several stalls on both sides of the street smoldered after being set on fire, The Associated Press reported. The police officer had been driving a marked United Nations vehicle in the crowded market when he was killed. Witnesses told The A.P. that other Nigerian police officers later fired tear gas and warning shots to disperse the crowd before recovering the slain man’s body. Soon after, the market stalls could be seen burning.

Rising food prices are a global concern, with some estimates putting the increase as high as 40 percent since mid-2007. In Haiti, though, where the bulk of the population lives on less than $2 a day, the effects have been especially acute. In one slum of Port-au-Prince, a woman sat before a large pot of chicken feet and water recently, selling stew without rice. She said the rice was too costly.
by Marc Lacey
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Dalai Lama Says His Aides Are Talking to China

The Dalai Lama at a news conference in Seattle. He said it was unclear what talks with Chinese officials over Tibet might yield. Photo by Robert Sorbo/Reuters
SEATTLE: April 14th. (NY Times) — The Dalai Lama said Sunday that “some efforts” at diplomacy were under way between his representatives and those of the Chinese government even as officials in Beijing continue to portray him as having orchestrated protests in Tibet that have led to a crackdown and violence there. The Dalai Lama at a news conference in Seattle. He said it was unclear what talks with Chinese officials over Tibet might yield. Just a few days these are going on,” the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, said of the discussions. He said it was unclear what the talks might yield. He would not say specifically what matters were being discussed, and he said he had not been directly involved in the conversations.

Western leaders have encouraged China to resume discussions with the Dalai Lama in the wake of the unrest in Tibet, which began on March 10. As recently as Saturday, President Hu Jintao echoed other Chinese leaders who have accused the Dalai Lama of encouraging violence. Mr. Hu left open the door for dialogue but only if “the Dalai side stops activities splitting the motherland, stops activities scheming and instigating violence, and stops activities sabotaging the Beijing Olympic Games,” according to Xinhua, the government’s official news agency. The Dalai Lama, who is in Seattle for a conference, told reporters on Sunday that he was unaware of the comments by Mr. Hu and, as he has done repeatedly, denied that he had played any role in the violence. He noted that he had also been criticized by some Tibetans who have said his strategy of nonviolence has produced little change. He rejected the suggestion that Tibetan leaders might make concessions to engage in more extensive dialogue with China. “We’ve become refugees,” he said, adding that Tibetans had little left to concede.

Asked whether he would accept an invitation to the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, he laughed and said he did not expect to receive one. More important, he said, was for China to take steps to earn the international respect and trust it hopes the Olympics will help nurture. As part of doing this, he said, China should release Tibetans arrested since the protests began and provide those injured with proper medical care. He also said China should open Tibet to the news media. “Let them go there, see the actual situation,” he said. He restated positions he has made clear in the past: that he does not seek independence for Tibet but what he calls a more genuine autonomy and that he is eager for the Chinese people to know that Tibetans are neither anti-Chinese nor opposed to the Beijing Olympics. He said he met with a Chinese media agency here on Saturday with the hope of sending those messages directly to the Chinese people. He said he believed that the idea of a “harmonious society” promoted by Mr. Hu showed that the governing Communist Party was “in a state of transformation,” even as the Chinese government continues to distort information and manipulate its people. He said some Chinese officials were demanding that Tibetans put their thumbprints on statements saying they did not want the Dalai Lama to return.

The Dalai Lama has been leading a five-day conference, called Seeds of Compassion, that is focused on nurturing compassion in young children. The event was planned many months before the unrest began in Tibet, and the Dalai Lama had avoided directly discussing the troubles until Sunday, the third day of the conference.
by William Yardley
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Unity Cabinet Formed in Kenya, Ending Deadlock

President Mwai Kibaki, right, and the top opposition leader, Raila Odinga, left, at the announcement of the new cabinet on Sunday in Nairobi. (Antony Njuguna/Reuters)

NAIROBI, Kenya: April 14th. (NY Times) — President Mwai Kibaki announced a new — and enormous — national unity cabinet here on Sunday, ending weeks of anxious deadlock that had threatened to plunge Kenya back into violence. Allies of Mr. Kibaki, who was declared the winner of a deeply flawed election in December, retained the most powerful ministries, like finance and foreign affairs, but the leading opposition party managed to get some major posts, including local government and agriculture. And as anticipated, the top opposition leader, Raila Odinga, who claims to have won the presidential vote, was appointed prime minister. The two sides were under mounting pressure from foreign governments, especially the United States, and from Kenyans to strike a deal that would end the bitter, and often dangerous, atmosphere that has hung over the country since December. While the voting itself went peacefully, the country exploded in violence afterward with supporters of the government and of the opposition raging against each other. More than 1,000 people were killed, hundreds of thousands were displaced and Kenya’s image as one of Africa’s most stable and promising countries was seriously damaged.

In late February, the government and the opposition agreed to share power, but they haggled over who would be selected for each post. On Sunday, it took Mr. Kibaki more than 10 minutes to read aloud the list of ministers and assistant ministers, totaling 94 people, nearly half of Parliament. It is the biggest cabinet Kenya has ever had. Because of all the politicking and the need to placate various interest groups, Mr. Kibaki has created several new, highly paid positions, like the minister of development of northern Kenya and other arid lands. Trade organizations and human rights groups have roundly criticized adding those positions as inefficient and wasteful, especially when thousands of displaced Kenyans are still living in tents. Mr. Kibaki defended the expanded cabinet as crucial for Kenya’s development. “Let us put politics aside and get to work,” he said in a televised address on Sunday. “Let us build a new Kenya where justice is our shield and defender, and where peace, liberty and plenty will be found throughout our country.” The opposition party said it was disappointed that it had not gotten as many powerful positions as it wanted. “But we decided that it was more important to get a government in place,” said Salim Lone, Mr. Odinga’s spokesman. “There was too much chaos and hunger and restlessness in the country.”

Opposition supporters who said they were angry about the delay in forming a cabinet rioted in several towns across Kenya last week, and Mr. Lone credited that outburst with moving the process along. “The international pressure had been there for some time, and the riots really focused our minds on how fragile things were,” he said. Mr. Lone said the deal was sealed in a secret seven-hour meeting on Saturday between Mr. Kibaki and Mr. Odinga. The cabinet faces a mountain of challenges and needs. Kenya, after all, is a relatively poor country, with a fast-growing population, exploding slums and diminishing available land. In addition, the election stirred long-simmering grievances, which violently split many parts of the country down ethnic lines. There was also direct economic damage from the fighting, with countless homes, businesses, factories and schools burned to the ground, investor confidence low and Kenya’s fabled safari business on its knees. So it is no surprise that many Kenyans doubt that the cabinet deal will be a cure-all. While jubilation greeted the power-sharing agreement in February, with crowds cheering in the streets, this time the mood was more muted and even skeptical. “I don’t see this lasting long,” said Wambua Kilonzo, a lawyer in Nairobi, the capital. “There’s been too much bad blood already. Everything that has been done so far has only been done by the force of the arm.” What seemed to irk people most was the size of the cabinet. “We have been duped,” said Simoni Birundu, national chairman of the Name and Shame Corruption Networks Campaign, a nonprofit group. “We needed a lean cabinet so that it does not consume all our national resources.”

Maina Kiai, chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rightes, called the bloated cabinet “an insult. The politicians are not interested in us,” he said. “They’re interested in themselves. We go begging for money from other countries to feed our children. And then we use our taxpayers’ money to buy big houses and limousines. Here we are talking about a new Kenya. But instead of going forward, we’re going backward.”
By Jeffrey Gettleman and Kennedy Abwao contributed reporting.
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Zimbabwe Court Refuses to Release Vote Results

George Chikumbirike, a lawyer for Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission, left the High Court in Harare on Monday after he won the government's case.
JOHANNESBURG: April 15th. (NY Times) - Zimbabwe's political opposition suffered a rebuff on Monday when the country’s High Court dismissed its demand that the results of last month’s presidential election be released immediately. A spokesman for the main opposition party, Nqobizitha Mlilo, confirmed that the court had dismissed its demand, and said the party was still considering how it would react to the ruling. The opposition had already threatened to hold a general strike this week. Zimbabwean election officials have yet to announce the winner of the presidential election, held March 29, causing widespread suspicions that President Robert Mugabe, who has been president since the country won its independence 28 years ago, is refusing to accept defeat. On Tuesday, the court is to consider a separate petition from Mr. Mugabe’s party, known as ZANU-PF, which is seeking a recount of the vote in 23 parliamentary constituencies. Official results in the March 29 election gave the opposition party more than half of the 210 seats in Parliament, but a recount of those districts could swing the majority back into the governing party’s column.

The ruling by the court Monday is a setback for opposition officials in their battle to unseat Mr. Mugabe. On Sunday, they savored support they had gained from southern African political leaders. The leaders of a 14-nation bloc gathered in Lusaka, Zambia, for 12 consecutive hours of talks on Zimbabwe’s political impasse, ending at 5 a.m. on Sunday. The bloc, the Southern African Development Community, announced that it was urging Zimbabwe’s government to let representatives of the opposition be present when vote tabulations were verified and to ensure that a presidential runoff, if needed, would be held “in a secure environment.” Election monitors and opposition candidates have said they were denied access to the vote-counting command center. They have also charged that Mr. Mugabe’s party has organized youth militias and veterans of the independence struggle to attack the opposition’s supporters.

On Friday, the ruling party tightened its control over the beleaguered country by banning political rallies, continuing its crackdown on the opposition and arresting the lawyer of its chief rival, Morgan Tsvangari, the opposition leader. In the past, the regional leaders have been accused of being overly deferential to Mr. Mugabe. And little had been expected to come out of the conference after a powerful leader in the bloc, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, flew first to Zimbabwe’s capital to meet with Mr. Mugabe. They emerged holding hands, and Mr. Mbeki blandly declared that he did not think Zimbabwe was facing a political crisis. The No. 2 man in Mr. Tsvangirai’s party, Tendai Biti, praised the African leaders, saying, “This is a major improvement, and S.A.D.C. has acquitted itself relatively well.” His praise was noteworthy because before the meeting began, Mr. Biti, a labor lawyer, had said its outcome would be a test of whether the bloc was anything more than what he called a trade union for dictators.
Celia W. Dugger reported from Johannesburg and Graham Bowley from New York.
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