American Aid Is Seized in Zimbabwe

JOHANNESBURG: June 12th. (NY Times) — Zimbabwean authorities confiscated a truck loaded with 20 tons of American food aid for poor schoolchildren and ordered that the wheat and pinto beans aboard be handed out to supporters of President President Mugabe at a political rally instead, the American ambassador said Wednesday. “This government will stop at nothing, even starving the most defenseless people in the country — young children — to realize their political ambitions,” said the ambassador, James D. McGee, in an interview. The government ordered all humanitarian aid groups to suspend their operations last week, charging that some of them were giving out food as bribes to win votes for the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, in a June 27 presidential runoff against Mr. Mugabe.

But political analysts, aid workers and human rights groups contend that it is, in fact, Zimbabwe's governing party that has ruthlessly used food to reward supporters and punish opponents in a country where agricultural production has collapsed over the past decade and millions of people would go hungry each year without emergency assistance. The seizure of the truck laden with food aid is a case in point, Mr. McGee said. It occurred Friday in an area called Bambazonke near the town of Mutare in eastern Zimbabwe. The truck was hired by one of three nongovernmental organizations - CARE, Catholic Relief Services and World Vision — that form a consortium and contract with the United States Agency for International Development to distribute food aid in Zimbabwe. Its cargo of wheat, beans and vegetable oil was intended for 26 primary schools, American officials said, part of a school food program that provides hungry children with one solid meal a day.

Misheck Kagurabadza, a former mayor of Mutare and a newly elected member of Parliament from Manicaland Province, said the cutoff of food from aid groups was devastating. The government has a monopoly on buying corn, Zimbabwe’s main staple food, from farmers and will sell it only to those who hold ZANU-PF party cards, he contends. “The relief agencies stopped distribution of food a few days ago,” said Mr. Kagurabadza, one of many opposition leaders who have gone into hiding to avoid being beaten or arrested in a sweeping crackdown by ZANU-PF, the governing party. “I don’t know how we’ll survive until the next harvest.” The Famine Early Warning System, an operation that forecasts global hunger emergencies and is financed by Usaid, put out an alert on Thursday warning that Zimbabwe’s corn harvest this season is less than half of last year’s. The cereal production this season will amount to only a little over a quarter of the food needed to feed the country, it said.

Last year the United States, the world’s dominant food aid donor, provided about 175,000 tons of food to Zimbabwe, worth $171 million, American officials said. It already has about $96 million worth of food in the pipeline for Zimbabwe this year, with more on the way, they said. The food aid that was confiscated was on a truck that began its rounds last Thursday, but it had a mechanical breakdown and wound up seeking a safe haven by parking overnight at the Bambazonke police station, American officials said.. It had been a very eventful day. American diplomats who had gone to investigate political violence north of the capital were detained for five hours at a police roadblock after a six-mile car chase and threats to burn them alive in their vehicle, American officials said. That evening, a government released a letter ordering the suspension of all field operations by aid groups, but it reached many of the groups only last Friday — too late to head off the truck on its rounds.

At one of the schools, the truck’s driver, a Zimbabwean, was approached by police officers and war veterans led by an army colonel. They informed him that they had been sent by the governor of Manicaland Province, Tinaye Chigudu, and accused him of trying to bribe people with food, Mr. McGee said. “The group threatened the driver and forced him to return to the Bambazonke police station,” Mr. McGee said. In the meantime, Mr. Chigudu and other ZANU-PF officials organized a rally near the police station. There “the governor instructed the war veterans to distribute the food to ZANU-PF supporters at the rally right down the street,” Mr. McGee said. “Some police officers tried to intervene to stop the looting. The governor told them, ‘Stand down.’ Those were his exact words.” Mr. McGee said officials with the nongovernmental organization, which he declined to name publicly for fear it would be harassed, arrived within hours of the episode at the police station. They were not allowed into the station until the rally was over. They were not allowed to file a report either, but were instead referred to the Mutare rural district police headquarters. At that station, the officials told the police what had happened, but were not given a copy of any report to document their complaint. The food delivery waybills were confiscated, American officials said.

Wayne Bvudzijena, spokesman for Zimbabwe’s national police, did not respond to the substance of Mr. McGee’s charge when contacted on his cellphone on Wednesday, but instead contended there was no place named Bambazonke in Zimbabwe. “If you can go back to the honorable ambassador and verify your facts, madam,” Mr. Bvudzijena said, then disconnected the call. In an interview, Mr. Kagurabadza, the former mayor of nearby Mutare, confirmed that Bambazonke did exist. It also appears on a recent report of parliamentary constituencies by election monitors. But when the American ambassador, Mr. McGee, and Karen Freeman, the Usaid mission director in Zimbabwe, met Tuesday with a senior official at the Foreign Ministry, they were presented with a similar denial. Mr. McGee said the official told them, “I’ve never head of this place Bambazonke. Are you certain this even happened?” The ambassador added, “At the end of the argument, he promised he would look into the situation and get back to us.”
by Celia W. Dugger
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Mia Farrow Highlights Rights Abuses in Central African Republic

Wed. 11 June: NEW YORK (AFP) — US actress Mia Farrow on Tuesday described the Central African Republic (CAR) as a virtual "collapsed state" where human rights violations are rife, following a trip there last month. "I don't think President Francois Bozize has very much jurisdiction outside of Bangui (the capital) except those towns that he now holds in some fragile fashion," she said in an interview with AFP. "I don't know what the technical definition of a collapsed state is but I can't imagine it would very different from what we're seeing there," said Farrow, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The 63-year-old, who is also well known for speaking out against abuses in Sudan's Darfur region and Chad, gave a chilling account of her swing across CAR last month, saying many civilians have been killed, kidnapped or raped amid fighting between government troops and rebel forces. She said both the rebels and government troops were guilty of atrocities against civilians. "Much of the burning of villages was by the presidential guard, we were told by the people. They said very clearly it was the presidential guard in 2007," she added. The worst victims of the fighting have been children who have been kidnapped by rebel groups. In March, more than 150 people, many of them children as young as six years old, were abducted by Uganda's notorious rebel group Lord Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA has been in conflict with the Kampala government for 22 years and is now operating in CAR. UNICEF said it did not have the resources to track these abducted children who are forced to join rebel armies while the girls are used as sex slaves.

On her visit last month, Farrow said she learned that the parents had received a message from the kidnappers. "Their parents were told that the good news is they're probably not dead. The bad news is they probably will never see them again and if they do they (children) will only come to kill them," she said. Farrow's week-long trip last month was her second to the vast, impoverished but mineral-rich country. After her first trip last year, she called for international protection of civilians against attacks from rebel groups, bandits and government troops. "In 2007, I was saying that there should be an international peacekeeping force along the border with Sudan and along the border with Chad," she said. This year, a European Union force (EUFOR) was deployed to monitor CAR's northeastern border with Sudan. But the people living on the country's northwestern border with Chad have been attacked by bandits and the Chadian army, according to Farrow. "Some 300,000 civilians have been driven from their homes largely into the bush and some fled into Chad itself," she added. The US actress stressed the need for a force to protect civilians on the border with Chad. She did however note some positive developments since her last visit. "The big change since we were there last is that instead of two NGOs (non-governmental organizations) there are 23," Farrow said. She voiced hope that her visit would encourage more aid agencies to work there. "It is very dangerous terrain, to ask our aid workers to do what the world will not do," Farrow said.
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Archbishop Tutu Calls for Resignation of Mugabe

I really feel ashamed in many ways because [Mugabe] used to be such a splendid leader
Nairobi, Kenya: June 10th. (Catholic Information Service for Africa)
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and retired Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu has called for the resignation of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe. Mugabe is blamed for an unprecedented political and economic upheaval in the formerly prosperous southern African nation. "Mugabe began so well more than 20 years ago. We all had such high hopes.... But his regime has turned into a horrendous nightmare. He should stand down," Archbishop tutu said, according to Independent Catholic News.

Tutu also appealed for UN peacekeepers to go to Zimbabwe to supervise the forthcoming run-off election for the presidency, due to take place on 27 June, between Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai who won the first round in March.

Tutu spoke on Monday during a service at St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square, London, in a new underground light well and room which has been named after him. During the service there was a blessing of three Zimbabwean sculptures, standing in the entrance of the new Dick Sheppard Chapel.

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Lost Letter Raises Questions About Mbeki’s Role in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, campaigning Sunday, says he wrote a letter asking the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, to step aside as mediator in Zimbabwe (Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/Associated Press).
JOHANNESBURG: June 9th. (NY Times) — The curious case of the mysterious letter from Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, to South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki, got a new chapter this weekend that raised yet more questions about Mr. Mbeki’s credibility as the regional mediator in Zimbabwe’s increasingly tumultuous political crisis. Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, campaigning Sunday, says he wrote a letter asking the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, to step aside as mediator in Zimbabwe. News of Mr. Tsvangirai’s impassioned, four-page missive broke a week ago in South African newspapers. In the May 13 letter, marked “privileged, private and confidential,” Mr. Tsvangirai, a former trade union leader, maintained that Mr. Mbeki had favored Zimbabwe’s aging strongman, President Robert Mugabe, and that he should step aside as the sole mediator.

Mr. Tsvangirai, now campaigning for a June 27 runoff election with Mr. Mugabe, recounted his shock at seeing Mr. Mbeki on television on April 12 holding hands with Mr. Mugabe in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, and saying there was no crisis. That day, regional heads of state were meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, to confront Zimbabwe’s crisis, set off by the government’s extraordinary delay in releasing the results of the March presidential election. “In fact, since the 29 March election, Zimbabwe has plunged into horrendous violence while you have been mediating,” Mr. Tsvangirai wrote. “With respect, if we continue like this, there will be no country left.” Then last week, the story of the letter to Mr. Mbeki — who had been designated by the Southern African Development Community, a regional bloc of nations, to mediate the political conflict in Zimbabwe — took a strange turn.

Frank Chikane, director general of Mr. Mbeki’s office, held a news conference on Wednesday in which he denied not only that the president had received the letter, but that it even existed, according to the South African Press Association. And in a statement, Mr. Mbeki’s office accused the news media of printing a fabrication and being taken in by a disinformation campaign. “Regarding these reports, the presidency reiterates that President Thabo Mbeki has not received any such letter from Mr. Tsvangirai,” the statement said. The statement also took the news media to task for asking about rumors that many South Africans were struggling to understand Mr. Mbeki’s silence since the election as dozens of opposition supporters in Zimbabwe were killed and hundreds brutally beaten. The rumors “include claims that either President Mbeki or Mrs. Zanele Mbeki are supposed to be blood relatives of Mrs. Grace Mugabe,” Mr. Mugabe’s wife, the statement noted in a tone of disbelief.

Trying to understand Mr. Mbeki is a favorite parlor game here in Johannesburg. Its latest iterations include wondering why he never visited South Africa’s impoverished townships as they exploded with xenophobic violence last month. Asked this question on Sunday, Mr. Mbeki’s spokesman, Mukoni Ratshitanga, replied that the government had responded appropriately. “Government is a collective,” he said. “It’s not an individual.” Then his phone buzzed with another call that he said was very important and he signed off. Another persistent question is why Mr. Mbeki has stuck to his “quiet diplomacy” with Mr. Mugabe as Zimbabwe’s economy has sunk ever deeper into ruin and sent millions of despairing Zimbabweans pouring into South Africa. Does he have a soft spot for the 84-year-old Mr. Mugabe because he led a liberation movement against white rule that resonates in South Africa? Does he dislike Mr. Tsvangirai?

Mr. Tsvangirai, when interviewed in mid-May, seemed to lean toward the theory that the nations’ shared liberation history was the cause. Asked if Mr. Mbeki liked him, he laughed heartily and said, “If he had his choice of who would be the president of Zimbabwe, I think he would not jump up and say, hallelujah, Morgan Tsvangirai is the president of Zimbabwe!” Mr. Tsvangirai said Mr. Mbeki seemed to think Zimbabwe could solve its own political problems. “He said Zimbabweans must solve their own problems,” Mr. Tsvangirai said. “Zimbabweans went on the 29th and voted! How else do you want Zimbabweans to solve their problems?” On Wednesday, Mr. Tsvangirai was detained for nine hours on his way to a political rally in Zimbabwe. The next day, Mr. Mbeki’s office said he had called the authorities in Zimbabwe on Mr. Tsvangirai’s behalf. “President Mbeki appeals for calmness and proportionate use of language, the better to manage tensions generally associated with election campaigns in many parts of the world,” the statement from Mr. Mbeki’s office said. It maintained an evenhanded tone that drives the opposition in Zimbabwe to distraction, particularly since civic and human rights groups insist that the political violence there is carried out overwhelmingly by Mr. Mugabe’s agents.

South Africa’s opposition leader, Helen Zille, denounced Mr. Mbeki in an open letter on Friday. “By appeasing Mugabe and endorsing every fundamentally flawed election in Zimbabwe,” she wrote, “you are complicit in the tyranny that has befallen that country.” Finally on Saturday, Zimbabwe’s opposition party issued a statement saying that, indeed, it had sent Mr. Tsvangirai’s letter to Mr. Mbeki and promising to send him a fresh copy. George Sibotshiwe, Mr. Tsvangirai’s spokesman, said the original letter had been sent by courier while Mr. Tsvangirai was in South Africa. “I’ve made sure,” he said. “I’ve confirmed that the letter was delivered to them.”
By CELIA W. DUGGER
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Inside Gate, India’s Good Life; Outside, the Servants’ Slums

A child walking in a trash-strewn lot near the gated community of Hamilton Court in Gurgaon, India. (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)
GURGAON, India: June 9th. (NY Times) — When the scorch of summer hit this north Indian boomtown, and the municipal water supply worked only a few hours each day, inside a high-rise tower called Hamilton Court, Jaya Chand could turn on her kitchen tap around the clock, and water would gush out. The same was true when the electricity went out in the city, which it did on average for 12 hours a day, something that once prompted residents elsewhere in Gurgaon to storm the local power office. All the while, the Chands’ flat screen television glowed, the air-conditioners hummed, and the elevators cruised up and down Hamilton Court’s 25 floors. Hamilton Court — complete with a private school within its gates, groomed lawns and security guards — is just one of the exclusive gated communities that have blossomed across India in recent years. At least for the newly moneyed upper middle class, they offer at high prices what the government cannot, at least not to the liking of their residents. These enclaves have emerged on the outskirts of prospering, overburdened cities, from this frontier town next to the capital to the edges of seam-splitting Bangalore. They allow their residents to buy their way out of the hardships that afflict vast multitudes in this country of more than one billion. And they reflect the desires of India’s small but growing ranks of wealthy professionals, giving them Western amenities along with Indian indulgences: an army of maids and chauffeurs live in a vast shantytown across the street. “A kind of self-contained island” is how Mrs. Chand’s husband, Ashish, describes Hamilton Court.

India has always had its upper classes, as well as legions of the world’s very poor. But today a landscape dotted with Hamilton Courts, pressed up against the slums that serve them, has underscored more than ever the stark gulf between those worlds, raising uncomfortable questions for a democratically elected government about whether India can enable all its citizens to scale the golden ladders of the new economy. “Things have gotten better for the lucky class,” Mrs. Chand, 36, said one day, as she fixed lunch in full view of Chakkarpur, the shantytown where one of her two maids, Shefali Das, lives. “Otherwise, it is still a fight.” When the power goes out, the lights of Hamilton Court bathe Chakkarpur in a dusky glow. Under the open sky, across the street from the tower, Mrs. Das’s sons take cold bucket baths each day. The slum is as much a product of the new India as Hamilton Court, the opportunities of this new city drawing hundreds of thousands from the hungry hinterlands.

In China, the main Asian competitor to which India is often compared, the state managed early on to harness economic expansion for huge public works projects and then allow more and more Chinese to partake of the benefits. There, the poor are far less likely to be deprived of basic services, whether clean water or basic schooling. In India, poverty has also dropped appreciably in the last 17 years of economic change, even as the gulf between the rich and poor has grown. More than a quarter of all Indians still live below the official poverty line (subsisting on roughly $1 a day); one in four city dwellers live on less than 50 cents a day; and nearly half of all Indian children are clinically malnourished.

At the same time, the ranks of dollar millionaires have swelled to 100,000, and the Indian middle class, though notoriously hard to define and still small, has by all indications expanded. For those with the right skills, the good times have been very good. Mr. Chand, 34, a business school graduate who runs the regional operations for an American manufacturing firm, has seen his salary grow eightfold in the last five years, which is not unusual for upper class Indians like him. The Chands are typical of Hamilton Court residents: Well-traveled young professionals, some returnees to India after years abroad, grateful for the conveniences. Some of them are also the first in their families to live so comfortably.

Mr. Chand attended an elite but government-financed school. His father was in the military. Mrs. Chand’s father was a civil servant; her mother, a teacher. Some of their expenses, Mr. Chand said, their elders consider lavish. Gurgaon, a largely privately developed city and a metonym for Indian ambition, has seen a building frenzy to satisfy people like the Chands. The city’s population has nearly doubled in the last six years, to 1.5 million. The skyline is dotted with scaffolds. Glass towers house companies like American Express and Accenture. Not far from Hamilton Court, Burberry and have set up shop. State services, meanwhile, have barely kept pace. The city has neither enough water nor electricity for the population. There is no sewage treatment plant yet; construction is scheduled to begin this year. India has long lived with such inequities, and though a Maoist rebellion is building in the countryside, the nation has for the most part skirted social upheaval through a critical safety valve: giving the poor their chance to vent at the ballot box. Indeed, four years ago, voters threw out the incumbent government, with its “India Shining” slogan, because it was perceived to have neglected the poor. It is little wonder then that the current administration has seized on “inclusive growth” as its mantra, and as elections approach in less than a year, it is spending heavily on education, widely acknowledged as a key barrier to upward mobility for the poor.

That the bottom of the pyramid votes became obvious to the Chands when they last went to the polls. “I didn’t see too many people like us,” Mr. Chand recalled. Hamilton Court, meanwhile, is rarely courted at election time. Inside its gates, the Chands have everything they might need: the coveted Sri Ram School, a private health clinic and clubhouse next door, security guards to keep out unwanted strangers and well-groomed lawns and paths for power walks and cricket games. “Women and children are not encouraged to go outside,” said Madan Mohan Bhalla, president of the Hamilton Court Resident Welfare Association. “If they want to have a walk, they can walk inside. It’s a different world outside the gate.” For the Chands, the school was one of the building’s main draws. They bought their apartment just after the birth of their eldest, Aditya, who is now in first grade. Next year, they hope to enroll their youngest, Madhav. The school recently hosted a classical music concert. The business school guru C.K. Prahalad gave a lecture the following week. Mr. Chand called Hamilton Court a community of “like-minded people.”

Some 600 domestic staff members work at Hamilton Court, an average of 2.26 per apartment. The building employs its own plumbers and electricians. At any one time, 22 security guards and 32 surveillance cameras are at work. “We can’t rely on the police,” Mr. Bhalla said. Gurgaon has one policeman for every 1,000 residents — lower than the national average — and a surfeit of what Mr. Bhalla calls official apathy. “We have to save ourselves,” he said. The guards at the gate are instructed not to let nannies take children outside, and men delivering pizza or okra are allowed in only with permission. Once, Mr. Bhalla recalled proudly, a servant caught spitting on the lawn was beaten up by the building staff. Recently, Mr. Bhalla’s association cut a path from the main gate to the private club next door, so residents no longer have to share the public sidewalk with servants and the occasional cow.

The Gurgaon police chief, Mohinder Lal, said the city’s new residents had unrealistic expectations of the Indian police. If a police officer does not arrive quickly, Mr. Lal rued, the residents complain. “They say, ‘You’re late. Come back tomorrow.’ ” He, too, said that the police could not cope with the disorder of Gurgaon’s growth. “Development comes, mess comes, then police come and infrastructure,” he said. Gurgaon’s security guards, most of whom live in Mrs. Das’s slum, likewise have little love for law enforcement. They accuse the police of raiding their shanty, hauling men to the local stations and forcing them to clean and cook before releasing them back to their hovels, often without a single charge. The police say migrant workers are a source of crime.

One afternoon, Mrs. Das returned from her duties at Hamilton Court, cleaned up the lunch plates that her sons had left on the floor and took her plastic water jugs to stand in line under the acacia tree, only to discover that there was a power failure, which meant the water pump could not be turned on. Next to the water line, workers were ironing a pile of orange janitors’ uniforms from a neighborhood mall; the laundry service is one of Chakkarpur’s many thriving private enterprises. Mrs. Das already had two of her sons in a charity-run school nearby, but much to her shame, she missed the registration deadline for her youngest, now 6, who will now be a year behind his peers. Her biggest regret is being unable to check her sons’ homework. Mrs. Das has worked in other people’s homes since she was 7. She cannot read. “If they are educated,” she said of her boys, “at least they can do something when they grow up.” Next door to Mrs. Das’s brick-and-tin room, a 2-year-old lay on a cot outside, flies dancing on his face. His mother, Sunita, 18, said the child had not been immunized because she had no idea where to take him, and no public health workers had come, as they are supposed to. The baby is weak, Sunita reckoned, because she cannot produce breast milk. During repeated visits in recent months, a government-financed childhood nutrition center was closed. The nearest government hospital was empty. Mrs. Chand, a doctor who decided to stay home to raise her children, trained in a government hospital. Her other maid told her recently that her own daughter had given birth at home, down there in the slum. Sometimes, Mrs. Chand said, she thinks of opening a clinic there. But she also said she understood that there was little that she, or anyone, could do. “Two worlds,” she observed, “just across the street.”
By Somini Sengupta
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Albinos, Long Shunned, Face Threat in Tanzania

Men waited for help at the Tanzanian Albino Society office in Dar es Salaam. At least 19 albinos have been killed in Tanzania in the past year, victims of a growing trade in albino body parts. (Guillaume Bonn for The New York Times)
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania: June 8th. (NY Times) — Samuel Mluge steps outside his office and scans the sidewalk. His pale blue eyes dart back and forth, back and forth, trying to focus. The sun used to be his main enemy, but now he has others. Mr. Mluge is an albino, and in Tanzania now there is a price for his pinkish skin. “I feel like I am being hunted,” he said.

Discrimination against albinos is a serious problem throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but recently in Tanzania it has taken a wicked twist: at least 19 albinos, including children, have been killed and mutilated in the past year, victims of what Tanzanian officials say is a growing criminal trade in albino body parts. Many people in Tanzania — and across Africa, for that matter — believe albinos have magical powers. They stand out, often the lone white face in a black crowd, a result of a genetic condition that impairs normal skin pigmentation and strikes about 1 in 3,000 people here. Tanzanian officials say witch doctors are now marketing albino skin, bones and hair as ingredients in potions that are promised to make people rich. As the threats have increased, the Tanzanian government has mobilized to protect its albino population, an already beleaguered group whose members are often shunned as outcasts and die of skin cancer before they reach 30.

Police officers are drawing up lists of albinos in every corner of the country to better look after them. Officers are escorting albino children to school. Tanzania’s president even sponsored an albino woman for a seat in Parliament to show that “we are with them in this,” said Salvator Rweyemamu, a Tanzanian government spokesman. Mr. Rweyemamu said the rash of killings was anathema to what Tanzania had been striving toward; after years of failed socialist economic policies, the country is finally getting development, investment and change. “This is serious because it continues some of the perceptions of Africa we’re trying to run away from,” he said. But the killings go on. They have even spread to neighboring Kenya, where an albino woman was hacked to death in late May, with her eyes, tongue and breasts gouged out. Advocates for albinos have also said that witch doctors are selling albino skin in Congo.

The young are often the targets. In early May, Vumilia Makoye, 17, was eating dinner with her family in their hut in western Tanzania when two men showed up with long knives. Vumilia was like many other Africans with albinism. She had dropped out of school because of severe near-sightedness, a common problem for albinos, whose eyes develop abnormally and who often have to hold things like books or cellphones two inches away to see them. She could not find a job because no one would hire her. She sold peanuts in the market, making $2 a week while her delicate skin was seared by the sun. When Vumilia’s mother, Jeme, saw the men with knives, she tried to barricade the door of their hut. But the men overpowered her and burst in. “They cut my daughter quickly,” she said, making hacking motions with her hands. The men sawed off Vumilia’s legs above the knee and ran away with the stumps. Vumilia died.

Yusuph Malogo, who lives nearby, fears he may be next. He is also an albino and works by himself on a rice farm. He now carries a loud, silver whistle to blow for help. “I’m on the run,” he said. He is 26, but his skin is thick and leathery from sun damage, making him look 20 years older. Many albinos in Tanzania are turning to the Tanzanian Albino Society for help. But the nonprofit advocacy group operates on less than $15,000 a year. That’s not enough for the sunscreen, hats and protective clothing that could save lives. Mr. Mluge, 49, is the society’s general secretary. He grew up with children pelting him with chalk in class. He said he had learned to live with being constantly teased, pinched and laughed at. “But we have never feared like we do today,” he said. Al-Shaymaa J. Kwegyir, Tanzania’s new albino member of Parliament, said, “People think we’re lucky. That’s why they’re killing us. But we’re not lucky.” She said it was a curse to be born in equatorial Africa, where the sun is unsparing, with little or no protective skin pigment. Albinism rates vary throughout the world; about 1 person in 20,000 is an albino in the United States.

It is no accident that the Tanzania Albino Society’s office is on the grounds of a cancer hospital. Many of its members are sick. The smell of the wards is overpowering, a nose-stinging mix of burn salves and rotting flesh. Many of the albino patients are covered with scabs, sores, welts and burns. One patient, Nasolo Kambi, sat on his bed, recovering from a recent round of chemotherapy for skin cancer. His arms were splattered with dark brown splotches, like ink stains on white paper. “People say we can’t die,” he said, referring to a superstition that albinos simply vanish when they get older. “But we can.” Police officials said the albino killings were worst in rural areas, where people tend to be less educated and more superstitious. They said that some fishermen even wove albino hairs in their nets because they believed they would catch more fish.

On the shores of Lake Victoria, in northern Tanzania, albinos are a touchy subject. When asked if they used albino hairs in their nets, a group of fishermen just stared at the sand. One traditional healer, a young man in a striped shirt who looked more like a college student than a witch doctor, said: “Yeah, I’ve heard of it. But that’s not real witchcraft. It’s the work of con men.” Police officials are at a loss to explain precisely why there is a wave of albino killings now. Commissioner Paul Chagonja said an influx of Nigerian movies, which play up witchcraft, might have something to do with it, along with rising food prices that were making people more desperate. “These witch doctors have many strange beliefs,” he said. “There was a rumor not so long ago that if you use a bald head when fishing, you’ll get rich. There was another one that said if you spread blood on the ground in a mine, you’ll find gold. These rumors come and go. The problem is, the people who follow witch doctors don’t question them.” Mr. Mluge said whispers swirled around him whenever he walked down the sidewalk. “I hear people saying, ‘It’s a deal, it’s a deal. Let’s get him and make some money,’ ” he said. At home, at least, he is not an oddity. His wife is an albino. So are all five of his children. Some have already had skin cancer, in their teens. The night used to be theirs, a time when Mr. Mluge and his fair-skinned sons and daughters could stroll outside together without worrying about the sun. Now they bolt themselves in, peering through bars. Just two weeks ago, while Mr. Mluge’s children were sleeping, a car pulled up to their house and four men got out to look around. “I’m worried,” he said. “They know we are here.” Mr. Mluge said he tried to read the license plate. But he couldn’t make out the numbers, and the car drove off.
by Jefferey Gettleman
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Survivors in China Sift Rubble for the Past

A scavenger combs through the remains of her destroyed home in Yingxiu, Sichuan Province. (Shiho Fukada for The New York Times)
YINGXIU, China: June 8th. (NY Times) — There are no more rescues. The survivors say miracles are just that: only miracles. With their homes demolished in last month’s earthquake, residents of Yingxiu, China, now dig through the debris in search of anything that could be useful. What the people digging through the rubble here at the center of the earthquake zone are pulling out now is entirely inanimate. There are car parts and real estate deeds and clothes for infants. A woman scours the debris every day for firewood to carry back to a tent where 13 families have taken refuge. Another leafs through her son’s wedding photo album, dust-filled and lifted from the ruins of her home. They are what the survivors need to carry on with their lives, to piece back together some of what was snatched from them by the earthquake on May 12.

Sang Yuping spreads out a half-dozen photographs on a mattress in the tent that was given to her by the government. Across the road lie the remains of her one-story home. Long wooden planks protrude from the pile at every angle like whale bones. There on the mattress is a photo of her daughter, her son and his wife. It is April. They are smiling and dressed in Tibetan robes and dancing at a festival at a primary school here, weeks before the school is to collapse and kill most of the children inside. “This is the thing I was happiest to see,” said Ms. Sang, 54, a corn and soybean farmer. “I lost everything in the earthquake, and when I found these photos, I felt better. Because from these photos, I can see what life was like before the earthquake.” She added, “I look at these photos when I’m sad.” Small objects, some sentimental, some practical, are all that most survivors from Yingxiu have left of their lives. The town lies deep in the mountains of Wenchuan County, at the epicenter of the quake that has killed nearly 70,000 and left 18,000 missing across southwestern China. Most of what is left of Yingxiu is piles of brick and concrete. More than three-quarters of the town’s 10,000 residents were killed.

Chinese soldiers here are demolishing building after building, blowing up teetering structures with explosives. Soon bulldozers will clear away all the rubble, leaving no chance to salvage the past. Survivors are venturing back to scavenge while they can. At 2 p.m. on Wednesday, soldiers detonated explosives in a building on the far bank of the muddy river coursing through Yingxiu. The blast echoed through the valley and sent a cloud of dust over the town. Then people carrying backpacks, wooden baskets and plastic bags streamed across the bridge to the fields of debris on the far side. The soldiers and police officers here do not care who takes what. Most of the people who owned these things are dead, they say.

Ms. Sang said she and her son came back specifically to look for the family photos. But anything they could find would help. There was, for instance, her 2-year-old grandson to think about. She had been cradling him in her arms outside when the earthquake struck. He and his mother are now living with relatives in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, three hours south. “I found some of his clothes in the rubble and brought them down to him,” she said. Her tent was littered with other things that had mattered enough for her to dig out. A jar of liquor with a crack in the glass. Two wooden chests that held quilts and blankets. Jackets and sweaters still coated with dust. “I’m still looking for things,” she said. “Today I found a door. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with that.” Down the street, a woman in a purple sweater and straw hat stood in the rubble putting handfuls of wood into her basket. She did this five or six times a day: dig in the rubble, gather wood, carry it across the river. She lived in a tent with 40 people from 13 families. They used the wood to make fires to cook. “We’re all refugees, and we don’t have anything,” said the woman, Zheng Xiaoqiang, 40. “We depend on each other. We all cook together, eat together, live together.” Her son, Zidong, 13, was sifting through the debris looking for more wood. “He has nothing to do these days,” Ms. Zheng said. “I want to get him out and send him to school. His teachers took some of his classmates down to Chengdu. But he’s afraid to go on his own.” She pointed to a rubble heap at the foot of a mountain that looked like any other rubble heap. “I want to go back to my house to look for things, but I don’t dare because the rocks fall from the mountain at any time,” she said. “I ran out without shoes. Someone gave me these shoes I’m wearing. Now, maybe rocks don’t fall anymore, but in my head, at night, they’re still falling.”

Three men were digging in the same pile of debris as Ms. Zheng. One of them found a wooden door and gave it to her. Then he began pounding on a slab of concrete with a sledgehammer, trying to get lower into the mound. “What we’re looking for is my son’s college graduation diploma,” said one of the men, Jing Liangwen, 64, a former member of the National People’s Congress. “He’s been teaching in a middle school for 10 years, but without the diploma, it’s hard to get another job.” He pointed to a red photo album that on its cover had a picture of his son in a tuxedo and his daughter-in-law in a white wedding dress. “Finding this has made me happy, but maybe the diploma would be more important,” he said. He ticked off other paperwork he needed to find: a real estate deed, a work license, health insurance documents, a proof of retirement certificate. Without the last one, he said, he would not be able to collect his $290-a-month pension. Getting official documents in China can be as arcane a process as deciphering classical manuscripts. Scattered around him were the fruits of the day’s labor: a DVD player, balls of yarn, jackets, blankets, pillows, two women’s handbags, two issues of “China Automobile Pictorial.” “I’d love to find a table and some chairs,” he said. “In our tent, we have no place to sit.” From the rubble he picked a small lapel pin, a red flag with the Communist Party hammer and sickle. He held it up. He was asked whether it was important to him. “How could it not be important?” he said, stuffing it in one of the handbags.

Along the main road, a man in a red T-shirt was tinkering with the battery of a pickup truck. He said the engine was still good. The truck could be driven out. Another group of men was excavating what used to be an auto repair shop. One of the men, Tang Jianhua, had opened this shop to service construction equipment used by workers building a tunnel through a mountain here. Mr. Tang walked out of the rubble carrying two red hydraulic jacks. “This repair equipment is my livelihood,” he said. “If they come back to work on the tunnel, I’ll reopen my shop.” Twilight was coming, and rain clouds had drifted in. The wind picked up. Soldiers warned the salvagers that another building would be demolished with explosives in a few minutes. Ms. Zheng came back to collect her last batch of firewood for the day. Mr. Jing walked over to a tent for dinner with friends. He had found all his certificates in a desk drawer in the rubble. He would be able to collect his pension. His son would be able to find another job. Life would go on.
By EDWARD WONG
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Mbeki Calls Harm to Migrants a Disgrace

Mozambicans returned Sunday from Johannesburg. Anti-immigrant violence that began in the city has killed 50 people. (Pedro Sá da Bandeira/European Pressphoto Agency)
JOHANNESBURG, May 26th. (NY Times)After two weeks of only faint and infrequent condemnations of the anti-immigrant violence that has troubled South Africa, President Thabo Mbeki on Sunday described the wave of xenophobic attacks as an “absolute disgrace” that has blemished the country’s reputation. “Never since the birth of our democracy have we witnessed such callousness,” he said in a 10-minute nationally televised speech. The president spoke after being roundly excoriated as lacking leadership during the mayhem that has left 50 people dead. A leading newspaper here, The Sunday Times, called for his resignation in a front-page editorial on Sunday. “Throughout this crisis — arguably the most grave, dark and repulsive moment in the life of our young nation — Mbeki has demonstrated that he no longer has the heart to lead,” it said. The newspaper faulted him for leaving the country as the violence raged and for not visiting any of the squatter settlements where the attacks had occurred. “Mr. President, it is clear you have lost interest in governing the Republic,” it said. “We appeal to you: Stand down in the interests of your country.”

A week earlier, Mathews Phosa, the treasurer-general of Mr. Mbeki’s party, the African National Congress, called for him to cut short his term, due to end next April, saying he had “lost touch” with the party’s mainstream. Others in the A.N.C. hierarchy quickly said that the comment represented the views of an individual and not the party. But even for a lame duck, Mr. Mbeki has been in an extremely weakened position since he suffered a humiliating defeat in December, losing a vote for the party’s top job to Jacob Zuma, whom he fired as South Africa’s deputy president in 2005. On Sunday, Mr. Zuma, presumed to be Mr. Mbeki’s successor, met with crowds east of Johannesburg where the violence has been severe. In contrast, Mr. Mbeki made his prerecorded speech from a plush red upholstered chair, using the monotones and scholarly diction for which he is known. “Whatever concerns that exist, including those about housing, jobs and so on,” he said, “this can and must be addressed in a manner consistent with the dignified, humane and caring characteristics that define the majority of our people, not through criminal means.”

Sporadic attacks on foreigners have occurred in South Africa for years, but two weeks ago assaults on immigrants in Alexandra, a township near the center of Johannesburg, quickly spread to other parts of the metropolitan area. In one attack in a squatter camp, photographers recorded a man being burned alive, an image that shamed much of the nation. Though the violence in Johannesburg has slowed, the attacks have spread to other cities, including Durban and Cape Town. About 30,000 foreigners have fled their homes, seeking shelter in police stations and churches as the winter cold descends. Thousands of the despairing have left South Africa to return to Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi and other nations. Most immigrants remain, however. South Africa, which accounts for a third of sub-Saharan Africa’s economic output, is home to an estimated five million foreigners. Many of them compete for jobs at the lower rungs. Amid high unemployment, woeful housing and rising prices in South Africa, outsiders are often made into scapegoats, the local poor focusing their resentments on the immigrant poor.

But there is dissatisfaction with the government, too. Mr. Mbeki took office in 1999 after a landslide victory, succeeding Nelson Mandela. And while he lacked his predecessor’s charisma, he seemed a calm, cerebral steward who was well respected if not deeply beloved. Under Mr. Mbeki, the nation has had the longest period of sustained economic growth in its history. He was re-elected by a huge majority in 2004. But the economic progress is unequally shared, bringing far more benefits to a small portion of the nation’s black citizens, the well connected and the highly skilled. Desmond Tutu, the retired Anglican archbishop and Nobel laureate, warned in 2004: “At the moment, too many of our people live in grueling, demeaning, dehumanizing poverty. We are sitting on a powder keg.” The violence against immigrants seems to be a lighted fuse attached to that keg. It has happened as Mr. Mbeki has suffered so many setbacks that his legacy seems to be collapsing. Besides his loss to Mr. Zuma, he has been tarnished by allegations that he sought to shield his police commissioner from corruption charges. He also has steadfastly refused to publicly criticize President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, whose policies have led that nation into economic chaos and caused some three million people to flood into South Africa. The sustained economic growth Mr. Mbeki so proudly achieved is now endangered by a shortage of electricity that has forced industry to reduce production. By Mr. Mbeki’s admission, the government did not heed the warnings of experts that new power stations were required. But last week, as the criticism of Mr. Mbeki was in crescendo, one of his top aides, the Rev. Frank Chikane, complained about the unfairness of blaming one person for a rash of woes. “It is a cop-out in a democracy to blame the president only for what goes wrong,” he said.
by Barry Bearak
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Myanmar Reels as Cyclone Toll Hits Thousands

Displaced residents who lost their homes in a powerful cyclone took shelter on Monday in a Buddhist temple. (Hla Hla Htay/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)
May 6th. (NY Times) - Myanmar struggled Monday to recover from a cyclone that killed more than 3,900 people and perhaps as many as 15,000. Foreign Minister Noppadol Pattama of Thailand met with Myanmar's ambassador on Tuesday, according to Reuters. After the meeting, Mr. Noppadol said that 15,000 people had been killed and another 30,000 were missing. If those numbers are accurate, the death toll would be the highest from a natural disaster in Asia since the tsunami of December 2004, which devastated coastlines in South Asia and claimed 181,000 lives. On Monday, three cabinet ministers told diplomats the death toll could reach 10,000 people in the delta region, an area that is home to nearly half of Myanmar’s 48 million people, according to Richard Horsey, a spokesman for the UN disaster response office in Bangkok. State radio reported that Saturday's vote on a draft constitution would be delayed until May 24 in 40 townships around Yangon and seven in the Irrawaddy delta, which bore the brunt of the killer storm, according to The Associated Press. It indicated that in other areas the balloting would proceed as scheduled. Tens of thousands of people were homeless after the cyclone, and food and water were running short. “Stories get worse by the hour,” one Yangon resident, who did not want to be identified for fear of government retribution, said in an e-mail message. “No drinking water in many areas, still no power. Houses completely disappeared. Refugees scavenging for food in poorer areas. Roofing, building supplies, tools — all are scarce and prices skyrocketing on everything.” Officials said they would open the doors of their closed and tightly controlled nation to international relief groups. So far, most foreigners and all foreign journalists have been barred from entering the country. They also said the referendum would proceed. “It’s only a few days left before the coming referendum and people are eager to cast their vote,” an official statement said Monday.

But witnesses and residents said the military had been slow to respond to the devastation of the cyclone, and some suggested that the government’s performance could affect the vote. Residents of the country, formerly known as Burma, said that they were being pressured to vote “yes” and that riot police officers had been patrolling the streets before the cyclone in a show of force that was more visible than their relief efforts afterward. Nine months ago, security forces had fired into crowds, killing dozens of people, to disperse huge pro-democracy demonstrations led by monks, and in the months since, the government has carried out a campaign of arrests and intimidation. State-owned television had reported early Monday that 3,934 people died in the cyclone, called Nargis, which swept through the Irrawaddy Delta and the country’s main city, Yangon, formerly Rangoon, early Saturday. The broadcast said nearly 3,000 were missing, all of them from a single town, Bogale. “What is clear,” Mr. Horsey said Monday, “is that we are dealing with a major emergency situation, and the priority needs now are shelter and clean drinking water.”

A spokesman for the World Food Program said the government of Myanmar, which severely restricts the movements and activities of foreign groups, had given the United Nations permission to send in emergency aid. At the United Nations, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he had mobilized a disaster assessment team to determine Myanmar’s most urgent needs. A human rights group based in Thailand, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), which has provided reliable information from Myanmar in the past, said soldiers and police officers had killed 36 prisoners in Insein prison to quell a riot that started after the cyclone tore roof sheets off cell blocks, Reuters reported. The report could not be independently confirmed. The junta that rules Myanmar has closed the country off from the outside world and maintained its grip on power through force, while its economic mismanagement has driven the country deeper into poverty. Some government-run enterprises or businesses with links to the government have already required their employees to vote in advance. Exile groups said some residents had told them they were angry about the weak response of the military, which had seemed strong enough when the task was to crack down on citizens. “This is what people I have contacted complain about,” said Aung Zaw, editor of the magazine Irrawaddy, based in Thailand. “These people were so active in September killing the monks, but where are they now?”

Residents of Yangon complained that the government had failed to adequately warn them of the approaching storm. “The government misled people,” Thin Thin, a grocery store owner, told The Associated Press. “They could have warned us about the severity of the coming cyclone so we could be better prepared.” On Sunday, the government’s initial estimate was that the cyclone had killed 351 people. Estimates of the toll soared on Monday, and on Tuesday the state-run Myanmar TV, monitored by Reuters from outside the country, reported that the cyclone had killed about 10,000 people in Bogale alone. The basis of the figure was not clear. In Washington, the first lady, Laura Bush, took Myanmar’s government to task on Monday for failing to notify its citizens in time, and pressed the military junta to accept American aid. “Although they were aware of the threat, Burma’s state-run media failed to issue a timely warning to citizens in the storm’s path,” Mrs. Bush said in a rare news conference at the White House. “It’s troubling that many of the Burmese people learned of this impending disaster only when foreign outlets, such as Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, sounded the alarm.” Asked whether she was concerned that American aid might not reach Burma’s people, Mrs. Bush said, “I’m worried that they won’t even accept U.S. aid.”

The American Embassy in Myanmar has authorized the release of $250,000 in immediate emergency aid, and Mrs. Bush promised, “More aid will be forthcoming.” The immediate problem in affected areas now is survival, with water and electricity cut off, roads blocked by fallen trees, roofs torn off homes and prices for transportation and food rising quickly. “People are starving,” an unidentified resident was quoted as saying by the Democratic Voice of Burma, a dissident radio station based in Norway. Mr. Horsey, of the United Nations, said teams representing various aid groups were trying to assess the damage. Some aid had already been stockpiled in anticipation of natural disasters, he said. “It will take a few days until a complete and accurate picture of the impact and of the numbers of people affected comes out,” he said. Even without the destruction from the cyclone, travel and communications can be difficult in the country because of its weak infrastructure, said David Mathieson, an expert on Myanmar with Human Rights Watch, a private organization. In Yangon, he said, people usually get only five or six hours of electricity a day, and some remote areas have no access to electricity. “So the fact that electricity is down is not really that important,” he said. Jens Orback, a former minister for integration and democracy in Sweden, was in Yangon when the cyclone hit. “Trees that were standing there hundreds of years fell easily,” he said, “and things from roofs fell down and the electricity went down and there were only flashlights. In the first day, you couldn’t go anywhere by car. No telephones worked. The Internet was out, and there was a lack of information. “What struck us also,” he continued, “was that in the first daylight, nobody from the police, military or firemen was out working with the devastation, but people privately were there with knives and machetes and hand saws.
by SETH MYDANS
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Scarred by Strife After Election, Kenya Begins to Heal

People driven off their land in Kenya began returning home on Monday. (Guillaume Bonn for The New York Times)
MOLO, Kenya May 6th. (NY Times) — The bus was full. Expectant faces pressed against the windows. Soldiers stood guard with their guns. Kenya began an operation on Monday to resettle people displaced after the crisis that followed December’s disputed election. Molo is emblematic of the ethnic fighting that erupted after the election, in which more than 1,000 people were killed. It was time to go home. “I’m ready,” said Dominick Ngigi, an 80-year-old farmer, stoically clutching a plastic bag with no more in it than a sweater and a flashlight. For the first time since Kenya’s disputed election erupted in crisis in December, the government has started a large-scale operation to resettle thousands of people violently driven off their land. Many have been living in squalid, wet camps that turned into breeding grounds for disease, crime, idleness and frustration. They have been languishing for more than four months, since the disputed election set off a wave of ethnic and political bloodshed that pitted neighbor against neighbor and drove upward of 600,000 people from their homes. More than 1,000 people were killed, and Kenya, once celebrated for its stability and relative harmony in a tumultuous region, ripped apart along ethnic lines.

Operation Rudi Nyumbani (Operation Return Home), which began in full on Monday, was all about stitching the country back together. Packed buses with heavily armed soldiers in tow rumbled across a scarred landscape, past homes with roofs burned off, past trees downed in January to block roads, past the very spots where farmers, laborers, mothers and children were killed by machetes, arrows and fire. The buses disgorged the occupants into familiar settings, but now with a strange dynamic: new arrivals in their old homes. “I feel lucky to be back,” said Meshak Njata, a farmer, as he inspected a few baby pineapples in his weed-choked garden.

Still, not everyone felt that way. At one camp in Molo, a large town in the Rift Valley where much of the fighting occurred, a mini-protest broke out Monday morning when hundreds of displaced people refused to leave. Peter Ngoge, a shopkeeper, shook a piece of notebook paper listing several demands. He spoke for many, as evidenced by the feisty crowd behind him, when he said he would not leave the camp until the government improved security and paid compensation to those displaced. “There’s no peace out there,” he said. “What do you think is going to happen?” a man in a grubby sweater next to him asked. “They will kill us.”

Molo is emblematic of the us-versus-them problem still festering in Kenya. The town is nestled in a breathtaking sweep of rolling hills and impossibly green farmland. But it lies on a fault line between the Kalenjin and the Kikuyu, two powerful ethnic groups that battled viciously after the election. The Kalenjin mainly supported the opposition, and the Kikuyu mainly supported the government, which is led by president Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu. Most of the families driven off their land were Kikuyus. Kenya’s leaders face a growing economic and food crisis, and they decided that, ethnic tensions aside, now is not the time for miles of productive farmland to go to waste. As part of Operation Rudi Nyumbani, the government is promising food, tools, new houses and even cash for those who return to their farms. To make its plan work, the government has said, there must be genuine ethnic reconciliation. Over the past several weeks, local administrators have held meetings, seminars and soccer games to build trust between the Kikuyu and Kalenjin. “It’s a process,” said Katee Mwanza, Molo’s district commissioner.

And that process may be bearing fruit. Some Kalenjin elders, who just a few months ago had insisted that Kikuyus leave the Rift Valley, came to the Molo police station on Monday to welcome the Kikuyus back home. “The war’s over,” said Samuel Kirui, a Kalenjin elder. The change of heart came, he said, because “our leaders have agreed to work together, so why can’t we?” But are the leaders really working together? Mr. Kibaki, who was declared the winner of the election despite widespread evidence of vote rigging, finally named a unity government in April, appointing his top rival, Raila Odinga, as prime minister. But the government’s first joint exercise, a tour of the turbulent Rift Valley, was marred by protocol wars centering on who was more senior, Mr. Odinga or Kalonzo Musyoka, the vice president and a Kibaki ally. Those squabbles frustrated many Kenyans, especially at a time when the country is still suffering from self-inflicted wounds. The election crisis has crippled the safari business, one of Kenya’s biggest industries, with recent figures showing tourism down more than 50 percent. Inflation is shooting up, and jail guards recently held a violent strike. Teachers and nurses have threatened to follow suit. Yet the president’s cabinet is bigger than ever, with more than 90 ministers and assistant ministers and a record-breaking budget.

Meanwhile, many displaced people are returning to nothing. “No cows, no sheep, no house, no corn,” said Mr. Ngigi, the farmer, as he got ready to board a bus. “All that is bad. But life in a camp is worse.”
by Jeffrey Gettleman
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Vatican puts Blessed Damien, Patron of Aids Sufferers, on the Road to Sainthood

Blessed Damien: The Belgian missionary lived among lepers in the Pacific and died from leprosy in 1889
May 2nd. (Mail on Sunday) - The Vatican today cleared the way for the canonisation of the unofficial patron saint of HIV/Aids sufferers. Theologians have ruled that a Hawaiian woman was inexplicably cured from lung cancer as a result of praying at the graveside of Blessed Damien de Veuster, a Belgian missionary. His cause now needs only to be rubber-stamped by the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints and given the nod from Pope Benedict XVI before he can be declared a saint. His canonisation, expected later this year, will draw hundreds of thousands of supporters to Rome because of the huge following that has grown around Father Damien since his death more than a century ago.

The Belgian missionary, who died in 1889, became famous for living among lepers in the Pacific islands - only to die from leprosy himself. He has been adopted by many HIV/AIDS sufferers as their unofficial patron saint because they feel stigmatised by their disease in the same way lepers were in previous centuries. He is also the patron saint of Hawaii, where his statue stands outside the state parliament building. After a poll in Belgium in 2005 Father Damien was named “the Greatest Belgian throughout Belgian History”. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in Brussels in 1995 following the first of two "miracles" needed to declare him a saint.

The second miracle is said to have come after Audrey Toguchi, now 80, who had aggressive lung cancer, prayed for healing at his graveside in Molokai, Hawaii. She had been strongly advised to undergo chemotherapy but refused, telling doctors that she wanted to instead pray to Blessed Damien, whom she had admired since a child. The cancer disappeared without treatment. The case was documented by Dr Walter Chang, the woman's doctor, who is not a Catholic, in the October 2000 issue of the Hawaii Medical Journal.

Father Damien, a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, died in1889 at the age of 49. He had been working with lepers segregated on to a colony on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, knowing all along he would eventually contract and die from the disease, for which at the time there was no known cure. Hawaii's other candidate for sainthood is Blessed Marianne Cope, Father Damien's successor in Kalaupapa, who was beatified in 2005.
By SIMON CALDWELL
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Zimbabwe Calls for Runoff, but Opposition Challenges Vote Count

Esther Deve, left, and her nephew, Francis Zondo, 10, victims of political violence, sought treatment in Harare, Zimbabwe. (Tsvangirayi Mukwashi/Associated Press)
JOHANNESBURG, Sth. Africa: May 3rd. (NY TIMES) — After more than a month’s delay, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission on Friday officially announced the results of the disputed March 29 presidential election, saying that the opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, had won more votes than the incumbent, Robert Mugabe, but not enough to avoid a runoff. Mr. Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, won 47.9 percent of the vote to Mr. Mugabe’s 43.2 percent, the election officials said. The third major candidate, Simba Makoni, who broke away from the governing party, ZANU-PF, to run as an independent, took 8.3 percent of the vote. Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for the opposition, immediately denounced election officials for short-circuiting the vote verification process and “arrogantly” releasing the final tallies before the opposition had a chance to challenge them. But he was noncommittal on the crucial question of whether Mr. Tsvangirai would participate in a runoff. No date has been announced for one. “They did not verify the results,” Mr. Chamisa said. “They did not give us an opportunity to contest the results. They are waylaying the people’s will. Clearly, this is scandalous.”

The opposition maintains that it won the election outright with 50.3 percent of the vote, while ministers in Mr. Mugabe’s cabinet have for weeks said a runoff would be necessary. Both the opposition’s figures and those of the government fall within the range of outcomes — 47 percent to 51.8 percent — that an alliance of civic groups called the Zimbabwe Election Support Network said were plausible based on publicly posted tallies at 435 of the 9,400 polling stations. Friday’s tardy announcement of the outcome arrives amid one of Zimbabwe’s most momentous political crises since it gained independence from white rule in 1980. At a time when Mr. Mugabe, one of Africa’s most entrenched strongmen, faces a real risk of losing power for the first time in 28 years, there is growing evidence that senior officials in his party and the military have organized a sweeping crackdown on the political opposition, independent election monitors and polling officers. The aim is to intimidate those who would make it harder for the governing party to rig a runoff, as well as the opposition supporters working for Mr. Mugabe’s defeat, according to civic groups, human rights organizations and Western diplomats. The opposition was able to campaign openly and largely unmolested before the March 29 elections, but conditions have deteriorated sharply since then, raising questions about whether a significant number of voters will be either too fearful to go to the polls or will vote for Mr. Mugabe rather than face reprisals.

The opposition says that since the election 20 of its supporters have been killed, hundreds injured in brutal beatings and thousands driven from their homes. Senior government officials, quoted in The Herald, the state-run newspaper, have blamed the opposition itself for the political violence. The Movement for Democratic Change now must decide whether to participate in a runoff despite the ominous environment. Noel Kututwa, chairman of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, which was itself raided by the police last week, said a decision by the opposition to boycott would simply hand Mr. Mugabe an easy victory. “If they don’t contest, Mugabe will be declared the winner,” said Mr. Kututwa, who was interrogated for three days this week on suspicion of subversive activities. “That would be the end. I don’t think it’s a wise idea to throw in the towel.” In recent days, opposition leaders have maintained that the party would not take part in a runoff election, but Mr. Tsvangirai had earlier said he would participate if international observers put a stop to the state-sponsored violence against his supporters and ensured a safe environment. Mr. Chamisa, the party’s spokesman, said Friday, “That decision will come at the appropriate time.” Mr. Tsvangirai and the party’s secretary general, Tendai Biti, face another very difficult choice: when to return to Zimbabwe or whether to return at all.

For the past few weeks, Mr. Tsvangirai has flown across Africa, meeting with heads of state and retired elder statesmen, pleading for the UN or the African Union to intervene. But on Tuesday, when the United Nations Security Council considered Zimbabwe, South Africa, the region’s most powerful nation and president of the Council at the time, opposed sending an envoy to Zimbabwe, saying the situation there was not a threat to international peace. Mr. Tsvangirai and Mr. Biti, who were beaten by the police in a crackdown last March, face being taken into custody again upon their return to Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe’s police commissioner general, Augustin Chihuri, was quoted in The Herald on Thursday as saying that Mr. Biti had illegally declared Mr. Tsvangirai the winner, when election law stated that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission had the exclusive right to announce results. Mr. Chihuri said Mr. Biti was wanted for questioning and accused him of inciting others to political violence. “The only time one sees you is on the international media, making all sorts of unsubstantiated allegations against everybody else and the country, gallivanting all over the world,” Mr. Chihuri wrote in a letter to Mr. Biti that was quoted in The Herald. The process of verifying the disputed presidential vote started only Thursday afternoon, and opposition leaders were predicting it would take days, if not weeks, to complete. They said they were shocked Friday when officials released the final tally so quickly.

Independent election monitors, American and British diplomats and many civic and human rights groups have been highly critical of the way the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission conducted the vote count. They said it was not clear how the integrity of the ballot boxes was assured during the weeks of delay. Even within the governing party’s own politburo, some doubted vote count figures leaking out this week showing Mr. Tsvangirai short of an outright majority. One politburo member interviewed Thursday said he believed that Mr. Tsvangirai had won more than 50 percent of the vote. Another member, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was afraid to speak publicly about the election results, said it might never be known whether Mr. Tsvangirai did or not win a majority. “It’s going to be very difficult to prove after more than 30 days of silence and no guarantee those boxes weren’t interfered with,” he said Thursday in a telephone interview. “Were the boxes intact or opened? Where were they kept? Who looked after them? Were the seals broken?”
by Celia W. Dugger
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UN Council Angered at Eritrea over Border Force

UNITED NATIONS, April 22 (Reuters) - Security Council members voiced anger on Tuesday at moves by Eritrea to force a U.N. peacekeeping mission to leave its border with Ethiopia, but postponed a decision on how to respond. "The members of the council were unanimous in that the way the peacekeepers of UNMEE (the U.N. force) have been treated in Eritrea is totally unacceptable," South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, current council president, told reporters. The United Nations has almost completely withdrawn some 1,700 troops and military observers from a buffer zone along the border between the two Horn of Africa rivals after Asmara cut fuel supplies to the mission. Eritrea said countrywide shortages had prompted the move, but President Isaias Afwerki said last week the continued presence of U.N. peacekeepers on the Red Sea state's border with Ethiopia, scene of a 1998-200 war, was illegal.

The peacekeepers had been stationed in a 15.5-mile (25-km) zone inside Eritrea. But Eritrea turned against UNMEE because of U.N. inability to enforce rulings by an independent commission awarding Asmara chunks of Ethiopian-held territory. Kumalo conceded that Eritrea had genuine concerns. He said the council would return to the issue, probably next week. "We have to take time to really think this through," he said. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a report earlier this month that if the peacekeepers abandoned the 620-mile (1,000-km) border, a new war could break out, although both countries have said they do not plan to renew hostilities. Ban offered several options, including the permanent withdrawal of UNMEE, deploying a small observer mission in the border area, establishing liaison offices in Addis Ababa and Asmara or returning to the original full deployment. The last option, however, looks unlikely given Eritrea's refusal to discuss the issue. "The United Nations cannot really achieve a result if the two countries do not follow up on the commitment they made in 2000," when they agreed to host UNMEE, U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno, who briefed the council, told reporters. Most UNMEE troops have been sent home temporarily and less than 200 are now in Eritrea, with a few in Ethiopia. Ethiopia has offered to hold talks with Eritrea but Asmara says Addis Ababa must first withdraw from Eritrean territory. Both sides have amassed troops in recent months. U.S. envoy Alejandro Wolff said there was "a mood in the council of great, great dissatisfaction at the manner in which Eritrea has handled this," and accused the Eritreans of "shooting themselves in the foot." "In the long term Eritrea will pay a big price for this misjudgment," he told reporters, without elaborating. (Editing by Alan Elsner)
By Patrick Worsnip
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UN Troops Overworked and Outgunned in the Badlands of Darfur

Disappointment and fear continues for the people of Sileia (Panos)
Sileia, West Darfur: April 24th. (NY Times) - The peacekeepers could do nothing to stop the huge Antonov aircraft flying over the tiny town of Sileia, close to Sudan’s border with Chad. They were too late to stop the Janjawid – the feared Arab militia, some on horseback and some in Toyota pickup trucks – sent in to do the Government’s dirty work, looting or destroying anything they couldn’t carry away. The first soldiers into Sileia, in fact, were Sudanese armed forces who arrived the next day to take control of the town. They painted over graffiti proclaiming support for one of the main rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), and raised the Sudanese flag in the sandy central square. Now, the women say the soldiers are doing what soldiers do in times of war in towns where the men are away fighting. At night, single women bed down close to the house of the fursha – a tribal mayor – where they can be better protected. “Three days ago there were women sleeping who were woken by soldiers with guns in the middle of the night,” Mariam Ibrihim Adam, 58, said. “I don’t know what happened but there were men with women and then all the women ran to the fursha’s house for protection.” She won’t mention rape: the subject is taboo in this part of Sudan where life has changed little in centuries. Here raped women bring shame to their tribe.

Five years ago the people of Darfur could have told the above tale with little variation, except that the peacekeepers were from the African Union, a beleaguered and hybrid force of soldiers and police. On January 1 they were joined by United Nations personnel, which is supposed to swell to a 26,000-strong force eventually monitoring ceasefire violations and protect civilians and aid workers from attack. No one knows when the force will reach full strength. Contributing countries are struggling to meet their commitments; 2,000 troops have joined the 7,000-strong AU force to form the United Nations and African Union Mission in Darfur (Unamid). Most of the latter merely painted their green helmets blue and carried on as before. So the disappointment and fear continue for the people of Sileia, who live in a area of Darfur that has seen the worst fighting this year. “Now the UN cars are here, stood in front of us,” Adam Omar Mohammed, 88, a Sufi preacher, said, pointing to an armoured personnel carrier sharing shade with donkeys beneath a tree. “So we feel safe. But we want the UN to come here and stay here.” Rebels of the JEM seized a handful of towns last December and looked to be closing in on the regional capital, El Geneina. Then, in February, they were called back across the border to Chad, where their paymaster President Idriss Déby was under attack from Sudanese-backed rebels. They managed to defend his capital, Ndjamena, but Sudan used their absence to take back the “northern corridor” of towns including Sileia, Sirba and Abu Sirouj. Their tactics were eerily reminiscent of the early days: Antonovs first, followed by Janjawid and then government soldiers. They left behind a string of blackened towns. It was days before Unamid monitors arrived from their headquarters in El Geneina, where they had been besieged by aid workers demanding they intervene. “We feel disappointed,” Colonel Amgad Morsy, chief of staff for Unamid Sector West, said. “We don’t have the capability. It’s a weekly and daily dispute that refugees come and say their people are being harassed, their women are raped.”

Unamid has had some successes. It has resumed night patrols of the camps around El Geneina, arrested a handful of Janjawid raiders and now escorts women as they collect firewood – all activities that the morale-sapped AU force abandoned after becoming a target for rebels and government-backed militias alike. Unamid is planning to build a base for monitors in Sileia and is running long-range patrols across the territory to show locals that it is serious about their security. But the force only has 9,000 people to look after an area the size of France. They still lack the helicopters they need to get around rapidly and even the rations for long-distance patrols. Alun McDonald, a spokesman for Oxfam, said international pressure had focused on deploying a force without giving any thought to securing peace in Darfur.

— Figures for deaths in Darfur vary wildly. UN officials now estimate that the death toll from five years of conflict may be as high as 300,000 – revised from 200,000, the 2006 figure

— In 2005, the US State Department estimated the total number of deaths at between 60,000 and 160,000. They were accused of understating the scale of the killing dramatically

— Eric Reeves, a Sudan expert at Smith College in Massachusetts, puts the figure at 450,000

— The highest death rate is believed to have occurred from October 2003 to March 2004. As many as 11,400 people are thought to have been killed each month.
by Rob Crilly in Sileia, West Darfur
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