48 KILLED IN ALGERIA
AT least 26 people were killed overnight on Saturday by an armed gang near Blida, south of the Algerian capital Algiers, bringing to 48 the number of victims of massacres in the past two days, local press said on Monday. The cut-throat killings near Blida and near Tlemcen in the west, which together claimed at least 48 lives, mark an abrupt end to the relative calm which surrounded last month’s local elections. Opposition parties are still protesting the election results, accusing President Liamine Zeroual of “massive fraud.” They have called a general strike in Algiers for Wednesday. But Zeroual on Sunday ignored the protest wave and fixed a date for elections to Algeria’s new second house of parliament.
EIGHT SOLDIERS KILLED
TWO more soldiers have died following a disastrous night battle exercise at Lohatla base in the Northern Cape last week, bringing the total casualty figures to eight dead and four injured. Three of the dead soldiers were paratroopers participating in a mass jump; the other five were infantrymen struck by shrapnel from a mortar shell. The military has launched an investigation into the deaths.
JUDGE VISITS DETAINEES
The chairman of Zambia’s human rights commission, Justice Lombe Chibesakunda, visited political detainees on Sunday and reported that two of the 33 suspects complained of torture, and of being deprived of food. She also criticised the government for mixing hard-core criminals with juveniles in a single overcrowded cell.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwean goverment has denied weekend reports that Zambia’s two major opposition leaders, Kenneth Kaunda and Roger Chongwe, have sought asylum in Zimbabwe. Both men passed through Zimbabwe in transit to Europe.
MANDELA CONGRATULATES HANSIE NELSON Mandela sent his “groete en beste wense” (greetings and best wishes) to Hansie Cronje, captain of the South African cricket team in Pakistan, following their triumph in the Jubilee Quadrangular Touranment in Pakistan on Saturday, held to commemorate Pakistan’s 50th anniversary.
MASS GRAVES A FORMER police captain has helped the Truth Commission find 195 hidden graves on the Swaziland and Zimbabwe borders, said to belong to ANC cadres either leaving or entering the country. The Sunday Independent reports that the graves reveal that the ANC was massively infiltrated by informers and that police preferred to ambush and murder cadres on the border rather than arrest them.
MBEKI MEETS SASSOU THABO Mbeki met new Congo republic president Denis Sassou-Nguesso at an African summit in Gabon on Friday, but told him South Africa found it unacceptable that an elected government had been ousted by military force. The Congo will send a delegation to South Africa to ‘explain’ the events.
ANIMAL PICKETS ANIMAL rights activisits picketed in Johannesburg on Saturday against Environmental minister Pallo Jordan, demanding that he resign for allowing a consignment of 40 baboons to be exported to a controversial French animal experiment laboratory.
NOBODY NOTICES DIAZ
The weekend marked the 500th anniversary of the event that launched the colonial age in Africa — Portuguese explorer Bartholomew Diaz setting foot on Cape soil. But there were no celebrations or speeches in South Africa, the country that exists as a consequence of that trip.
FOOD AID RUNS LOW
SOME 200 000 Sierra Leonians are “virtually destitute” with UN World Food Program stocks running desparately low, the agency warned on Friday. The agency has only enough food to feed 65 000 people for another month. The food crisis is the result of political strife following the May military coup, and sanctions imposed by neighbouring states.