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/ 2 December 2008
Nigeria’s religious fault line was in the spotlight on Tuesday after riots in the central city of Jos claimed hundreds of lives.
A leading human rights group accused the international community on Monday of not doing enough to deter Sudan from new attacks in Darfur, where it cited a return to ”scorched-earth” policies. Human Rights Watch said the United Nations Security Council should impose sanctions on Sudanese officials behind attacks on civilians in Darfur in February.
The editor of an independent newspaper and a prominent human rights lawyer have been arrested, and Zimbabwe’s largest farm union said on Thursday that 40 000 farm workers have been displaced in post-election violence. Davison Maruziva, editor of the Standard newspaper, was taken by police from the newspaper’s offices on Thursday.
Zimbabwe’s ruling party has said that a second round of presidential elections could be delayed by up to a year in a move that would extend Robert Mugabe’s rule even though he admits to having lost the first round of voting five weeks ago. The election commission is expected to meet soon to set a date for the run-off vote between Mugabe and the opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai.
Zimbabweans are bracing for a bloody second round of elections after government sources on Wednesday said a recount of the presidential vote held a month ago showed that President Robert Mugabe lost to Morgan Tsvangirai, but that neither won an outright majority.
The Zimbabwe government savoured a rare diplomatic victory on Wednesday after the United Nations Security Council failed to agree on how to respond to the country’s post-election crisis. Western countries such as former colonial power Britain had been trying to steer the council to adopt a common strategy on the situation in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe’s army is supplying militants with weapons to intimidate voters to ensure that Robert Mugabe wins a possible run-off in the presidential election, Human Rights Watch said. In a statement released late on Tuesday, it said military forces had equipped war veterans with weapons and trucks to scare Zimbabweans into backing Mugabe.
Zimbabwe’s main rights group accused the government on Tuesday of unleashing violence to help President Robert Mugabe cling to power as the wait for election results stretched into a second month. While the United Nations prepared to meet in New York to discuss the post-election crisis, Mugabe’s regime warned it would crack down on violence.
Zimbabwe’s opposition alleged widespread irregularities as the partial recount begun on Saturday of votes cast in the presidential and parliamentary elections held three weeks ago, including ballot boxes with seals broken before they were delivered for the count or with no seals at all.
Supporters of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF have set up a network of torture camps where they have been assaulting opposition activists, a leading rights group said on Saturday. The New York-based Human Rights Watch said that suspected supporters of the opposition were being rounded up and then beaten.
Girls as young as 11 have suffered rape by Sudanese government forces and armed groups across Darfur more than five years after war began there, a rights organisation said on Monday. Human Rights Watch said sexual violence is rife in Darfur, where neither Sudanese security forces nor international peacekeepers are properly protecting women and girls.
Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader and presidential candidate in the March 29 general elections said on Thursday that the voters’ register is filled with tens of thousands of ghost voters. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), also said that the voters’ roll was in a shambles and threatened to pull out of the elections.
President Robert Mugabe’s supporters have used violence to intimidate opponents in the run-up to next week’s Zimbabwe election, undermining chances of a fair poll, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday. Mugabe faces the strongest challenge to his 28-year rule in presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections on March 29.
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/ 27 February 2008
French President Nicolas Sarkozy travelled to Chad on Wednesday as rights groups urged France not to ”cover up” for President Idriss Déby Itno, accused of having a hand in the disappearance of opposition members. The president will make a brief stopover in Ndjamena en route to South Africa.
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/ 31 January 2008
Kenya’s police said the fatal shooting of a legislator by a policeman on Thursday was a ”crime of passion” and had already led to one arrest. But the head of the Orange Democratic Movement, Raila Odinga, called the death of David Kimutai Too in the Rift Valley town of Eldoret a politically-motivated ”execution”.
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/ 24 January 2008
The two rivals in Kenya’s political crisis met on Thursday for the first time since a disputed election and pledged to seek an end to weeks of unrest that have killed nearly 700 people. President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga shook hands and smiled after the closed-door talks, brokered by former United Nations boss Kofi Annan.