NIGERIA’S MILITARY KILLS 5 NIGER DELTA INSURGENTS

Nigerian soldiers killed five gunmen after exchanging fire in the waterways of the oil-producing Niger Delta, a military spokesman said on Friday.

Nigerian navy vessels encountered the gunmen in three speedboats early on Thursday while on patrol in the Cawthorne Channel, an area in Rivers state that is a known hotbed for violence due to its close proximity to key oil facilities.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sagir Musa, a spokesman for the military taskforce in the Niger Delta, said the “chance encounter resulted in the killing of five militants”.There were no military casualties, he added.

The fighting is the second major incident in the heart of Africa’s biggest oil and gas industry since the region’s main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), announced a ceasefire last month.

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Insecurity in the Niger Delta has shut down around a fifth of Nigeria’s oil production since early 2006.

KENYA’S MPs APPROVE TRUTH & RECONCILIATION COMMISSION

Kenya’s parliament has approved a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) to probe human rights abuses since independence in 1963.Those found guilty of genocide and other human rights violations will not be eligible for amnesty.

The move comes amidst debate on how to deal with those implicated in the violence that broke out after the disputed elections in December 2007.An international tribunal has been urged to try those behind the clashes.Correspondents say the TJRC is separate from the international tribunal, which was the recommendation of a separate commission of inquiry set up after the violence, headed by Justice Phillip Waki.
It found that politicians and businessmen on all sides had stirred up violence after the polls.
Last week, Mr Waki handed over a sealed list of suspects to Mr Annan, the chief mediator of the power-sharing agreement.

It was agreed that if an international tribunal was not set up within 60 days, Mr Annan would hand over the names to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
The TJRC will investigate crimes committed since the country’s independence in 1963 to February 2008.It will have nine commissioners – six Kenyans and three foreigners.

More than 1,500 people were killed and some 300,000 more fled their homes in the unrest.
President Mwai Kibaki and Orange Democratic Movement leader Raila Odinga, now prime minister, signed a power-sharing deal in February to bring an end to the crisis and formed a coalition government.

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SOMALI GOVT. TROOPS CAPTURE TOWN

Somali government troops took control of a southern town from Islamist rebels on Friday in fighting which killed five people, a local official said.”We have launched fierce attacks on Islamists in order to retake the towns they have previously captured,” Mohamed Maalim, chairman of the Hudur Bakool region told Reuters.

“We shall continue the fighting until we completely eradicate Islamists from these regions,” he said.Three civilians and two insurgents were killed in the fighting for control of Bardale town, 60 km (35 miles) west of Baidoa, the seat of the interim government’s parliament.

Islamist insurgents have stepped up attacks on government and Ethiopian targets in recent months, and have vowed not to cease until the Ethiopian troops, who are backing Somali troops, are withdrawn.

But Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has said he will not withdraw troops until an African Union peacekeeping force is fully deployed. Some 3,000 peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi are in the capital Mogadishu, part of a planned 8,000-strong AU mission.

The violence in Somalia has killed nearly 10,000 people and displaced more then a million since the start of last year.

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40 KILLED IN RENEWED DARFUR ATTACKS

Tribal fighting killed more than 40 people and displaced thousands of civilians, mostly women and children, in the state of South Darfur in Sudan this month, aid workers and a rights group said.

In North Darfur, rebels said on Saturday that government forces clashed with a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) a day earlier. The Sudanese military could not confirm the incident but said it has forces operating in the area.

The fighting in South Darfur broke out early in October between the Arab Maaliya tribe and the African Zaghawa over cattle and other livestock around the town of Muhajiriya, an international aid source said on Saturday.

Analysts who follow Darfur say the Zaghawa tribe has settled in areas including Muhajiriya and demanded ownership of land, ignoring the rights of historical owners who include Maaliya.

“Fifty-one men from both sides were killed,” the source told Reuters on Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity. The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said on Friday night more than 40 “civilians” were killed in the fighting.

The violence in Darfur threatens efforts to end the conflict which international experts estimate has claimed the lives of 200,000 people and forced 2.5 millions to flee their homes since 2003. Khartoum estimates the death toll at 10,000.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it provided sleeping mats, clothes and tarpaulins last week to more than 4,000 people “displaced by communal clashes” around Muhajiriya.

SOURCED FROM REUTERS

RWANDANS JAILED FOR KILLING PRIESTS

A military court in Rwanda has sentenced two army captains to eight years in prison over the murder of 13 Catholic clerics in the 1994 genocide.The killings were carried out by soldiers from the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the ex-rebel mainly Tutsi group which put an end to the genocide.

Many of the murdered clerics were Hutus – among them were three bishops, including the archbishop of Kigali.
Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in 1994 in 100 days.

The killing by Hutu militias came to an end when the RPF under Paul Kagame, now president, took control of the country.The convicted captains, John Butera and Dieudonne Rukeba, said they had killed the Catholic clerics on the grounds that they were collaborating with mass murderers, the AFP news agency reports.

They pleaded guilty but were given reduced sentences when it was ruled that their crimes were not premeditated and were committed by soldiers under their command.Two of the captains’ military superiors were acquitted.

The military tribunal co-operated in the case with the UN-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which was set up in 1997 to try the most high-profile genocide cases.The BBC’s Geoffrey Mutagoma reports from Kigali that it is not the first time high-ranking military officers have gone on trial, but the case has drawn attention because it involves the murder of top clerics.

Trying officers who contributed to the RPF victory may be seen as a message to Rwanda’s critics that it intends to leave no crime committed during the genocide untried, he says.

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THOUSANDS DISPLACED IN DRC

The UN says about 200,000 people have been displaced by renewed fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in the past two months.Previously the United Nations had reported half that number.

Concern has been rising in the east of DR Congo, where the army has been battling fighters loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda.Up to two million people are thought to have been displaced in the Kivu area since 2007, the UN says.

The UN says this vast displacement means many people are malnourished and some were dying of hunger.

Charles Vincent from the UN World Food Programme said: “The capacity of the World Food Programme and other humanitarian organisations is stretched to the limit [and] the situation has begun to deteriorate in the last [few] weeks.”

“There is an enormous need for the women who have been abused,” he added, saying that half the number of rapes in DR Congo are committed in Kivu.The UN says that the population needs 33,000 tonnes of food or $46m (£29m) worth of supplies by March 2009.

A UN force has failed to halt fighting in the east, where violence has intensified since August between government troops and Gen Nkunda’s forces

SOURCED FROM BBC