KOFI ANNAN HANDS OVER KENYAN LIST TO ICC

Kenya’s post-election crisis mediator Kofi Annan said on Thursday he had handed a sealed envelope with the names of top suspects behind the violence to the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor.

The ICC has vowed to try perpetrators of the worst bloodletting in Kenya’s post-independence history — in which at least 1,300 people died and 300,000 were uprooted in early 2008 — if Nairobi fails to establish its own local court.

Justice for the crisis is seen as a crucial step to ensuring stability in the east African nation of 35 million that is the region’s economic powerhouse and faces its next poll in 2012.

A government-ordered inquiry had mandated Annan to hand over the envelope, with names of at least 10 alleged masterminds, if no local court was established.

The list includes prominent politicians and businessmen, including cabinet ministers, local political sources said.

Kenyan officials told the ICC last week that they would submit a plan for a local court by September, so Annan’s move will ramp up the pressure for that to happen.

A statement from Annan in Geneva said he had informed both President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga that the envelope had been given to ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

The former U.N. boss “welcomed the government of Kenya’s renewed efforts to implement the recommendations of the Waki Commission and to establish a Special Tribunal”, it said.

“Any judicial mechanism adopted to bring the perpetrators of the post-election violence to justice must meet international legal standards and be broadly debated with all sectors of the Kenyan society in order to bring credibility to the process.”

Kenya’s parliament has blocked previous attempts by Kibaki and Odinga to create a local court, with some legislators arguing that past local attempts to catch those behind violence or corruption had always proved fruitless.

The ICC’s Moreno-Ocampo told Reuters this week it may take Kenya about a year to establish a tribunal if it agrees to do so in principle. “If Kenya cannot do it, I will do it. There will be no impunity,” he said.

SOURCED FROM REUTERS

YEMINI CRASH VICTIMS FOUND IN TANZANIA

Debris and bodies thought to be from the plane that crashed off Comoros in the Indian Ocean last week have washed up on a Tanzanian island, police say.

A regional police commander said crash investigators in the Comoros had been informed of the find.

Security forces have been deployed to Mafia Island, several hundred miles north-west of the Comoros, to search for more bodies.

The plane came down in bad weather with 153 people on board on 30 June.

A 12-year-old girl – Baya Bakari – was the only known survivor. She was found clinging to debris some two hours after the crash.

Many of the passengers were travelling to the Comoros but had begun their journey in Paris or Marseille on another jet operated by Yemenia, the national airline of Yemen, before boarding flight IY626 in Sanaa.

Officials on Mafia Island said the bodies began washing ashore on Tuesday.

Five were found in the afternoon, and by 2100 local time the number had risen to 13.

Absalom Mwakyoma, regional police commander of the Coastal Province, said bits of wreckage had also been found indicating it could be from the Yemania plane.

“All responsible authorities including and island citizens have helped tell us where to find the bodies, for example there are unconfirmed reports that there are other two bodies found in an island called Nyoni,” he told BBC Swahili.

The bodies were being sent to a mortuary in Dar es Salaam, he said.

Over the weekend, investigators said a signal had been detected from the flight data recorders of the Yemenia Airbus 310 airliner.

Yemenia says that bad weather – strong winds and high seas – was the more likely cause of the crash.

The Comoran community in France held protests in both Paris and Marseille, saying that the 19-year-old aircraft had not been fit for service.

France’s transport minister has said that Yemenia will be “under strict surveillance”, and would have to make “big efforts” to avoid being placed on an EU blacklist of airlines banned from entering Europe.

SOURCED FROM BBC

MASS RAPING IN DRC

The Congolese military has promised to penalize any soldiers found guilty of rights abuses, after activists claimed troops were carrying out mass rape.

Military spokesman Colonel Leon Richard Kasonga said commanders must ensure the safety of civilians.

Last week US-based group Human Rights Watch said the army was responsible for most of the rapes in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s war-torn east.

The Red Cross says 400,000 people have fled the conflict since March.

Both government troops and the rebels who they are battling are often accused of attacking civilians.

But a statement from army headquarters signed by Col Kasonga said: “From this day, any serviceman guilty of reprehensible acts will feel the full force of the law.”

The statement listed acts including “rapes, forcing civilians to carry out forced labour, theft, extortion, torture, looting, malicious destruction of fields or livestock murders”.

The government, backed by the UN, launched an offensive last December to try to flush out rebels in the east of the country

CHINESE FISHERMEN KIDNAPPED OFF CAMEROUN

Report says five Chinese Fishermen have been hijacked off the West African country’s coast.

Security sources say the attack happened off the Bakassi Peninsula, an area ceded by Nigeria to Cameroon last year after a 15-year dispute.

A spokesperson for the rebel Bakassi Freedom Fighters has blamed gunmen from the Nigerian oil town of Port Harcourt.

But the main militant group in Nigeria’s Niger Delta denied any involvement in the kidnapping.

A spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said he was unaware of the incident.

Correspondents say that insecurity is spreading from the Niger Delta, where oil production has been slashed over the last few years owing to the activity of militants.

Many international trawlers – some licensed, others not, fish off the coast of West Africa.

SOURCED FROM BBC