AFRICA
2/29/00
- Thousands still trapped by
floods
2/28/00
- Many dead in Nigerian clashes
- Africa faces war or prosperity
choice
2/25/00
- Nigerian president questions
constitutionality of Islamic law
2/23/00
- Islamic law extended in Nigeria
2/21/00
- Nigerians clash
over Sharia
- Court defeat
for Mugabe
2/20
- Copts defy Islamic restrictions
2/17
- Clinton urges closer links to Africa
- UN deploys child protection advisers
2/4
BBC
Monday, 28 February, 2000, 11:31 GMT
Africa faces war or
prosperity choice
African countries have been urged to
end internal conflicts and to
concentrate on making their
economies competitive on a global
scale.
The plea was made by the Kenyan
president, Daniel Arap Moi, at the
opening of an international
conference aimed at encouraging
African states to establish a better
framework for trade, both between
themselves and with other economic
blocs around the world.
President Moi said instability and war
were a major cause of Africa's
economic woes because the free
movement of goods was impossible.
The meeting of the Common Market
of Eastern and Southern Africa,
COMESA the continent's largest
economic grouping brings together
government ministers, officials and
business leaders from twenty-one
countries. COMESA intends to create
a free-trade zone later this year -- at
a summit in October in Zambia -- and
to establish a regional customs union
within five years.
From the newsroom of the BBC World
Service
-top-
BBC
Monday, 28 February, 2000, 21:13 GMT
Many dead in Nigerian
clashes
Kaduna under army control after last week's violence
More than 50 people are reported to have
been killed in clashes between Christians and
Muslims in the south-eastern Nigerian town of
Aba.
Local Ibo youths are reported to have
attacked the Hausa population in the city
apparently in reprisal for last week's bloody
religious clashes in the city of Kaduna in
northern Nigeria in which hundreds of people
died.
There are reports of
total anarchy on the
streets with gangs of
youths running amok,
killing and burning.
One witness said: "In Aba itself I counted over
50 bodies."
"Many were burned in the street and angry
youths are chanting war songs and dancing
round the city."
Government officials said a mosque had been
set alight.
Aba is a large trading city, many of its native
Ebo people were caught up in the violence in
Kaduna, and it is thought that it is this that
that has led to heightened tensions.
Police move in
The authorities said riot police from the oil
industry capital of Port Harcourt, 30 miles
south of Aba were being sent to the city. But
one eyewitness in Aba said there was no sign
of a police presence.
"At least 10
checkpoints had been
set up by youths on
the road to Port
Harcourt and they
were stopping every
vehicle that went
past," said another
witness.
A spokesman for the
Aba state government
said he was aware
fighting had taken
place in Aba but was
unable to say how serious it was.
"Fighting erupted this morning in Aba but we
still do not know the scale," he said.
President Olesegun Obasanjo's government will
be praying the cycle of violence does not
spread and that the President will be able to
assert his authority.
History
Many of those killed in two days of clashes in
Kaduna last week belonged to the mainly
Christian Ibo community.
They are Nigeria's third-largest ethnic group,
living mostly in south-eastern Nigeria.
The Muslim Hausa are the largest ethnic group
and live largely in the north.
Thousands of Ibos were killed in northern
Nigerian in the 1960s and the subsequent flight
of tens of thousands of refugees triggered a
civil war in which one million died.
-top-
SCMP
Tuesday, February 29, 2000
Thousands
still trapped
by floods
AGENCIES in Maputo
Rescue efforts intensified yesterday in southern African
states battered by the worst storms in half a century,
with Mozambique facing new floods and South Africa
preparing for a huge influx of refugees from its
neighbours.
The Mozambican Government urged private boat
owners to help rescue flood victims trapped on trees
and rooftops as military helicopters raced to pluck
people from the path of rising rivers.
Five exhausted South African helicopter pilots flying
constant missions rescued 2,120 people on Sunday
alone after the Limpopo River burst its banks and
inundated the Chokwe district, north of Mozambique's
capital, Maputo. They had already plucked 3,000 to
safety in two weeks in the flood-stricken centre and
south of Mozambique.
But thousands more are still trapped after new flood
waves roared down the Limpopo and Save rivers.
A UN World Food Programme aid co-ordinator said
about 105,000 people were still awaiting rescue early
yesterday. Some had gone four days without food or
rest.
British charity Oxfam said it was trying to get five rubber
boats into the country to help with rescues. South Africa
put two large Oryx helicopters on standby to join the
relief operation as soon as donor funding was in place.
Pilots said many bodies could be seen floating in huge
lakes created by the floodwaters, while marooned
survivors signalled to passing aircraft, which were either
already full or unable to land, that they were starving.
The bloated carcasses of cattle and goats, the life-blood
of rural Mozambicans, dotted a watery landscape
battered by month-long storms and last week's Cyclone
Eline.
At least 371 people have been killed in Mozambique,
South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana by the floods,
official figures show, but the final toll is expected to be
much higher.
The full human and economic scale of the disaster
cannot yet be estimated in countries where
communications have been cut, with roads, bridges,
telephone and power lines destroyed.
But more than 650,000 have been made homeless and
crops vital for surviving the coming winter have been
swept away.
The Johannesburg Star newspaper reported that families
in South Africa's flood-devastated Northern Province
had been forced to keep corpses in their houses after
rains cut them off from mortuaries and hospitals.
-top-
Nando
Nigerian president
questions
constitutionality of Islamic law
Copyright © 2000 Nando Media
Copyright © 2000 Associated Press
For more about Africa, visit Africa News Online.
By TIM SULLIVAN
KADUNA, Nigeria (February 25, 2000 1:45 p.m. EST
http://www.nandotimes.com) - Nigeria's president has
called certain aspects of Islamic law
unconstitutional, saying in his first comments since
deadly religious clashes began that practices like
cutting off a thief's hand or stoning an adulterer
are illegal.
Fighting erupted Monday morning during a
demonstration by local Christians against a proposal
to bring Islamic law, or sharia, to Kaduna state.
Clashes continued into Tuesday, killing more than
200 people in Kaduna, one of the largest cities in
northern Nigeria.
President Olusegun Obasanjo said that the
constitution barred some of the punishments called
for by sharia.
"The civil aspect of sharia has been part of our
living experience," Obasanjo said in an interview
broadcast on national television Thursday night.
"If what you are saying is that in sharia we cut
hands, stone to death, that is unconstitutional ...
there are no two ways about that," he said.
An uneasy calm was restored in Kaduna by
Wednesday, but sporadic violence continued in
outlying areas and in the neighboring towns of
Kafanchan and Zaria.
Christian and Muslim leaders promised to work
together to restore peace and were meeting in
search of ways to prevent future violence.
While refugees started trickling back into Kaduna
on Friday, hundreds more still crowded into the
safety of army camps and hotel courtyards, or
carried suitcases and buckets and bundles of
clothes as they fled town.
A 4 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew remained in effect
Friday.
Last month, sharia officially went into effect in
neighboring Zamfara state, which is overwhelmingly
Muslim.
Two other states in Nigeria's largely Muslim north
passed sharia bills this week and others - including
Kaduna, which is about 40 percent Christian - are
considering it.
Muslim law prohibits such things as drinking alcohol
and also calls for separate schools and public
transportation for men and women. Islamic courts
have been established to hold trials and punish
Muslims.
Sharia supporters have assured non-Muslims they
will not be tried under Islamic law.
But such assurances have meant little to
Christians, who fear becoming marginalized or
discriminated against. Their fears are fed by the
country's newspapers in the largely Christian south,
which have filled pages with dire warnings of the
punishments Christians will face.
BBC
Wednesday, 23 February, 2000, 16:46 GMT
Islamic law
extended in
Nigeria
More predominantly-Muslim states in
northern Nigeria have taken steps to
introduce Islamic Sharia law.
The moves come despite violent
religious clashes sparked by similar
proposals in nearby Kaduna State.
The governors of Niger and Sokoto
States have both signed bills under
which Sharia is expected to come into
effect in May.
Two others states - Kano and Yobe -
are also considering similar moves,
following the example set last year
by Zamfara State, also in the
Muslim-dominated north.
Fresh violence
broke out in
Kaduna city on
Wednesday as
heavily armed
troops and police
tried to prevent
more riots between
rival Muslim and
Christian groups.
Three days of
violence in the city, in which angry
mobs have torched churches and
mosques, have left at least 25 people
dead, and fatalities are feared to be
much higher.
Police have sent in reinforcements,
and a 24-hour curfew has been
imposed on the city and nearby towns
where the situaiton is also tense.
Our correspondent says gangs of
Muslim youths continued to roam the
streets, armed with clubs and
machetes. Local hospitals said they
had treated more than 100 people
since Monday, many of them with
bullet wounds.
Kaduna's religious leaders have been
locked in crisis talks.
President Olusegun Obasanjo said he
would do whatever was necessary to
restore calm, and the Nigerian
parliament, sitting in the capital,
Abuja, scheduled an urgent debate on
the issue of Sharia for Wednesday.
The violence is the most serious
threat to the nation's unity since the
end of military rule last May.
Rival mobs
Rioting flared in Kaduna on Monday
after thousands of Christians marched
in protest against Muslim demands to
introduce Sharia law - something the
authorities are studying.
About 1,000 police
and army
personnel
patrolled the
empty streets
overnight, where
some bodies still
lay, enforcing a
noon-to-dawn
curfew.
Fabian Okoye, of
the Human Rights
Monitor in Kaduna,
said the city remained tense in the
wake of the violence.
"Kaduna is now a ghost town. People
have been internally displaced within
the city and are either holed up in
their workplace or staying with
friends or relatives."
Hundreds of civilians sought refuge in
army and police barracks - with
Christians hiding from Muslims and
Muslims hiding from Christians.
'Enemies of democracy'
President Olusegun Obasanjo issued
a statement saying that the
destruction could have been avoided
if religious leaders had heeded earlier
appeals for peace.
He warned people against using
violence over religious issues.
More than 1,000
people have died
in unrest since he
became president
in May last year.
One MP told our
correspondent that
those stoking the
Sharia debate were
not religious
activists, but the
enemies of this
young democracy.
The Sharia issue has become
increasingly divisive in Nigeria since
Zamfara State announced it would
introduce the code last October.
Sharia courts began operating in
Zamfara last month.
Muslims are pressing for it to be
introduced in several northern states,
but Kaduna is a sensitive and
politically important state with a
substantial indigenous Christian
population.
Muslims have repeatedly stressed
that Sharia will not affect Christians.
BBC
Monday, 21 February, 2000, 12:02 GMT
Court defeat for
Mugabe
Zimbabwe's embattled President
Robert Mugabe suffered a new defeat
on Monday, as the Supreme Court
ruled that human rights lawyers could
sue the president to make public the
results of an inquiry into the deaths
of government opponents in the
1980s.
The ruling came as Mr Mugabe
promised to push ahead with plans to
seize land from white farmers for
redistribution to blacks, despite last
week's humiliating referendum
defeat.
The landmark court
case centres on an
official inquiry into
the killing -
allegedly by
government troops
- of up to 20,000
people in
Matabeleland,
western Zimbabwe.
In 1981 and 1983, Mr Mugabe ordered
judges to investigate fighting
between his security forces and
former guerrillas of the late Joshua
Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's
Union (Zapu).
But both reports were suppressed.
The fighting died away after Mr
Mugabe signed a pact with Mr Nkomo,
who became vice-president.
In the latest court
case, Mr Mugabe
tried to invoke a
constitutional
amendment which
prohibits civil or
criminal
proceedings
against him.
But the court ruled
that that the
president can be
sued in his official
capacity.
"This is a victory for freedom of
information," said Kevin Laue of
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.
Defiant
The court delivered its ruling as Mr
Mugabe celebrated his 76th birthday
in defiant mood, following last week's
defeat in a referendum on a new draft
constitution.
In a birthday
address, the
president said he
did not see his
opponents winning
the coming
elections.
"Let us see them
win the general elections and then
we can say their referendum win was
genuine and not a fake one," Mugabe
said in an address published in the
official Herald newspaper.
Although the rejected draft
constitution would have empowered
the president to take land from white
farmers without compensation, Mr
Mugabe hinted that he could proceed
with the land reform programme
despite the referendum defeat.
"We take the land under the
presidential powers and nobody
should rejoice over the defeat that
the government had on this one," the
president said.
BBC
Monday, 21 February, 2000, 16:29 GMT
Nigerians clash
over
Sharia
At least five people have been killed
in clashes between Christians and
Muslims in a northern Nigerian town.
The violence flared following a march
by Christians protesting against the
proposed introduction of Islamic law
in the state of Kaduna.
The main market in
Kaduna was set on
fire and several
cars bearing
Islamic slogans
were attacked
Eyewitnesses say
most of the city
centre was brought
to a standstill.
The police, who
took two hours to
reach the scene of
trouble, have been trying to restore
order.
Thousands of Christian demonstrators
took to the streets with placards and
branches, and chanted "no" to Sharia.
Many shops and businesses closed.
Despite the fears of Christians, the
state governor has made no firm
commitments to establish Sharia law
in Kaduna, but has set up a
committee to study how it might be
implemented.
The Sharia issue has become
increasingly divisive in Nigeria since
the announcement last October by
another state in the north, Zamfara,
that it would introduce the code.
Sharia courts began operating in
Zamfara last month.
Pro-Sharia demonstrations
The demonstration by the Christians
followed several by their Muslim
counterparts in Kaduna calling for
Sharia.
The most recent
was on Sunday
when Muslim
women held a
march.
Although several
rural states in
northern Nigeria
which are
overwhelmingly
Muslim have
already announced
their intention to
introduce Sharia,
Kaduna is a far
more sensitive and
politically
important state.
The city of Kaduna is one of the
largest in northern Nigeria, and the
state has a substantial indigenous
Christian population.
Muslims have repeatedly stressed
that Sharia will not affect Christians.
They say that the Nigerian press,
mainly controlled by Christians from
the south of Nigeria, has exaggerated
the issue.
Nando 2/20
Egypt's Coptic Christians
defy
Islamic restrictions
Copyright © 2000 Nando Media
Copyright © 2000 Associated Press
For more about Africa, visit Africa News Online.
A history of the Coptic church
By DONNA BRYSON
CAIRO, Egypt (February 20, 2000 12:03 a.m. EST
http://www.nandotimes.com) - Sun-sparkled dust
wafts
through the studio near the Coptic Orthodox
Cathedral, as apprentices snap glass and stone
tiles into shards and work the bright pieces into
their master's mosaic.
Artist Isaac Fanous is depicting the flight of
the
Holy Family to Egypt in 126 square feet of simple,
contemporary lines. But ancient Coptic iconography
is evident in the way Joseph, Mary and the child
Jesus are grouped, the set of their heads and
feet,
their wide, almond eyes.
"We must work; we must preserve our
legacy," the
80-year-old Fanous says.
The will to endure has long characterized
native
Egyptian Christians like Fanous, whose Coptic
church has survived Roman persecution and Arab
conquest. Today, it faces uneasy - at times
violent
- relations with the Muslim majority in a country
where the state religion is Islam.
Attention is likely to focus on such tensions
this
week during a three-day visit by Pope John Paul
II,
who arrives Thursday on a pilgrimage to the home
of a Christian community that is the largest in
the
Middle East and one of Christianity's oldest
branches.
Tradition holds that St. Mark, the writer of
the
second Gospel, brought Christianity to Egypt just
a
few years after the death of Christ. Copts were
once predominant here - their name is the ancient
name for all Egyptians. Now they are estimated at
just 10 percent of Egypt's 64 million people.
The pope's visit comes against a backdrop of an
outbreak of shootings and burnings early this year
in el-Kusheh, 275 miles south of Cairo, that
killed
23 people, all but two of them Copts. The
deadliest
communal violence in decades was touched off by
an argument over money between a Coptic
merchant and a Muslim shopper.
Copts are generally free to pray in churches
redolent with incense and resounding with ancient
hymns, and to work and go to school with other
Egyptians. But el-Kusheh has become a sobering
symbol for both Copts and Muslims of simmering
problems that could undermine attempts to unify
Egypt into a mosaic of faiths and peoples.
Pope Shenouda III, head of the Coptic Orthodox
Church, met with Egypt's top Muslim cleric, Sheik
Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, to discuss el-Kusheh.
President Hosni Mubarak urged Egyptians to
preserve the country's "long history of
tolerance
and interfaith coexistence."
Mustafa El-Fiqi, a Muslim who is a writer and
Egyptian diplomat, argues that it's time to go
beyond ecumenical meetings and expressions of
good will. He called in a recent newspaper
commentary for increasing the study of Coptic
history and culture in Egyptian schools.
"In Egypt, (state schools) give courses in
history
about the pharaonic era and the Islamic era, but
not the Christian era," says Fanous, who
knows
proposals like El-Fiqi's have fallen on deaf ears
in
the past.
In 1954, Fanous helped start the private Higher
Institute for Coptic Studies, which awards
undergraduate and graduate degrees in history, art
and other fields. Fanous' studio is at the
institute in
the shadow of the cathedral's concrete dome, and
he has been chairman of its art department since
it
opened.
Human-rights groups and the U.S. State
Department have noted the lack of attention paid
to Copts in Egypt's schools, the scant number of
Copts in high government posts and scattered
reports of forced conversion to Islam and attacks
on Copts by Muslim militants. But even the
harshest critics stop short of accusing the
government of systematic discrimination or of
attributing violence to widespread hatred of Copts
among Muslims.
"This is not a problem in every part of
Egypt, but it
does exist, and must be addressed," says
Joseph
Assad, Middle East religious freedom research
director for the Washington-based Freedom House.
Over the centuries, non-Muslims in the Middle
East
have had to pay special taxes, ride donkeys while
Muslims rode horses, and wear clothing or colors
that set them apart. That tradition of stigma
lingers in Egypt, where a law dating from the
Ottoman era requires Copts, but not Muslims, to
get government permission to build or renovate
houses of worship.
Mubarak recently amended the law so that
governors, rather than just the president, could
grant permission, easing what had been a serious
backlog in processing applications. In another
gesture to reassure Copts, the cathedral's
Christmas Mass has been televised live across
Egypt the past two years.
Milad Hanna, a Coptic author who has spent much
of his career campaigning for greater political
freedoms for all Egyptians, attributes much of the
current communal tensions to the rise of militant
precepts among a minority of Muslims.
Some radical Muslims here and elsewhere dream
of
uniting all Muslim countries in a pan-Islamic
state in
which there would be little place for Christians.
"This plan will never come true,"
Hanna says. "This
is an issue that doesn't have a scientific logic.
It
has a mythical logic. And that logic says God has
protected Egypt ... and has protected the Copts
through the centuries, and therefore will
intervene
in a way we don't understand fully."
He also places faith in liberal Muslims, and in
a
government he says must take decisive action to
make sure Egypt's constitutional guarantees of
freedom of religion are respected.
The government tightly controls expression and
is
suspicious of anything that could be seen as a
challenge to its authority. That leaves little
scope
for the kind of pressure groups that minorities
elsewhere form to push for reform.
Ordinary Copts would have little reason to feel
comfortable speaking out after the late President
Anwar Sadat exiled Pope Shenouda to a desert
monastery for four years in the 1980s. Shenouda's
comments on a series of Muslim-Copt clashes were
deemed too outspoken.
At any rate, Coptic history has celebrated
quiet
resistance and strategic retreat, not public
campaigns. The Copts have a tradition of desert
hermits that stretches back to the beginnings of
Christianity in Egypt. They begin their calendar
not
with the birth of Christ or the beginning of the
Christian era, but with the start of the
persecution
of Copts under the Roman Emperor Diocletian in the
third century.
In its 1999 report, Assad's Freedom House
concluded the atmosphere in Egypt "raises
fears
that during the 21st century, Copts may have a
vastly diminished presence in their
homeland."
Worries about their future has led some Copts
to
emigrate. It is difficult to pin down numbers, but
in
one indication, Fanous spends more and more of his
time painting murals for Coptic churches in the
United States.
The artist, though, says he also is busy with
commissions in Egypt, including the Holy Family
mosaic for a new Cairo church. To him, Copts are
an integral part of Egypt.
"I find Egypt inside myself, and I can
paint, I can
translate what I feel," he says.
Boston Globe 2/20
Egypt hopes for
tourism boost
from holy family's Biblical
sojourn
By Vijay Joshi, Associated Press, 2/19/2000 12:16
SAKHA, Egypt (AP) In a muddy, unpaved street dead-ending
at an old church, Halim Philobus Mikhail was supervising
sewer work 15 years ago when a digger's pickax clanged
against something solid.
Clearing away the dirt, he uncovered a heavy, off-white stone
as long and wide as a computer keyboard, unremarkable
except for a brown smudge shaped like a baby's footprint.
Within weeks of the August 1984 discovery, however, Egypt's
Coptic Orthodox Church proclaimed that the brown mark was
the footprint of Jesus.
And thereby hangs a tale of biblical proportions.
A verse in the Bible says the baby Jesus and his parents,
Joseph and Mary, fled to Egypt from Bethlehem to escape the
murderous King Herod. But the Bible is otherwise silent on
details of their sojourn in exile.
Still, the Egyptian government has joined hands with the
Coptic Church to publish an elaborate 22-town itinerary
recounting the family's miracle-filled travels through this
ancient land.
According to Egypt's indigenous church, the family crossed
the gray-brown desert on a donkey, zigzagged across the
verdant Nile Delta where they stopped here in Sakha, then
sailed south to Egypt's geographical center before returning
home to Nazareth.
Coptic tradition holds that a thirsty Jesus, then a little
more
than a year old, stamped on a stone in Sakha, causing water
to gush out. The divine footprint purportedly was preserved on
the stone.
By publicizing the family's steps in conjunction with the new
millennium, the government hopes to attract more foreign
pilgrims to its annual guest list of about 3 million tourists. At
present, the tourism industry relies mainly on ancient
pharaonic sites and Red Sea beach resorts to lure visitors.
''We are renewing the memory of humankind. We are reviving
the itinerary of the Holy Family,'' Tourism Minister Mamdouh
el-Beltagui told Associated Press Television News. ''The final
message is that Egypt is multicultural, multiconfessional,
multicivilizational.''
Pope John Paul II's arrival Thursday for a three-day visit
will
focus even more attention on Christianity in Egypt. About 10
percent of the 64 million Egyptians are Christians; the rest are
Muslims. Most Christians are Orthodox Copts, one of the
earliest forms of Christianity.
Over the centuries, Copts have woven together tradition, papal
edicts and local fables into a tale of a three-year, 11-month
trek by the Holy Family. It is said pagan idols fell as the
family
approached, a fragrant plant blossomed, a tree bent down in
prayer, wells sprang from the ground and a solitary cloud
provided shade in the desert.
Today, Coptic churches and shrines commemorate each one
of the family's reputed stops, attracting tens of thousands of
pilgrims every year around June 1, the traditional date for the
family's arrival in Egypt.
For many Western Christians, who attach little importance to
holy places in Egypt, accepting the tale may be a giant leap of
faith. But for Egyptians it is gospel.
''We live by faith, not by mind,'' Louis Kamel, an English
teacher, said at the Sakha church.
Behind him, a black-robed deacon walked to the geometrically
carved wooden iconostasis, touched a curtain embroidered
with the Virgin Mary's figure and twice lightly licked an icon in
a traditional show of reverence.
The Holy Family story began to take shape in the second
century, but much of the legend is attributed to St. Theophilus,
a fifth century Coptic pope. According to church history,
Theophilus had a vision in which Mary told him details of her
family's travels.
''In the West, only certain sources are given credence, such
as literary proof,'' said Stephen Davis, an American professor
who teaches church history at the Evangelical Theological
Seminary in Cairo.
''But Eastern churches give more credence to oral traditions
or
visions, because it comes from authoritative sources. It
supersedes all other sources because, in a way, it comes
from God himself.''
No church in the world doubts that the Holy Family visited
Egypt, but none besides the Copts endorses an exact
itinerary or associated miracles such as the footprint in
Sakha, a farming town 75 miles north of Cairo.
The stone was believed to have been on display until the 13th
century when it disappeared.
''So we knew about this stone, but I never thought I would be
the one to find it,'' the 72-year-old Mikhail said. ''When I saw
it
in the hole, I shouted `the stone of Jesus,' and everybody
came running.''
The stone is kept in the church in a glass case into which
supplicants drop written pleas for miracle cures, blessings and
success in life.
Another famous site associated with the Holy Family is the
fourth century Deir el-Muharraq, or Burnt Monastery, in
southern Egypt.
The fortified monastery, wedged between the fertile plains of
the Nile valley and the lifeless desert hills, includes a church
that is said to stand on the site of a cave where the Holy
Family lived for six months.
Behind a curtain in the windowless two-room church, now
lighted by fluorescent lamps, stands an altar on which Jesus
is said to have slept.
''I agree some of the stories about the Holy Family are
exaggerated, but we are sure that Jesus came to Egypt,'' said
Father Philoxenous at the monastery.
''Whether you believe he came to el-Muharraq is not important.
What is important is that he blessed Egypt.''
BBC
Thursday, 17 February, 2000, 20:52
GMT
Clinton
urges closer links
with
Africa
United States President Bill Clinton
has appealed to Americans to choose
to make a difference to Africa.
In a speech to a
summit aimed at
improving US
relations with
Africa, President
Clinton outlined
areas including
trade and debt
relief where he
wanted the United
States to offer more help.
"In this world, we can be indifferent
or we can make a difference. America
must choose, when it comes to
Africa, to make a difference," he told
the Washington summit.
Recalling his trip to Africa two years
ago, Mr Clinton said that it was
necessary to see Africa's problems
plainly but also to see its promise.
He pointed out
that the world's
fastest growing
economy last year
was in Africa -
Mozambique - as
well as several of
the next fastest.
Critics say that,
despite devoting
much more time and effort to Africa
than previous American presidents,
Mr Clinton has achieved very little.
'Thousands of triumphs'
President Clinton hit back saying his
policy towards Africa had been
working and there had been
"thousands of triumphs, large and
small".
However, he warned that continued
progress depended "fundamentally
and first" on African leaders putting
the best interests of their people
first.
"No-one in our
government is
under any
illusions. There is
still a lot of work
to be done," he
said.
"These things
cannot be
imported, and they
cannot be imposed
from outside. Even
countries making
the right policy
choices still have
to struggle to deliver for their
people."
Plan of action
The five-day summit is intended to
unify and strengthen an African lobby
in America - along the lines of the
powerful Jewish lobby there, and to
improve Africa's image in the United
States.
The organisers intend to end the
summit with a plan of action on Africa
to be sent to political, business and
community leaders across the US.
The summit, in the planning for four
years, has been funded by a number
of prominent US non-profit
organisations like the Carnegie and
Ford Foundations and hopes to bring
together political and business
leaders from the US and Africa.
Vice-President Al Gore and several
African leaders are expected to
attend the summit, as well as
Republican presidential hopeful
George W Bush.
BBC
Thursday, 17 February, 2000, 09:24 GMT
UN deploys child
protection advisers
By UN correspondent Mark
Devenport
The first child protection adviser has
just arrived in Sierra Leone, where
she is working with peacekeepers
trying to disarm thousands of rebel
fighters, many of whom are child
soldiers.
In the UN's demobilisation camps,
peacekeepers are trying to separate
adult fighters from child soldiers.
The adults qualify
for financial
compensation for
their guns and
child soldiers are
supposed to
undergo
programmes to
deal with the
trauma they have
experienced and
their rehabilitation
into their
communities.
More than 500 child soldiers have
been processed through the camps so
far and the UN is continuing to
negotiate the release of hundreds
more children abducted by the rebels.
A ground-breaking move
Senior UN officials see the
deployment of the child protection
adviser as the start of a new
dimension to their peacekeeping
operations.
Three advisers
have already been
appointed for the
UN mission about
to be sent to the
Democratic
Republic of Congo
and discussions
are under way
about similar
appointments in
East Timor and
Kosovo.
Besides working with child soldiers
and other children caught up in
conflict, the advisors are tasked to
train peacekeepers about children's
rights and needs, in order to ensure
that the soldiers themselves do not
contribute to the abuse of children.
BBC
Friday, June 25, 1999 Published at 15:36 GMT 16:36 UK
Tim Sebastian spoke to UN envoy Olara A Otunnu
Children are the biggest victims of modern warfare and
need special protection, a United Nations special envoy
has told the BBC.
UN special representative Olara A Otunnu, who deals
with children and armed conflict, said the healing of
young victims' minds was one of the greatest challenges
facing the new millennium.
Mr Otunnu told BBC World's HARDtalk: "Children are
precisely innocent and therefore you can fashion them
into the most ruthless, unquestioning tool of war.
"Some of the worst atrocities we see in conflict
situations, have been committed by young child soldiers,
who don't know what they are doing.
"Now some of the children are forced to join up - they
are
drugged, they are kidnapped. Others are enticed through
deception.
"But there are others who are also attracted by
ideological propaganda."
Healing 'takes time'
According to the UN there are 300,000 child soldiers
operating in 30 different conflicts across the globe.
Mr Otunnu a former Uganda government minister, has
travelled to many of these war zones including Kosovo,
Sierra Leone, Colombia.
He has seen child victims co-opted into armies, carrying
weapons bigger than themselves.
"The older ones begin to
understand what has
happened," he said.
"But there are also many of
them who have now become
so used to the culture of
violence, to seeing
bloodshed, to being in danger
and to putting others in
danger, that it has become a
normal way of life.
"And a process of healing for
them is a long-term project."
One of the aims of the United Nations is to raise the age
limit for recruitment of soldiers from 15 to 18. But the
real message, said Mr Otunnu, is to appeal directly to
the war leaders themselves.
"Most of the wars today are internal conflicts - they pit
neighbour against neighbour, compatriot against
compatriot," he said.
"Civilian populations are the key targets."
"That is the reason why this office was created. To drum
up greater awareness, to make people know more
clearly what we are doing to our children in situations of
conflict."
Mr Otunnu goes into war zones with UN teams and
agencies to meet armies and urge them to think of their
international image.
International pressure
"It isn't just governments," he said.
"Precisely because
most of the wars there are civil wars, we have many
parties and we live in a world, fortunately, which has
become inextricably interdependent.
"That is an ally on our side, because in such a world, to
prosecute your war effort you need the co-operation of
the wider world to get political legitimacy, diplomatic
recognition, to receive arms.
"And once I come into a country and meet a leadership
of a particular fighting group I then make it clear to them
that we live in a world today in which the international
community will judge them by how they treat civilian
populations.
"I say to them, whatever may be your political cause,
whatever may be the reasons that have given rise to your
struggle, the international community expects to you
protect civilian populations, especially children and
women.
"The international community cannot accept that
abduction, kidnapping, should be used as a means of
political struggle.
"The international community can no longer accept that
children, innocent children, should be cynically used and
exploited as child soldiers.
"In every case when I've told them in the clearest terms
what the international community expects, on
humanitarian principles, they've accepted these
concerns as legitimate concerns."
The vast majority of the victims of ethnic cleansing in
Kosovo are children, Mr Otunnu told HARDtalk's Tim
Sebastian. He visited Kosovo last autumn and in April he
travelled to Macedonia and Albania.
Children are the most vulnerable people in any war, Mr
Otunnu said. Schooling is interrupted, they cannot play
together as children should - and the long-term trauma is
deep and long-lasting.
"When families are separated children are the ones who
are worst affected by this," he said. "I get angry and
upset that we could do a lot more.
"My hope is that on the eve of the new millennium, part
of what we shall resolve to do is to make this new era
the era of application.
"Translating into action the commitments which have
been made on paper."
It seems Mr Otunnu has a long and difficult task ahead,
but he remained optimistic.
"When there is concerted international concern we can
do it," he said.
BBC 2/17
Ancient city
reinvents itself with
library
Copyright © 2000 Nando Media
Copyright © 2000 Christian Science Monitor Service
The Web site of the Christian Science Monitor, source of this
article.
For more about Africa, visit Africa News Online.
By DALE GAVLAK
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (February 16, 2000 8:38 p.m.
EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - At its peak some
2,000 years ago, the Egyptian city of Alexandria
was a center for architecture, agriculture, and
science.
But earthquakes, fires, and conquests left little
physical evidence of its glorious past. The ancient
city survived in imagination though, immortalized by
William Shakespeare's Cleopatra.
Today, the third-biggest city on the continent of
Africa is attempting to regain a bit of its old fame.
Near the site of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the
fabled seat of ancient learning, a new library by the
same name is getting its finishing touches. The
$200 million structure, an impressive white cylinder
with floor levels that cascade toward the
Mediterranean Sea, is set to open this year.
Alexandria is also bursting with discoveries. A team
of French and Egyptian archaeologists are mapping
the submerged ruins of what is now widely believed
to Cleopatra's royal palace, sunk in a massive
earthquake in the fourth century.
Divers also found numerous statues, stone columns
with Greek inscriptions, jars, and more. There are
proposals to put together the world's first
underwater antiquities park at the site of the
sunken palace, where Cleopatra once wove her
amorous spell on Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
The proposed park could make use of
glass-bottomed boats and could include
glass-walled undersea walkways. Meanwhile, the
city has taken steps to halt a millennium of sewage
flow that made the waters murky.
But it's the library that is causing much of the
present excitement in Alexandria, not only for its
tourist potential, but also for its educational
significance. It was initially conceived of as a
university library because Alexandria, indeed Egypt,
lacks a quality research institution.
The library will "raise the standard of education in
Egypt," says Mustafa el Abbadi, classics professor
at Alexandria University.
"If this idea is implemented at the level that is
expected, it will then change the cultural map of
the whole region," says Ahmedou Mukhtar M'bouf,
the former head of UNESCO, which has collaborated
on the project along with the Egyptian government
and private donors.
The library has a capacity of 8 million titles, which
will make it by far the biggest in the Arab world. So
far, some 400,000 conventional and electronic
titles have been collected. But it will take years to
reach capacity. The library has an annual
acquisition budget of $5 million, a small sum
compared, for example, to Harvard University's
annual library acquisition budget of over $15 million.
Meanwhile, the library is seeking donations from
private and public sources. Already, Spain has
donated a complete copy of works by the Arab
scholars of Andalusia housed at the Library of
Escorial near Madrid. Turkey has presented 10,000
books dealing with the Ottoman Empire.
Efforts are also under way to establish links with
American institutions. Laila Maugaokar, the library's
field director says that "once the library is fully
functional, an exchange program can be
established," with the U.S. Library of Congress, the
world's biggest library with a collection of 115
million items and with 530 miles of bookshelves.
Most of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina's initial
acquisitions will relate to the Mediterranean region
and include Arab and Islamic history, culture, and
civilization, as well of that of ancient Egypt,
Greece, and Italy.
But the library does raise a concern: how Egyptian
censorship laws will affect its holdings and
reputation.
Recently, Egyptian censors banned 80 books from
the library at the American University in Cairo, a
private liberal-arts institution, which is also the
largest English-language research facility in Egypt.
But Abbadi says that though the Bibliotheca is
government-owned, it is run by an independent
body and so will not face any restrictions in
acquiring books.
(c) Copyright 2000. The Christian Science
Publishing Society
BBC 2/4/00
riday, 4 February, 2000, 17:55 GMT
Zimbabwe slow-down as
fuel
runs out
Long queues form at petrol stations
Official mismanagement and a shortage of
foreign exchange have brought about an
acute fuel shortage in Zimbabwe. Joseph
Winter reports from Harare.
A country without fuel is a country where
nothing works. Zimbabwe is a fair way down
that road.
Car-owners spend much of their time sitting in
queues for petrol. The lines of cars, buses and
lorries can stretch for miles and when these
form outside city-centre garages, they cause
enormous traffic jams for those vehicles which
do have fuel.
There are fewer buses on the road for those
without their own transport, so getting around
has become a chore for everyone.
Half of all petrol-guzzling long distance buses
are grounded because they cannot get the
fuel they need.
Tourist worries
It is not only transport which is affected by
the fuel shortages. Tour operators report that
holidays are being cancelled by tourists worried
about being stranded in the middle of
game-parks without any petrol, surrounded by
lions and elephants. Tourism is one of
Zimbabwe's major sources of foreign currency.
Two fishing companies
in the northern town of
Kariba have had to
close down with the
loss of hundreds of
jobs because they
cannot get fuel for
their boats.
Factories in Harare are
considering working a
three-day week unless
they get oil very soon.
Garbage pile-up
Rubbish is being left uncollected, as the refuse
companies do not have enough petrol for their
lorries.
Piles of garbage are left putrefying on street
corners. Some residents burn it, causing
plumes of acrid smoke to waft through the
suburbs.
And it goes right down to the most mundane
things. I wanted to buy some empty egg boxes
to sound-proof my office. I was told that due
to the shortage of diesel, Zimbabwe's sole
egg-box manufacturers were only selling to
regular customers.
What supplies exist,
are being directed to
priority areas such as
ambulances and
agricultural exports
which earn the foreign
exchange needed to
buy more fuel.
The rest of the country
is being told to cut
down on journeys, to
drive slowly and even
to ride bicycles to
conserve the black
gold.
Corruption
President Robert Mugabe blames the shortage
on white farmers hoarding fuel and foreign
banks hoarding hard currency.
But not very many people believe him. Many
point to corruption and mismanagement at
NOCZIM, the state company responsible for
importing all of Zimbabwe's fuel.
A year ago, all senior managers were sent on
forced leave when it was discovered that
US$35m had been squandered on fuel that was
never delivered and a host of other
irregularities. To date, no further action has
been taken against them and they are still
being paid their salaries.
At the same time, the government tried to
avoid social unrest by keeping the price of fuel
well below the market rate. But it did not pay
the difference to NOCZIM, which ran up such
huge debts that suppliers turned off the taps.
Debts
Compounding the situation is a lack of foreign
currency in Zimbabwe, making it difficult to
obtain more supplies, which now have to be
paid for up-front.
This problem is more complex. Zimbabwe has
for many years imported more goods than it
exports, running up foreign debts.
When the International Monetary Fund cut off
aid last year, citing a lack of transparency
over financing the war in the Democratic
Republic of Congo and angered by repeated
insults from Mr Mugabe, a vital prop was
removed. Debts were called in, using up much
of the available hard currency.
Now, officials, ministers and even the president
are roaming the world, looking for new sources
of fuel.
To make matters worse, Zimbabwe's electricity
supplier, ZESA, is facing almost exactly the
same set of problems as NOCZIM. Maybe this
time, the authorities will act before the
situation becomes critical. If not, with neither
fuel nor power, Zimbabwe will grind to a halt.