No such neutralisation of Hutu extremist power has taken place in Tanzania
No such neutralisation of Hutu extremist power has taken place in Tanzania. The first intimations that the repatriation programme might not run asplanned came earlier this week when 15,000 Rwandans left their camps in north-western Tanzania after a propaganda campaign by Hutu hardliners.There is little doubt that the scare tactics of the Interahamwe have succeeded, though it is difficult to gauge how much coercion the refugees are being subjected to. Rwandans interviewed by The Independent at Lumasi camp near Ngara insisted they would stay in Tanzania.”We’re not going back,” said Jean Twagirayezu. “I heard that all the refugees in the Zairean camps were killed when they got back to Rwanda.When told that most of those from the Zairean camps had safely returned to their homeland, Mr Twagirayezi replied that he had no need of such information Rwanda’s government wanted to kill all Hutus, he said. If the camps were shut down, he and his family would spend Christmas hiding in the forest.. South Africa’s post-apartheid “truth commission” pardoned four anti-democracy white bombers and three anti- apartheid black vigilantes for human rights crimes in the final days of white rule.
Ruling on 16 applications, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu granted and refused applications by self- confessed perpetrators of human rights crimes on both sides of the struggle over apartheid. The whites given amnesty were four right-wingers responsible for bombings shortly after the ANC began democracy talks with then president FW de Klerk’s white- led National Party.
The three blacks pardoned were members of an ANC-aligned self-defence unit that killed three black gangsters terrorising their township near Kroonstad.Reuter – Cape Town. Romania’s new President, Emil Constantinescu, yesterday swore in a new government which for the first time in the country’s history contains representatives of the ethnic Hungarian minority. The new coalition government, headed by Victor Ciorbea, 42, promised extensive economic reforms and a campaign against crime and corruption Adrian Bridge. The UN Security Council resumed the search for a new UN Secretary-General with no sign France is softening opposition to the presumed US favourite, apparently to pay back Washington for blocking a second term for Boutros Boutros-Ghali. France has consistently voted against the UN Under Secretary Kofi Annan, from Ghana, the strongest candidate to emerge in two days of unofficial balloting in the 15-member council. Mr Annan is the only one of four candidates to surpass the nine council votes required for election.
Diplomatic sources said Mr Annan won 12 votes in the first two rounds on Wednesday and 11 in the third AP – New York. Guatemalan rebels and
government leaders signed an accord aimed at ending 36 years of civil war. The agreement, signed at the Spanish Foreign Ministry, is aimed at reinserting the rebels into society. The final peace treaty, negotiated over seven years, will be signed in Guatemala, officially ending Central America’s last and longest civil war AP – Madrid. Prince Norodom Ranariddh, the co-Premier of Cambodia, had his head and eyebrows shaved in a ceremony at the royal palace yesterday, marking his formal entry into the monkhood for one week.
Ranariddh, who is following a long royal family tradition by briefly serving as a monk, said he hoped that entering the monkhood would also “calm his politics”, an apparent reference to recent tensions with his coalition partner, co-Premier Hun Sen Reuter – Phnom Penh. In Dublin’s fair city…or the rocky road to Dublin?
European Union leaders assembling in Dublin today for a two-day summit have a splendid tradition to maintain. Love it, or hate it, much of the recent history of the EU has been shaped by summits in Dublin.
It was at Dublin in 1979 that Margaret Thatcher refused “half a loaf” and set the scene for the row with other European governments over “my money” which dominated the early 1980s. It was at Dublin in 1984 that commitments were given – by Mrs Thatcher, among others – that led to the 1992 Single Market campaign and the Single European Act, which consumed Euro-politics for five years. The Dublin summit of 1990 was dominated by the Franco-German ideas for monetary and political union, which led directly to the Maastricht Treaty, EMU and a thousand Euro-sceptic tirades.And Dublin, December 1996? In one sense, this is just a wait-and-see summit Wait and see who wins the British election next year.