UN Radio

UN and Africa
Programme Number: 172
Week of: Sunday, 30th September, 2007
Recording Date: Thursday, 4th October, 2007
Topical Issue(s):

• The weekend attack in Darfur that killed African Union peacekeepers prompted the President of the Security, Ambassador Leslie Christian of Ghana to call an emergency meeting on the issue. The Council condemned the attack and reiterated its support for the African Union Mission in Sudan.

• Drug trafficking is so serious in Guinea Bissau that it was the first thing that the country’s president highlighted when he spoke before the General Assembly which concluded its general debate this week. The head of the UN Support Office in Guinea Bissau is worried that drug traffickers might buy the country’s politicians in the next elections.

• One of the casualties of the thirty-year conflict in Angola was its justice system, especially its detention facilities and courts. This is what a delegation of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention discovered in its mission to the country last month.

Producer/presenter: Derrick Mbatha
Editor: Ransford Cline-Thomas
Production Assistant: Charles Appel
Studio Engineer: Zach Prewitt
Duration: 15’00”

RESENTER: This is United Nations Radio in New York.

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PRESENTER:

Hello and welcome to UN and Africa. I’m Derrick Mbatha.

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PRESENTER:

In today’s programme, the Security Council condemns the killing of African peacekeepers in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan.
CLIP 1: Leslie Christian
“The Security Council deplores the loss of life and injuries that resulted from this attack and conveys its sympathy to the government, families and colleagues of those killed and injured’

PRESENTER:

You will hear more on that in a moment. Also in this edition, drug trafficking is posing a serious threat to Guinea Bissau.
CLIP 2: Shola Omoregie
“If drug dealers are able to buy a parliament, then they have bought a government, and they have bought a country. That’s why we are worried”

PRESENTER:

And later in the programme, we’ll talk about the challenges that Angola is facing in its criminal justice system.

So, stay tuned to UN and Africa.

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Security Council Condemns Killing of African Peacekeepers in Darfur

PRESENTER:

The weekend attack in Darfur that killed 10 African Union peacekeepers was discussed by the Security Council this week. The attack occurred while a group of world figures led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu was visiting Sudan, and the Security Council meeting coincided with the start of Ghana’s presidency of the Council. UN Radio’s Dianne Penn reports.

NARRATOR:
On his very first day as the President of the Security Council on Monday, Ambassador Leslie Christian of Ghana called an emergency meeting of the Council to respond to the attacks on a base of the African Union Mission (AMIS) in Haskanita, in south Darfur. According to reports, rebels and militias in trucks outnumbered and outgunned African peacekeepers at a base manned mainly by Nigerians, killing at least ten. The Security Council condemned the attack and demanded that the perpetrators be identified and brought to justice. Ambassador Leslie Christian of Ghana read the statement on Tuesday.
CUT 1: Leslie Christian
The Security Council deplores the loss of life and injuries that resulted from this attack and conveys its sympathy to the governments, families and colleagues of those killed and injured. The Security Council reiterates its support for the African Union Mission in Sudan, AMIS, and commends the dedication of its personnel and expresses its appreciation for those countries which contribute troops to AMIS.

NARRATOR:

But the Security Council could not agree on a formal condemnation of the attack because of a disagreement over whether to call it a terrorist attack. Ambassador Dumisani Khumalo of South Africa explains.
CUT 2: Dumisani Khumalo
Most of us feel that this was a terrorist act. Every report that we have received points out that it is done by the rebels. We would have preferred a very specific statement. The others argued that, of course, they wanted there to be an investigation to find out what happened. But the most tragic event is that these people were attacked at 7:30 at night. They went away and came back again for them at 4:00 in the morning.

NARRATOR:

The attack on the AU peacekeepers comes just weeks before the start of negotiations in Libya to find a political settlement of the Darfur crisis. Ambassador Abalmahmood Mohamad of Sudan sees a link between the attack and the talks between Sudan and rebel groups, to be held under the chairmanship of the United Nations and the African Union.
CUT 3: Abdalmahmood Mohamad
I think one of the objectives of those who perpetrated this attack is to reserve a seat for them on the train of peace starting, or heading towards Tripoli. But I think they have exposed themselves because they are just criminals. They can do no good to their country and to their people as well as to peace in Sudan. This should make us more vigilant in protecting and guarding the Tripoli talks in order that nobody is allowed to tumble or spoil either the good climate prevailing now prior to the talks or during the talks themselves.

NARRATOR:
The attack raised new concerns about risks to a planned deployment of a joint African Union-UN force of 26,000 next year, and given some countries second thoughts about committing troops. The hybrid African Union/ United Nations peacekeeping force, known as UNAMID, is expected to take over from the seven-thousand strong African Union mission. And how did the man who will be in charge of UNAMID peacekeepers react to the attack? United Nations spokesperson Marie Okabe.
CUT 4: Marie Okabe
Martin Luther Agwai, the Force Commander and the future UNAMID Force Commander designate said that it was regrettable that such actions are taking place weeks before the convening of the Tripoli Peace Talks. Despite the casualties and loss of life, we will persevere in our efforts to keep the fragile peace on the ground while all eyes are set on the negotiation table to ensure the peace is a lasting and sustainable one.

NARRATOR:

The Joint African Union/United Nations Special Representative for Darfur, Rodolphe Adada has met with General Agwai on the situation in Haskanita and assured the General that both organizations stand firm in their resolve to help bring peace to Darfur. Reporting for UN Radio. I am Dianne Penn.
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PRESENTER:

Guinea Bissau does not produce illicit drugs, but it has increasingly become a transit points for drugs, mainly cocaine, from Latin America to Europe. There are concerns that as the country prepares for elections next year, drug money may be used to corrupt the democratic system there. The representative of the United Nations and head of the UN Peace-building Support Office in Guinea Bissau, known as UNOGBIS, Shola Omoregie, is in New York, and has briefed the Security Council on the situation in Guinea Bissau. UN Radio’s Diane Bailey caught up with Mr. Omoregie to discuss, among other things this problem of drug trafficking. Here is Diane.
Bailey: The president of Guinea Bissau spoke before the General Assembly and the first thing he highlighted was the issue of drug trafficking. Can you paint a picture of how Guinea Bissau has become a transit point for drug traffickers and what that means for the country?

Omoregie: The problem Guinea Bissau has is that it has porous borders and also sea coasts. They have about 80 to 90 islands and there is no police presence at all. It is just like heaven for the drug traffickers. They are able to do whatever they like there without anybody stopping them. So it’s because of this weakness of Guinea Bissau that the drug traffickers have taken advantage and from there the drugs are shipped to Europe, to Spain, Portugal and others. The main entry point into Europe is Spain. Now, as to the quantity of what comes in we are not able to say because some of the arrests that have been made, are not really intelligence-driven. Some of them are by accident. So you can imagine what goes on without anybody knowing. But we understand that on some of the islands there are flights landing there about twice a week and bringing a huge quantity of cocaine into the country. The government now is trying to do something about it.

Bailey: I would like to talk a little bit about what happens when drugs enter into the country either by air or through the ships. I read reports that people actually find the drugs and they don’t know that it is and they have actually put them on food and things like that. Are you aware of that kind of thing happening?

Omoregie: Yes. I understand that happened once. They were even used as fertilizers without realizing what they were. So you can imagine the danger of these drugs on villagers or ordinary people of Guinea Bissau. Even for the authorities there, they have no laboratory. When they seize these drugs they are not able to analyze what they have seized. So I think this is why they need assistance from the international community.

Bailey: What about the UN Office on Drugs and Crime? Are they able to help them with personnel or any other lab testing equipment or anything like that?

Omoregie: Yes, UNODC is helping them and UNODC is also working closely with UNOGBIS, my office in Guinea Bissau. And at the initiative of UNOGBIS UNODC will be seconding one of their staff to Guinea Bissau to work with the government to help them to pull up their capacity.

Bailey: This drug trafficking problem which probably wasn’t foreseen when UNOGBIS was created, how is it complicating the work that the mission is doing?

Omoregie: Oh, drug trafficking undermines the political stability of the country, political and economic stability of the country, in fact, everything we are doing. Here you have a country, the annual budget is about $100 million. This is what will come in one week, the amount of drugs that will come in one week. And then you have a country where the workers are not paid. The police are not paid and when they are paid it’s very late and it’s very little and there is serious abject poverty in the country and it’s very easy for the drug dealers to compromise officials. And, of course, we have elections coming up next. We are very worried that drug money will be involved. And what really concerns us now is that if drug dealers are able to buy a parliament, then they have bought a government and they have bought a country. That’s why we are worried. It completely undermines our work. People will prefer to go for easy money then the hard way.
PRESENTER:

That was Shola Omoregie, the Representative of the Secretary-General in Guinea Bissau speaking there with UN Radio’s Diane Bailey.
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PRESENTER:
One of the casualties of the long civil war in Angola was the country’s criminal justice system. Angola does not have enough courts and detention facilities. A delegation of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention was in the country last month at the invitation of the Angolan government to look into this situation. I spoke with the Chairperson of the Group Leila Zerrougui who led the mission to Angola. She told me that the main objectives of the visit were to assess the legal and institutional framework governing detention and to help the government improve its criminal justice system.
Zerrougui: We were allowed to meet first with the authorities involved in detention at the political and at the technical level. We also met ordinary people, civil society, opposition leaders. We met with former detainees, families of detainees. So we have access to all the segments that can help us to understand the situation with regard to detention in general. We also visited, because it is the main purpose, places of detention, prisons, police stations, investigation facilities, immigration detention centres. We, however, could not visit two facilities, the military prison. We have been informed in Cabinda by the Commander in Chief that he has not received authorization from the authorities in Luanda. And also we could not visit a detention facility in Luanda. We were there but we could not talk to the detainees. The same argument was given to us by the director of those detentions centres.

Mbatha: Did you inquire about that or you just accepted the explanations as given?

Zerrougui: No, no, no. In our press release we already said that we are not convinced by that because before leaving Geneva we had assurance from the government that the visit will take place and the government will comply with our terms that we have access to all places of detention that we would like to visit and to have private interviews with all the detainees. So this is something that was not said before we left Geneva.

Mbatha: By doing so it may appear that maybe they were trying to hide something.

Zerrougui: It’s a pity because the government, I can say, cooperate very well us and it’s a pity that these two incidents occurred, specifically the one with regard to immigration centre because the day before I was with the Vice Minister of Interior who is the authority, the centre is under the authority of the Minister of Interior, and the Vice Minister of Interior ensured that they have nothing to hide and they are ready give access to the Working Group to all places of detention.

Mbatha: Now you say that you were able to meet privately with some of the detainees.

Zerrougui: Absolutely. Many detainees.

Mbatha: No interference whatsoever by government officials.

Zerrougui: No, no, no.

Mbatha: Now, what did these detainees tell you?

Zerrougui: I think that, as you know, Angola peace is only for five years and so detention facilities were destroyed and also conditions of detention are not improved. Detainees complained about their conditions of detention, complained about backlog, an important backlog because of shortage of judges, lawyers, prosecutors. The country is not covered by courts, in 165 municipalities only forty municipal court, very few lawyers outside the capital and also not enough prosecutors. So in this image you can imagine the situation of those who are deprived of their liberties sometimes waiting for a long time. And also we noticed that in police stations ill-treatment also is taking place and some detainees complained about that.

Mbatha: And what kind of ill-treatment is that?

Zerrougui: I can say that ill-treatment first because of the conditions of detention, the way interviews are taking place. Sometimes they forced confessions. But in at least three cases I can use the term torture.

Mbatha: When you talk about conditions do they include deprivation of food, sleep?

Zerrougui: No. The problem is the overcrowding. It’s the huge problem. Government is trying. I can say that they are building prisons. New prisons conditions are good. The problem is with the old prisons. They are overcrowded.

PRESENTER:

That was Leila Zerrougui, the Chairperson of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

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PRESENTER:
And that’s all for this edition of UN and Africa. Our Production Assistant was Charles Appel and our sound engineer was Zach Pruwitt. I am Derrick Mbatha saying bye bye.

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