UN Radio

UN and Africa
Programme Number: 189
Week of: Sunday, 27th January, 2008
Recording Date: Thursday, 31st January, 2008
Topical Issue(s):

" Over 1,000 delegates from over 100 countries gather in Bali to share experiences and strategies to fight corruption. Issues discussed in the meeting include the Stolen Property Recovery Initiative, aimed at enabling poor countries recover assets stolen by corrupt leaders. UN anti-corruption official, Stuart Gilman says Nigeria is making efforts to fight corruption.

" The flare up of violence in Kenya is hindering relief assistance to internally displaced people. UN agencies say that insecurity has forced them to cancel some of their relief operations to help thousands of people in need.

" Women continue to suffer from rape and sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The UN expert on violence against women, Yakin Ertuk, who visited the country last summer, tells UN Radio that the sexual crimes are committed by government forces, criminals and as well by foreign armed groups and militias.

Producer/presenter: Derrick Mbatha
Editor: Diane Bailey
Production Assistant: Florence Poblete-Enriquez
Studio Engineer: Zach Prewitt
Duration: 15'00"

PRESENTER: This is United Nations Radio in New York.

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PRESENTER: Hello and welcome to UN and Africa. I am Derrick Mbatha.

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PRESENTER: In today's programme, Nigeria is making efforts to recover assets stolen by corrupt leaders, including military ruler Sani Abacha.

CLIP 1: Stuart Gilman
"It's amazing because it's in the billions of U.S. dollar equivalent. One figure that I have seen, when we talk about the Abacha case itself, it's about 1.5, 1.6 billion U.S. dollars."

PRESENTER: You will hear more on that in a moment. Also in this edition violence in Kenya is hindering relief assistance to internally displaced people. And in our third segment, the United Nations expert on violence against women says women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continue to suffer.

CLIP 3: Yakin Ertuk
"A woman in Congo said to me in the former days a burglar would come to our home and steal whatever there is to steal. Now they come, rape all the women and then take what they want."

PRESENTER: You will hear more on that later in the programme.

So, stay tuned to UN and Africa.

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Nigeria Fights Corruption and Recovers Stolen State Assets

PRESENTER: More than 1,000 delegates from over 100 countries have gathered in Bali to share experiences and strategies to fight corruption. This scourge has had a negative impact on some African economies. One such country is Nigeria, which at some point was notorious for coups and corruption. The last military ruler who distinguished himself in plundering state coffers is Sani Abacha. Stuart Gilman, the head of the Global Programme against Corruption at the UN office on Drugs and Crime, told UN Radio's Louise Potterton that Nigeria is making serious efforts to fight corruption and go after corrupt officials. He says Sani Abacha was a dictator who plundered huge amounts of money from the National Bank of Nigeria.

GILMAN: Sani Abacha got away with this when he died and a more democratic government was formed. President Obasanjo, when he was elected made recovery of the stolen assets one of his major priorities and he appointed a very modest police officer, by the name of Nuhu Ribadu. Nuhu Ribadu took a great number of chances, basically a threat on his life and his family's life in terms of collecting these assets and going after other corrupt politicians in Nigeria.

POTTERTON: Now in this particular case of Sani Abacha, how much did he actually loot and where was this hidden?

GILMAN: Well it was hidden in many parts of the world. We are most familiar with the Swiss and the United Kingdom. But the dilemma is when you say 'how much?' There are estimates. I have seen three, I have seen five billion dollars from various sources. But the point basically is it's almost impossible in these corrupt cases to find out actually how much is stolen.

POTTERTON: In this particular case, some assets were returned to Nigeria. How much? What are we talking about?

GILMAN: Well, it's amazing because it's in the billions of U.S. dollar equivalent. One figure that I have seen, and again when we talk about the Abacha case itself, it's about 1.5, 1.6 billion U.S. dollars. But on top of that, because of the number of corrupt governors, people like Nuhu Ribadu and his deputy and others have managed to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in addition to that.

POTTERTON: What actually happened to these assets when they were returned to Nigeria? Were they spent correctly? Were they somehow returned to the rightful owners? Is that even possible in a case like this?

GILMAN: Well, most of the money was actually stolen from the national bank in the Abacha case, so you don't have, for example, a private company that has been forced to pay corruption payments. In terms of the recovery, in Nigeria's case with the agreement of their Finance Minister the decision was to have the World Bank, not necessarily oversee, but actually provide transparency for how the money was to be spent.

POTTERTON: Some of the money was returned, it went to the treasury. Was it possible for you to find out what happened to it then?

GILMAN: Well, yes, it actually is possible for anyone to find out now because the World Bank has been asked and played the role of providing transparency in this case. You know how much was dedicated to health care, and building hospitals. You know how much was dedicated to educational facilities. You know how much was dedicated to clean water. So, all of this information is available because of the oversight activities that the Nigerian government asked the Bank to do.

PRESENTER: That was Stuart Gilman, the head of the Global Programme against Corruption at the UN office on Drugs and Crime, speaking with UN Radio's Louise Potterton.

STING UN AFRICA THEME MUSIC

Violence Hinders Relief Assistance in Kenya

PRESENTER: Violence continues to cause death and destruction in Kenya despite diplomatic efforts to quell the turmoil caused by December's disputed presidential election results. Hopes that may have been raised when President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga shook hands in the presence of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week, have been dashed by continuing clashes in the east African country. UN Radio's Diane Bailey reports.

NARRATOR: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, attending the African Union summit in Addis Ababa is deeply concerned about the mounting death toll and ethnic clashes in Kenya. He discussed the situation by telephone with former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan who continues to try to get Kenyan leaders to resolve the crisis in their country. When the violence subsided a few weeks ago, UN agencies and their partners began providing relief assistance to those in need. But now, with violence flaring up again, the situation looks grim. There are fears that the situation may even get worse as a result of the murder of an opposition member of parliament shot dead as he pulled up to the gate of his home. UN Spokesperson Marie Okabe.

CUT 1: Marie Okabe
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says the security and humanitarian situation in Kenya is sharply deteriorating. A new round of food distribution in the Nairobi slums had to be cancelled because of security concerns. In addition, a WFP convoy going to the Rift Valley town of Kipkelion was stoned and had to turn back. WFP is working with the Kenyan Government to ensure military escorts for its trucks.

NARRATOR: The flare up of violence in Kenya's Rift Valley is affecting the work of other agencies, including the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond explains.

CUT 2: Ron Redmond
In the last few days, this has hindered access to increasingly vulnerable groups of internally-displaced persons. For example, UNHCR and IOM called off a planned evacuation of up to 400 people from Timboroa. An estimated 11,000 fresh IDPs have fled to that area following weekend attacks on their homes. A similar evacuation of IDP families wishing to leave the Naivasha area has also been shelved for now due to the security situation.

NARRATOR: What is even more disturbing are reports of increasing numbers of cases of sexual violence. Recently, over a dozen men appeared as the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) team was interviewing young women who had been raped in a camp for internally displaced people in the Northern Rift Valley. The men threatened the women that if they continued to testify, they and their children would be subjected to renewed sexual violence. UNICEF spokesperson Veronique Taveau says this insecurity makes it difficult to get the exact figures of rapes and sexual violence in the camps.

CUT 3: Veronique Taveau
We are trying to get all the testimonies we can but it is very difficult to get the numbers because, some women will say that they have been raped and they will give the testimony but most of them will not say that.

NARRATOR: One disturbing element in the violence in Kenya is that it is ethnically-based. Then too, the images of young men carrying machetes recall the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the debate about whether it was genocide or not. Francis Deng is the Special Adviser of the UN Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide.

CUT 4: Francis Deng
We find that in many cases, where the world has concluded that there was genocide, it was after the fact, when it would have been too late to do anything about it which is why we really want to focus on how to prevent these kinds of atrocities without giving them labels because once situations go to a level of extremity where the word genocide comes into mind, people become defensive and they draw lines and they become in denial and that then becomes too late to do something to prevent it with an emphasis on working together cooperatively to prevent these atrocious calamities.

NARRATOR: Mr. Deng says that President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga should speak with one voice and tell their people that the violence is counterproductive and the issue should be resolved in a peaceful and constructive way. Reporting for UN and Africa, I am Diane Bailey.

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Women Continue to Suffer from Sexual Violence in DR Congo

PRESENTER: In the Democratic Republic of the Congo a ceasefire was signed recently to end the conflict in the eastern part of the country. The pact signed by the government, rebel fighters loyal to General Laurent Nkunda, as well as militia and armed groups from North and South Kivu was put to a test just a few days after it was signed. General Nkunda's men and Mai Mai clashed and blamed each other for the fighting. So, as observers have noted, it is the implementation of the ceasefire that matters. One particular sector of the Congolese society that desires peace is women, who continue to be victims of rape. The United Nations expert on violence against women, Yakin Ertuk says sexual attacks against women remain a serious problem in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When she came to New York recently, I caught up with her to discuss her mission to the country last summer.

ERTUK: DRC had been on my agenda because of the dire situation for sexual and other forms of violence that women have been experiencing due to the conflict. So that was the main purpose of my visit and I will be reporting to the Human Rights Council in March of this year.

MBATHA: Who were you able to meet with during the mission to the DR Congo?

ERTUK: Well, I had two parallel programmes, one with government officials and another with civil society and the victims. I met with senor government officials, Ministers, also the police commanders, military and civil prosecutors, judges, people who are directly concerned with respect to either providing protection or responding to atrocities. And then, on the civil society side, I met with remarkable Congolese women who are picking up pieces and trying to rebuild their lives and that of their country.

MBATHA: Are we talking about meetings in Kinshasa?

ERTUK: Not only Kinshasa. I went to eastern provinces, Ituri district and Kivu as well as Equator Province.

MBATHA: As you know, in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo there has been violence, what kind of stories were you able to get from women in that region of the country?

ERTUK: Well the stories are hair raising, similar stories that came out of the Rwandan genocide, similar types of methods, tactics used to terrorize, humiliate and torture women and men for that matter. But women, of course, face these atrocities in very drastic ways, women and girls, little girls. But we must also be cautious that the problems that are against women are not only in the east. Of course, in the east you have the presence of foreign non-state armed groups, about, I am told, 6,000 to 7,000 militants still operating out of the forest which are the main perpetrators. But in other parts of the country too there are frictions among opposition groups. In Equator Province the police and army use extreme force in retaliating on villages and communities that are seen to be siding with the opposition. And there mass rapes and other forms of violence against women are also committed. This is partially due to the demobilization process where former militia are now being disarmed and reintegrating without undergoing any form of rehabilitation. But there is another component to this civilian aspect of such atrocities, is that this kind of behaviour trickles down because of complete impunity.

MBATHA: When you say trickles down because of complete impunity, what do you mean?

ERTUK: Well people learn these behaviours. It's O.K. to rape women because nothing happens. A woman in Congo said to me in the former days a burglar would come to our home and steal whatever there is to steal. Now they come, rape all the women and then take what they want.

MBATHA: Are you saying that these crimes are perpetrated by both government forces and non-state actors like militias?

ERTUK: Absolutely. There is ample documentation and known high profile cases of high ranking officers who may themselves have been directly involved or have tolerated the soldiers under their command. And this is, I think, one of the major challenges that the DRC is facing because some of these army officers or soldiers are also there as a result of reintegration. So this is a major challenge if the country is going to stabilize and ensure security and peace. Women are not at peace yet.

PRESENTER: That was Yakin Ertuk, the United Nations Special Rappourteur on violence against women.
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PRESENTER: And that's all for this edition of UN and Africa. Our Production Assistant was Florence Poblete-Enriquez and our sound engineer was Zach Prewitt. I am Derrick Mbatha saying, bye bye.

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