Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 085 | Wed 08 Dec 2010
--------------------------------
IVORY COAST: ON THE BRINK OF WAR
--------------------------------
By Elizabeth Kendal
Like Sudan and Nigeria, Ivory Coast is divided by a volatile ethnic-religious fault-line. Whilst the less-developed North has long been predominantly Muslim, the South -- Ivory Coast's economic and political engine -- has historically been predominantly Christian and African Traditional Religion (ATR). Decades of mass immigration (1960-1993) from the neighbouring Muslim states of Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea might have been great for the economy, but they have tipped the demographic balance so that Ivory Coast -- officially about one-third Muslim -- is actually
majority Muslim.
The civil war that erupted in September 2002 was portrayed by the international media as a crisis of democracy and human rights caused by Southern xenophobia and Islamophobia. In reality, Ivory Coast's crisis is the consequence of decades of Muslim mass immigration coupled with political ambition and an internationally-sponsored Islamic agenda. The civil war was fought essentially between those who want all Ivory Coast's Muslim immigrants naturalised -- giving Ivory Coast a Muslim majority overnight -- and those who do not. Though he denies it, former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara, a Northern Muslim, was doubtless behind the September 2002 failed coup that triggered the war. Ouattara and his party, the Rally of the Republicans (RDR), have been playing the race and religion cards for political gain. Ouattara's intent has been to have all the Muslim immigrants naturalised (over 4 million: estimated to comprise between 30 and 40 percent of the total population) so that he (their champion) can dragnet the Muslim vote. Ouattara has long had his eye on the presidency.
The civil war left Ivory Coast totally polarised, split between a virtually ethnic-religiously cleansed, rebel-controlled Muslim North and a government-controlled predominantly Christian, non-Muslim South. Since the war the North has been in serious decline with AIDS, poverty and lawlessness increasing exponentially. In November 2004 Ivory Coast's Christian president, Laurent Gbagbo, launched surprise airstrikes against rebel positions in the North in an attempt to reunify the country. However, former colonial power France (which backs the rebels for economic gain) intervened, razing all IC's airforce planes, destroying runways and sending tanks against the Presidential Palace, around which loyalists formed a human shield.
The West had insisted that Ivory Coast could be reconciled, reunified and essentially saved by means of democratic elections, such is their faith in 'democracy' and the inherent goodness of man. In reality, the divisions are so profound and the stakes are so high that, unless genuine reconciliation occurred first, elections could only trigger conflict. Elections were held on 28 November 2010, with both Gbagbo and Ouattara claiming victory. The US, European Union and African Union have recognised Ouattara as the winner and called for Gbagbo to respect democracy and step down. Russia meanwhile is blocking a UN statement that would recognise Ouatarra, saying that this is not the UN's role. Ivory Coast's non-Muslims are traumatised, fearing that their homeland -- once the most prosperous 'Christian' nation in West Africa, home to the region's largest cathedral, home-base to most of West Africa's regional Christian ministries -- is about to come under Muslim political domination.
(COMMENT: Ivory Coast's crisis -- the consequence of decades of Muslim mass immigration -- is a foretaste of what several states in democratic Europe may be facing in a generation or two.)
PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY FOR GOD TO:
* give Ivory Coast's Christian leaders -- pastors and politicians --
great spiritual wisdom and authority.
* bring revival to the Church in Ivory Coast so believers will be
compelled to go out with the gospel in boldness, empowered by the
Holy Spirit, so that Ivory Coast might be spiritually transformed.
For only then will the peoples 'beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks . . .' (Isaiah 2:4 ESV)
* intervene in the tense climate by interposing a spirit of restraint,
compelling the people to seek a negotiated solution as a means of
averting another destructive civil war -- a war that would certainly
attract international jihadists.
Showing posts with label fault-line. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fault-line. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
PAPUA, Indonesia: TNI "sweeps" Puncak Jaya.
UPDATED 28 July 2010 (below)
As reported in the June issue of the West Papua Report (WPR) 2010, "Tensions are again intensifying in Mulia area in the Papuan Central Highlands region of Puncak Jaya."
According to the WPR, Papuan human rights defenders report that the Indonesian military launched "sweep" operations in the Tingginambut district during the third week of May. Homes in three villages have been burnt, two people killed, one woman raped, and all livestock in the three villages killed by Indonesian military.
The purpose of the "sweep" is allegedly to flush out separatist leader Goliat Tabuni.
As the WPR notes: "In the past such sweep operations have forced civilians to abandon their villages and seek shelter either with relatives or in the surrounding jungles where food shortages and lack of medical care have led to illness and death. Such sweep operations often continue for months, disrupting local trade and preventing villagers from tending local gardens. Despite desperate circumstances, security forces have also prohibited humanitarian relief operations from reaching the besieged civilian populations."
On 18 June, the West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) posted details of the crisis in Papua's central highlands region of Puncak Jaya.
"In May, security force spokespersons warned that if the local OPM leader, Goliat Tabuni, did not surrender by June 28, major operations would be launched to capture him and his small force. Notwithstanding that deadline, it appears that major operations are already underway. The Indonesian government announced in mid-June that additional BRIMOB personnel were being dispatched to the region.
"According to reports from the field, the operations have already caused large numbers of civilians to flee to other villages or into the surrounding forests. Specifically, thousands of people are reportedly hiding in forests, notably some from the Tingginambut Distirct; other residents of Tingginambut District have fled to Kuyawagi Astir, Tiom, and Lani Districts. Civilians from the Districts of Yambi, Agandugume, and Ilaga Peak have fled to Majesty Towogi District.
"These civilians, in particular those who have fled to the forests, face health and possibly life threatening conditions including lack of access to food, adequate shelter, and medical services. In the past such "sweeping operations," Indonesian security forces prevented provision of humanitarian assistance to these besieged populations.
"Reports from the field also tell of security forces targeting of civilians through widespread arrests, also:
• A church in Kayogwebur district Tingginambut has been taken over as headquarters for the BRIMOB. Local people unable to worship there.
• Local people are forced to do labor tasks for Indonesian military.
• In the district of Kampong Tinggineri Tingginambut, a pregnant woman was raped by BRIMOB personnel in the first half of June.
• 12 houses and 2 churches have been burned by security forces in Gwenggu Pilia.
• In Pos Nalime Tingginambut District residents have been forced to clear their gardens and prepare landing positions for military helicopters.
• On June 11, BRIMOB conducted a residential sweep search of all houses on the road between Ilu and Mulia, detaining anyone without identification, putting them on Army trucks. (Most local people do not have ID and now afraid to leave their homes. As a result, gardens are untended and local commerce is crippled.)
"Recalling previous such sweep operations - West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) is concerned that those civilians who have fled their homes are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance."
See also:
UPDATE ON THE SITUATION IN PUNCAK JAYA (pictures)
By WPNews Puncak Jaya. Jul 16, 2010
If anyone else has a sense of déjà vu, see:
Papua, Indonesia: Crisis in Puncak Jaya
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | No. 417 | Wed 21 Feb 2007
The story is virtually identical.
ICG REPORT
Complicating the situation is the fact that on 11 March 2010, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group released a highly controversial Asia Report No 188 entitled Radicalisation and Dialogue in Papua.
The ICG report lays the blame for recent clashes firmly at the feet of the KNPB (Komite Nasional Papua Barat - the West Papua National Committee), which ICG describes as militant and radical.
In early July, the University of Sydney's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, West Papua Project, published a rebuttal entitled Get up, stand up: West Papua stands up for its rights. A rebuttal of the International Crisis Group Report No. 188, Radicalisation and Dialogue in Papua: West Papuans unite against Special Autonomy and for a referendum on independence. By Jim Elmslie and Camellia Webb Gannon with Peter King
According to the West Papua Project's rebuttal, the KNPB is nothing more than a "media and information clearing house that expresses mainstream views held by a wide spectrum of Papuan civil society and political organisations, as well as the armed wing of the OPM."
The West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) also issued a statement rebutting the ICG report. WPAT laments that the ICG report ignores gross human rights abuses in Papuan and the fact that the "government subsidized 'migration' to Papua by non-Melanesian Indonesians will within this generation make Papuans a minority in their own homeland."
(See also: Papua (Indonesia): Genocide by Demographics.
WEA RL News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal. Friday 21 December 2007)
The WPP and the WPAT decry methodological problems in the ICG report, particularly ICG's failure to acknowledge the possibility that sources were advancing a particular agenda. I myself had criticised ICG for doing exactly this some years earlier. (See: Papua (Indonesia): Muslim-Christian tensions on a knife edge. WEA RL News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal. Thursday 19 June 2008)
All this matters because the ICG report has legitimised Indonesian military violence against the Papuans.
Naturally, mainstream media ran with ICG's authoritative analysis. Elmslie and Gannon fear the ICG report could actually pave the way to further violence in the province.
Mission, Betrayal and Genocide
From the 1950s MAF USA opened up the previously impenetrable mountainous inland of what was then Dutch New Guinea for courageous pioneer missionaries.
Annexed by Indonesia in 1969 and occupied by Indonesian armed forces (predominantly Javanese Muslims), Papua is being purposefully and rapidly colonised by Javanese Muslims for political and geo-strategic purposes. The indigenous Papuans, who are ethnic Melanesians and predominantly Christian, are being marginalised and their land is being Islamised .
Most Javanese Muslims despise the Papuans as racially and religiously inferior. TNI and BRIMOB officers routinely and freely express their racial and religious hatred for the Papuans in unrestrained violence.
The TNI has vast economic interests in Papua, including in the area of protection -- thus it is in the TNI's interests that Papuan "terrorism" and "separatism" be seen as genuine threats (when in reality they are not).
See: Papua, Indonesia, The TNI and the USA.
WEA RL News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal. 1 March 2007
Papuan resistance is essentially resistance against racial and religious discrimination, persecution, exploitation, marginalisation, Islamisation and threat of genocide.
In 2001 the Indonesian parliament granted the Papua Province a tokenistic "Special Autonomy" which was never implemented. On 18 June many thousands of Papuans rallied in Jayapura. Declaring "Special Autonomy" a failure, they symbolically "gave it back" to Indonesia and demanded a referendum on independence and renewed dialogue to be mediated by a neutral country.
On 8 July, more than ten thousand Papuans rallied again.
See: Thousands Rally in West Papua: Reject Special Autonomy, Demand Referendum on Independence
By Jacques Friedman. Jul 9, 2010
ALSO: Photo news
Forces, protesters fill West Papuan parliament
By Paul Cleary. The Australian. 10 July 2010
Tensions are extremely high.
Shamefully, just as in the case of some other Christian peoples who have suffered or are suffering gross human rights abuses and facing genocide, the Papuans have been betrayed and abandoned by Western human rights-affirming nations in exchange for lucrative mining concessions, arms deals and other economic and political interests.
The Church, however, must never abandon them.
If you say, "Behold, we did not know this,"
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it
Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,
and will he not repay man according to his work?
(Proverbs 24:12 ESV)
UPDATE - 28 July 2010
On 22 July, US defence secretary Robert Gates announced that the US will restore ties with Kopassus, Indonesia's notorious special forces unit which is known to have committed gross human rights violations in Papua, including the November 2001 political assassination of the chairman of Papuan Council Presidium, Theys Eluay.
(Regarding Eluay's assassination, see FreeWestPapua and Human Rights Watch).
Doubtless the US is doing this to prevent China from gaining a foothold in the region.
See: U.S. Boosts Asian Defense Ties Amid Growing Challenge From China Military
By Daniel Ten Kate - Jul 22, 2010
AND
Clinton, Gates offer distinct messages on human rights in Asia
By Glenn Kessler | July 22, 2010; 11:23 AM ET
It is a no-win situation for the Papuans. As John M. Miller, National Coordinator of ETAN notes: "For years, the U.S. military provided training and other assistance to Kopassus, and when the U.S. was most involved Kopassus crimes were at their worst. While this assistance improved the Indonesian military's deadly skills, it did nothing to improve its behavior. [. . .] Engaging Kopassus with only token concessions will not encourage reform, respect for rights or accountability. It may do the opposite."
At a Pacific Islands Forum leaders summit meeting due to be held in Port Vila, Vanuatu, on 3-6 August, Vanuatu will support the indigenous Papuans' right to self-determination. The bipartisan motion was put to Vanuatu's Parliament after a petition of the people of Vanuatu called for a clear foreign policy on Papua.
See: Vanuatu to seek observer status for West Papua at MSG and PIF leaders summits
As reported in the June issue of the West Papua Report (WPR) 2010, "Tensions are again intensifying in Mulia area in the Papuan Central Highlands region of Puncak Jaya."
According to the WPR, Papuan human rights defenders report that the Indonesian military launched "sweep" operations in the Tingginambut district during the third week of May. Homes in three villages have been burnt, two people killed, one woman raped, and all livestock in the three villages killed by Indonesian military.
The purpose of the "sweep" is allegedly to flush out separatist leader Goliat Tabuni.
As the WPR notes: "In the past such sweep operations have forced civilians to abandon their villages and seek shelter either with relatives or in the surrounding jungles where food shortages and lack of medical care have led to illness and death. Such sweep operations often continue for months, disrupting local trade and preventing villagers from tending local gardens. Despite desperate circumstances, security forces have also prohibited humanitarian relief operations from reaching the besieged civilian populations."
On 18 June, the West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) posted details of the crisis in Papua's central highlands region of Puncak Jaya.
"In May, security force spokespersons warned that if the local OPM leader, Goliat Tabuni, did not surrender by June 28, major operations would be launched to capture him and his small force. Notwithstanding that deadline, it appears that major operations are already underway. The Indonesian government announced in mid-June that additional BRIMOB personnel were being dispatched to the region.
"According to reports from the field, the operations have already caused large numbers of civilians to flee to other villages or into the surrounding forests. Specifically, thousands of people are reportedly hiding in forests, notably some from the Tingginambut Distirct; other residents of Tingginambut District have fled to Kuyawagi Astir, Tiom, and Lani Districts. Civilians from the Districts of Yambi, Agandugume, and Ilaga Peak have fled to Majesty Towogi District.
"These civilians, in particular those who have fled to the forests, face health and possibly life threatening conditions including lack of access to food, adequate shelter, and medical services. In the past such "sweeping operations," Indonesian security forces prevented provision of humanitarian assistance to these besieged populations.
"Reports from the field also tell of security forces targeting of civilians through widespread arrests, also:
• A church in Kayogwebur district Tingginambut has been taken over as headquarters for the BRIMOB. Local people unable to worship there.
• Local people are forced to do labor tasks for Indonesian military.
• In the district of Kampong Tinggineri Tingginambut, a pregnant woman was raped by BRIMOB personnel in the first half of June.
• 12 houses and 2 churches have been burned by security forces in Gwenggu Pilia.
• In Pos Nalime Tingginambut District residents have been forced to clear their gardens and prepare landing positions for military helicopters.
• On June 11, BRIMOB conducted a residential sweep search of all houses on the road between Ilu and Mulia, detaining anyone without identification, putting them on Army trucks. (Most local people do not have ID and now afraid to leave their homes. As a result, gardens are untended and local commerce is crippled.)
"Recalling previous such sweep operations - West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) is concerned that those civilians who have fled their homes are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance."
See also:
UPDATE ON THE SITUATION IN PUNCAK JAYA (pictures)
By WPNews Puncak Jaya. Jul 16, 2010
If anyone else has a sense of déjà vu, see:
Papua, Indonesia: Crisis in Puncak Jaya
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | No. 417 | Wed 21 Feb 2007
The story is virtually identical.
ICG REPORT
Complicating the situation is the fact that on 11 March 2010, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group released a highly controversial Asia Report No 188 entitled Radicalisation and Dialogue in Papua.
The ICG report lays the blame for recent clashes firmly at the feet of the KNPB (Komite Nasional Papua Barat - the West Papua National Committee), which ICG describes as militant and radical.
In early July, the University of Sydney's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, West Papua Project, published a rebuttal entitled Get up, stand up: West Papua stands up for its rights. A rebuttal of the International Crisis Group Report No. 188, Radicalisation and Dialogue in Papua: West Papuans unite against Special Autonomy and for a referendum on independence. By Jim Elmslie and Camellia Webb Gannon with Peter King
According to the West Papua Project's rebuttal, the KNPB is nothing more than a "media and information clearing house that expresses mainstream views held by a wide spectrum of Papuan civil society and political organisations, as well as the armed wing of the OPM."
The West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) also issued a statement rebutting the ICG report. WPAT laments that the ICG report ignores gross human rights abuses in Papuan and the fact that the "government subsidized 'migration' to Papua by non-Melanesian Indonesians will within this generation make Papuans a minority in their own homeland."
(See also: Papua (Indonesia): Genocide by Demographics.
WEA RL News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal. Friday 21 December 2007)
The WPP and the WPAT decry methodological problems in the ICG report, particularly ICG's failure to acknowledge the possibility that sources were advancing a particular agenda. I myself had criticised ICG for doing exactly this some years earlier. (See: Papua (Indonesia): Muslim-Christian tensions on a knife edge. WEA RL News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal. Thursday 19 June 2008)
All this matters because the ICG report has legitimised Indonesian military violence against the Papuans.
Naturally, mainstream media ran with ICG's authoritative analysis. Elmslie and Gannon fear the ICG report could actually pave the way to further violence in the province.
Mission, Betrayal and Genocide
From the 1950s MAF USA opened up the previously impenetrable mountainous inland of what was then Dutch New Guinea for courageous pioneer missionaries.
Annexed by Indonesia in 1969 and occupied by Indonesian armed forces (predominantly Javanese Muslims), Papua is being purposefully and rapidly colonised by Javanese Muslims for political and geo-strategic purposes. The indigenous Papuans, who are ethnic Melanesians and predominantly Christian, are being marginalised and their land is being Islamised .
Most Javanese Muslims despise the Papuans as racially and religiously inferior. TNI and BRIMOB officers routinely and freely express their racial and religious hatred for the Papuans in unrestrained violence.
The TNI has vast economic interests in Papua, including in the area of protection -- thus it is in the TNI's interests that Papuan "terrorism" and "separatism" be seen as genuine threats (when in reality they are not).
See: Papua, Indonesia, The TNI and the USA.
WEA RL News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal. 1 March 2007
Papuan resistance is essentially resistance against racial and religious discrimination, persecution, exploitation, marginalisation, Islamisation and threat of genocide.
In 2001 the Indonesian parliament granted the Papua Province a tokenistic "Special Autonomy" which was never implemented. On 18 June many thousands of Papuans rallied in Jayapura. Declaring "Special Autonomy" a failure, they symbolically "gave it back" to Indonesia and demanded a referendum on independence and renewed dialogue to be mediated by a neutral country.
On 8 July, more than ten thousand Papuans rallied again.
See: Thousands Rally in West Papua: Reject Special Autonomy, Demand Referendum on Independence
By Jacques Friedman. Jul 9, 2010
ALSO: Photo news
Forces, protesters fill West Papuan parliament
By Paul Cleary. The Australian. 10 July 2010
Tensions are extremely high.
Shamefully, just as in the case of some other Christian peoples who have suffered or are suffering gross human rights abuses and facing genocide, the Papuans have been betrayed and abandoned by Western human rights-affirming nations in exchange for lucrative mining concessions, arms deals and other economic and political interests.
The Church, however, must never abandon them.
If you say, "Behold, we did not know this,"
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it
Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,
and will he not repay man according to his work?
(Proverbs 24:12 ESV)
UPDATE - 28 July 2010
On 22 July, US defence secretary Robert Gates announced that the US will restore ties with Kopassus, Indonesia's notorious special forces unit which is known to have committed gross human rights violations in Papua, including the November 2001 political assassination of the chairman of Papuan Council Presidium, Theys Eluay.
(Regarding Eluay's assassination, see FreeWestPapua and Human Rights Watch).
Doubtless the US is doing this to prevent China from gaining a foothold in the region.
See: U.S. Boosts Asian Defense Ties Amid Growing Challenge From China Military
By Daniel Ten Kate - Jul 22, 2010
AND
Clinton, Gates offer distinct messages on human rights in Asia
By Glenn Kessler | July 22, 2010; 11:23 AM ET
It is a no-win situation for the Papuans. As John M. Miller, National Coordinator of ETAN notes: "For years, the U.S. military provided training and other assistance to Kopassus, and when the U.S. was most involved Kopassus crimes were at their worst. While this assistance improved the Indonesian military's deadly skills, it did nothing to improve its behavior. [. . .] Engaging Kopassus with only token concessions will not encourage reform, respect for rights or accountability. It may do the opposite."
At a Pacific Islands Forum leaders summit meeting due to be held in Port Vila, Vanuatu, on 3-6 August, Vanuatu will support the indigenous Papuans' right to self-determination. The bipartisan motion was put to Vanuatu's Parliament after a petition of the people of Vanuatu called for a clear foreign policy on Papua.
See: Vanuatu to seek observer status for West Papua at MSG and PIF leaders summits
Friday, May 14, 2010
SPLM - NCP alliance: a "covenant with death" (Isaiah 28:15)
As was expected, the Arab, Islamist, dictatorial and genocidal regime of Omar al-Bashir won Sudan's totally compromised April elections.
Omar al-Bashir won 68 per cent of the presidential votes, while candidates belonging to al-Bashir's party, National Congress Party (NCP, formerly the National Islamic Front), won the majority of seats in the National Assembly as well as governorships in 13 of the North's 14 states.
See: Dream election result for Sudan's President Bashir
By James Copnall, BBC News, 27 April 2010
The southern-based Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM, a political opposition movement based in the South) retains control of Southern Sudan, having won 93 percent of the vote in the South. SPLM leader Salva Kiir, a former rebel army commander, was confirmed as leader of the South with 92.99 per cent of the Southern vote. He will be sworn in as Sudan's Vice President on 21 May.
According to the Financial Times, the National Consensus' presidential candidate, Yasir Arman of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), picked up 21.7 per cent of the vote, in spite of his having pulled out of the elections, allegedly in protest over electoral fraud. Who's to say what could have been achieved had the opposition stayed united?
(In the days prior to the elections, the SPLM betrayed and abandoned the National Consensus alliance of opposition parties to renew its coalition with al-Bashir's NCP. The deal involved the SPLM guaranteeing al-Bashir the presidency in exchange for al-Bashir guaranteeing the Southern Self-Determination Referendum. See my blog-post of 8 April 2010 entitled, Sudan's elections: already totally compromised. )
Western powers, including the US, while acknowledging the election was flawed, are accepting the results as legitimate, citing progress in the "process of democratisation". (In reality, the only "progress" that has been made has been in the art of cheating.)
See: Sudan Votes: Responding to an Electoral Travesty
Eric Reeves, 20 April 2010
The SPLM thinks it can guarantee South Sudan -- home to 80 percent of Sudan's oil -- a smooth secession by empowering, and entering into an alliance with, the lying, treacherous, oil-dependent NCP of Omar al-Bashir. What a travesty!
For background and analysis on the Khartoum-SPLM alliance, see: Southern Sudan: on the path to war By Elizabeth Kendal, 3 Oct 2007
In an article entitled, "How political prostitution might cost South Sudanese their hard-earned freedom", New Sudan Vision's John Penn de Ngong decries the fact that Khartoum has once again been able to use promises and inducements to divide not only the oppositional National Consensus, but the SPLM itself.
Further to this, according to Penn de Ngong, the South's "neighbours who once were our symphasizers have started stabbing our backs". Both Chad's President Idris Derby and Eritrea's President Isaias Aferwoki have now expressed opposition to Southern secession. Furthermore, Penn de Ngong reports that IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development), the UN and the AU (African Union) have likewise expressed reservations about Southern secession. (Egypt has never supported Southern secession on account of concerns over the possible impact on Nile water supply.)
"Why," asked Penn de Ngong, "are Kenyans, Ugandans, Congolese, etc. shifting their border posts deeper into Southern Sudan this time than last time? Why the military confrontation at our borders of Nadapal (Kenya), Moyo (Uganda), Bazi (Congo DR)? Now with the discovery of oil and other minerals in our land (South), be afraid, be very afraid! Or else be prepared, be very ready!"
In an article entitled, Many Sudans yet to come, in the 22 - 28 April 2010 issue of Al-Ahram (Cairo), reporter Ali Belail interviews Mansour Khaled, a member of the Political Bureau of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and former advisor to the Sudanese Presidency; and Mubarak Al-Fadil Al-Mahdi, a former interior minister and the leader of the Reform and Renewal faction of the Umma Party, one of the opposition parties that boycotted the elections; and questions whether Sudan's elections mark a step forward.
According to Mansour Khaled, the last few decades could well be like a honeymoon compared to what could happen to Sudan in the next few years.
Belail reports that tensions are high and that while there are several issues that could trigger anger and conflict, "oil is perhaps the most potent factor". As Belail notes: "almost 80 per cent of oil is produced south of what would be the border between the two countries".
According to Mubarak Al-Fadil Al-Mahdi, revenue from oil represents nearly 95 per cent of Sudan's total revenue. "Oil has become the livelihood of this government," he says, "and they got used to lavish spending."
Al-Mahdi's fear is that because the regime in Khartoum has neglected the economy, he cannot see them willingly relinquishing their lifeblood. "Our information is that the National Congress Party [NCP] will not let go of the oil," says Al-Mahdi. He predicts that the government will not allow the south to separate. Rather, the regime will "stall as it has done before so that the referendum is not carried out".
Al-Ahram notes that such stalling could trigger a unilateral declaration of independence from the South, which would inevitably trigger a return to armed conflict. (For other scenarios see: Khartoum's strategic assault on Southern Self-Determination Referendum, By Eric Reeves, 26 August 2009 )
"Anyway," states Al-Mahdi, "there is going to be a confrontation between the south and the north again . . . back to the war." And, according to Al-Mahdi, if and when war does resume, Sudan -- with its heavily armed, poverty-stricken population -- risks becoming another Somalia.
"There were mistakes done by the elite," says Al-Mahdi. "They should have seen that Sudan was multi-coloured, multi-ethnic, multi-religious. Sudan should be taken back to the drawing board -- a civil state that recognises multiplicity. This is the only way if you want to keep Sudan together."
Indeed, that was exactly what the late Dr John Garang (SPLM war-time leader) envisioned. But, as Mansour Khaled notes: "The ruling elite in the north do not accept diversity."
There will certainly be war in Sudan -- only now, instead of being a war between a discredited and desperate regime in Khartoum and a united, encircling opposition fighting for a united, secular, democratic Sudan, it will be war between an empowered, enriched, confident Khartoum and disparate, disillusioned, embittered and divided minority peoples each fighting for whatever they can manage to get for themselves.
There will be a massive war for control of the oil fields presently situated on the southern side of the North-South border.
The SPLM's alliance with the NCP is nothing other than a "covenant with death" (Isaiah 28:15). May God have mercy on the Church in Sudan.
Omar al-Bashir won 68 per cent of the presidential votes, while candidates belonging to al-Bashir's party, National Congress Party (NCP, formerly the National Islamic Front), won the majority of seats in the National Assembly as well as governorships in 13 of the North's 14 states.
See: Dream election result for Sudan's President Bashir
By James Copnall, BBC News, 27 April 2010
The southern-based Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM, a political opposition movement based in the South) retains control of Southern Sudan, having won 93 percent of the vote in the South. SPLM leader Salva Kiir, a former rebel army commander, was confirmed as leader of the South with 92.99 per cent of the Southern vote. He will be sworn in as Sudan's Vice President on 21 May.
According to the Financial Times, the National Consensus' presidential candidate, Yasir Arman of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), picked up 21.7 per cent of the vote, in spite of his having pulled out of the elections, allegedly in protest over electoral fraud. Who's to say what could have been achieved had the opposition stayed united?
(In the days prior to the elections, the SPLM betrayed and abandoned the National Consensus alliance of opposition parties to renew its coalition with al-Bashir's NCP. The deal involved the SPLM guaranteeing al-Bashir the presidency in exchange for al-Bashir guaranteeing the Southern Self-Determination Referendum. See my blog-post of 8 April 2010 entitled, Sudan's elections: already totally compromised. )
Western powers, including the US, while acknowledging the election was flawed, are accepting the results as legitimate, citing progress in the "process of democratisation". (In reality, the only "progress" that has been made has been in the art of cheating.)
See: Sudan Votes: Responding to an Electoral Travesty
Eric Reeves, 20 April 2010
The SPLM thinks it can guarantee South Sudan -- home to 80 percent of Sudan's oil -- a smooth secession by empowering, and entering into an alliance with, the lying, treacherous, oil-dependent NCP of Omar al-Bashir. What a travesty!
For background and analysis on the Khartoum-SPLM alliance, see: Southern Sudan: on the path to war By Elizabeth Kendal, 3 Oct 2007
In an article entitled, "How political prostitution might cost South Sudanese their hard-earned freedom", New Sudan Vision's John Penn de Ngong decries the fact that Khartoum has once again been able to use promises and inducements to divide not only the oppositional National Consensus, but the SPLM itself.
Further to this, according to Penn de Ngong, the South's "neighbours who once were our symphasizers have started stabbing our backs". Both Chad's President Idris Derby and Eritrea's President Isaias Aferwoki have now expressed opposition to Southern secession. Furthermore, Penn de Ngong reports that IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development), the UN and the AU (African Union) have likewise expressed reservations about Southern secession. (Egypt has never supported Southern secession on account of concerns over the possible impact on Nile water supply.)
"Why," asked Penn de Ngong, "are Kenyans, Ugandans, Congolese, etc. shifting their border posts deeper into Southern Sudan this time than last time? Why the military confrontation at our borders of Nadapal (Kenya), Moyo (Uganda), Bazi (Congo DR)? Now with the discovery of oil and other minerals in our land (South), be afraid, be very afraid! Or else be prepared, be very ready!"
In an article entitled, Many Sudans yet to come, in the 22 - 28 April 2010 issue of Al-Ahram (Cairo), reporter Ali Belail interviews Mansour Khaled, a member of the Political Bureau of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and former advisor to the Sudanese Presidency; and Mubarak Al-Fadil Al-Mahdi, a former interior minister and the leader of the Reform and Renewal faction of the Umma Party, one of the opposition parties that boycotted the elections; and questions whether Sudan's elections mark a step forward.
According to Mansour Khaled, the last few decades could well be like a honeymoon compared to what could happen to Sudan in the next few years.
Belail reports that tensions are high and that while there are several issues that could trigger anger and conflict, "oil is perhaps the most potent factor". As Belail notes: "almost 80 per cent of oil is produced south of what would be the border between the two countries".
According to Mubarak Al-Fadil Al-Mahdi, revenue from oil represents nearly 95 per cent of Sudan's total revenue. "Oil has become the livelihood of this government," he says, "and they got used to lavish spending."
Al-Mahdi's fear is that because the regime in Khartoum has neglected the economy, he cannot see them willingly relinquishing their lifeblood. "Our information is that the National Congress Party [NCP] will not let go of the oil," says Al-Mahdi. He predicts that the government will not allow the south to separate. Rather, the regime will "stall as it has done before so that the referendum is not carried out".
Al-Ahram notes that such stalling could trigger a unilateral declaration of independence from the South, which would inevitably trigger a return to armed conflict. (For other scenarios see: Khartoum's strategic assault on Southern Self-Determination Referendum, By Eric Reeves, 26 August 2009 )
"Anyway," states Al-Mahdi, "there is going to be a confrontation between the south and the north again . . . back to the war." And, according to Al-Mahdi, if and when war does resume, Sudan -- with its heavily armed, poverty-stricken population -- risks becoming another Somalia.
"There were mistakes done by the elite," says Al-Mahdi. "They should have seen that Sudan was multi-coloured, multi-ethnic, multi-religious. Sudan should be taken back to the drawing board -- a civil state that recognises multiplicity. This is the only way if you want to keep Sudan together."
Indeed, that was exactly what the late Dr John Garang (SPLM war-time leader) envisioned. But, as Mansour Khaled notes: "The ruling elite in the north do not accept diversity."
There will certainly be war in Sudan -- only now, instead of being a war between a discredited and desperate regime in Khartoum and a united, encircling opposition fighting for a united, secular, democratic Sudan, it will be war between an empowered, enriched, confident Khartoum and disparate, disillusioned, embittered and divided minority peoples each fighting for whatever they can manage to get for themselves.
There will be a massive war for control of the oil fields presently situated on the southern side of the North-South border.
The SPLM's alliance with the NCP is nothing other than a "covenant with death" (Isaiah 28:15). May God have mercy on the Church in Sudan.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
The insufferable plight and bleak future of Iraq's indigenous Assyrian-Chaldean Christians
Iraq's last official census (1987) counted 1.4 million indigenous Assyrian and Chaldean Christians. As Islamic zeal and Arab nationalism rose in the wake of Gulf War 1 (1991), Christians with means emigrated. By the time of the March 2003 US invasion, the Christian population of Iraq was estimated to be between 1.2 million and 800,000. Today, after 7 years of war, sectarian conflict, ethnic-religious cleansing and terrorism, a remnant of around 400,000 Christians remain.
The Shi'ite south has been virtually "cleansed" of Christians and few remain in the Sunni-dominated centre. Those displaced have mostly fled to the historic Assyrian homeland of the Nineveh Plains in Northern Iraq. According to a new report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), figures verified by UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) report the total number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Mosul, Nineveh, as 866 families (or 5,196 people) as of 4 March 2010.
However, the north of Iraq is not secure either. The Nineveh Plains is a fault-line region hotly-contested by Arabs (who invaded and occupied Mesopotamia in 630 AD) and Kurds (who invaded and occupied the Nineveh Plains in 1261 AD after King Salih Isma'il ordered them out of Turkey). Furthermore, terrorism targeting Mosul's churches and Christians has escalated ever since the US surge forced al-Qaeda elements out of the central provinces of Anbar, Baghdad and Diyala to relocate north.
In a programme entitled Heart And Soul -- Iraq's forgotten conflict, 25 April 2010, the BBC describes the systematic persecution of Iraq's religious minorities as "a campaign of liquidation".
The BBC reports that while US and British politicians refer to "the emergence of a pluralistic democracy", Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Louis Sako, of Kirkuk in Northern Iraq, begs to differ, contending that "200,000 Christians fleeing Mosul alone, in fear of their lives, and 1,000 murdered, is not much of a basis for pluralism or democracy".
And as the BBC notes: "It's not just Christians who suffer. Both Mandaeans, who speak Aramaic – the language of Christ – and the Yazidis, goldsmiths with a history going back further than Christianity or Islam, are fast disappearing, too. 'Does nobody care about what is going on here?' asks Archbishop Sako."
While Christians continue to flee Iraq, those who remain report being harassed and intimidated with threatening phone calls and letters. Many Christian women have taking wearing hijab to hide their Christian identity. Despite the pleas of church leaders, Iraqi Christian refugees are reluctant to return. Speaking in Damascus, Syria, Christian refugee Toma Georgees told Catholic News Service (CNS: 23 April 2010): "It's...impossible to turn back to Iraq. Our problem is not with the Iraqi government. Our problem is with Iraqi people…who want to kill us, who want to kill all the Christians."
See also:
On Vulnerable Ground
Violence against Minority Communities in Nineveh Province’s Disputed Territories
A report by Human Rights Watch, 10 November 2009
ALSO
http://christiansofiraq.com
and
http://www.iraqichristianrelief.org/
and
Incipient Genocide
The Ethnic Cleansing of the Assyrians of Iraq.
Assyrian International News Agency, June 2007, revised July 2009.
70 Christian college students wounded in targeted terror attack
Christians are so endangered in Northern Iraq that Christian students must travel to university in convoys with Iraqi military escorts. On Sunday morning 2 May, two bombs ripped through a convoy of buses transporting Christian college students from the mainly Christian town of Hamdaniya, 40km east of Mosul in the Nineveh Plains region of Northern Iraq, to the University of Mosul. According to reports, once the first buses had passed through the Kokjali checkpoint (which is manned by U.S., Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers) a car bomb parked on the shoulder of the highway exploded in their path, followed moments later by a roadside bomb. A local shopkeeper was killed and more than 100 people, including some 70 of the targeted Christian college students, were wounded; 17 critically.
See:
Iraq: Christian students bombed
News24, 2 May 2010
Christians targeted in Mosul blasts
Aljazeera, 2 May 2010
Bombs Hit School Buses in North Iraq
By Sam Dagher, New York Times, 2 May 2010
Attack Highlights Unrelenting Plight of Iraq's Christians
By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor, Cybercast News Service (CNS), 3 May 2010
NEW: Pictures Show the Horror of the Mosul Bus Bombings of Assyrian Students
Assyrian International News Agency, 16 May 2010
Jamil Salahuddin Jamil (25), a geography major who was on the first bus, told reporters that one of his classmates lost her leg in the attack and two others were blinded. "We were going for our education and they presented us with bombs," he said. "I still do not know what they want from Christians."
Of course Jamil knows exactly what the Islamic militant fundamentalists want from Christians, he just can't bear to contemplate it, let alone verbalised it. For the Islamic terrorists, and the Muslim fundamentalists who support them, want Christians driven out of Iraq, and for those remaining to be 'utterly subdued' (Qur'an, Sura 9:29. Translation: Dawood).
On account of ignorance, many in West grossly underestimate just how hostile fundamentalist Islam is to Christianity. Consider the teachings of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shia cleric. He is revered in Iraq and touted in the West as a moderate. Yet he maintains that along with corpses, dogs, pigs, alcohol, urine, animal sweat, semen and blood, people who are "kafir" (unbelievers), i.e. Christians, Jews, Mandaeans, other non-Muslim including Sunnis, are "najis" (unclean). See Sistani on "Islamic laws" and "Najis things » Kafir".
According to Sistani, a kafir can become "pak" (clean) only by professing Islam. However, under the heading "Mutahhirat » Subjection Taba'iyat", he asserts that the child of a kafir, "becomes Pak by subjection" if he/she is captured by Muslims.
Sunni fundamentalists believe the same except that they regard Shi'ites, not Sunnis, as kafir and therefore najis. Sunnis and Shi'ites are mortal enemies and Iraq is a fault-line state between not only ethnic rivals Arabs, Kurds and Persians, but between sectarian rivals Sunnis and Shi'ites. See: RL Trend (Feb 2007) Shiite Ascendancy.
Multiple wars loom
When it erupts (and it eventually will), the battle for the Arab-Kurd fault-line provinces of Nineveh and oil-rich Kirkuk will engulf northern Iraq and draw in regional players. Once again, the Assyrian-Chaldean Christians, the region's indigenous/first peoples, will be collateral damage.
Meanwhile, the dark smoke of sectarianism is rising again out of the volcano that is Baghdad.
As Mustafa El-Labbad, director of the Cairo-based Al Sharq Centre for Regional and Strategic Studies, notes in Egypt's Al-Ahram, Iraqi politics is entirely sectarian. "Today, Iraq's political parties and personalities are not from the left, the right or the centre. Rather, they are above all Sunni or Shia. From here, one has to proceed to the regional dimension, which must also be regarded in sectarian terms. On one side, there is Iran, which backs the Iraqi Shia groups, and on the other there is Saudi Arabia, which champions the Sunni forces. Somewhere in between are Syria and Turkey."
The March 2010 elections, through which Iraqis voted for representatives to fill Iraq's 325-seat parliament, have yielded the following results:
The Iraqi National Alliance (INA) is a union of two parties with close ties to Iran: the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) led by Ammar al-Hakim, and the Al-Sadr Movement. While the Iraqi National Alliance is headed by al-Hakim, it is Muqtada al-Sadr who will be calling the shots. For of the 70 seats won by the Iraqi National Alliance, 40 were won by the Al-Sadr Movement.
The primary point of contention between al-Maliki and the Iraqi National Alliance -- the issue that had been the primary obstacle to an alliance -- had been the choice of Prime Minister. As Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reports: "The State of Law maintains that Nouri Al-Maliki is the only candidate for the position of prime minister. This view is not necessarily shared by Al-Hakim, whose party demands that the next prime minister be selected either by a vote of the members of the coalition to be formed or by consensus."
How this issue was resolved is not yet known.
Further to this, Al Jazeera reports: "While the resulting combination of 159 seats is just short of the required majority, the Kurdish Alliance of the autonomous Kurdish region's two long-dominant blocs holds 43 seats and has previously said it would join the new grouping if the two main blocs allied."
See:
Maliki allies with rival Shia party
Al Jazeera 5 May 2010
Iraq's Shiites unite to try to form new government
By Qassim Abdul-Zahra (AP) 5 May 2010
also: Alliance-Making Toward Forming a New Iraqi Government – A Commentary (MEMRI)
and Muqtada Al-Sadr – The Voice of Iraqi Nationalism By MEMRI Staff
Al Jazeera reports: "The Iraqiya list of ex-premier Iyad Allawi took the most seats in the election with 91 but looks set to be squeezed out. . .
"Dhafir al-Ani, head of Iraqi Future Gathering, one of al-Iraqiya bloc components told Al Jazeera: 'It is a blow to the will of the majority of Iraqi people, who voted for Iraqiya. [Note: 91 of 325 seats is not a majority.] The new Shia merge that is backed by Iran, would pull Iraq back to sectarianism.'
"Allawi had warned that an alliance of the two major Shia blocs that attempted to exclude his coalition from government could result in a return to violence in Iraq, which was torn by sectarian bloodshed that killed tens of thousands in 2006-07."
The Washington Post notes: "Such an alliance threatens to undermine U.S. interests in two ways. It could exacerbate a sense of marginalization among Sunnis, prompting them to once again resort to violence. And it could give anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's movement, the biggest vote-getter within the Iraqi National Alliance, a dominant role in the government."
As Al-Ahram similarly notes, "Sectarian bloodshed" would play right into the hands of Iran and the Iran-backed Shi'ite parties. "In asserting its power in Iraq, it is likely that Tehran applied the following kind of cause-and-effect reasoning: eliminating and marginalising the Sunnis would provoke them into committing acts of violence; this violence would cause the collapse of the political process; this in turn would exacerbate the Iraqi quagmire for the US and, consequently, US forces, heavily embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, would not be able to launch a military offensive against Iran. Logic of this sort, perhaps with some minor adjustments, has since proved an almost fool-proof formula in chalking up the many gains that Tehran has scored in Iraq."
See:
Seven fat years for Iran
Seven years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, everything points to the growing influence of Iran in Iraqi politics, writes Mustafa El-Labbad
Al-Ahram, 15 -21 April 2010, Issue No. 994
Enter Muqtada al-Sadr
According to Sami Moubayed, a Syrian political analyst writing for Asia Times Online, "Muqtada has been working hard for two years to transform the Mahdi Army into another Hezbollah, personally inspired by Hassan Nasrallah." This is, according to Moubayed, why Muqtada has been studying in the seminary in Qom, Iran. "He went back to the seminary, so he could elevate his academic credentials and rise from the rank of sayyed to that of an ayatollah (which enables him to issue fatwas) and grants him greater authority within the Shi'ite community at large. And that explains why, against all odds, he has insisted on refraining from any sectarian rhetoric, copying the Nasrallah model in Lebanon, who always speaks of Lebanon, not of Shi'ites.
"Muqtada also copied Hezbollah's massive charity network, monopolizing education, hospitals and fund-raising within the Shi'ite districts of Iraq to make sure that no family goes to bed hungry and all receive a monthly stipend from the Mahdi Army. Much like a modern Robin Hood, Muqtada is suiting himself to become spokesmen, defender and leader for the poor of Iraq.
"Now is the time to unveil the new Mahdi Army. It will look, sound and act like Hezbollah. No more street violence or sectarian tension triggered by the Sadrists. On the contrary, the Mahdi Army - this time with strong Iranian support - will replace the failed state of Maliki. It will extend an arm to the Sunnis and Kurds willing to work with it, making sure that no prime minister is brought to power, without full consent of Muqtada."
It is hard to see how the Saudis could tolerate a scenario that would essentially extend Iranian power right to the border of Saudi Arabia's oil-rich, Shi'ite-majority Eastern Province.
When ethnic and sectarian conflict resumes (as it eventually will) and Christians lose the state protection they are presently afforded, al Qaeda and affiliated jihadists will doubtless exploit the insecurity to advance the Islamist agenda and eliminate the Christian presence.
And Western Christians should not be tempted into thinking that such a horrific scenario could never eventuate. We must remember that Iraq's ancient Jewish community, which had roots dating back to the Babylonian captivity (587 BC) and had come to comprise the elite of Baghdad -- was eliminated through pogroms, killings and expulsion in the early 1950s. During that time, the newly-founded state of Israel rescued and then absorbed more 130,000 Iraqi Jews through Operation Ezra & Nehemiah. Now the indigenous Assyrian-Chaldean Christians are in the crosshairs, who will rescue them?
The Shi'ite south has been virtually "cleansed" of Christians and few remain in the Sunni-dominated centre. Those displaced have mostly fled to the historic Assyrian homeland of the Nineveh Plains in Northern Iraq. According to a new report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), figures verified by UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) report the total number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Mosul, Nineveh, as 866 families (or 5,196 people) as of 4 March 2010.
However, the north of Iraq is not secure either. The Nineveh Plains is a fault-line region hotly-contested by Arabs (who invaded and occupied Mesopotamia in 630 AD) and Kurds (who invaded and occupied the Nineveh Plains in 1261 AD after King Salih Isma'il ordered them out of Turkey). Furthermore, terrorism targeting Mosul's churches and Christians has escalated ever since the US surge forced al-Qaeda elements out of the central provinces of Anbar, Baghdad and Diyala to relocate north.
In a programme entitled Heart And Soul -- Iraq's forgotten conflict, 25 April 2010, the BBC describes the systematic persecution of Iraq's religious minorities as "a campaign of liquidation".
The BBC reports that while US and British politicians refer to "the emergence of a pluralistic democracy", Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Louis Sako, of Kirkuk in Northern Iraq, begs to differ, contending that "200,000 Christians fleeing Mosul alone, in fear of their lives, and 1,000 murdered, is not much of a basis for pluralism or democracy".
And as the BBC notes: "It's not just Christians who suffer. Both Mandaeans, who speak Aramaic – the language of Christ – and the Yazidis, goldsmiths with a history going back further than Christianity or Islam, are fast disappearing, too. 'Does nobody care about what is going on here?' asks Archbishop Sako."
While Christians continue to flee Iraq, those who remain report being harassed and intimidated with threatening phone calls and letters. Many Christian women have taking wearing hijab to hide their Christian identity. Despite the pleas of church leaders, Iraqi Christian refugees are reluctant to return. Speaking in Damascus, Syria, Christian refugee Toma Georgees told Catholic News Service (CNS: 23 April 2010): "It's...impossible to turn back to Iraq. Our problem is not with the Iraqi government. Our problem is with Iraqi people…who want to kill us, who want to kill all the Christians."
See also:
On Vulnerable Ground
Violence against Minority Communities in Nineveh Province’s Disputed Territories
A report by Human Rights Watch, 10 November 2009
ALSO
http://christiansofiraq.com
and
http://www.iraqichristianrelief.org/
and
Incipient Genocide
The Ethnic Cleansing of the Assyrians of Iraq.
Assyrian International News Agency, June 2007, revised July 2009.
70 Christian college students wounded in targeted terror attack
Christians are so endangered in Northern Iraq that Christian students must travel to university in convoys with Iraqi military escorts. On Sunday morning 2 May, two bombs ripped through a convoy of buses transporting Christian college students from the mainly Christian town of Hamdaniya, 40km east of Mosul in the Nineveh Plains region of Northern Iraq, to the University of Mosul. According to reports, once the first buses had passed through the Kokjali checkpoint (which is manned by U.S., Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers) a car bomb parked on the shoulder of the highway exploded in their path, followed moments later by a roadside bomb. A local shopkeeper was killed and more than 100 people, including some 70 of the targeted Christian college students, were wounded; 17 critically.
See:
Iraq: Christian students bombed
News24, 2 May 2010
Christians targeted in Mosul blasts
Aljazeera, 2 May 2010
Bombs Hit School Buses in North Iraq
By Sam Dagher, New York Times, 2 May 2010
Attack Highlights Unrelenting Plight of Iraq's Christians
By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor, Cybercast News Service (CNS), 3 May 2010
NEW: Pictures Show the Horror of the Mosul Bus Bombings of Assyrian Students
Assyrian International News Agency, 16 May 2010
Jamil Salahuddin Jamil (25), a geography major who was on the first bus, told reporters that one of his classmates lost her leg in the attack and two others were blinded. "We were going for our education and they presented us with bombs," he said. "I still do not know what they want from Christians."
Of course Jamil knows exactly what the Islamic militant fundamentalists want from Christians, he just can't bear to contemplate it, let alone verbalised it. For the Islamic terrorists, and the Muslim fundamentalists who support them, want Christians driven out of Iraq, and for those remaining to be 'utterly subdued' (Qur'an, Sura 9:29. Translation: Dawood).
On account of ignorance, many in West grossly underestimate just how hostile fundamentalist Islam is to Christianity. Consider the teachings of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shia cleric. He is revered in Iraq and touted in the West as a moderate. Yet he maintains that along with corpses, dogs, pigs, alcohol, urine, animal sweat, semen and blood, people who are "kafir" (unbelievers), i.e. Christians, Jews, Mandaeans, other non-Muslim including Sunnis, are "najis" (unclean). See Sistani on "Islamic laws" and "Najis things » Kafir".
According to Sistani, a kafir can become "pak" (clean) only by professing Islam. However, under the heading "Mutahhirat » Subjection Taba'iyat", he asserts that the child of a kafir, "becomes Pak by subjection" if he/she is captured by Muslims.
Sunni fundamentalists believe the same except that they regard Shi'ites, not Sunnis, as kafir and therefore najis. Sunnis and Shi'ites are mortal enemies and Iraq is a fault-line state between not only ethnic rivals Arabs, Kurds and Persians, but between sectarian rivals Sunnis and Shi'ites. See: RL Trend (Feb 2007) Shiite Ascendancy.
Multiple wars loom
When it erupts (and it eventually will), the battle for the Arab-Kurd fault-line provinces of Nineveh and oil-rich Kirkuk will engulf northern Iraq and draw in regional players. Once again, the Assyrian-Chaldean Christians, the region's indigenous/first peoples, will be collateral damage.
Meanwhile, the dark smoke of sectarianism is rising again out of the volcano that is Baghdad.
As Mustafa El-Labbad, director of the Cairo-based Al Sharq Centre for Regional and Strategic Studies, notes in Egypt's Al-Ahram, Iraqi politics is entirely sectarian. "Today, Iraq's political parties and personalities are not from the left, the right or the centre. Rather, they are above all Sunni or Shia. From here, one has to proceed to the regional dimension, which must also be regarded in sectarian terms. On one side, there is Iran, which backs the Iraqi Shia groups, and on the other there is Saudi Arabia, which champions the Sunni forces. Somewhere in between are Syria and Turkey."
The March 2010 elections, through which Iraqis voted for representatives to fill Iraq's 325-seat parliament, have yielded the following results:
- former Prime Minister Ayad Alawi's secular Al-Iraqiya -- 91 seats
- the Rule of Law list headed by PM Nouri al-Maliki (Shia) -- 89 seats
- the Iraqi National Alliance (n Iran-backed Shi'ite coalition) -- 70 seats
- the Kurdish Alliance -- 43 seats
- the Iraqi Consensus Forum (comprising Sunnis and religious minorities) -- 32 seats
The Iraqi National Alliance (INA) is a union of two parties with close ties to Iran: the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) led by Ammar al-Hakim, and the Al-Sadr Movement. While the Iraqi National Alliance is headed by al-Hakim, it is Muqtada al-Sadr who will be calling the shots. For of the 70 seats won by the Iraqi National Alliance, 40 were won by the Al-Sadr Movement.
The primary point of contention between al-Maliki and the Iraqi National Alliance -- the issue that had been the primary obstacle to an alliance -- had been the choice of Prime Minister. As Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reports: "The State of Law maintains that Nouri Al-Maliki is the only candidate for the position of prime minister. This view is not necessarily shared by Al-Hakim, whose party demands that the next prime minister be selected either by a vote of the members of the coalition to be formed or by consensus."
How this issue was resolved is not yet known.
Further to this, Al Jazeera reports: "While the resulting combination of 159 seats is just short of the required majority, the Kurdish Alliance of the autonomous Kurdish region's two long-dominant blocs holds 43 seats and has previously said it would join the new grouping if the two main blocs allied."
See:
Maliki allies with rival Shia party
Al Jazeera 5 May 2010
Iraq's Shiites unite to try to form new government
By Qassim Abdul-Zahra (AP) 5 May 2010
also: Alliance-Making Toward Forming a New Iraqi Government – A Commentary (MEMRI)
and Muqtada Al-Sadr – The Voice of Iraqi Nationalism By MEMRI Staff
Al Jazeera reports: "The Iraqiya list of ex-premier Iyad Allawi took the most seats in the election with 91 but looks set to be squeezed out. . .
"Dhafir al-Ani, head of Iraqi Future Gathering, one of al-Iraqiya bloc components told Al Jazeera: 'It is a blow to the will of the majority of Iraqi people, who voted for Iraqiya. [Note: 91 of 325 seats is not a majority.] The new Shia merge that is backed by Iran, would pull Iraq back to sectarianism.'
"Allawi had warned that an alliance of the two major Shia blocs that attempted to exclude his coalition from government could result in a return to violence in Iraq, which was torn by sectarian bloodshed that killed tens of thousands in 2006-07."
The Washington Post notes: "Such an alliance threatens to undermine U.S. interests in two ways. It could exacerbate a sense of marginalization among Sunnis, prompting them to once again resort to violence. And it could give anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's movement, the biggest vote-getter within the Iraqi National Alliance, a dominant role in the government."
As Al-Ahram similarly notes, "Sectarian bloodshed" would play right into the hands of Iran and the Iran-backed Shi'ite parties. "In asserting its power in Iraq, it is likely that Tehran applied the following kind of cause-and-effect reasoning: eliminating and marginalising the Sunnis would provoke them into committing acts of violence; this violence would cause the collapse of the political process; this in turn would exacerbate the Iraqi quagmire for the US and, consequently, US forces, heavily embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, would not be able to launch a military offensive against Iran. Logic of this sort, perhaps with some minor adjustments, has since proved an almost fool-proof formula in chalking up the many gains that Tehran has scored in Iraq."
See:
Seven fat years for Iran
Seven years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, everything points to the growing influence of Iran in Iraqi politics, writes Mustafa El-Labbad
Al-Ahram, 15 -21 April 2010, Issue No. 994
Enter Muqtada al-Sadr
According to Sami Moubayed, a Syrian political analyst writing for Asia Times Online, "Muqtada has been working hard for two years to transform the Mahdi Army into another Hezbollah, personally inspired by Hassan Nasrallah." This is, according to Moubayed, why Muqtada has been studying in the seminary in Qom, Iran. "He went back to the seminary, so he could elevate his academic credentials and rise from the rank of sayyed to that of an ayatollah (which enables him to issue fatwas) and grants him greater authority within the Shi'ite community at large. And that explains why, against all odds, he has insisted on refraining from any sectarian rhetoric, copying the Nasrallah model in Lebanon, who always speaks of Lebanon, not of Shi'ites.
"Muqtada also copied Hezbollah's massive charity network, monopolizing education, hospitals and fund-raising within the Shi'ite districts of Iraq to make sure that no family goes to bed hungry and all receive a monthly stipend from the Mahdi Army. Much like a modern Robin Hood, Muqtada is suiting himself to become spokesmen, defender and leader for the poor of Iraq.
"Now is the time to unveil the new Mahdi Army. It will look, sound and act like Hezbollah. No more street violence or sectarian tension triggered by the Sadrists. On the contrary, the Mahdi Army - this time with strong Iranian support - will replace the failed state of Maliki. It will extend an arm to the Sunnis and Kurds willing to work with it, making sure that no prime minister is brought to power, without full consent of Muqtada."
It is hard to see how the Saudis could tolerate a scenario that would essentially extend Iranian power right to the border of Saudi Arabia's oil-rich, Shi'ite-majority Eastern Province.
When ethnic and sectarian conflict resumes (as it eventually will) and Christians lose the state protection they are presently afforded, al Qaeda and affiliated jihadists will doubtless exploit the insecurity to advance the Islamist agenda and eliminate the Christian presence.
And Western Christians should not be tempted into thinking that such a horrific scenario could never eventuate. We must remember that Iraq's ancient Jewish community, which had roots dating back to the Babylonian captivity (587 BC) and had come to comprise the elite of Baghdad -- was eliminated through pogroms, killings and expulsion in the early 1950s. During that time, the newly-founded state of Israel rescued and then absorbed more 130,000 Iraqi Jews through Operation Ezra & Nehemiah. Now the indigenous Assyrian-Chaldean Christians are in the crosshairs, who will rescue them?
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Sudan's elections: already totally compromised.
From Sunday 11 through to Tuesday 13 April, the volitile, ethnic-religious fault-line state of Sudan will hold general elections as mandated by the January 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
For a brief background, see: Sudan on the Brink
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 050 | Wed 07 April 2010
The 11-13 April elections will not, however, herald the emergence of democracy. Rather, Sudan's already thoroughly compromised elections will merely demonstrate the regime's uncompromising determination and ability to maintain its grip on power and to continue its repressive Arab-Islamic domination of Sudan's vast and varied peoples. For instead of implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the ruling National Congress Party (NCP, formerly the National Islamic Front (NIF)) has spent the past five years frustrating and stalling the peace process -- including by means of destabilisation through conflict -- and corrupting the electoral process at every level.
CENSUS CORRUPTED
The preparatory census, taken over a mere two weeks in 2008, is totally compromised. While the census results have been widely rejected as fraudulent, the National Elections Commission (NEC), which is dominated by former NCP/NIF officials, not only accepted the results but used the rigged census results to calculate power-sharing: i.e. to draw up electoral districts, apportion seats in the national and state legislative assemblies, and organise voter registration. It will use the same rigged results to calculate wealth-sharing between the North and South.
Recommended reading:
Likewise, some three million Darfuris have also been disenfranchised due to displacement and insecurity, thus reducing their representation. In fact, in Darfur, whole parts of states -- specifically southern regions under rebel control -- have been left out of any constituency. For example, in its comprehensive report of 30 March 2010 entitled "Rigged Elections in Darfur and the Consequences of a Probable NCP Victory in Sudan" , International Crisis Group reports that: "The rebel-held Jebel Marra massif in Southern Darfur, with an estimated population of 1 million but only 35,000 according to the 2008 census, has no seats."
Despite the displacement, the population of Darfur has exploded with a reported 322 percent increase in nomadic Arabs! Investigators report that Darfuri towns ethnically cleansed by government-sponsored Arab janjaweed militias have been resettled with nomadic Arabs from neighbouring Chad and Niger and Mali who have been issued with Sudanese ID papers and registered to vote -- for the NCP.
Reeves stresses in his August 2009 report that it is "important that these results stand clearly revealed as fraudulent: otherwise the NIF/NCP will use these putatively 'national' elections to legitimize their continuing rule, and to de-legitimize both the SPLM and the Darfur rebels, as well as northern political opposition groups. . ." Reeves continues: ''it is hugely important that the NIF/NCP fraudulence be exposed because the rigging could result in the NIF/NCP gaining sufficient legislative power to re-write the CPA, or the terms of the SSDR."
Indeed, as noted by defense analyst Dr J. Peter Pham Ph.D., in a column entitled "Sudan's Elections and the Country's End Game" (6 April 2010) , the rigging of the census has already had a catastrophic impact. "As a result of this maneuver [rigging of the census], the ten states of South Sudan together have been allocated only one-fourth of the number of National Assembly seats awarded to the fifteen northern states. The shift is significant because South Sudan would no longer be able to block major legislation, much less changes to the country's constitution -- the former requires a two-thirds majority of parliament, while the latter three-quarters of the vote". (This is exactly what Reeves, in his June 2009 report, described as "a worst case scenario".)
See also: Elections, Making Sense of Sudan:
Sudan’s Census and the National Assembly Elections
posted by Marc Gustafson, 19 Dec 2009
BALLOTS
The International Crisis Group's comprehensive report comments on the recent discovery "that the NEC had diverted the tender for printing presidential ballots from a Slovenian printing house (for $800,000) to the government-controlled Sudanese Currency Printing Company (for $4 million). The NEC justified its decision to favour a Sudan-based firm on the fact that if a run-off vote is required there would only be 21 days to complete the printing and that the Sudanese Currency Printing House was accustomed to operating in secrecy, so the risk of fraud would be reduced."
Further to this, as Reuters reports, the ballots, which are already amongst the most complicated in the world, have been printed only in Arabic, when South Sudan is mostly English-speaking.
And as Pham notes, there can be no political legitimacy without electoral credibility.
NCP DIVIDES OPPOSITION (AGAIN). TOO EASY!
Several opposition parties had united in an SPLM-led coalition under the name, National Consensus (or the Juba Alliance), with the SPLM's candidate for the Presidential poll, Yasser Arman, viewed as the only serious contender to al-Bashir. Arman is a northern Arab Muslim, former Communist, and long-time supporter and high ranking member of the SPLM.
It now appears, however, that the NCP/NIF regime in Khartoum has struck a deal with the SPLM that will guarantee al-Bashir the Presidency in exchange for his guarantee that the referendum on Southern self determination will go ahead.
See: SPLM: Between the NCP and the National Consensus (30 March 2010)
For on Wednesday 31 March, Yasser Arman pulled out of the presidential race citing rigging, and insecurity in Darfur. Arman's pull out from the presidential race will almost certainly guarantee al-Bashir a first round win. Had Arman contested, he might have forced al-Bashir into a second round run-off, which al-Bashir might not have been able to win.
According to the Sudan Tribune (31 March) : "The Sudanese opposition reacted with anger and surprise after the ex-Southern rebel group decided to pull its presidential candidate leaving them feeling betrayed as speculations raged on a secret deal with the ruling party.
"'This is a betrayal by the SPLM of its agreement with the opposition forces,' said Kamal Omer from the opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP) to Reuters, adding the party would not be boycotting the polls.
"Sideeg Yousuf from the Communist Party said he was surprised by the unilateral announcement, which he called 'rushed'. 'The SPLM and all the political forces agreed that they would make their position in consensus at a meeting tomorrow [Thursday]," he told Reuters. But he added he hoped the parties would still all meet.
"Fouad Hikmat, from the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank, said the SPLM had struck a deal with the NCP to allow Bashir to win the presidency. 'The SPLM have decided to not [fully] boycott the elections because they don't want to jeopardize the referendum -- that is very important to them.'"
According to Reuters: "People in South Sudan said they were disappointed the SPLM would not field a contender against Bashir, but that the referendum was more important to them.
"'Perhaps it was a deal between the SPLM and the NCP to protect the referendum,' civil servant Manong Thot said in the southern capital, Juba.
"Doctor Victor Jal said it was the right move. 'This election is not going to be free and fair -- the NCP is going to rig it, everyone knows this,' he said. 'What is important for us is just the referendum.'"
It absolutely beggars belief that the SPLM would value the word of the NCP/NIF regime over the solidarity of its allies. Once again, the NCP/NIF regime has managed to divide its opposition.
Here are two excellent news clips from Al-Jazeera that cover most of the points raised above:
Meanwhile, optimists (particularly in the US administration) are still chattering away about progress in democracy and the need to prepare Sudan for a "soft landing" after the Southern self-determination referendum.
If there is a referendum (and remember, the NCP has rigged the elections specifically with the aim of controlling 75 percent of seats in the National Assembly so it can amend the constitution and re-write the terms of the CPA) then you can guarantee there will not be any "soft landing". Khartoum is never going to just let the oil-rich South secede.
In November 2009, Sudan expert Eric Reeves wrote a third report on the elections entitled (ominously) "Sudan: Election Crisis Reveals a Country Lurching Toward War." This too is recommended reading.
Reeves' introductory paragraph provides a summary of his thesis: "There is growing awareness that national elections scheduled for April 2010 will fail on many counts, with unpredictable consequences for the Khartoum regime's ambitions to retain its stranglehold on Sudanese national wealth and power. In turn, the prospect of an aborted or compromised Southern self-determination referendum (January 2011) looms ever closer, with the potential to trigger unfathomable destruction."
In my mind there is little doubt that Sudan is indeed "lurching towards war". I believe that this has been more or less the case ever since the untimely death of long-time SPLM leader Dr John Garan in the months after the signing of the CPA. As the South's most passionate advocate of the New Sudan vision (united, secular, democratic), Dr Garang was probably the only Southern leader capable of making that vision a reality. (For a more comprehensive report on this issue see my religious liberty news & analysis posting of 3 October 2007 entitled "Southern Sudan: On the path to war".)
For a brief background, see: Sudan on the Brink
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 050 | Wed 07 April 2010
The 11-13 April elections will not, however, herald the emergence of democracy. Rather, Sudan's already thoroughly compromised elections will merely demonstrate the regime's uncompromising determination and ability to maintain its grip on power and to continue its repressive Arab-Islamic domination of Sudan's vast and varied peoples. For instead of implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the ruling National Congress Party (NCP, formerly the National Islamic Front (NIF)) has spent the past five years frustrating and stalling the peace process -- including by means of destabilisation through conflict -- and corrupting the electoral process at every level.
CENSUS CORRUPTED
The preparatory census, taken over a mere two weeks in 2008, is totally compromised. While the census results have been widely rejected as fraudulent, the National Elections Commission (NEC), which is dominated by former NCP/NIF officials, not only accepted the results but used the rigged census results to calculate power-sharing: i.e. to draw up electoral districts, apportion seats in the national and state legislative assemblies, and organise voter registration. It will use the same rigged results to calculate wealth-sharing between the North and South.
Recommended reading:
- Against the Gathering Storm: Securing Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement
Chatham House Report by Edward Thomas, January 2009 - Sudan Elections and Southern Self-Determination: At Growing Risk.
By Eric Reeves, 28 June 2009 - Khartoum's strategic assault on Southern self-determination referendum.
By Eric Reeves, 26 August 2009
Likewise, some three million Darfuris have also been disenfranchised due to displacement and insecurity, thus reducing their representation. In fact, in Darfur, whole parts of states -- specifically southern regions under rebel control -- have been left out of any constituency. For example, in its comprehensive report of 30 March 2010 entitled "Rigged Elections in Darfur and the Consequences of a Probable NCP Victory in Sudan" , International Crisis Group reports that: "The rebel-held Jebel Marra massif in Southern Darfur, with an estimated population of 1 million but only 35,000 according to the 2008 census, has no seats."
Despite the displacement, the population of Darfur has exploded with a reported 322 percent increase in nomadic Arabs! Investigators report that Darfuri towns ethnically cleansed by government-sponsored Arab janjaweed militias have been resettled with nomadic Arabs from neighbouring Chad and Niger and Mali who have been issued with Sudanese ID papers and registered to vote -- for the NCP.
Reeves stresses in his August 2009 report that it is "important that these results stand clearly revealed as fraudulent: otherwise the NIF/NCP will use these putatively 'national' elections to legitimize their continuing rule, and to de-legitimize both the SPLM and the Darfur rebels, as well as northern political opposition groups. . ." Reeves continues: ''it is hugely important that the NIF/NCP fraudulence be exposed because the rigging could result in the NIF/NCP gaining sufficient legislative power to re-write the CPA, or the terms of the SSDR."
Indeed, as noted by defense analyst Dr J. Peter Pham Ph.D., in a column entitled "Sudan's Elections and the Country's End Game" (6 April 2010) , the rigging of the census has already had a catastrophic impact. "As a result of this maneuver [rigging of the census], the ten states of South Sudan together have been allocated only one-fourth of the number of National Assembly seats awarded to the fifteen northern states. The shift is significant because South Sudan would no longer be able to block major legislation, much less changes to the country's constitution -- the former requires a two-thirds majority of parliament, while the latter three-quarters of the vote". (This is exactly what Reeves, in his June 2009 report, described as "a worst case scenario".)
See also: Elections, Making Sense of Sudan:
Sudan’s Census and the National Assembly Elections
posted by Marc Gustafson, 19 Dec 2009
BALLOTS
The International Crisis Group's comprehensive report comments on the recent discovery "that the NEC had diverted the tender for printing presidential ballots from a Slovenian printing house (for $800,000) to the government-controlled Sudanese Currency Printing Company (for $4 million). The NEC justified its decision to favour a Sudan-based firm on the fact that if a run-off vote is required there would only be 21 days to complete the printing and that the Sudanese Currency Printing House was accustomed to operating in secrecy, so the risk of fraud would be reduced."
Further to this, as Reuters reports, the ballots, which are already amongst the most complicated in the world, have been printed only in Arabic, when South Sudan is mostly English-speaking.
And as Pham notes, there can be no political legitimacy without electoral credibility.
NCP DIVIDES OPPOSITION (AGAIN). TOO EASY!
Several opposition parties had united in an SPLM-led coalition under the name, National Consensus (or the Juba Alliance), with the SPLM's candidate for the Presidential poll, Yasser Arman, viewed as the only serious contender to al-Bashir. Arman is a northern Arab Muslim, former Communist, and long-time supporter and high ranking member of the SPLM.
It now appears, however, that the NCP/NIF regime in Khartoum has struck a deal with the SPLM that will guarantee al-Bashir the Presidency in exchange for his guarantee that the referendum on Southern self determination will go ahead.
See: SPLM: Between the NCP and the National Consensus (30 March 2010)
For on Wednesday 31 March, Yasser Arman pulled out of the presidential race citing rigging, and insecurity in Darfur. Arman's pull out from the presidential race will almost certainly guarantee al-Bashir a first round win. Had Arman contested, he might have forced al-Bashir into a second round run-off, which al-Bashir might not have been able to win.
According to the Sudan Tribune (31 March) : "The Sudanese opposition reacted with anger and surprise after the ex-Southern rebel group decided to pull its presidential candidate leaving them feeling betrayed as speculations raged on a secret deal with the ruling party.
"'This is a betrayal by the SPLM of its agreement with the opposition forces,' said Kamal Omer from the opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP) to Reuters, adding the party would not be boycotting the polls.
"Sideeg Yousuf from the Communist Party said he was surprised by the unilateral announcement, which he called 'rushed'. 'The SPLM and all the political forces agreed that they would make their position in consensus at a meeting tomorrow [Thursday]," he told Reuters. But he added he hoped the parties would still all meet.
"Fouad Hikmat, from the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank, said the SPLM had struck a deal with the NCP to allow Bashir to win the presidency. 'The SPLM have decided to not [fully] boycott the elections because they don't want to jeopardize the referendum -- that is very important to them.'"
According to Reuters: "People in South Sudan said they were disappointed the SPLM would not field a contender against Bashir, but that the referendum was more important to them.
"'Perhaps it was a deal between the SPLM and the NCP to protect the referendum,' civil servant Manong Thot said in the southern capital, Juba.
"Doctor Victor Jal said it was the right move. 'This election is not going to be free and fair -- the NCP is going to rig it, everyone knows this,' he said. 'What is important for us is just the referendum.'"
It absolutely beggars belief that the SPLM would value the word of the NCP/NIF regime over the solidarity of its allies. Once again, the NCP/NIF regime has managed to divide its opposition.
Here are two excellent news clips from Al-Jazeera that cover most of the points raised above:
- Boycott clouds Sudan election
From: AlJazeeraEnglish | 31 March 2010 - Sudan poll boycott threatens peace
From: AlJazeeraEnglish | 06 April 2010
Meanwhile, optimists (particularly in the US administration) are still chattering away about progress in democracy and the need to prepare Sudan for a "soft landing" after the Southern self-determination referendum.
If there is a referendum (and remember, the NCP has rigged the elections specifically with the aim of controlling 75 percent of seats in the National Assembly so it can amend the constitution and re-write the terms of the CPA) then you can guarantee there will not be any "soft landing". Khartoum is never going to just let the oil-rich South secede.
In November 2009, Sudan expert Eric Reeves wrote a third report on the elections entitled (ominously) "Sudan: Election Crisis Reveals a Country Lurching Toward War." This too is recommended reading.
Reeves' introductory paragraph provides a summary of his thesis: "There is growing awareness that national elections scheduled for April 2010 will fail on many counts, with unpredictable consequences for the Khartoum regime's ambitions to retain its stranglehold on Sudanese national wealth and power. In turn, the prospect of an aborted or compromised Southern self-determination referendum (January 2011) looms ever closer, with the potential to trigger unfathomable destruction."
In my mind there is little doubt that Sudan is indeed "lurching towards war". I believe that this has been more or less the case ever since the untimely death of long-time SPLM leader Dr John Garan in the months after the signing of the CPA. As the South's most passionate advocate of the New Sudan vision (united, secular, democratic), Dr Garang was probably the only Southern leader capable of making that vision a reality. (For a more comprehensive report on this issue see my religious liberty news & analysis posting of 3 October 2007 entitled "Southern Sudan: On the path to war".)
Thursday, March 18, 2010
JOS AGAIN!
Once again Christian residents of Jos South have been slaughtered in the night. At around 2 a.m. on Wednesday 17 March, Fulani Muslims armed mostly with knives and machetes crept into Biye and Batam villages under cover of darkness. In an attack that bears striking resemblance to the 7 March massacre centred on Dogon-Nahawa in which as many as 500 died, the Fulani torched homes, fired gunshots into the air, and then hacked the predominantly Christian ethnic Berom to death as they fled. This attack left 12 dead and many others critically wounded. Amongst the dead were a 90-year-old woman, several children, and a pregnant woman who was hacked to death and burned with a baby strapped to her back. Some of the victims were murdered in their beds. Some of the victims had their tongues cut out.
The press release from Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) includes two photos (to be credited to CSW).
To understand why this indigene vs settler / Muslim vs Christian / Fulani vs Berom violence is occurring in Jos, see my earlier post entitled: Why is Jos such a tinderbox?
This latest attack has two very disturbing elements:
1) Reports of attackers in Nigerian army fatigues;
2) Reports that some of the victims had their tongues cut out.
Military complicity?
There are many reasons to suspect that some of the military personnel posted to secure Jos South and enforce the curfew have actually been complicit in both the 7 March and 16 March massacres. However, the General Officer, Commanding 3 Armoured Division, Maj.-Gen. Sale Maina, disputes the claims of the villagers that soldiers were involved in the attacks.
We can only hope that he is right, because if the Nigerian army splits along partisan lines, then Nigeria will be in serious trouble indeed.
Mutilation of bodies.
Why would killers cut out and take the tongues of their victims? If they butchered their victims before killing them, then it was torture, torture for torture's sake, for the pleasure of the torturer, to satiate his hatred. Even if the tongues were cut out post-mortem (which is the most likely scenario), mutilation of the body still represents extreme hatred. The fact that the mouth was targeted indicates that it is the profession/speech/testimony of the victims that is most intensely despised.
Of course the removal and collection of victims' tongues can have one other purpose: that is, for use as juju -- occult charms. If this is the case then it indicates that some of the killers are practising both Islam and pre-Islamic African occultism. While syncretism of this sort is common in Africa, the mixing of ethnic-religious hatred and fierce competition + the Qur'anic/Islamic mandate to dominate + occultic power/influence can only herald more horror ahead for the Christians of Jos South.
Does this violence have a sponsor?
Jos Governor Jonah Jang has accused "Some key people in Nigeria" of being behind the violence. "Plateau State is under siege," he said. "The attacks on the Plateau are beyond misunderstanding within the ethnic groups in the state. Some key people in Nigeria are behind it.
"In fact, some international communities are involved. Some people are making money with human blood, when they attack us they would send them text messages that they need more money.
"Some billions of naira are coming into this country because of the crisis in Plateau State; but I see it as a battle against the nation and not Plateau."
Libya's President Muammar Gaddafi has suggested that Nigeria be partitioned between Muslims and Christians, supposedly to prevent more bloodshed (when in actual fact partition would lead to massive bloodshed). As Nigeria's oil lies in the south, Gaddafi is not recommending independence, merely separation with autonomy, with the oil wealth to be shared between north and south.
Gaddafi's proposition is being widely derided and Nigeria has recalled its ambassador to Libya in protest of the reckless statement. Regardless, many Muslims, local and foreign, will doubtless be greatly inspired by it.
The press release from Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) includes two photos (to be credited to CSW).
To understand why this indigene vs settler / Muslim vs Christian / Fulani vs Berom violence is occurring in Jos, see my earlier post entitled: Why is Jos such a tinderbox?
This latest attack has two very disturbing elements:
1) Reports of attackers in Nigerian army fatigues;
2) Reports that some of the victims had their tongues cut out.
Military complicity?
There are many reasons to suspect that some of the military personnel posted to secure Jos South and enforce the curfew have actually been complicit in both the 7 March and 16 March massacres. However, the General Officer, Commanding 3 Armoured Division, Maj.-Gen. Sale Maina, disputes the claims of the villagers that soldiers were involved in the attacks.
We can only hope that he is right, because if the Nigerian army splits along partisan lines, then Nigeria will be in serious trouble indeed.
Mutilation of bodies.
Why would killers cut out and take the tongues of their victims? If they butchered their victims before killing them, then it was torture, torture for torture's sake, for the pleasure of the torturer, to satiate his hatred. Even if the tongues were cut out post-mortem (which is the most likely scenario), mutilation of the body still represents extreme hatred. The fact that the mouth was targeted indicates that it is the profession/speech/testimony of the victims that is most intensely despised.
Of course the removal and collection of victims' tongues can have one other purpose: that is, for use as juju -- occult charms. If this is the case then it indicates that some of the killers are practising both Islam and pre-Islamic African occultism. While syncretism of this sort is common in Africa, the mixing of ethnic-religious hatred and fierce competition + the Qur'anic/Islamic mandate to dominate + occultic power/influence can only herald more horror ahead for the Christians of Jos South.
Does this violence have a sponsor?
Jos Governor Jonah Jang has accused "Some key people in Nigeria" of being behind the violence. "Plateau State is under siege," he said. "The attacks on the Plateau are beyond misunderstanding within the ethnic groups in the state. Some key people in Nigeria are behind it.
"In fact, some international communities are involved. Some people are making money with human blood, when they attack us they would send them text messages that they need more money.
"Some billions of naira are coming into this country because of the crisis in Plateau State; but I see it as a battle against the nation and not Plateau."
Libya's President Muammar Gaddafi has suggested that Nigeria be partitioned between Muslims and Christians, supposedly to prevent more bloodshed (when in actual fact partition would lead to massive bloodshed). As Nigeria's oil lies in the south, Gaddafi is not recommending independence, merely separation with autonomy, with the oil wealth to be shared between north and south.
Gaddafi's proposition is being widely derided and Nigeria has recalled its ambassador to Libya in protest of the reckless statement. Regardless, many Muslims, local and foreign, will doubtless be greatly inspired by it.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
NIGERIA: Why is Jos such a tinderbox?
This headline from The Times says it all:
500 butchered in Nigeria killing fields
8 March 2010
By Jonathan Clayton, Africa Correspondent and Ruth Gledhill
The blood-curdling massacre of possibly 500 predominantly Christian ethnic Berom in Jos South in the early hours of Sunday 7 March has been widely reported.
Plateau State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Gregory Yenlong, described the attack on the Berom villages as ethnic cleansing.
So why is Jos such a tinderbox?
TRENDS
With foresight and good governance, individual trends can be managed. Multiple trends can also be managed, although that is obviously more difficult. The real trouble occurs when trends collide like two chemicals to cause an explosion, or merge like two rivers to cause a flood. Jos is a perfect example of the chaos that erupts upon a confluence of trends.
Consider these trends:
(1) Nigeria has a massive rate of population growth (double the world average).
(2) Nigeria has a rapid rate of urbanisation.
(3) Nigeria's southward migration of Hausa and Fulani Muslim pastoralists is putting great pressure on Nigerian's ethnic-religious fault-line. Pushed out of the Sahel by drought, the Muslim immigrants are drawn to the arable lands and industrial towns of sub-Saharan Africa which are populated by settled, mostly Christian African tribes.
(4) Nigeria has not been immune to the global revival of fundamentalist Islam. (Note: Islam is essentially a political construct with a religious element -- not the other way around.)
The first two trends portend (especially in third-world or developing state) increased competition for jobs, land and resources, as well as escalating crime and violence.
Add in the third trend -- immigration -- and much of this competition takes on "settler" vs "indigene", as well as ethnic (i.e. Fulani vs Berom) and religious (Muslim vs Christian) dimensions.
Add in the fourth trend -- the revival of fundamentalist Islam -- and we get, in the already volatile mix, increased polarisation of peoples; increased Muslim intolerance towards Christians; Muslim demands for Sharia law; and Muslim striving for dominance (political and social).
So while most commentators are saying that the Jos crisis is not religious, I would say that the revival of fundamentalist Islam is an integral element in the mix -- akin to fuel on fire.
Given an inch. . .
In 1991, President (General) Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) (a military dictator) introduced reforms to make local governments more autonomous and democratic. At the same time, as the the daily Sun news reports, "Military President, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida created Jos North Local Government to respond to the 'need' of the settlers [Hausa and Fulani Muslims] to feel a sense of belonging". ( Undercurrents of the Jos mayhem, By Chinelo Agina. The Sun (Nigeria) 17 Feb 2010)
The Sun News continues: "For many years, the Beroms and the Anaragutas, the original owners of the local government, co-existed side by side with the Yorubas, the Hausas and the Fulanis who had come there to settle, but after a while, the Hausas and Fulanis, who had increased in population started agitating for an Emir (a King), an Hausa who will represent them and protect their interests at the state and national levels.
According to the Sun, they were also demanding that the Local Government Chairman of Jos North be a Hausa or a Fulani. Of course the Beroms vehemently objected to this, fearing that if such discrimination were permitted, then Muslim tribes would dominate and Christians would lose their rights.
Dr Aliyu U. Tilde comments that the creation of Jos North Local Government gave the Hausa and Fulani Muslims "a sort of majority assurance", whereby they could "use their number in a democracy to mitigate [their] vulnerability. That is why some natives see the creation of Jos North as a deliberate attempt by Babangida to protect [or advance] the Hausa/Fulani.
"The Hausa, however, became dominant in the heart of Jos City, the old Jos, where their parents and grandparents were among the first to settle. That area formed Jos North Local Government where all commercial and government activities take place. This raised a unique situation where the non-natives are the dominant ethnic group of the capital city."
(See also: Jos crisis: When a mining city becomes an eternal killing field
By Charles Kumolu. 8 March 2010)
In November 2008, a Berom Christian from Jos South was named the winner of the Jos North local government chairman elections. While this was widely cited as the cause of the November 2008 Muslim rioting left at least 300 dead, around 10,000 displaced, and "settler" vs "indigene" ethnic-religious tensions higher than ever, the rioting actually started before the result was known. Furthermore, as Christian Solidarity pointed out, the Muslim rioters did not target political institutions. Rather, "rioters armed with guns, spears, machetes and other weapons immediately attacked Christian businesses, churches and the homes of clergymen". A local source informed Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW): "As usual they took Jos by surprise, and are now hiding behind election results to launch and excuse their mayhem." Sixteen churches were razed in that riot, and four Christian pastors were killed. (See: CSW press release Jos, Nigeria – ‘Inaccurate reporting’ causes resentment among Christian community. 1 Dec 2008)
Many in the Christian community believe that the "settlers" / Hausa and Fulani / Muslims are intent on driving the "indigenes" / Berom / Christians out of Jos -- or at least forcing their surrender.
Comments from the Anglican Archbishop of Jos, Ben Kwashi:
Violence Is Not Religiously Motivated, Nigerian Archbishop Says
By ROBERT MACKEY, 8 March 2010
This insightful article includes three film clips, one of which (the last one) gives an excellent overview of the crisis.
While the headline says the "violence is not religiously motivated", what Archbishop Kwashi is saying is that the tribes are not fighting over alleged blasphemies or apostasies; the nature of Jesus or the preaching of the gospel.
However, as I noted earlier, Muslim supremacy and Muslim domination are integral to Islam which merely uses its religion as a means to advance its political agenda. As such, I would maintain that the violence is motivated and fuelled by Islam -- both the Muslim's striving for domination, and the Christian's legitimate fear of dhimmitude (the highly vulnerable, second-class status of Jews and Christians subjugated under Islam).
FINALLY
For suggestions regarding prayer see:
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 046
Nigeria: explosive situation needs defusing.
By Elizabeth Kendal. 10 March 2010
500 butchered in Nigeria killing fields
8 March 2010
By Jonathan Clayton, Africa Correspondent and Ruth Gledhill
The blood-curdling massacre of possibly 500 predominantly Christian ethnic Berom in Jos South in the early hours of Sunday 7 March has been widely reported.
Plateau State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Gregory Yenlong, described the attack on the Berom villages as ethnic cleansing.
So why is Jos such a tinderbox?
TRENDS
With foresight and good governance, individual trends can be managed. Multiple trends can also be managed, although that is obviously more difficult. The real trouble occurs when trends collide like two chemicals to cause an explosion, or merge like two rivers to cause a flood. Jos is a perfect example of the chaos that erupts upon a confluence of trends.
Consider these trends:
(1) Nigeria has a massive rate of population growth (double the world average).
(2) Nigeria has a rapid rate of urbanisation.
(3) Nigeria's southward migration of Hausa and Fulani Muslim pastoralists is putting great pressure on Nigerian's ethnic-religious fault-line. Pushed out of the Sahel by drought, the Muslim immigrants are drawn to the arable lands and industrial towns of sub-Saharan Africa which are populated by settled, mostly Christian African tribes.
(4) Nigeria has not been immune to the global revival of fundamentalist Islam. (Note: Islam is essentially a political construct with a religious element -- not the other way around.)
The first two trends portend (especially in third-world or developing state) increased competition for jobs, land and resources, as well as escalating crime and violence.
Add in the third trend -- immigration -- and much of this competition takes on "settler" vs "indigene", as well as ethnic (i.e. Fulani vs Berom) and religious (Muslim vs Christian) dimensions.
Add in the fourth trend -- the revival of fundamentalist Islam -- and we get, in the already volatile mix, increased polarisation of peoples; increased Muslim intolerance towards Christians; Muslim demands for Sharia law; and Muslim striving for dominance (political and social).
So while most commentators are saying that the Jos crisis is not religious, I would say that the revival of fundamentalist Islam is an integral element in the mix -- akin to fuel on fire.
Given an inch. . .
In 1991, President (General) Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) (a military dictator) introduced reforms to make local governments more autonomous and democratic. At the same time, as the the daily Sun news reports, "Military President, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida created Jos North Local Government to respond to the 'need' of the settlers [Hausa and Fulani Muslims] to feel a sense of belonging". ( Undercurrents of the Jos mayhem, By Chinelo Agina. The Sun (Nigeria) 17 Feb 2010)
The Sun News continues: "For many years, the Beroms and the Anaragutas, the original owners of the local government, co-existed side by side with the Yorubas, the Hausas and the Fulanis who had come there to settle, but after a while, the Hausas and Fulanis, who had increased in population started agitating for an Emir (a King), an Hausa who will represent them and protect their interests at the state and national levels.
According to the Sun, they were also demanding that the Local Government Chairman of Jos North be a Hausa or a Fulani. Of course the Beroms vehemently objected to this, fearing that if such discrimination were permitted, then Muslim tribes would dominate and Christians would lose their rights.
Dr Aliyu U. Tilde comments that the creation of Jos North Local Government gave the Hausa and Fulani Muslims "a sort of majority assurance", whereby they could "use their number in a democracy to mitigate [their] vulnerability. That is why some natives see the creation of Jos North as a deliberate attempt by Babangida to protect [or advance] the Hausa/Fulani.
"The Hausa, however, became dominant in the heart of Jos City, the old Jos, where their parents and grandparents were among the first to settle. That area formed Jos North Local Government where all commercial and government activities take place. This raised a unique situation where the non-natives are the dominant ethnic group of the capital city."
(See also: Jos crisis: When a mining city becomes an eternal killing field
By Charles Kumolu. 8 March 2010)
In November 2008, a Berom Christian from Jos South was named the winner of the Jos North local government chairman elections. While this was widely cited as the cause of the November 2008 Muslim rioting left at least 300 dead, around 10,000 displaced, and "settler" vs "indigene" ethnic-religious tensions higher than ever, the rioting actually started before the result was known. Furthermore, as Christian Solidarity pointed out, the Muslim rioters did not target political institutions. Rather, "rioters armed with guns, spears, machetes and other weapons immediately attacked Christian businesses, churches and the homes of clergymen". A local source informed Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW): "As usual they took Jos by surprise, and are now hiding behind election results to launch and excuse their mayhem." Sixteen churches were razed in that riot, and four Christian pastors were killed. (See: CSW press release Jos, Nigeria – ‘Inaccurate reporting’ causes resentment among Christian community. 1 Dec 2008)
Many in the Christian community believe that the "settlers" / Hausa and Fulani / Muslims are intent on driving the "indigenes" / Berom / Christians out of Jos -- or at least forcing their surrender.
Comments from the Anglican Archbishop of Jos, Ben Kwashi:
Violence Is Not Religiously Motivated, Nigerian Archbishop Says
By ROBERT MACKEY, 8 March 2010
This insightful article includes three film clips, one of which (the last one) gives an excellent overview of the crisis.
While the headline says the "violence is not religiously motivated", what Archbishop Kwashi is saying is that the tribes are not fighting over alleged blasphemies or apostasies; the nature of Jesus or the preaching of the gospel.
However, as I noted earlier, Muslim supremacy and Muslim domination are integral to Islam which merely uses its religion as a means to advance its political agenda. As such, I would maintain that the violence is motivated and fuelled by Islam -- both the Muslim's striving for domination, and the Christian's legitimate fear of dhimmitude (the highly vulnerable, second-class status of Jews and Christians subjugated under Islam).
FINALLY
For suggestions regarding prayer see:
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 046
Nigeria: explosive situation needs defusing.
By Elizabeth Kendal. 10 March 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Ethnic-religious tensions simmer in Liberia's northern Lofa County. 1 March 2010
On Friday 26 February, a violent clash errupted between Muslims and Christians in Voinjama, the capital of Lofa country in northern Liberia, that left four dead (3 Christians) and 18 wounded, 3 critically. Calm has been restored and investigations are underway, but tensions and fears remain.
On 23 Feb. 14-yr-old Korpo Kamara, a student at the local Luthern school, went missing in Konia town, some 55 miles south-east of Voinjama. On 24 Feb. police dispatched from Voinjama found her body near a Konia mosque. When local Christians (ethnic Lormas) arrived at the mosque and began asking the local Muslims (ethnic Mandingos) what had happened, the Muslims denied having any knowledge of the incident. Some ethnic Lormas reportedly blamed the Muslims, saying that Muslims have been known to kill for ritual sacrifice (see The Inquirer). Now this might be true, or it might not. It could possibly be a case of blame shifting as ritual sacrifice is widespread in Liberia. Hopefully the investigation will uncover the truth.
According to Liberia's Daily Observer, during the confrontation at the Konia town mosque, a Muslim made a telephone call to the Muslim community in Voinjama, the county capital, delivering the false rumor that Christians had torched the Konia mosque.
The Muslim community in Voinjama responded to this false report by mobilising against Voinjama's Christian community. The Catholic Church on the Macenta Road was torched and the Voinjama Free Pentecostal CHurch was "massively looted". Private homes and vehicles belonging to Christians were also burned.
Eyewitnesses told the Daily Observer that automatic weapons-fire was heard coming from the Mandingo quarter, and that during the confrontation, Pakistani peacekeepers deployed tanks around the Konia's two mosques and protected them from looters, but left the churches and other Christian-owned establishments to be vandalized.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has expressed her grave concern over the development, and promised that a full investigation will be undertaken and that the perpitrators will be prosecuted in keeping with the law. In the meantime, the Council of Churches and the National Muslim Council will initiate mediation.
Violence Erupts in Lofa
27 Feb 2010
http://www.liberianobserver.com/node/4844
Four Killed In Voinjama Violence
1 March 2010
http://liberianobserver.com/print/4880
Four dead in religious clashes in Liberia: official
AFP 1 March 2010
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jwcBPvPiQdkWURQ3VJqaZohaGmrg
Calm Returns To Voinjama…4 Killed, 18 Wounded
By Patrick K. Wrokpoh
http://theinquirer.com.lr/story.php?record_id=2398&sub=14
On 23 Feb. 14-yr-old Korpo Kamara, a student at the local Luthern school, went missing in Konia town, some 55 miles south-east of Voinjama. On 24 Feb. police dispatched from Voinjama found her body near a Konia mosque. When local Christians (ethnic Lormas) arrived at the mosque and began asking the local Muslims (ethnic Mandingos) what had happened, the Muslims denied having any knowledge of the incident. Some ethnic Lormas reportedly blamed the Muslims, saying that Muslims have been known to kill for ritual sacrifice (see The Inquirer). Now this might be true, or it might not. It could possibly be a case of blame shifting as ritual sacrifice is widespread in Liberia. Hopefully the investigation will uncover the truth.
According to Liberia's Daily Observer, during the confrontation at the Konia town mosque, a Muslim made a telephone call to the Muslim community in Voinjama, the county capital, delivering the false rumor that Christians had torched the Konia mosque.
The Muslim community in Voinjama responded to this false report by mobilising against Voinjama's Christian community. The Catholic Church on the Macenta Road was torched and the Voinjama Free Pentecostal CHurch was "massively looted". Private homes and vehicles belonging to Christians were also burned.
Eyewitnesses told the Daily Observer that automatic weapons-fire was heard coming from the Mandingo quarter, and that during the confrontation, Pakistani peacekeepers deployed tanks around the Konia's two mosques and protected them from looters, but left the churches and other Christian-owned establishments to be vandalized.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has expressed her grave concern over the development, and promised that a full investigation will be undertaken and that the perpitrators will be prosecuted in keeping with the law. In the meantime, the Council of Churches and the National Muslim Council will initiate mediation.
Violence Erupts in Lofa
27 Feb 2010
http://www.liberianobserver.com/node/4844
Four Killed In Voinjama Violence
1 March 2010
http://liberianobserver.com/print/4880
Four dead in religious clashes in Liberia: official
AFP 1 March 2010
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jwcBPvPiQdkWURQ3VJqaZohaGmrg
Calm Returns To Voinjama…4 Killed, 18 Wounded
By Patrick K. Wrokpoh
http://theinquirer.com.lr/story.php?record_id=2398&sub=14
Thursday, February 2, 2006
NIGERIA: The central government fiddles while the north burns.
Date: Thursday 2 February 2006
Subj: Nigeria: The central government fiddles while the north burns.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.
For decades after independence Nigeria was ruled by a succession of military dictators who were predominantly northern Muslims. In 1998 the death of dictator General Sani Abacha paved the way for democracy to be restored, and in February 1999 Olusegun Obasanjo was democratically elected President of Nigeria after winning 63 percent of the vote.
However, the election of the southern Christian inflamed many northern Muslim elites and former power-brokers. To regain their status, power and influence, northern governors exploited the poverty, hardship and ignorance of their constituents and re-invented themselves as religious reformers raising Islam and Sharia (Islamic Law) as banners of hope. (Note: these same "religious reformers" had not been concerned about Islam or Sharia while Nigeria was ruled by northern Muslims.) All across predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria, the flames of Islamic zeal were fanned. In the northern states of Kano and Kwara, moves were made to relocate and raze churches, while Zamfara, led by governor Alhaji Ahmad Sani, declared itself to be an Islamic state. In January 2000, Zamfara became the first Nigerian state to officially implement Sharia Law.
President Obasanjo and Nigeria's attorney general declared the implementation of Sharia Law "unconstitutional and illegal". But that did not prevent other norther states following in Zamfara's footsteps. The central (religious fault-line) belt of Nigeria tore apart as riots and conflicts erupted over Sharia and claimed thousands of lives. By August 2000, eight northern states had defied Nigeria's secular Constitution and implemented Sharia Law.
Today, in what is essentially a defiant act of secession, Nigeria's 12 northern states are all under Sharia. What's worse, the Sharia states are able to exploit and abuse their citizens and deny them their constitutional rights, without consequence, as the central government timidly acquiesces, surrendering religious liberty and Christian security in exchange for peace with northern Muslim elites.
Nigeria's central government needs to move decisively to protect the lives and restore the constitutional rights of Christians in the north, and bring the northern Muslim masses on side so that justice, equity and national unity can be restored with minimal bloodshed.
The following posting is a Compass Direct Flash News written by Obed Minchakpu in Nigeria. It is an excellent article and I am forwarding it in full. Minchakpu details some of the severe persecution faced by Christians in the northern state of Zamfara, including the systematic discrimination against them, the systematic demolition of their churches, and the suffering they caused by the imposition of Sharia Law which is enforced by the state's Hisbah Commission. This includes a moving testimony from one Christian convert from Islam.
Elizabeth Kendal
rl-research@crossnet.org.au
------------------------------------------------------
FLASH NEWS from COMPASS DIRECT
Global News from the Frontlines
Summary:
GUSAU, Nigeria, January 31 (Compass) – On October 10, 2003, the local Bakura town government gave notice to the pastor of St. Peter's Anglican Church in Zamfara state that his church would be demolished the following day. That marked the beginning of an assault by Islamic fundamentalists in Zamfara under the leadership of Gov. Alhaji Ahmed Sani through imposition of sharia (Islamic law). At present 14 churches have been marked for demolition in Gusau town alone. "We have been served with demolition notices and even then, there have been announcements over the radio and television on the churches to be demolished," said Rev. James Obi, secretary of the Zamfara chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria. "It is just a matter of time, and these churches will be no more."
**********
Nigerian Churches Marked for Demolition in Zamfara State
Draconian decrees – including killing "infidels" – come with sharia.
by Obed Minchakpu
GUSAU, Nigeria, January 31 (Compass) – "For your information, the state Governor, Alhaji Ahmed Sani, has ordered that your church should be demolished before his arrival in this town tomorrow. So, we shall carry out this directive tomorrow morning."
On October 10, 2003, the Rev. Seth Saleh, then pastor of St. Peter's Anglican Church in Bakura town in Zamfara state, received a Bakura town councilor as an unexpected guest in his house with the above message. The following day, the local government demolished St. Peter's Anglican Church.
The demolition of that church in Bakura marked the beginning of an assault by Islamic fundamentalists in Zamfara under the leadership of Gov. Sani through imposition of sharia (Islamic law). In Gusau town alone, 14 churches have been marked out for demolition.
Those 14 churches have already received demolition notices, according to Rev. James Obi, pastor of Channel of Blessings Church and secretary of the Zamfara state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria. They include Eternal Life Bible Church, Christian Faith Bible Church, Chapel of Grace, Christian Evangelical Fellowship of Nigeria, National Evangelical Mission, Assemblies of God Church, Channel of Blessings and Living Faith Church.
Other Zamfara state churches earmarked for demolition are the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Christ Embassy, Church of Christ in Nigeria, Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church, Colgate Church and Deeper Life Bible Church.
The government demolished Rev. Obi's Channel of Blessings church in 1997, and it has marked his rebuilt church for destruction as well.
"We have been served with demolition notices and even then, there have been announcements over the radio and television on the churches to be demolished," Rev. Obi lamented. "It is just a matter of time, and these churches will be no more."
Champion of Jihad
John Garba Danbinta, Anglican bishop of Gusau, said the demolition of St. Peter's Anglican Church in Bakura came on Gov. Sani's orders.
"The governor is from Bakura, and because he is the champion of Islamic jihad in Nigeria, he felt it will be unwise for a church to be seen in his hometown," Bishop Dabinta said.
The bishop pointed out these arbitrary demolitions to refute those in Nigeria who declare Christians face no opposition from the state.
"The news outside Zamfara state is that everything is okay with Christians here," he said. "Some claim that the governor is good and treating Christians well, that Christians do not have problems – but this is false. The problem of persecution of Christians here is a reality. It is a major problem facing us today in Zamfara state."
St. Peter's Rev. Saleh, now pastor at St. John's Anglican Church in Kaura Namoda, recalled how officials often had promised that sharia would only be applied to Muslims. Sharia had long been in effect in civil matters, as in all of Nigeria, but its imposition in criminal matters in 12 northern states has thrown the country into a constitutional crisis.
"When sharia was introduced by the government of Zamfara state, we were told that it is meant to guide Muslims in their faith and that it has nothing to do with us Christians," Rev. Saleh said. "Surprisingly, sharia is now a weapon being used against the church in Zamfara state."
Killing Infidels
Sharia as a weapon has been particularly sharp on Kabiru Lawal, a former Muslim who four months ago received Christ. The Hisbah Commission, Zamfara state's agency for the enforcement of the sharia, is gunning for his life.
In late December and early January, agents of Hisbah invaded the Lawal family's house three times looking for the 29-year-old man. Agents told family members that whenever Lawal is found, he should be prepared to pay the supreme price of abandoning Islam – death.
Each time the Hisbah arrived, Lawal was at the Federal Medical Centre in Gusau town due to illness.
He is now in hiding, no longer free to walk the streets of Gusau. His father, Mallam Lawal, comes from a family of Islamic clerics.
In 2002, Lawal read in the Quran about the second coming of Jesus into the world. Lawal, who holds a diploma in business administration from Kaduna Polytechnic in northern Nigeria, said his decision to investigate the life of Christ was informed by his desire to know whether "Jesus was coming as a Muslim or a Christian."
Tunde Adebayo, a relative, gave Lawal a pocket size New Testament in 2003, which he hungrily read.
Lawal said the Holy Spirit revealed to him that Jesus is coming back not as a Muslim, as Muslims believe, but to take those Christians who believe in Him. He began to attend church services. Last September 3, he went to the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) church in Gusau town and asked to receive Christ into his life.
"The Bible clearly presented who Jesus Christ is and provided answers as to why he will be coming back into the world," Lawal said. "The Spirit told me that unless I receive Christ into my heart, I will perish with other Muslims because they do not know the true God."
His family stiffly opposes his conversion, but Lawal said there is no returning to Islam.
"Nothing on earth will make me turn away from Christ," he said, "not even if I will be slaughtered like a ram."
Draconian Decrees
Since the introduction of the sharia in January 2000, Zamfara authorities have banned Christians from sharing their faith or building churches, said Anglican Bishop Danbinta.
Officials are keeping Christians from building churches, he said, by making it impossible for them to acquire land. "We cannot get land, because there is a deliberate government policy to deny Christians land to build churches," Bishop Danbinta said.
There are about 4,000 Anglicans in Zamfara, yet Bishop Danbinta said that in almost all parts of the state the government has refused to allow the church land to build places of worship.
"Sharia, it would seem, is being implemented to curtail Christianity, since it is only targeted at Christians," he said.
70 Mosques, 0 Churches
The Rev. Barnabas Sabo, pastor of the ECWA church in Gusau town, concurred that local governments are using sharia to deny churches land.
Towns denied lands for building churches include Mada, from which Rev. Sabo's church members have to trek more than 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) to Talata Mafara to attend worship services.
Other towns and villages where the ECWA church has been denied land are Kasuwa Daji, Dansadau, Tsibiri in Talata Mafara, and in the Bakura area.
"Gov. Sani, in six years of introducing sharia in the state, has used public funds to build well over 70 mosques," Rev. Sabo said. "Yet no single church has been built by this same government. How fair is this?"
Apart from denial of lands to churches in Zamfara state, Christians have encountered difficulties in other sectors, such as education, where discriminatory school fees have been forced on Christian students and pupils, and there is no teaching of what is known in Nigerian schools as Christian Religious Knowledge.
There is no employment for Christians in the public service, and a ban has been placed on Christian radio and television programs.
The imposition of sharia in criminal matters in 12 northern states has resulted in numerous conflicts bringing death to thousands of persons, most of them Christians.
"If there is anything anybody can do to hurt me, it is for such a person to stop me from serving God the way I want and to stop me from sharing my faith," Bishop Danbinta said. "This is precisely what we as Christians are experiencing in Zamfara state."
END
**********
Copyright 2006 Compass Direct
Compass Direct Flash News is distributed as available to raise awareness of Christians worldwide who are persecuted for their faith. Articles may be reprinted by active subscribers only.
For subscription information, contact:
Compass Direct
P.O. Box 27250
Santa Ana CA 92799-7250
USA
TEL: 949-862-0304
E-mail: info@compassdirect.org
www.compassdirect.org
Subj: Nigeria: The central government fiddles while the north burns.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.
For decades after independence Nigeria was ruled by a succession of military dictators who were predominantly northern Muslims. In 1998 the death of dictator General Sani Abacha paved the way for democracy to be restored, and in February 1999 Olusegun Obasanjo was democratically elected President of Nigeria after winning 63 percent of the vote.
However, the election of the southern Christian inflamed many northern Muslim elites and former power-brokers. To regain their status, power and influence, northern governors exploited the poverty, hardship and ignorance of their constituents and re-invented themselves as religious reformers raising Islam and Sharia (Islamic Law) as banners of hope. (Note: these same "religious reformers" had not been concerned about Islam or Sharia while Nigeria was ruled by northern Muslims.) All across predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria, the flames of Islamic zeal were fanned. In the northern states of Kano and Kwara, moves were made to relocate and raze churches, while Zamfara, led by governor Alhaji Ahmad Sani, declared itself to be an Islamic state. In January 2000, Zamfara became the first Nigerian state to officially implement Sharia Law.
President Obasanjo and Nigeria's attorney general declared the implementation of Sharia Law "unconstitutional and illegal". But that did not prevent other norther states following in Zamfara's footsteps. The central (religious fault-line) belt of Nigeria tore apart as riots and conflicts erupted over Sharia and claimed thousands of lives. By August 2000, eight northern states had defied Nigeria's secular Constitution and implemented Sharia Law.
Today, in what is essentially a defiant act of secession, Nigeria's 12 northern states are all under Sharia. What's worse, the Sharia states are able to exploit and abuse their citizens and deny them their constitutional rights, without consequence, as the central government timidly acquiesces, surrendering religious liberty and Christian security in exchange for peace with northern Muslim elites.
Nigeria's central government needs to move decisively to protect the lives and restore the constitutional rights of Christians in the north, and bring the northern Muslim masses on side so that justice, equity and national unity can be restored with minimal bloodshed.
The following posting is a Compass Direct Flash News written by Obed Minchakpu in Nigeria. It is an excellent article and I am forwarding it in full. Minchakpu details some of the severe persecution faced by Christians in the northern state of Zamfara, including the systematic discrimination against them, the systematic demolition of their churches, and the suffering they caused by the imposition of Sharia Law which is enforced by the state's Hisbah Commission. This includes a moving testimony from one Christian convert from Islam.
Elizabeth Kendal
rl-research@crossnet.org.au
------------------------------------------------------
FLASH NEWS from COMPASS DIRECT
Global News from the Frontlines
Summary:
GUSAU, Nigeria, January 31 (Compass) – On October 10, 2003, the local Bakura town government gave notice to the pastor of St. Peter's Anglican Church in Zamfara state that his church would be demolished the following day. That marked the beginning of an assault by Islamic fundamentalists in Zamfara under the leadership of Gov. Alhaji Ahmed Sani through imposition of sharia (Islamic law). At present 14 churches have been marked for demolition in Gusau town alone. "We have been served with demolition notices and even then, there have been announcements over the radio and television on the churches to be demolished," said Rev. James Obi, secretary of the Zamfara chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria. "It is just a matter of time, and these churches will be no more."
**********
Nigerian Churches Marked for Demolition in Zamfara State
Draconian decrees – including killing "infidels" – come with sharia.
by Obed Minchakpu
GUSAU, Nigeria, January 31 (Compass) – "For your information, the state Governor, Alhaji Ahmed Sani, has ordered that your church should be demolished before his arrival in this town tomorrow. So, we shall carry out this directive tomorrow morning."
On October 10, 2003, the Rev. Seth Saleh, then pastor of St. Peter's Anglican Church in Bakura town in Zamfara state, received a Bakura town councilor as an unexpected guest in his house with the above message. The following day, the local government demolished St. Peter's Anglican Church.
The demolition of that church in Bakura marked the beginning of an assault by Islamic fundamentalists in Zamfara under the leadership of Gov. Sani through imposition of sharia (Islamic law). In Gusau town alone, 14 churches have been marked out for demolition.
Those 14 churches have already received demolition notices, according to Rev. James Obi, pastor of Channel of Blessings Church and secretary of the Zamfara state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria. They include Eternal Life Bible Church, Christian Faith Bible Church, Chapel of Grace, Christian Evangelical Fellowship of Nigeria, National Evangelical Mission, Assemblies of God Church, Channel of Blessings and Living Faith Church.
Other Zamfara state churches earmarked for demolition are the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Christ Embassy, Church of Christ in Nigeria, Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church, Colgate Church and Deeper Life Bible Church.
The government demolished Rev. Obi's Channel of Blessings church in 1997, and it has marked his rebuilt church for destruction as well.
"We have been served with demolition notices and even then, there have been announcements over the radio and television on the churches to be demolished," Rev. Obi lamented. "It is just a matter of time, and these churches will be no more."
Champion of Jihad
John Garba Danbinta, Anglican bishop of Gusau, said the demolition of St. Peter's Anglican Church in Bakura came on Gov. Sani's orders.
"The governor is from Bakura, and because he is the champion of Islamic jihad in Nigeria, he felt it will be unwise for a church to be seen in his hometown," Bishop Dabinta said.
The bishop pointed out these arbitrary demolitions to refute those in Nigeria who declare Christians face no opposition from the state.
"The news outside Zamfara state is that everything is okay with Christians here," he said. "Some claim that the governor is good and treating Christians well, that Christians do not have problems – but this is false. The problem of persecution of Christians here is a reality. It is a major problem facing us today in Zamfara state."
St. Peter's Rev. Saleh, now pastor at St. John's Anglican Church in Kaura Namoda, recalled how officials often had promised that sharia would only be applied to Muslims. Sharia had long been in effect in civil matters, as in all of Nigeria, but its imposition in criminal matters in 12 northern states has thrown the country into a constitutional crisis.
"When sharia was introduced by the government of Zamfara state, we were told that it is meant to guide Muslims in their faith and that it has nothing to do with us Christians," Rev. Saleh said. "Surprisingly, sharia is now a weapon being used against the church in Zamfara state."
Killing Infidels
Sharia as a weapon has been particularly sharp on Kabiru Lawal, a former Muslim who four months ago received Christ. The Hisbah Commission, Zamfara state's agency for the enforcement of the sharia, is gunning for his life.
In late December and early January, agents of Hisbah invaded the Lawal family's house three times looking for the 29-year-old man. Agents told family members that whenever Lawal is found, he should be prepared to pay the supreme price of abandoning Islam – death.
Each time the Hisbah arrived, Lawal was at the Federal Medical Centre in Gusau town due to illness.
He is now in hiding, no longer free to walk the streets of Gusau. His father, Mallam Lawal, comes from a family of Islamic clerics.
In 2002, Lawal read in the Quran about the second coming of Jesus into the world. Lawal, who holds a diploma in business administration from Kaduna Polytechnic in northern Nigeria, said his decision to investigate the life of Christ was informed by his desire to know whether "Jesus was coming as a Muslim or a Christian."
Tunde Adebayo, a relative, gave Lawal a pocket size New Testament in 2003, which he hungrily read.
Lawal said the Holy Spirit revealed to him that Jesus is coming back not as a Muslim, as Muslims believe, but to take those Christians who believe in Him. He began to attend church services. Last September 3, he went to the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) church in Gusau town and asked to receive Christ into his life.
"The Bible clearly presented who Jesus Christ is and provided answers as to why he will be coming back into the world," Lawal said. "The Spirit told me that unless I receive Christ into my heart, I will perish with other Muslims because they do not know the true God."
His family stiffly opposes his conversion, but Lawal said there is no returning to Islam.
"Nothing on earth will make me turn away from Christ," he said, "not even if I will be slaughtered like a ram."
Draconian Decrees
Since the introduction of the sharia in January 2000, Zamfara authorities have banned Christians from sharing their faith or building churches, said Anglican Bishop Danbinta.
Officials are keeping Christians from building churches, he said, by making it impossible for them to acquire land. "We cannot get land, because there is a deliberate government policy to deny Christians land to build churches," Bishop Danbinta said.
There are about 4,000 Anglicans in Zamfara, yet Bishop Danbinta said that in almost all parts of the state the government has refused to allow the church land to build places of worship.
"Sharia, it would seem, is being implemented to curtail Christianity, since it is only targeted at Christians," he said.
70 Mosques, 0 Churches
The Rev. Barnabas Sabo, pastor of the ECWA church in Gusau town, concurred that local governments are using sharia to deny churches land.
Towns denied lands for building churches include Mada, from which Rev. Sabo's church members have to trek more than 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) to Talata Mafara to attend worship services.
Other towns and villages where the ECWA church has been denied land are Kasuwa Daji, Dansadau, Tsibiri in Talata Mafara, and in the Bakura area.
"Gov. Sani, in six years of introducing sharia in the state, has used public funds to build well over 70 mosques," Rev. Sabo said. "Yet no single church has been built by this same government. How fair is this?"
Apart from denial of lands to churches in Zamfara state, Christians have encountered difficulties in other sectors, such as education, where discriminatory school fees have been forced on Christian students and pupils, and there is no teaching of what is known in Nigerian schools as Christian Religious Knowledge.
There is no employment for Christians in the public service, and a ban has been placed on Christian radio and television programs.
The imposition of sharia in criminal matters in 12 northern states has resulted in numerous conflicts bringing death to thousands of persons, most of them Christians.
"If there is anything anybody can do to hurt me, it is for such a person to stop me from serving God the way I want and to stop me from sharing my faith," Bishop Danbinta said. "This is precisely what we as Christians are experiencing in Zamfara state."
END
**********
Copyright 2006 Compass Direct
Compass Direct Flash News is distributed as available to raise awareness of Christians worldwide who are persecuted for their faith. Articles may be reprinted by active subscribers only.
For subscription information, contact:
Compass Direct
P.O. Box 27250
Santa Ana CA 92799-7250
USA
TEL: 949-862-0304
E-mail: info@compassdirect.org
www.compassdirect.org
Thursday, April 8, 2004
COTE D'IVOIRE ON FIRE: WEST AFRICAN CHURCH AT RISK
Date: Thursday 8 April 2004
Subj: Cote d'Ivoire on fire: West African Church at risk.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal
THE CONSEQUENCE OF ETHNIC/RELIGIOUS POLITICS:
COTE D'IVOIRE ON FIRE
The present situation in Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) is already a national tragedy. Dr. Alassane Outtara, the former Cote d'Ivoire Prime Minister who now heads the Rally of the Republicans (RDR) party, has played ethnic/religious politics for personal political gain. This has torn the nation apart along ethnic and religious lines and poisoned its spirit. The hostility and distrust is now so great, and the racial identification and Islamic zeal now so intense, that one wonders if a return to war is not inevitable. It is certainly impossible to turn back the hands of time. As the 29 March 2004 editorial in the Accra Mail (Accra, Ghana) rightly noted, nations should never start on this road of ethnic politics because once it gets going, "there is no stopping it until we have bled ourselves dry". (Link 1)
WEST AFRICA AT RISK
Cote d'Ivoire (officially 38% Muslim and 31% Christian, with full religious freedom) has been a haven of prosperity in West Africa and a safe, free and prosperous home-base for many mission
organisations. Since their 19 September 2003 coup failed, the political aim of the rebels has been to change the constitution so that all the immigrant workers in Ivory Coast (around 50% of the
total population and virtually all Muslims) can be naturalised, giving Cote d'Ivoire a clear Muslim majority that will then democratically elect a Muslim government (RDR) and Muslim president (Dr. Outtara). It is suspected that because the rebels have Islamist aims, they have international Islamist support. They certainly have good supply lines for weapons and funds. At a recent rally in the rebel stronghold of Bouake, rebel soldiers were guaranteed a salary.
If Cote d'Ivoire falls to Islamic domination through civil war or constitutional coup, it will destabilise all of West Africa along that ethnic religious fault-line that runs from the Sierra Leone/Liberia border in West Africa, east through Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, southern Chad, central Sudan, to Asmara, Eritrea on the Red Sea.
It is quite possible that if Cote d'Ivoire falls to Islam, then Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria will topple like dominoes, and Sudan might find a more radical anti-peace Islamist faction rising above Bashir. It is not unreasonable to suggest that by the end of this decade, the ethnic religious fault-line of West Africa could be pushed south into the Gulf of Guinea.
This may sound terribly alarmist. However, both Nigeria and Sudan have put down coup attempts in recent days. How much more motivation will Islamists have should Islamists succeed in Cote d'Ivoire? Also, Ivory Coast, Togo and Benin, with Muslim minorities of 38%, 24% and 20% respectively, are already members of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), as is Nigeria (41% Muslim).
This belt from Liberia east along the coast through to and including Nigeria, is the non-Islamic, religious freedom, evangelical Christian growth and mission-sending stronghold of West Africa. If we look at things from a more cosmic perspective, there are more than just earthly actors interested in the destabilisation of this region of West Africa. As for earthly actors, there are Islamists, there are megalomaniacs, and there are career criminals, mercenaries and arms traders who make their living in the conflict industry.
NEIGHBOURING GHANA FEELS THE HEAT
Concerning Cote d'Ivoire, the Accra Mail 29 March editorial states, "What's happening in our western neighbour, Cote d'Ivoire is too close for comfort.
"Time was when we looked westwards with envy because Cote d'Ivoire, we thought, had all the best things going for her. If you wanted a drug you couldn't find in Ghana, you tried Abidjan. If it was a special spare part for your car which was not available in Ghana, you sent an SOS to Abidjan. If it was fashion trends, you sought inspiration from Abidjan. Indeed Ghanaians used to say that plantains and other food items from that country were bigger than the Ghanaian varieties.
"Then over night, all of that went up in gun smoke." (Link 1)
Pastor Archibald Ako-Nnubeng, the Administrative Secretary of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry in Ghana, has expressed his concern that Ghana is being caught up in the backwash of Cote d'Ivoire's ethnic and religious politics.
Pastor Ako-Nnubeng has appealed to Ghanaian Christians not to "follow the ostrich's principle of burying their heads in their church activities as if everything was right". Rather, he says, be
prayerful, especially for peaceful elections, because "no one is safe from the cyclone when it strikes".
The Ghanaian Chronicle reports, "Pastor Ako-Nnubeng urged allpoliticians to tone down their language to tolerate other peoples' views." Pastor Ako-Nnubeng's fear is that "ethnic polarization and incitement by people who should have known better is gradually pushing our dear Ghana towards the precipice of an abyss". (Link 2)
Ghanaians are certainly feeling the heat and becoming greatly anxious about their own future. Consider the words of a 5 April editorial in the Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra, Ghana): "Who would have ever thought that the Ivory Coast, the bastion of stability in West Africa would today descend into the darkness and chaos of petty ethnic politics?
"Who indeed, would have predicted a decade ago that beautiful Abidjan would one day become the scene of horrendous crimes against humanity - amid the beauty and splendour of its high-rise hotels, beautiful tree-lined avenues and truly magnificent private houses? And yet today, many have fled that beautiful city.
"And the only reason they fled was that a few unscrupulous politicians are playing the ethnic card for their own parochial interests.
"The Chronicle believes in the adage that when one's neighbour's house is burning, it is prudent to have buckets of water ready, just in case one's own house also catches fire." (Link 3)
THE FIRE SPREADS
The Ghanaian Chronicle's illustration of the burning house is exceedingly apt. Ghana is due to have elections in December 2004 and reports in Ghanaian media indicate that sparks of ethnic politics have already created heat in Ghana.
A Ghanaian Chronicle editorial on 25 March said, "The Chronicle thus finds it sad and disturbing that some politicians, desperate for power, are trying to play the dangerous ethnic game in order to gain votes in the impending parliamentary and presidential elections." (Link 4)
An article on Ghanaweb.com, 5 April 2004 entitled "Northerners urged to avoid divisive politics," reports, "Mr Andrew Awuni, Deputy Minister of Information, has urged residents and the people of Northern Ghana to eschew divisive politics. 'Let us be focused on what unites us as a people,' the forthcoming elections, notwithstanding."
This current trend towards ethnic politics by some politicians in Ghana, most notably the former Ghanaian ruler Jeremiah John Rawlings, should not surprise us as the ethnic politics and violence in neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire has been remarkably successful. The French-brokered, UN-supported peace deal for Cote d'Ivoire legitimized the violent action of the Cote d'Ivoire rebels and rewarded them with power-sharing. Also, the left-leaning international media has been overwhelmingly supportive of the rebels, often accepting and reporting their claims and grievances with great excitement but without analysis or investigation.
COTE D'IVOIRE REBELS PROVOKING CONFLICT
As for Cote d'Ivoire, the rebels who walked away from the government of national unity in September 2003, refusing to disarm and threatening a return to war, have been provoking confrontations with the Cote d'Ivoire security forces by defying a blanket ban on all political demonstrations that was imposed for security purposes.
An illegal, rebel-led demonstration in Abidjan on Friday 25 March turned ugly, resulting in injuries and official toll of 37 deaths. The rebels however, alleged hundreds of deaths and mass graves (without evidence), blamed the government, cried "oppression", and likened President Laurent Gbagbo (a Christian) to "Saddam Hussein", saying the international community should remove him.
The rebels then called upon their supporters to repeat the political demonstration. However, the rebel's supporters did not return to the streets of Abidjan. Sekou Kone, a rebel supporter, explained his reluctance to demonstrate again, "Our leaders should go into the street with us, to motivate us, instead of calling for marches where we are massacred and shot at," he said. (Link 5)
The rebel leaders have no doubt learnt that civilian deaths - especially when at the hands of security forces - will generate great international sympathy. It is a familiar scenario. Thankfully however, the rebel's supporters in Abidjan were not so willing to be sacrificed.
-------------------------------------------
The situation in Cote d'Ivoire is extremely serious. It truly is the first house on the block and it is burning. Every effort must be made to put this fire out quickly and decisively, and to seek the path to reconciliation, or peace, prosperity and religious freedom may just disappear from the southern coast of West Africa.
Links
1) Cote d'Ivoire: What Are the Lessons for Ghana?
EDITORIAL. Accra Mail (Accra) 29 March 2004
http://allafrica.com/stories/200403290672.html
2) Rev. Minister Warns Against Ethnic Politics
Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra) 5 April 2004.
By George Kyei Frimpong & Dominic Jale
http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200404050709.html
3) Ethnic Politics - Matters Arising EDITORIAL
Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra) 5 April 2004
http://allafrica.com/stories/200404050707.html
4) Saying No to Ethnic Politics EDITORIAL
Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra) 25 March 2004
http://allafrica.com/stories/200403250408.html
5) Ivory Coast opposition stays home
CNN 30 March 2004
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/africa/03/30/ivorycoast.ap/index.html
Subj: Cote d'Ivoire on fire: West African Church at risk.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal
THE CONSEQUENCE OF ETHNIC/RELIGIOUS POLITICS:
COTE D'IVOIRE ON FIRE
The present situation in Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) is already a national tragedy. Dr. Alassane Outtara, the former Cote d'Ivoire Prime Minister who now heads the Rally of the Republicans (RDR) party, has played ethnic/religious politics for personal political gain. This has torn the nation apart along ethnic and religious lines and poisoned its spirit. The hostility and distrust is now so great, and the racial identification and Islamic zeal now so intense, that one wonders if a return to war is not inevitable. It is certainly impossible to turn back the hands of time. As the 29 March 2004 editorial in the Accra Mail (Accra, Ghana) rightly noted, nations should never start on this road of ethnic politics because once it gets going, "there is no stopping it until we have bled ourselves dry". (Link 1)
WEST AFRICA AT RISK
Cote d'Ivoire (officially 38% Muslim and 31% Christian, with full religious freedom) has been a haven of prosperity in West Africa and a safe, free and prosperous home-base for many mission
organisations. Since their 19 September 2003 coup failed, the political aim of the rebels has been to change the constitution so that all the immigrant workers in Ivory Coast (around 50% of the
total population and virtually all Muslims) can be naturalised, giving Cote d'Ivoire a clear Muslim majority that will then democratically elect a Muslim government (RDR) and Muslim president (Dr. Outtara). It is suspected that because the rebels have Islamist aims, they have international Islamist support. They certainly have good supply lines for weapons and funds. At a recent rally in the rebel stronghold of Bouake, rebel soldiers were guaranteed a salary.
If Cote d'Ivoire falls to Islamic domination through civil war or constitutional coup, it will destabilise all of West Africa along that ethnic religious fault-line that runs from the Sierra Leone/Liberia border in West Africa, east through Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, southern Chad, central Sudan, to Asmara, Eritrea on the Red Sea.
It is quite possible that if Cote d'Ivoire falls to Islam, then Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria will topple like dominoes, and Sudan might find a more radical anti-peace Islamist faction rising above Bashir. It is not unreasonable to suggest that by the end of this decade, the ethnic religious fault-line of West Africa could be pushed south into the Gulf of Guinea.
This may sound terribly alarmist. However, both Nigeria and Sudan have put down coup attempts in recent days. How much more motivation will Islamists have should Islamists succeed in Cote d'Ivoire? Also, Ivory Coast, Togo and Benin, with Muslim minorities of 38%, 24% and 20% respectively, are already members of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), as is Nigeria (41% Muslim).
This belt from Liberia east along the coast through to and including Nigeria, is the non-Islamic, religious freedom, evangelical Christian growth and mission-sending stronghold of West Africa. If we look at things from a more cosmic perspective, there are more than just earthly actors interested in the destabilisation of this region of West Africa. As for earthly actors, there are Islamists, there are megalomaniacs, and there are career criminals, mercenaries and arms traders who make their living in the conflict industry.
NEIGHBOURING GHANA FEELS THE HEAT
Concerning Cote d'Ivoire, the Accra Mail 29 March editorial states, "What's happening in our western neighbour, Cote d'Ivoire is too close for comfort.
"Time was when we looked westwards with envy because Cote d'Ivoire, we thought, had all the best things going for her. If you wanted a drug you couldn't find in Ghana, you tried Abidjan. If it was a special spare part for your car which was not available in Ghana, you sent an SOS to Abidjan. If it was fashion trends, you sought inspiration from Abidjan. Indeed Ghanaians used to say that plantains and other food items from that country were bigger than the Ghanaian varieties.
"Then over night, all of that went up in gun smoke." (Link 1)
Pastor Archibald Ako-Nnubeng, the Administrative Secretary of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry in Ghana, has expressed his concern that Ghana is being caught up in the backwash of Cote d'Ivoire's ethnic and religious politics.
Pastor Ako-Nnubeng has appealed to Ghanaian Christians not to "follow the ostrich's principle of burying their heads in their church activities as if everything was right". Rather, he says, be
prayerful, especially for peaceful elections, because "no one is safe from the cyclone when it strikes".
The Ghanaian Chronicle reports, "Pastor Ako-Nnubeng urged allpoliticians to tone down their language to tolerate other peoples' views." Pastor Ako-Nnubeng's fear is that "ethnic polarization and incitement by people who should have known better is gradually pushing our dear Ghana towards the precipice of an abyss". (Link 2)
Ghanaians are certainly feeling the heat and becoming greatly anxious about their own future. Consider the words of a 5 April editorial in the Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra, Ghana): "Who would have ever thought that the Ivory Coast, the bastion of stability in West Africa would today descend into the darkness and chaos of petty ethnic politics?
"Who indeed, would have predicted a decade ago that beautiful Abidjan would one day become the scene of horrendous crimes against humanity - amid the beauty and splendour of its high-rise hotels, beautiful tree-lined avenues and truly magnificent private houses? And yet today, many have fled that beautiful city.
"And the only reason they fled was that a few unscrupulous politicians are playing the ethnic card for their own parochial interests.
"The Chronicle believes in the adage that when one's neighbour's house is burning, it is prudent to have buckets of water ready, just in case one's own house also catches fire." (Link 3)
THE FIRE SPREADS
The Ghanaian Chronicle's illustration of the burning house is exceedingly apt. Ghana is due to have elections in December 2004 and reports in Ghanaian media indicate that sparks of ethnic politics have already created heat in Ghana.
A Ghanaian Chronicle editorial on 25 March said, "The Chronicle thus finds it sad and disturbing that some politicians, desperate for power, are trying to play the dangerous ethnic game in order to gain votes in the impending parliamentary and presidential elections." (Link 4)
An article on Ghanaweb.com, 5 April 2004 entitled "Northerners urged to avoid divisive politics," reports, "Mr Andrew Awuni, Deputy Minister of Information, has urged residents and the people of Northern Ghana to eschew divisive politics. 'Let us be focused on what unites us as a people,' the forthcoming elections, notwithstanding."
This current trend towards ethnic politics by some politicians in Ghana, most notably the former Ghanaian ruler Jeremiah John Rawlings, should not surprise us as the ethnic politics and violence in neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire has been remarkably successful. The French-brokered, UN-supported peace deal for Cote d'Ivoire legitimized the violent action of the Cote d'Ivoire rebels and rewarded them with power-sharing. Also, the left-leaning international media has been overwhelmingly supportive of the rebels, often accepting and reporting their claims and grievances with great excitement but without analysis or investigation.
COTE D'IVOIRE REBELS PROVOKING CONFLICT
As for Cote d'Ivoire, the rebels who walked away from the government of national unity in September 2003, refusing to disarm and threatening a return to war, have been provoking confrontations with the Cote d'Ivoire security forces by defying a blanket ban on all political demonstrations that was imposed for security purposes.
An illegal, rebel-led demonstration in Abidjan on Friday 25 March turned ugly, resulting in injuries and official toll of 37 deaths. The rebels however, alleged hundreds of deaths and mass graves (without evidence), blamed the government, cried "oppression", and likened President Laurent Gbagbo (a Christian) to "Saddam Hussein", saying the international community should remove him.
The rebels then called upon their supporters to repeat the political demonstration. However, the rebel's supporters did not return to the streets of Abidjan. Sekou Kone, a rebel supporter, explained his reluctance to demonstrate again, "Our leaders should go into the street with us, to motivate us, instead of calling for marches where we are massacred and shot at," he said. (Link 5)
The rebel leaders have no doubt learnt that civilian deaths - especially when at the hands of security forces - will generate great international sympathy. It is a familiar scenario. Thankfully however, the rebel's supporters in Abidjan were not so willing to be sacrificed.
-------------------------------------------
The situation in Cote d'Ivoire is extremely serious. It truly is the first house on the block and it is burning. Every effort must be made to put this fire out quickly and decisively, and to seek the path to reconciliation, or peace, prosperity and religious freedom may just disappear from the southern coast of West Africa.
Links
1) Cote d'Ivoire: What Are the Lessons for Ghana?
EDITORIAL. Accra Mail (Accra) 29 March 2004
http://allafrica.com/stories/200403290672.html
2) Rev. Minister Warns Against Ethnic Politics
Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra) 5 April 2004.
By George Kyei Frimpong & Dominic Jale
http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200404050709.html
3) Ethnic Politics - Matters Arising EDITORIAL
Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra) 5 April 2004
http://allafrica.com/stories/200404050707.html
4) Saying No to Ethnic Politics EDITORIAL
Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra) 25 March 2004
http://allafrica.com/stories/200403250408.html
5) Ivory Coast opposition stays home
CNN 30 March 2004
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/africa/03/30/ivorycoast.ap/index.html
Wednesday, November 5, 2003
Cote d'Ivoire: facing the prospect of a whole new era.
Date: Wednesday 5 November 2003
Subj: Cote d'Ivoire: facing the prospect of a whole new era.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.
The situation in Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) has taken a profound turn. In the face of rebel threats to return to war, the government of Cote d'Ivoire has acquiesced to rebel demands. While this means that "peace" reigns for now, it has serious implications for the future of Cote d'Ivoire and West Africa, particularly Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria - West African religious-fault line nations with similar demographics.
WHAT ARE THE REBELS' DEMANDS?
Cote d'Ivoire's problems stem from unmanaged immigration. While economic recession has led to tensions, the immigrants are not the cause of the present troubles. Neither is it the fact that the immigrants are predominantly Muslims. But for one political figure, status, ethnicity and religion could prove to be the answer to all his political problems.
This political figure, Dr. Alassane Ouattara, did not qualify to stand in presidential elections in 2000. This was not because he is Muslim - the Vice President is Muslim, the Prime minister is a northern Muslim, and there are many Muslim MPs. Dr. Ouattara's problems were related his nationality. Among the many issues was the fact that Dr. Ouattara's involvement in the International Monetary Fund and the Central Bank of West Africa were as a citizen of Burkina Faso - formerly Upper Volta. This did not rule him out of Cote d'Ivoire politics, but according to the Cote d'Ivoire constitution it disqualified him from the presidency.
Dr. Ouattara, however, knows how to play politics 21st Century style. An estimated 50% of the population of Cote d'Ivoire are immigrants from the neighbouring Islamic countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Niger and Mauritania. They share not only the same religion as the Muslims of Cote d'Ivoire, but also the same cultural and historical ties. By playing race and religion cards for personal political gain, Dr. Ouattara has managed to unite them behind him. Now all that is needed are the relevant constitutional and law changes that will enable Dr. Ouattara to stand as a presidential candidate, and allow the new citizens (nationalised immigrants) to vote him into power. These have been the demands of the rebels ever since their coup failed on 19 September 2002.
FAULTY FOUNDATIONS
Foundations for peace were supposedly laid at the Marcoussis talks outside Paris in late January. However these foundations were faulty from the beginning. (See WEA RLC posting "Peace accord 'opens Pandora's box'".)
CRACKS APPEAR
UN IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks) reported on 23 September 2003, "The rebels, who are now officially known as 'The New Forces,' were due to have begun a process of demobilisation and disarmament on 1 August. This would have allowed the government to restore its administration to the entire country and reopen closed schools, hospitals and banks.
"However, the start of disarmament was held up pending the passage of an amnesty law and the appointment of ministers to the vacant portfolios of defence and internal security."
"And on 13 September [President] Gbagbo finally appointed Martin Bleou, a law professor and human rights activist, as minister of internal security, and Rene Amani, a former head of the government's cocoa board as defence minister. The president chose these two men from list of four candidates proposed by the prime minister.
"That should have cleared the way for disarmament to begin. However, the rebels objected loudly to what they called the 'arbitrary' way in which Gbagbo had imposed the new ministers without seeking a broad consensus." (Full IRIN report see link 2)
STRUCTURES CRUMBLE
On Tuesday 23 September 2003, rebel leaders used their objections to President Gbagbo's appointments as their excuse to withdraw from the government of national unity, delay disarmament, and resume their threats of war. Some observers suggest that the rebels were looking for a way to avoid disarmament. As the UN IRIN report noted, the rebels have long been sharply divided over the issue.
However, not all the nine rebel representatives in the government agreed with the withdrawal. On Friday 26 September the rebels disowned one of their leaders, Roger Banchi, stripping him of his ministerial functions for defying the order to withdraw. He is the second rebel representative to defy the rebel leaders.
Banchi said he thought the rebels were "behaving like little children". He added, "Is it really worth spilling blood and igniting fires over issues such as the appointment of departmental directors and office coordinators? We [Banchi and another rebel representative, Gueu] stayed because we are serious. The politics of leaving an empty chair never pays."
UN IRIN quoted Banchi as saying, "I don't think my friends [rebel leaders] have taken the decision which the people were expecting of us. The cry of the people is so strong. Why doesn't Secretary General Guillaume Soro listen to them?" (Link 3)
This rebel action of withdrawing from the government and refusing to disarm, has put Cote d'Ivoire right back where it was - split along ethnic and religious lines, with a rebel force threatening war.
PLOT TO ASSASSINATE CHRISTIAN LEADERS
On Friday 31 October, Security Minister Martin Bleou announced that a plot had been uncovered that aimed to bring down the government by showing it as ineffectual and unable to provide security, even in the main city Abidjan. The plot involved the assassination of several significant religious and political figures. There have been no reports of arrests, and the government has appealed to the plotters to abandon the project.
One of those on the rebel hit-list was Cardinal Bernard Agre, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Ivory Coast. Armed police have now surrounded St. Paul's Cathedral in Abidjan, where Cardinal Agre lives and works. (Link 4)
According to the BBC report (1 Nov 2003), Cardinal Agre has held his post at St. Paul's Cathedral in Abidjan since February 2001, and has spoken out strongly against violence and ethnic and religious discord.
Reports of rebel threats to target Christian leaders have been circulating for some time. In February it was reported to the WEA RLC that the rebels were blaming their lack of military success (to capture all of Cote d'Ivoire) on the prayers of Christians and were therefore determined to target the church and eliminate Christian leaders.
THE GOVERNMENT ACQUIESCES
To prevent war and bring the rebels back into the government of national unity, the government has acquiesced to rebel demands. The report from UN IRIN states:
"The government of Cote d'Ivoire has agreed to fast track the legislation of three key measures demanded by rebels occupying the north of the country as a conciliation for resuming their participation in the peace process."
According to UN IRIN (31 Oct), the three reforms are:
FUTURE IN THE BALANCE
Presently, Cote d'Ivoire is estimated to be 39% Muslim, 32% Christian (the number of evangelical believers doubled during the 1990s) and 29% traditional (Operation World 21st Century Edition). There is complete religious freedom. (Abidjan on the south coast, the commercial capital, is not only home to Cathedrals, but to the nation's largest mosques.)
If the new nationality law is passed, Cote d'Ivoire will become majority Muslim overnight, and the Church in Cote d'Ivoire will enter a whole new era.
ADDENDUM
The current BBC Country profile on Ivory Coast says that Laurent Gbagbo pronounced himself president in 2000. That is incorrect. However, the BBC Timeline for Ivory Coast is accurate and very good. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1043106.stm
Links
1) COTE D'IVOIRE: peace accord "opens Pandora's box".
WEA RLC Friday 31 January 2003
2) Rebel Ministers Withdraw From Government
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS 23 September 2003 Abidjan.
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=36760
3) Second Rebel Minister May Break Ranks And Stay in Cabinet
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS 26 September 2003, Abidjan
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=36853
4) Ivory Coast Uncovers Assassins' Plot
By Baudelaire Mieux,
31 October 2003, Associated Press
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3333509,00.html
BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/africa/3232691.stm
5) Government Fast Tracks New Laws Demanded By Rebels
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS 31 October 2003, Abidjan
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=37584
Subj: Cote d'Ivoire: facing the prospect of a whole new era.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.
The situation in Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) has taken a profound turn. In the face of rebel threats to return to war, the government of Cote d'Ivoire has acquiesced to rebel demands. While this means that "peace" reigns for now, it has serious implications for the future of Cote d'Ivoire and West Africa, particularly Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria - West African religious-fault line nations with similar demographics.
WHAT ARE THE REBELS' DEMANDS?
Cote d'Ivoire's problems stem from unmanaged immigration. While economic recession has led to tensions, the immigrants are not the cause of the present troubles. Neither is it the fact that the immigrants are predominantly Muslims. But for one political figure, status, ethnicity and religion could prove to be the answer to all his political problems.
This political figure, Dr. Alassane Ouattara, did not qualify to stand in presidential elections in 2000. This was not because he is Muslim - the Vice President is Muslim, the Prime minister is a northern Muslim, and there are many Muslim MPs. Dr. Ouattara's problems were related his nationality. Among the many issues was the fact that Dr. Ouattara's involvement in the International Monetary Fund and the Central Bank of West Africa were as a citizen of Burkina Faso - formerly Upper Volta. This did not rule him out of Cote d'Ivoire politics, but according to the Cote d'Ivoire constitution it disqualified him from the presidency.
Dr. Ouattara, however, knows how to play politics 21st Century style. An estimated 50% of the population of Cote d'Ivoire are immigrants from the neighbouring Islamic countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Niger and Mauritania. They share not only the same religion as the Muslims of Cote d'Ivoire, but also the same cultural and historical ties. By playing race and religion cards for personal political gain, Dr. Ouattara has managed to unite them behind him. Now all that is needed are the relevant constitutional and law changes that will enable Dr. Ouattara to stand as a presidential candidate, and allow the new citizens (nationalised immigrants) to vote him into power. These have been the demands of the rebels ever since their coup failed on 19 September 2002.
FAULTY FOUNDATIONS
Foundations for peace were supposedly laid at the Marcoussis talks outside Paris in late January. However these foundations were faulty from the beginning. (See WEA RLC posting "Peace accord 'opens Pandora's box'".)
CRACKS APPEAR
UN IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks) reported on 23 September 2003, "The rebels, who are now officially known as 'The New Forces,' were due to have begun a process of demobilisation and disarmament on 1 August. This would have allowed the government to restore its administration to the entire country and reopen closed schools, hospitals and banks.
"However, the start of disarmament was held up pending the passage of an amnesty law and the appointment of ministers to the vacant portfolios of defence and internal security."
"And on 13 September [President] Gbagbo finally appointed Martin Bleou, a law professor and human rights activist, as minister of internal security, and Rene Amani, a former head of the government's cocoa board as defence minister. The president chose these two men from list of four candidates proposed by the prime minister.
"That should have cleared the way for disarmament to begin. However, the rebels objected loudly to what they called the 'arbitrary' way in which Gbagbo had imposed the new ministers without seeking a broad consensus." (Full IRIN report see link 2)
STRUCTURES CRUMBLE
On Tuesday 23 September 2003, rebel leaders used their objections to President Gbagbo's appointments as their excuse to withdraw from the government of national unity, delay disarmament, and resume their threats of war. Some observers suggest that the rebels were looking for a way to avoid disarmament. As the UN IRIN report noted, the rebels have long been sharply divided over the issue.
However, not all the nine rebel representatives in the government agreed with the withdrawal. On Friday 26 September the rebels disowned one of their leaders, Roger Banchi, stripping him of his ministerial functions for defying the order to withdraw. He is the second rebel representative to defy the rebel leaders.
Banchi said he thought the rebels were "behaving like little children". He added, "Is it really worth spilling blood and igniting fires over issues such as the appointment of departmental directors and office coordinators? We [Banchi and another rebel representative, Gueu] stayed because we are serious. The politics of leaving an empty chair never pays."
UN IRIN quoted Banchi as saying, "I don't think my friends [rebel leaders] have taken the decision which the people were expecting of us. The cry of the people is so strong. Why doesn't Secretary General Guillaume Soro listen to them?" (Link 3)
This rebel action of withdrawing from the government and refusing to disarm, has put Cote d'Ivoire right back where it was - split along ethnic and religious lines, with a rebel force threatening war.
PLOT TO ASSASSINATE CHRISTIAN LEADERS
On Friday 31 October, Security Minister Martin Bleou announced that a plot had been uncovered that aimed to bring down the government by showing it as ineffectual and unable to provide security, even in the main city Abidjan. The plot involved the assassination of several significant religious and political figures. There have been no reports of arrests, and the government has appealed to the plotters to abandon the project.
One of those on the rebel hit-list was Cardinal Bernard Agre, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Ivory Coast. Armed police have now surrounded St. Paul's Cathedral in Abidjan, where Cardinal Agre lives and works. (Link 4)
According to the BBC report (1 Nov 2003), Cardinal Agre has held his post at St. Paul's Cathedral in Abidjan since February 2001, and has spoken out strongly against violence and ethnic and religious discord.
Reports of rebel threats to target Christian leaders have been circulating for some time. In February it was reported to the WEA RLC that the rebels were blaming their lack of military success (to capture all of Cote d'Ivoire) on the prayers of Christians and were therefore determined to target the church and eliminate Christian leaders.
THE GOVERNMENT ACQUIESCES
To prevent war and bring the rebels back into the government of national unity, the government has acquiesced to rebel demands. The report from UN IRIN states:
"The government of Cote d'Ivoire has agreed to fast track the legislation of three key measures demanded by rebels occupying the north of the country as a conciliation for resuming their participation in the peace process."
According to UN IRIN (31 Oct), the three reforms are:
- The amendment of a section of the constitution which bans citizens with a foreign parent or citizens who have spent long periods living abroad (even if they have benefited from a foreign citizenship) from becoming president.
- A new nationality law to give full rights of citizenship to immigrants from other West African countries and their offspring, who account for 30 percent of Cote d'Ivoire's 16 million population. [The real figure is closer to 50% - EK]
- A new property law to give full land ownership rights to immigrants who have occupied and cultivated land with the consent of local communities.
FUTURE IN THE BALANCE
Presently, Cote d'Ivoire is estimated to be 39% Muslim, 32% Christian (the number of evangelical believers doubled during the 1990s) and 29% traditional (Operation World 21st Century Edition). There is complete religious freedom. (Abidjan on the south coast, the commercial capital, is not only home to Cathedrals, but to the nation's largest mosques.)
If the new nationality law is passed, Cote d'Ivoire will become majority Muslim overnight, and the Church in Cote d'Ivoire will enter a whole new era.
ADDENDUM
The current BBC Country profile on Ivory Coast says that Laurent Gbagbo pronounced himself president in 2000. That is incorrect. However, the BBC Timeline for Ivory Coast is accurate and very good. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1043106.stm
Links
1) COTE D'IVOIRE: peace accord "opens Pandora's box".
WEA RLC Friday 31 January 2003
2) Rebel Ministers Withdraw From Government
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS 23 September 2003 Abidjan.
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=36760
3) Second Rebel Minister May Break Ranks And Stay in Cabinet
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS 26 September 2003, Abidjan
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=36853
4) Ivory Coast Uncovers Assassins' Plot
By Baudelaire Mieux,
31 October 2003, Associated Press
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3333509,00.html
BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/africa/3232691.stm
5) Government Fast Tracks New Laws Demanded By Rebels
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS 31 October 2003, Abidjan
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=37584