It has been reported that the Thai authorities have used cluster munitions in Cambodia. Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre commented: “If these reports are true, this is a very serious matter.”

According to reports, Thailand used cluster munitions in February this year in connection with a border conflict with Cambodia. Norwegian People’s Aid, which works in both Thailand and Cambodia, recently visited the area around the disputed Preah Vihear temple. The NGO has now reported that cluster munitions of the type M42/M46 and M85 have been found. Several people are believed to have been killed or injured in the conflict, and many fled from the area. Now that people are returning to their villages, the unexploded ordnance puts them at serious risk.

“Norway condemns all use of cluster munitions. These weapons kill and maim civilians and have unacceptable humanitarian consequences long after they are used,” said Mr Støre. “South East Asia is a region that is already badly affected, and the incident on the border between Cambodia and Thailand demonstrates clearly why this weapon is now prohibited.

Cluster munitions are area weapons that do not distinguish between military and civilian targets, and they cause great suffering among civilians both during and long after conflicts.

“The report, which was drawn up by the Cluster Munition Coalition and Norwegian People’s Aid, shows how important it was to establish the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans the use of these weapons. Continued efforts are needed to persuade even more countries to join. I urge both Thailand and Cambodia to become parties to the convention as soon as possible and to cooperate on preventing more people from being killed or injured by these weapons,” said Mr Støre.

Together with various humanitarian organisations and the UN, Norway contributes to the clearance of unexploded ordnance and support for victims of cluster munitions, land mines and other explosives all over the world.

By the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway
Duty Press Officer: April 7 2011

MALAWI: Suspected witches jailed

Photo: Albert Gonzalez Farran/UNAMID

Suspected witches are usually imprisoned for offences such as a breach of the peace

Lilongwe, 6 April 2011 (IRIN) – At least 45 people are behind bars in Malawi on charges of witchcraft, although there is nothing in the country’s laws to keep them there.

“The beliefs of the police and courts are becoming the law,” George Thindwa, director of the Association for Secular Humanism (ASH), a local NGO, told IRIN. “The police are keeping people who have been accused of being witches, when it is actually the accusers that need to be taken to task.”

Elderly women are most commonly accused of witchcraft, but people of all ages have been ostracized, jailed, attacked and even killed on suspicion of being witches.

Chigayo Tchale, 75, has served almost two years of a three-year sentence at Maula prison in Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital. The community where he lived accused him of practicing witchcraft after the unexplained death of a child.

“Since people are saying I’m a witch and should be in prison, it is up to them,” he said with a shrug. “There’s nothing I can do, I have been forsaken.”

ASH has been campaigning for Tchale’s release for months now, along with dozens of other people across the country wrongfully imprisoned because they were suspected of being witches.

Thindwa said the number of people could be in the hundreds, but witchcraft cases were difficult to track because the individuals were usually charged with other offences, such as a breach of the peace.

“Police are being clever with charges – the offence may not be there in our statutes, but they can still find excuses,” said human rights activist Justin Dzonzi, a lawyer based in Blantyre, Malawi’s second city.

Suspected witches can live peacefully in their communities for years without incident, but one unexplained event can trigger a violent reaction.

After the sudden death of a child, and mysterious fires that destroyed three houses, the local Traditional Authority (Chief) in Usisya, in the northern district of Nkhata Bay, allegedly decreed that people’s homes be searched for witchcraft-related charms. In the resulting witch-hunts suspected witches were beaten and dragged to the village’s resident traditional healer.

After an intervention by ASH, the police arrested the traditional healer, but their role as herbalists and highly respected members of their communities is embedded in Malawian culture.

Traditional healer George Nseula talked openly about having chased accused witches from his village and demonstrated his method for distinguishing them by using two warmed sticks and a long rusty blade.

Legislation misplaced

Malawi inherited a 1911 Witchcraft Act from the British, which assumes that it does not exist, and makes it an offence to accuse someone of practicing witchcraft, or for an individual to claim that they practice it.

Dzonzi said the legislation was “misplaced”, considering that the overwhelming majority of the population believed in witchcraft.

Witchcraft has always lived with us…it’s older than Christianity or Islam. It’s part of our Malawian tradition

“Witchcraft has always lived with us,” he said. “Here, it’s older than Christianity or Islam. It’s part of our Malawian tradition.”

Dzonzi said traditional leaders, the police, and even magistrate’s court officials were more influenced by their beliefs than Malawi’s laws or the constitution, which was only adopted in 1994.

“Magistrate’s courts are the problem – untrained clerks are making these judgments,” said Thindwa. “It wouldn’t happen at the high court, but cases take too long to reach that level.”

Dzonzi agreed, saying that since most witchcraft cases affected the poor and legally naïve, they could not afford bail and could be held on remand for years even if they appealed.

Tchale said he understood little of his trial in the Chimutu magistrate’s court in northern Malawi because he is illiterate and struggled to understand the legal terminology.

“On one side is the government, the public opinion, the police – me, I’m just alone,” he said.

Legal aid clinics assist those accused of witchcraft, and Dzonzi’s human rights group, Justice Link, has run education campaigns in rural areas, but he said such efforts would continue to treat the symptoms until the lower courts and police stopped adapting the law to suit their beliefs.

The Director of Public Prosecution, Wezi Kayira, has promised to review the 45 cases of individuals imprisoned for witchcraft and the Malawi Law Commission is three months overdue in releasing its review of the Witchcraft Act. However, most of the public submissions heard by the Commission called for witchcraft to be criminalized.

pc/ks/he

source http://www.irinnews.org

KENYA: Livestock dying as drought deepens

ISIOLO/MANDERA, 6 April 2011 (IRIN) – Thousands more heads of livestock have died in Kenya’s arid Northeastern province as La Niña drought conditions worsen and water shortages become more acute.

Drought monitoring and assessment reports indicate that the hardest-hit areas are Marsabit, Moyale and Mandera. Livestock farmers in the three regions have lost more than 17,000 animals since January, according to officials from the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) and the government’s Arid Lands and Resource Management Project (ALRMP).

Mass deaths of livestock began in February, but the average daily loss of animals has risen in the last three weeks as crucial water sources dried up. Many of the remaining water sources are contaminated, leading to increased incidents of water-borne diseases such as typhoid, amoeba and diarrhoea.

A recent assessment by the UN found that the drought ravaging East Africa had left eight million needing food aid, 1.2 million in Kenya.

KRCS Marsabit coordinator, Abdi Malik, told IRIN that many families are becoming increasingly vulnerable to hunger and hardships related to the crisis. “The most recent assessment conducted on the drought clearly shows that the situation is very serious compared to conditions in January,” he said. “More than 70 percent of an estimated 300,000 people are affected now and the figure will rise unless it rains. We expect more animal deaths. Thousands are weak and the few water sources are drying up. Pasture everywhere is exhausted.”

He added that the water shortage and depletion of boreholes had led to a mass migration of pastoralist families from Marsabit and Moyale to Forole in Ethiopia. He said the Red Cross was providing water to primary schools to prevent their closure and to support supplementary feeding programmes.

Jirma Duba, a resident from Marsabit, said water shortages had caused deadly conflicts. Fighting between the Rendille, Borana and Gabra communities over scarce water sources and grazing areas have resulted in the deaths of 12 people. A number of resource-related killings was also reported along the Isiolo and Samburu borders.

Thousands of residents from Mandera have also migrated from grazing areas and trading centres, according to the Rural Agency for Community Development and Assistance (RACIDA). Mohamed Dualle, coordinator of RACIDA, fears the situation will be even worse in April.

“We have not received a single drop of rain and yet the rains were expected two weeks ago. We are faced with a humanitarian crisis. A significant number of deaths, mainly of children, pregnant women and elderly people can be attributed to hunger, dehydration and lack of water,” he said. “Banisa, a rich grazing area and a trading centre with more than 18,000 people and surrounded by 16 villages, is almost deserted now. The only dam which has served the whole population for last seven years dried up last week.”

He added that livestock owners with large herds of animals had migrated to the nearest water point, 123km away, and livestock traders that have lost their businesses are also likely to move.

Photo: Anthony Morland/IRIN

Migration of pastoralists with their livestock has led to a shortage of animals in local markets

Rising prices

The World Food Programme (WFP) has appealed for more funds to deal with the crisis in the coming months. Josette Sheeran, the director, said WFP “has only 44 percent of the resources it needs to feed 5.22 million people in Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and the Karamoja region of eastern Uganda from April to September”.

An increase in staple food prices, particularly in far-flung areas, has worsened the situation in Kenya, according to ALRMP: 1kg of beans in Sericho, Isiolo, has increased from 50 shillings to 80 shillings (US60 cents to about $1) since January and milk has risen from 40 shillings (50 cents) per litre to 60 shillings (72 cents) per litre.

Mass migration of pastoralists with their livestock has led to a shortage of animals in local markets, triggering a price increase and a loss of income for those whose livelihoods depend on the trade. In Mandera, Wajir and Garissa, households have had to sell three to four goats to purchase a 90kg bag of maize, rather than the average of one or two goats.

Hussein Ali, a local leader and an elder from Jericho, said water was even more costly than food in the area. “A 20l can of water is selling at 60 shillings. It’s more expensive than a kilo of maize flour,” said Ali. “A number of families have sent their children to the Daadab refugee camps to be registered as aliens from Somalia in order to get relief food.”

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said drought conditions, once periodic in nature, had now become a “predictable emergency” and an emergency response was no longer sustainable. Pastoralist leaders said large-scale measures adopted by the government to address the crisis were insufficient and unsuccessful.

na/zm/mw

source http://www.irinnews.org

PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Gun culture threatens security ahead of 2012 elections

Photo: Fotopedia

80 percent of all major crimes are gun-related

PORT MORESBY, 6 April 2011 (IRIN) – The proliferation and use of illegal guns in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is threatening security ahead of parliamentary elections slated for June 2012, and causing misery and trauma to gun crime victims, says the government.

The police, the PNG Electoral Commission and the Inter Department Election Committee (IDEC), a government body overseeing election preparations, are aware of the risks in the run-up to and during the elections.

“We are very much aware of the danger that the guns pose on the elections and are making the necessary preparations. We should come up with a budget to ensure that the rights of the people are protected during the elections,” IDEC Chairman Manasupe Zurenuoc told IRIN.

Police say they need K120 million (US$40 million) to carry out a public awareness campaign on the law and other operations to minimize security risks during the elections.

The central Highlands area, known for tribal conflicts, is particularly at risk: “The build-up of guns in the Highlands is getting out of hand… There are more people dying in tribal warfare now than ever before. The situation is so bad, it has the potential to disrupt major economic projects in the region,” police commander for the Highlands Assistant Commissioner Simon Kauba told IRIN.

“The situation is bad, really bad. We are seeing more and more people coming in for treatment or admitted to the morgue,” Michael Dokop, head of medical services at the Mt Hagen General Hospital in Western Highlands Province, told IRIN.

“We get up to five bodies and more than 10 people with injuries every month. In one recent case, a man and his wife were both shot dead in a fight… I think the situation in Enga and Southern Highlands Provinces [both in central PNG] is much the same as here. There are a lot of guns in those provinces too,” Dokop said.

Former Internal Security Minister Sani Rambi told parliament in July 2010 during a debate on the gun problem that there were four car-jackings a day in Port Moresby: “This is an alarming situation where more than 1,460 vehicles are reported stolen each year… In almost all instances, guns, whether home-made or factory made, were reportedly used.”

Photo: Peter Korugl/IRIN

Limiting gun ownership is proving tough

Fabric of society under threat

Police and local leaders in the Highlands say the proliferation of guns in rural communities is threatening the fabric of society.

“Every household now owns a gun illegally… Some of the most modern weapons fetch US$500-1,000. It’s a lucrative business,” Chimbu councillor Joseph Waiang told IRIN, confirming studies into gun violence in the highlands.

Hand grenades are also becoming more common, say the police.

Seven years after the establishment of the PNG Guns Control Committee, the government is making slow progress on the committee’s recommendations to limit gun ownership.

Drugs and guns

“Guns are coming through the border as people are trading drugs for guns from logging ships, and also guns issued to the disciplinary forces are taken out and sold illegally. To contain this problem will involve a concerted effort from all stakeholders, not only police,” Assistant Commissioner Kauba said.

Police estimate 80 percent of all major crimes are gun-related. The problem is no longer restricted to urban areas but has spread to rural areas.

“We are sitting on a serious problem. If it means imposing tougher jail terms as a deterrent, so be it. The government must move on this,” MP and chair of the Constitutional Reform Commission Joe Mek Teine told IRIN.

Southeast Asia has several post-conflict states such as Cambodia and Vietnam where small arms can easily be obtained, according to the March 2011 issue of the Non-Traditional Security Studies in Asia Consortium (NTS), which also noted that “small arms and light weapons proliferation or illegal arms trafficking is often overshadowed by other transnational crime issues such as human trafficking, human smuggling and drug trafficking.”

IRIN interviewed a young man, Peter (he preferred not to reveal his other names), who walked for several days from Chimbu Province in the Highlands to Jimi and then into Indonesia with a bag full of marijuana – on a mission to exchange the drug for guns. He managed to return to his home village four weeks later with an RSL rifle, and two magnum pistols.

pk/cb

source http://www.irinnews.org