John Michuki who was minister for environment in the Republic of Kenya died yesterday of heart failure in a Nairobi hospital. Michuki had earlier received treatment in the UK and returned two days ago to Kenya only to die yesterday after being admitted into hospital Sunday.

Michuki will be remembered for many good things during his time as the straight talking servant of the people. He was the man who made it possible for the Matatus (small passenger vehicles) to respect rules named after him. “The Michuki rules” ensures that the passenger vehicles are fitted with belts and the speed limit controlled.

Michuki was a District Officer during the colonial time .- when the British ruled Kenya. He later progressed becoming Permanent secretary in various ministries, and rising in the years to become minister for Transport, Administration and Internal Security, Finance and environment.

When in the International ministry, the straight talking no-nonsense Michuki told the media that “If you play with a rattle snake, it will bite you”

Our condolences goes to his family.

End

EGYPT: Where emergency crews need rescuing

Photo: Amr Emam/IRIN

Volunteers help aid responders save victims of recent clashes between policemen and demonstrators in Cairo

CAIRO, 14 February 2012 (IRIN) – In Egypt’s political turmoil, one segment of society has been largely forgotten: the first aid responders who risk their lives to rescue victims of violence.

Ambulance drivers and paramedics say they do not have adequate protection, insurance or job security, despite facing increased risk and hostility in the year since a popular uprising toppled former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

“We have been more prone to violence and aggression after the revolution,” Ahmed Mohamed, a 34-year-old first aid responder who works with the Ministry of Health, told IRIN. “It is becoming common for us now to be attacked, injured or even killed.”

People like Mohamed have been at the centre of violent clashes over the last few months – between civilian and military policemen, and protesters demanding the vision of the revolution be upheld. They have braved gunfire, teargas, and birdshot pellets (which cause serious injury but do not kill) to reach victims and take them to hospital for treatment.

Hundreds went on strike late last month to demand medical, social and life insurance, and permanent positions. The strike lasted about two weeks before participants cut it short to respond to renewed clashes in Cairo on 4 February.

In the eye of the storm

When tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in January and February 2011 to demand a change of government, Mohamed was in the central protest area, Tahrir Square, like his colleagues in other cities like Suez and Alexandria, to offer help to victims. They saw people shot in the head; others in the eyes.

But they, too, came under repeated attack. Ambulance crews were attacked for money or equipment, and first aiders believe the culprits are former inmates who escaped during the revolution and are still at large. (The Ministry of Interior estimates them to be about 4,500).

Photo: Amr Emam/IRIN

Emergency workers hurried to the vicinity to the Interior Ministry in downtown Cairo early this month to offer help to victims of clashes between policemen and demonstrators

In an atmosphere of increased fear and suspicion in Egypt, first aiders have also been met by aggressive behaviour from the families of victims they treat, accused either of being part of the conflict or of not doing enough to save their loved ones.

When Mohamed and some of his colleagues rushed to Tahrir Square on 4 February to help a victim of clashes between protesters and policemen following fatal soccer riots in the Mediterranean city of Port Said, he was insulted by the relatives of the victims at a nearby hospital, who accused him of arriving too late.

“Emergency workers take no sides and people need to understand this,” said Mohamed Mohei, the Emergency Section coordinator at the Egyptian Red Crescent. “If an emergency worker is attacked or injured, he will not be able to offer help to anybody.”

Risks

Ahmed Mohamed is one of 7,000 emergency aid responders working for the Egyptian Health Ministry. None of them has insurance.

“This means that if I fall ill, I need to pay for my treatment,” said Alaa Aly, another first aider. “I have been doing this in fact since I started doing this job three years ago.”

A colleague of Aly from the Nile Delta Governorate of Monofiya died about three months ago after getting into an accident while rushing victims to the hospital in an ambulance. Because emergency workers do not have the right to any type of pension, his family now depends on charity to live, Aly said.

One aid responder told IRIN he had to pay for his uniform. Another said that if he gets into an accident while driving an ambulance, he has to pay for the damage himself.

“Some of our colleagues have contracted serious diseases like hepatitis C,” said Saudi Diab, another first aider. “How can you avoid contracting diseases when you have to be close to human blood all the time?”

Blood tests

So far, the government has shown little sympathy for the demands of the emergency first aiders. It responded to the strike by running advertisements in newspapers about vacancies for emergency aid responders and is now requiring all emergency responders who want permanent positions and insurance to undergo blood tests first. The responders, who underwent tests when they first started working, fear they have acquired diseases on the job and will be dismissed if they test positive.

In an interview with IRIN, Khalid Al Khatib, head of the Emergency Section at the Health Ministry, acknowledged his staff worked without permanent contracts or insurance, but said the Health Ministry was not to blame.

We promise that we will give the aid responders permanent contracts and insurance as soon as the government tells us that it has the budget necessary for this

“This was a state policy in the past. The nation’s administrative system is crippled with too many workers, but we promise that we will give the aid responders permanent contracts and insurance as soon as the government tells us that it has the budget necessary for this. The aid responders are doing a great job in fact.”

Trauma

Ahmed Mohamed, the Health Ministry responder, sees a lot in the course of his work. He remembers trying to save a road accident victim in Cairo. When he got to the site of the accident, he saw some of the man’s body parts scattered all around the place.

“Things like this happen to me every now and then,” Mohamed said. “The clashes that have been on the rise after the revolution between demonstrators and policemen leave a large number of victims behind. Some of these victims are in a critical condition. Death has actually become an intrinsic part of my job.”

According to Salah Hozayen, a leading psychologist from Ain Shams University, the consequences for aid responders include compassion fatigue, acute stress reaction and post-traumatic stress disorder. “This makes psychological intervention for these workers indispensible.”

But while Mohamed has shown symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, he has never heard of psychological intervention.

“I fail to sleep at night after a tragic incident,” he said. “Sleeplessness is becoming part of my job too.”

ae/ha/cb

 source www.irinnews.org

LIBERIA: Land grab or development opportunity?

Photo: Vincent Chounze

Residents viewing the land they say was seized for foreign investors

MONROVIA,  – Hundreds of villagers and town residents of Liberia’s Grand Cape Mount Country have attracted nationwide attention in their bid to recover what they say is land seized from them and turned over to a Malaysian agro-industrial concern.

A petition sent to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s office in January by the aggrieved people’s political representatives demanded the return of their land.

“This is unbearable,” Mary Freeman, 42, of Sinje Town said. “Our government must care for us and don’t allow these people to kill us silently. What have we done to go through all of these sufferings? This land belongs to us. We were born here and we give birth to our children here too. This is the only place we know.”

Malaysian company Sime Darby Plantations was granted a permit on 21 April 2010 to cultivate 10,000 hectares of palm oil in Bomi and Grand Cape Mount counties. Now, the company has applied for an additional 15,000 hectares for palm oil cultivation in Garwular and Gola Konneh districts, in the Grand Cape Mount County, and another 20,000 hectares in Gbarpolu County.

The attorney representing the aggrieved parties of Cape Mount County, Alfred Brownel, has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to reject these additional requests. He vowed his rights group, Green Advocates, would continue to support those who had lost their land.

“These things must stop,” he said. “Our people deserve the right to survive. They shouldn’t be denied their land. We will not stop until their lives are transformed and the situation changed.”

Critics say the concession is a land grab. When unresolved, land disputes could plunge the country into “serious chaos”, said Jerry Lomah, president of Lomah National Law Firm in Monrovia.

“The government must set up an active land commission to keep eyes on these issues,” Lomah added.

Liberia has a history of land conflicts, especially since the end of the civil war in 2003. In the northeastern town of Ganta there is a long-running conflict over land between the Mandingo and Mano people. Lomah said a land commission could speed up resolution of such disputes and the Sime Darby case.

Mistakes made

A seemingly receptive two-term president reacted immediately to the Grand Cape Mount County concerns by visiting the area and meeting residents of Kon Town, Garwula District. She admitted the government should have gone about the negotiations differently.

“Everybody made mistakes on this one,” she told villagers, “but the thing to do is to correct the mistakes. Now, something could have been done better when it comes to Sime Darby. More consultations and more talks with the people should have taken place.”

She told them that before the government signs an agreement, the legislature conducts public hearings so that views and objections can be raised before an agreement is concluded. However, the residents said they were unaware of any such hearings.

Johnson Sirleaf said the government would now correct this oversight and seek the views of county residents.

“I’ve come to start the process,” she said. “I came with the ministers of justice, internal affairs, labour, and agriculture because all of them have [a] part to play in the process.”

However, she also told residents of Grand Cape Mount County that when government, including legislators, signed documents with foreign companies or countries, these could not be changed. She said the constitution gave government the authority to sign agreements on behalf of the country, and people should not be directing their frustrations at Sime Darby.

“So, if your government made a mistake, that’s your government. You have to come back to it so we can settle it,” she said.

She said the citizens’ concerns, especially those about jobs and land-grabbing, would be addressed. She said government would ensure locals were given preference when it came to employment with Sime Darby in Grand Cape Mount County.

Photo: Vincent Chounze

Workers on a Sime Darby plantation preparing palm tree nurseries for planting

The president has set up a committee, co-chaired by officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Justice, to look into the citizens’ complaints in an effort to resolve the dispute with Sime Darby.

Most of those who lost their land have relocated to nearby villages and towns unaffected by the concession. Most are unskilled labourers.

Sime Darby responds

Meanwhile, Sime Darby has denied seizing land. It said it paid fairly for the land and that it had not used force to evict anyone, as landholders had earlier contended.

Sime Darby Board Chairman Tun Hitam said the company had been serious about being part of the community in Grand Cape Mount County since it came to Liberia in 2010. The firm said it expected to invest US$3.1 billion in its Liberian estates by 2025.

In addition, so far, it has rebuilt and refurnished 15 primary schools, and paid teachers the government rate. Sime Darby said it had also refurbished three new school buses, bought one ambulance and expanded hospital wards in its estates.

Sime Darby plantation senior vice-president of the agribusiness division, Helmy Basha, said the firm had already established four plots of nurseries that would generate 780,000 oil palm seedlings. These would kick-start the first planting of 5,200 hectares at Grand Cape Mount County. He said that by 2025, the firm would have planted up to 170,000 hectares with oil palms in the counties of Grand Cape Mount, Bomi, Bong and Gbarpolu.

“For the next 15 years, we’re scheduled to invest in infrastructure like roads, bridges, electricity and piped water. We’ll also put up the mills,” he said.

Basha said Sime Darby would undertake social and environmental impact assessments before the start of any development. For example, it would maintain riparian buffer zones between water bodies and planted areas.

By 2015, the group would start to put up 15 mills – one for every 10,000 hectares. They would extract crude palm oil, be fuelled by biomass, and be self-sustaining, he said.

The firm expects its business in Liberia to be fully-operational by 2035; 35,000 jobs would be created.

“There will also be spillover impacts in uplifting the livelihoods of surrounding communities of the estates,” Basha said.

Liberians use palm oil to prepare meals. “If Sime Darby supplies some of the oil to the Liberian market, it will reduce the price of palm oil locally,” said Monrovia businesswoman Sarah Sando.

pc/oss/cb
source www.irinnews.org

GUINEA: Charging of top army official makes waves

Photo: Contributor/IRIN

This woman lost a 20-year-old family member in the 28 September violence (file photo)

DAKAR, 14 February 2012 (IRIN) – “This simply doesn’t happen in Guinea,” a civilian in the capital, Conakry, said of the 8th February decision by judges to charge a top army official for alleged involvement in crimes against civilians. Guineans and rights experts say the move is an opening up to the rule of law, but the country must overcome forces that have long fed impunity.
 
The three judges investigating the 28 September 2009 brutal crackdown by security forces have filed charges against Col Moussa Tiégboro Camara (henceforth Tiégboro), then and now head of the national agency to fight drug-trafficking and organized crime.
 
Tiégboro is one of three people an international inquiry commission named in a December 2009 report as probably criminally responsible for the assault in which hundreds of people were killed, raped or injured. The two others cited by the inquiry commission are former junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara and Aboubacar Chérif Diakité, known as ‘Toumba’, who was chief of the presidential guard at the time.

Human Rights Watch estimates 150-200 people were killed, and dozens of women raped, when security forces attacked a pro-democracy rally at the stadium in Conakry on 28 September 2009.

The brutality of the September 2009 incident shocked the nation, but Guineans have long been used to grave violations by security forces, and they have seen promises of accountability come and go. Today, with the charges against Tiégboro and a few other separate cases in which officials have been called before a judge, people say they are hopeful but wary.

Untouchable
 
Amsaou Diallo, president of a national victims’ association, said the judges’ move to charge Tiégboro was momentous precisely because victims have been voiceless against the powerful for so long. “These judges dared,” she told IRIN. “We are talking about people who are untouchable, and this time the judges really dared.”
 
Those judges and the victims must be protected, she said. “Many victims have yet to testify so we’ve got a lot of work ahead and protection must be in place so the process does not get derailed.”
 
Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch, said the case is a huge challenge for the government. “For decades, the institutions responsible for the protection of citizens – the police, gendarmerie, military – have been the very perpetrators of abuses… The government must fulfil its responsibility to ensure the protection of witnesses, victims, judges and human rights defenders associated with this case.”
 
Guinea’s international partners should use this as an opportunity to help set up a witness protection programme, she said.
 
Politics and justice
 
Aly Fancinadouno, a Conakry doctor who has worked closely with 28 September victims, said it remains to be seen whether politics will stay out of the judicial process. “Will this be like past scenarios when those in power influenced the judiciary? We don’t know.”

Pointing out that Tiégboro and others must be seen as innocent until proven guilty, he said: “The charges against him show that the work launched after 28 September is getting somewhere. If those in power don’t interfere, the judicial process could be carried out.”
 
Political considerations could figure, at least in the short term, said Vincent Foucher, an analyst with the International Crisis Group in West Africa. “Politics could get in the way of bringing charges against Dadis Camara. He is significant politically for Guinea’s Forest Region, and [President Alpha] Condé might fear that allowing justice to go after Camara [Dadis] might cost the support of voters in that region ahead of the much-delayed legislative elections… That’s not the case for Tiégboro.”
 
Foucher said whatever the political considerations of charging only Tiégboro for now, the judges’ decision is “excellent news” for Guinea. “What counts is that someone who is suspected of very grave crimes has had to come before a judge. This is a huge victory… It says to any soldier or police officer, `one day you could see real consequences for any wrongdoings’. That is the beginning of what we call rule of law.”

Shift expectations
 
And what it says to Guinean citizens, and all West Africans, according to Dufka, is that they can shift their expectations. “There is a culture of low expectations on the part of the people – they just expect the powerful to get away with abuses,” she said. “The charges against Tiégboro come after the indictment and trials against [former Liberian president] Charles Taylor and [former Ivoirian president] Laurent Gbagbo; of course Tiégboro is not at that level, but the dynamic was the same – that the politically powerful and connected are above the law.”
 
The shift has already begun. “With charges having been filed against Tiégboro, I will be more self-confident around members of the military, free of fear,” sociologist Ibrahima Kalil Bamba told IRIN. “What happens is the image of soldiers becomes increasingly demystified.”
 

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Controversial junta leader, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara was also cited as being probably criminally responsible for the 28 September killings (file photo)

Rights groups and Guineans are watching for further indicators that the shift towards rule of law is real – removing Tiégboro from his current government job, for starters. He has been charged, but retains his post. “Putting him on administrative leave would send an official signal that the government is squarely behind this process and believes in the seriousness of the process and the charges,” Dufka said.
 
Rights experts have noted that the investigation into 28 September has been relatively well resourced by the government. But Guinea’s notoriously weak justice system needs an overhaul if the rule of law is to take hold beyond this case which has the world’s attention.
 
Guinean law is not up to the international conventions the country has ratified, and there is a grave lack of lawyers and magistrates, said Foromo Frédéric Loua, lawyer and president of the Guinean NGO Mêmes Droits pour Tous. He said Guinea has about 200 lawyers for a population of 12 million.
 
Justice or peace?
 
Loua said he is concerned that Guinea’s truth and reconciliation commission could disrupt the judicial process. “What politicians want is calm and order, so they want to avoid anything that could spark trouble… It’s difficult to talk about reconciliation while at the same time having people charged or convicted. These two things can seem contradictory, so the commission could be tempted to call for amnesty.”

President Alpha Condé set up a truth and reconciliation commission in early 2011 to collect people’s testimony of ethnic and political violence.
 
Mamadou Taran Diallo, a civil society activist who works on governance and transparency issues, said Guineans must not let longstanding ethnic tensions cloud their view of the judicial process. “Success in establishing rule of law needs all Guineans – government and citizens alike,” he told IRIN. “We must all avoid making this an issue of politics or ethnicity or a settling of scores. It must be seen for what it is – strictly a judicial matter in which people suspected of crimes are brought before a judge.
 
Some Guineans say they see the judges’ decision to charge Tiégboro simply as a move to prevent the case going to the International Criminal Court (ICC). A UN panel investigating the 28 September massacre said the same three named individuals should be referred to the ICC.

The ICC, which has analysed the 28 September case, can open an investigation into serious crimes if member countries are unable or unwilling to do so.
 
“Detractors should not lose sight of three things,” Dufka told IRIN. “The ICC is a court of last resort; a trial in Guinea would more directly and meaningfully send a message to would-be perpetrators that such crimes will not be tolerated; and a trial in Guinea could serve to simultaneously strengthen the judiciary and provide needed relief to the victims.”
 
np/ic/aj/cb
source www.irinnews.org