Burma Detains Opposition AIDS Activist

Written by: RFA.

BANGKOK—Burmese authorities in the former capital Rangoon have detained an opposition activist and outspoken critic of the junta’s AIDS policies, the woman’s family has told Radio Free Asia (RFA).

Five male and two female police officers who identified themselves as belonging to the Ministry of Home Affairs took Phyu Phyu Thinn, 35, into custody at her home in Rangoon around 8:15 p.m. on May 21, after assuring her mother they would bring her home at midnight, her relatives said.

The family has received no information about her since, they told RFA’s Burmese service. The officers said she was “wanted by higher authorities,”

the family said. Phyu Phyu Thinn, who suffers from asthma, brought one change of clothing with her, they said.

Authorities may have pegged her as the architect of a plan to organize mass prayers for the release of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose house arrest was ultimately extended May 25, they said.

“They said they wanted to question Ma Phyu Phyu Thinn, seven of them, and they took her away,” her mother, Daw Khin Shwe, said.

Officials in Rangoon couldn’t be reached to comment.

Activist and AIDS carer

Phyu Phyu Thinn has volunteered with Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) in caring for HIV and AIDS patients since 2002 at her home in Rangoon ’s Dagon township, her family said.

She was previously detained for four months while traveling with NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 2000.

In January, Phyu Phyu Thinn publicly complained that Rangoon facilities treating HIV/AIDS patients had stopped providing antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for new patients because supplies were exhausted.

In an interview before her detention, Phyu Phyu Thinn suggested that mortality among AIDS patients in Burma could be far higher than the official tally—and climbing since NGO clinics had stopped giving out ARVs.

“Currently, we are sending many patients to hospitals and clinics. We are constantly in touch with the patients,” Phyu Phyu Thinn said May 15. “When patients learned that they weren’t getting more ARVs, many people became discouraged and died.”

Throughout Burma , she said, “we know that the death rate from this disease is high.”

“ARV medication is no longer distributed in NGO clinics. Because of that, we are seeing an increase in the number of deaths…People don’t know that there are medicines like these, and they don’t know how to treat [this disease] either,” she said. “We find in some places that they are treating it with Burmese herbal medicines. When it is treated this way, not only is it ineffective, they spend a lot of money, and it endangers their lives.”

“We can’t reduce the death rate with such little help. Many people still need ARV medicines that can control HIV. Until these medicines can be put directly into the hands of patients throughout the country, the death rate will be high.”

The ruling junta doesn’t keep a record of AIDS deaths, she said, suggesting mortality may be far higher than reported.

“For some, when they die at home, on the death certificates, they list all kinds of other diseases but do not mention that it is from HIV/AIDS. In some regions, there are many who didn’t go to the hospitals or clinics. They didn’t know they had HIV/AIDS and so they died from it. Actually, the authorities should be working on it systematically—what is the rate of those dying from HIV and the cause of death? They’re not doing these things…There are no instructions, and they don’t want people to know about it, so they are not paying attention to this matter. Whatever the cause of death is, they just leave it be.”

Prison steeled her, sisters say

Phyu Phyu Thinn’s younger sister, Ma Sabeh Oo, said her sister’s previous detention turned her into an activist. “In the year 2000, she traveled with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, there was some commotion, and she was arrested and put in prison.”

“In prison, she saw the opposition government. She realized that everyone had sacrificed for this work. She saw many people in prison like that. It outraged her, and she made a decision right there in prison that she would become involved in politics. She was imprisoned for more than four months. Then she was released. She began to do this work after her release.”

Phyu Phyu Thinn attended HIV and AIDS training sessions run by the NLD and by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and then she began working in rural areas.

“She took the patients to their clinics. She knows how to take care of them and encourage them, and that’s how it got started,” Ma Sabeh Oo said.

Her older sister, Ma San San Oo, said Phyu Phyu Thinn tried to demonstrate non-discrimination against HIV and AIDS patients.

“She lived by example and corrected our misconceptions. She worked well with all her mind and might. When she’s taking care of patients, she’s not like ordinary people. She doesn’t shrink from the patients. Some patients had sores. We told her, ‘You’re going to become infected,’ but she said, ‘No, we need to be close to the patients. Only then, will they understand us, and it’ll be easier to treat them.’”

“When these patients first came to our house and ate their meals with us, we felt uncomfortable. Later, we got used to it, and we forgot that they were patients. Before she left for work, there’d already be about 10 or 15 at our house. At first when eating, we’d like to clear away the things. Later, after seeing her, we mingled with them and ate and drank together,” Ma San San Oo said.

Patients at a loss

“For me as well as for other patients, we are all in trouble because of Ma Phyu’s arrest,” said HIV patient Ma Aye, from Kyauk Badaung.

“We have not received our medicines, which she administers. Emotionally, we are very discouraged because she’s not around. All of our other patients are sad and crying. We don’t know what to do.”

Intimidation, poor treatment

Opposition activists have accused the junta of intimidating HIV/AIDS patients and their supporters.

And while Burma has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in Asia , estimated at 1.2 percent of adults, fears that aid money could be misdirected by the secretive junta has left donors reluctant to contribute proportionately.

An estimated 339,000 people were infected with HIV at the end of 2004, according to the military government’s National AIDS Program—nearly double the estimated 177,279 cases reported at the end of March 2002.

In the last three years, the junta has opened up to about 30 international agencies working to fight the disease, but their activities remain limited.

Volunteers say the junta’s attitude toward HIV prevention has improved recently, after officials denied its rapid spread throughout the 1990s.

Original reporting by May Pyone Aun for RFA’s Burmese service. Edited by Khin May Zaw. Service director: Nancy Shwe. Produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.

Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation that broadcasts news and information in nine East Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. The purpose of RFA is to provide a forum for a variety of opinions and voices from within these Asian countries. Our Web site adds a global dimension to this objective. RFA is funded by an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors. If you no longer wish to receive RFA news alerts, send an e-mail to Leave RFA. To add your name to our mailing list, send an e-mail to Join RFA.

Blair to G8: Keep African promises

Source: CNN.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday urged rich nations to keep their promises of financial aid to Africa, saying failure to do so could threaten the continent's march toward prosperity and democracy.

In a keynote speech in Johannesburg on the final leg of his farewell African tour as Britain's leader, Blair also said that Africa's leaders must get tough on authoritarian governments, such as those in Sudan and Zimbabwe.

"Wealthy nations and Africa both face a choice ... Our challenge is to support the good. Africa's challenge is to eliminate the bad," Blair said in the speech.

"Next week at the G8 (Group of Eight) Summit, leaders will show whether, having put Africa at the top of the global agenda, we have the perseverance and vision to see it through. I hope we have," the outgoing British leader said.

Blair's visit came on the eve of the G8 summit scheduled for Germany, during which Chancellor Angela Merkel has vowed to press rich nations to fulfil aid pledges to Africa under a 2005 Blair initiative.

"We need each G8 to be bolder on Africa than the last," Blair said. "If we give up, we will lose the chance in this continent, rich as it is though its people are often poor, for our values to take root."

He said initiatives such as the new Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund, which will provide matching funds for commercially sustainable African business projects, showed that Africa and the West could be partners in development.

Mandela and Mbeki

Due to hand over power to finance minister Gordon Brown on June 27, Blair is using the trip to build momentum for the summit, which will focus on the world's poorest continent and push for a world trade deal.

He visited Libya and Sierra Leone before traveling to South Africa, where he will bid farewell to former South African President Nelson Mandela and meet current leader Thabo Mbeki.

Pushing the United States and other Western nations to meet their pledges of financial aid, trade support and assistance on peacekeeping and conflict resolution is a key part of the Blair agenda in his final weeks in office, as is the need for a global deal to fight climate change.

But Blair is also underscoring what he says is the need to pressure Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's government, which has been criticized in the West for a violent crackdown on political opponents.

Mbeki is overseeing efforts to bring Mugabe and his opponents in Zimbabwe to the bargaining table ahead of elections in the southern African nation scheduled for next year, and Blair said this effort needed to bear fruit quickly.

"African governments should also hold other African governments to account," Blair said.

"The world is waiting, wanting to re-engage with a reforming Zimbabwe government ... but for the people of Zimbabwe, this is urgent, and change before the 2008 elections essential."

Blair said Sudan, where the United States has accused President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of pursuing genocide in the war-ravaged region of Darfur, was another opportunity for Africa to show it stood on the side of peace and justice.

"We have to offer President Bashir a choice. Engage with us on a solution. Or, if you reject responsibility for the people of Darfur, then we will table and put to a vote sanctions on the regime."

Blair acknowledged some people were growing cynical over repeated -- and often only partially fulfilled -- pledges of Western help for Africa, but said he was convinced the policy needed to be enhanced not questioned.

"The fact that we don't get it all doesn't mean that we got nothing," he said. "We've got to make the case in the developed world that in the end this is in our own self-interest as well. This is not about charity."

Tibetan Abbot Forced To Step Down

Written by: Radio Free Asia.

WASHINGTON — The head of a large Buddhist monastery in Chinese-run Tibet has been forced to step down after he refused to sign documents condemning the Dalai Lama, the monk and a local official have told Radio Free Asia (RFA).

“I spoke out loudly and refused to sign. I declared that I will not sign even at the cost my life, or risk of imprisonment, [or] death in a court,” Khenpo Tsanor, 70, the head of Dungkyab monastery in Gade county [in Chinese, Gande] in Golog Tibetan Prefecture, Qinghai province, told RFA’s Tibetan service. He said he officially stepped down in mid-May.

“I saw the government documents… It was written that the Dalai Lama should be thoroughly criticized and his splittist behavior should be condemned,” he said.

“I had no intention to sign. I knew very well that all who do not sign have to face trial in a Chinese court. They even threatened that the monastery would be shut down if we did not sign documents” from county officials as part of a religious and patriotic re-education campaign, he said.

“Some county officials came to the monastery [and] asked me whether I will agree to step down from the position of chief abbot,” he said. “I agreed since I didn't have the option of not accepting it.”

“It is so difficult for me to sit in such painful meetings,” he said, referring to mandatory sessions with officials aiming to quash support for the Tibetan exile leader, the Dalai Lama.

Officials at the Gande religious affairs department declined to comment on several occasions. But another Gande county official, who asked not to be identified, confirmed Khenpo Tsanor’s account.

The official also said county authorities were in the process of stepping up their patriotic re-education campaign and aiming to make Dungkyab a “model” monastery comprising only monks loyal to China .

“People are saying that the Dungkyab monks have refused to endorse the documents of the patriotic re-education campaign. This year I think the issue was discussed and it was decided to terminate his position,” the county official said.

“It is well known that all monasteries under China must be converted into ‘model monasteries,’” which comply with government directives, the official said. “From the government’s perspective, many monasteries must be evaluated and brought into compliance, although I don’t know all the details.”

Dungkyab monastery, some 12 miles (20 kms) from the Gande county seat, was established by the renowned Buddhist teacher Kyabje Wangchen Khenrab Dorje in 1837. It currently houses more than 200 monks, in addition to another 130 monks recruited by the Chinese authorities, according to local sources.

The Dalai Lama fled the region after a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. China has said the Dalai Lama will play no role in Tibet ’s future. China ’s People’s Liberation Army troops marched into Tibet in 1951. The Dalai Lama has accused Beijing of implementing policies of “cultural genocide” against the region and its Buddhist heritage.

In March, monks at the large and important Labrang monastery in central Gansu province alleged that their religious teaching and practice was facing ever-tighter Chinese curbs.

Though Chinese law permits freedom of religious faith and practice, one monk said, Chinese authorities force Labrang monks to make statements denouncing Tibet ’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

The U.S. State Department, in its just-released 2006 report on human rights worldwide, said Chinese government officials have “closely associated Buddhist monasteries with pro-independence activism in Tibetan areas of China .”

“The level of repression in Tibetan areas remained high [during the year],” the State Department said in its report, “and the government’s record of respect for religious freedom remained poor.”

Original reporting by Chakmo Tso for RFA’s Tibetan service. Translation by Karma Dorjee. Tibetan service director: Jigme Ngapo. Produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.

Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation that broadcasts news and information in nine East Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. The purpose of RFA is to provide a forum for a variety of opinions and voices from within these Asian countries. Our Web site adds a global dimension to this objective. RFA is funded by an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors. If you no longer wish to receive RFA news alerts, send an e-mail to Leave RFA. To add your name to our mailing list, send an e-mail to Join RFA. #####

Your e-mails: Will U.S. sanctions on Sudan work?

Source: CNN.

(CNN) -- President Bush imposed new sanctions this week against the Sudanese government for its refusal to stop violence against civilians in Darfur. The sanctions are aimed at 31 companies owned or controlled by the Sudanese government, banning them from doing business with the United States or U.S. companies.

CNN.com asked readers if they think that economic sanctions can help end the crisis in Darfur, and what responsibility, if any, the United States has to end the violence. Below is a selection of those responses, some of which have been edited for length and clarity:

Haytham Mohamed of Khartoum, Sudan.
As far as I know, thousands of Sudanese incomes depend on these 31 companies regardless of the political situation in Darfur.

Sanctions might be a good weapon by adding more suffering and hunger to Sudanese people, but now it is like the U.S. government is saying ,"Equity in Sudan means that all people of Sudan must live an equal way of living, they should all be starving and leave Sudan."

Instead of increasing the number of people who are suffering in Sudan, please Mr. Bush be more creative and find a better way.

Dorothy Rich of Norwalk, Connecticut.
We say "never again" and then it happens again. Colin Powell visited the Darfur area of Sudan and had the courage to state the truth about what is happening there: genocide. All countries, including the U.S., have a responsibility to do what they can to stop the slaughter and other human rights abuses by the Janjaweed and the Sudanese government. China, especially, needs to be pressured to stop investing in Sudanese oil. The Sudanese government must accept the intervention of U.N. and African Union forces.

Roman Soiko of Plainsboro, New Jersey.
President Bush has been completely and seemingly intractably ambivalent about the horrors, the reprehensible and completely unfathomable horrors that are commonplace, and occur with impunity in Darfur.

It is high time that Bush expanded his net, and force all companies who do business with Sudan, no matter how infinitesimal their portfolio is in that country, and should place economic sanctions on any country that colludes with Sudan and send in NATO, U.N., AU peacekeeper forces immediately and without ambivalence or hesitation.

Harry Stone of Raleigh, North Carolina.
I was listening to Bush about Darfur. Why does he stick his nose in it? That's why we are short of money and troops and so many soldiers have died because he simply believes his way is the right way. I believe in helping anyone who needs it, but my family comes first.

Dana Crumbliss of Fort Worth, Texas.
I believe it is absolutely crucial that the U.S. becomes much more involved in putting an end to the horrific crimes continuing in Darfur. The passivity of the world is shameful, and we are looked to as leaders whether we like it or not. Kofi Annan said it best: We have yet to summon the collective sense of urgency this issue requires.

Chris Lafargue of San Antonio, Texas.
Why do we always have to help other countries? Most of them hate us to begin with and the only time they want us around is when they need us to help them. It should be the responsibility of the government of the country in trouble to take care of its own people, not us. Also if all off these rich celebrities are so concerned for Darfur, why don't they donate their money to help?

Jose Antonio Goncero of Quezon City, Philippines.
I believe that the economic sanctions will only make things worse. The U.S. is not only depriving the Sudanese government business but also putting its ordinary people into deeper anguish.

Aimee Imlay of Lakeside, California.
I applaud the president for imposing sanctions against the Sudanese government; it demonstrates concern on behalf of the U.S. Unfortunately, the sanctions are far too late, as hundreds of thousands of people have already died. I am not sure if the sanctions will "work," but I imagine that they will not. I think that the U.S. and the entire Western world both have a responsibility to end this crisis in Darfur. The U.S., claiming to be interested in implementing democracy in places in need, should examine the Darfur crisis and give substantial consideration to ending the violence, regardless of strategic interests such as economic and logistical opportunities. In a time with an emerging global economy, people should consider taking care of their fellow global citizens, regardless of country lines, cultural and religious differences.

Michelle Blake of Hillside, New Jersey.
I don't think that sanctions will stop the violence in Darfur. It is a start. However, it is not enough. I don't think the Sudanese care so much about doing business with the U.S. than it cares about its cause. If we can send troops to Iraq to fight a senseless war, surely we can spare troops to help the people in Darfur. At least we would know what our purpose was.

V. Fleming of Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
I believe generations of people now and generations to come just don't want to care. Hundreds of thousands of innocent lives are being destroyed in innumerable ways. The slaughter of people, young and old, the rape of women and young girls and the use of young children as soldiers continue. It's as if Africa and its people aren't important enough for the rest of mankind to care. And it's not just the ordinary people that carry this attitude. Leaders of many nations do nothing more than give the Darfur crisis lip service of the poorest magnitude. How long will we have to witness yet another wholesale slaughter of innocent lives? What has to happen for the world to react to yet another holocaust? Do we have time to save Darfur?

Photo: An aerial view shows typical huts in the western Darfur town of Mukjar, Sudan.

3,000 Darfur refugees make 10-day trek through bush

Source: CNN.

BANGUI, Central African Republic (Reuters) -- An estimated 3,000 Sudanese refugees driven from their homes by fighting in Darfur trekked for 10 days through the bush to seek shelter in Central African Republic, United Nations officials said on Tuesday.

The refugees told a U.N. team in the northeastern town of Sam-Ouandja, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the Sudanese border, that a ground and air attack had forced all 15,000 inhabitants of the southern Darfur town of Dafak to flee their homes.

Most of them headed south within Sudan, but some fled westward into Central African Republic, an arduous journey of more than 125 miles (200 kilometers) following a track accessible only on foot or by horse.

Their flight was the latest evidence that the conflict in Darfur, where a war pitting rebels against Sudan's army and allied militias has raged since 2003, is pushing refugees into neighboring states like Chad and Central African Republic.

"So far we have registered 1,411 refugees and more of them are arriving every day," said Bruno Geddo, country representative for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, who led a U.N. mission on Monday to Sam-Ouandja in the isolated north-east.

"We are working on an estimate of 3,000 [refugees] at the moment," he told Reuters.

Although initial news reports suggested the groups were armed and could include Chadian rebels, Geddo said the U.N. team had found no evidence of either weapons or Chadian nationals.

The town of Sam-Ouandja was attacked in March and November by insurgents trying to topple Central African President Francois Bozize, who seized power in a 2003 coup before legitimizing his rule at the ballot box two years later.

Geddo said the town's inhabitants were unable to cope with the influx of Sudanese refugees, who were currently relying on mangoes picked from the bush for food.

The United Nations children's agency UNICEF estimated last month that a quarter of the 4 million people in Central African Republic -- the world's sixth poorest country -- are suffering the effects of internal violence or the spill over from conflicts in neighboring Sudan and Chad.

Photo: Conflict in Darfur is pushing Sudanese refugees into neighboring states like Chad and Central African Republic. These refugees left Darfur in September 2004.

In Darfur camp, women recount rapes, suffering

Source: CNN.

KALMA, Sudan (AP) -- The seven women pooled money to rent a donkey and cart, then ventured out of the refugee camp to gather firewood, hoping to sell it for cash to feed their families. Instead, they say, in a wooded area just a few hours walk away, they were gang-raped, beaten and robbed.

Naked and devastated, they fled back to Kalma.

"All the time it lasted, I kept thinking: They're killing my baby, they're killing my baby," wailed Aisha, who was seven months pregnant at the time.

The women have no doubt who attacked them. They say the men's camels and their uniforms marked them as janjaweed -- the Arab militiamen accused of terrorizing the mostly black African villagers of Sudan's Darfur region.

Their story, told to an Associated Press reporter and confirmed by other women and aid workers in the camp, provides a glimpse into the hell that Darfur has become as the Arab-dominated government battles a rebellion stoked by a history of discrimination and neglect.

Now in its fourth year, the conflict has become the world's worst humanitarian crisis, and rape is its regular byproduct, U.N. and other human rights activists say.

Sudan's government denies arming and unleashing the janjaweed, and bristles at the charges of rape, saying its conservative Islamic society would never tolerate it.

It has agreed to let in 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers, but not the 22,000 mandated by the U.N. Security Council. It claims the force would be a spearhead for anti-Arab powers bent on plundering Sudan's oil.

Meanwhile, more than 200,000 civilians have died and 2.5 million are homeless out of Darfur's population of 6 million, the U.N. says, and a February report by the International Criminal Court alleges "mass rape of civilians who were known not to be participants in any armed conflict."

Stigma of sexual assault

Kalma is a microcosm of the misery -- a sprawling camp of mud huts and scrap-plastic tents where 100,000 people have taken refuge. It is so full of guns that overwhelmed African Union peacekeepers long ago fled, unable to protect it. It is so crowded that the government has tried to limit newcomers -- forbidding the building of new latrines, so a stench pervades the air.

Anyone venturing outside must reckon with the janjaweed, as Aisha and her friends found out.

In Sudan, as in many Islamic countries, society views a sexual assault as a dishonor upon the woman's entire family. "Victims can face terrible ostracism," says Maha Muna, the U.N. coordinator on this issue in Sudan.

Some aid workers believe the janjaweed use rape to intimidate the rebels, and their supporters and families. "It's a strategy of war," Muna said in an interview earlier this year in Khartoum, the capital.

Sudan's government is especially sensitive about such accusations and denies rape is widespread.
Sudanese public opinion would view mass rape much more severely than other crimes alleged in Darfur, said a senior Sudanese government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from his superiors.

He acknowledged the janjaweed had initially received weapons from the government -- something the government officially denies -- and said authorities now are struggling to rein in the militias.

Nasser Kambal, a prominent human rights activist and co-founder of the Amel center, a Sudanese group helping victims of rape and other abuse, offers a similar view.

"I don't think raping was planned by the government. Killing and looting and torture, yes, but not rape," he said.

" All the time it lasted, I kept thinking: They're killing my baby, they're killing my baby."
- Aisha Hamid

Kalma isn't the only place where multiple accounts of rape have surfaced. Some 120 miles away, in the town of Mukjar, two men separately described women being brought into a prison where they were being held and raped for hours by janjaweed.

They said the assailants shouted that they were "planting tomatoes" -- a reference to skin color: Darfur Arabs describe themselves as "red" because they are slightly lighter-skinned than ethnic Africans.

According to Muna, U.N. agencies are working closely with Sudanese authorities to improve the government's response to rape allegations. In 2005, the government created a task force on rape in Darfur, headed by Attayet Mustapha, a pediatrician, government official and women's rights activist.

In an interview this year, Mustapha said social workers were being deployed to address the problem and a special female police unit was being assembled in Darfur.

"We tell officials that the government has decided to enforce a zero tolerance policy toward rape in Darfur," she said.

U.N. workers say they registered 2,500 rapes in Darfur in 2006, but believe far more went unreported. The real figure is probably thousands a month, said a U.N. official. Like other U.N. personnel and aid workers interviewed, the official insisted on speaking anonymously for fear of being expelled by the government.

Victims usually can't identify their aggressors, which makes prosecutions impossible. Only eight offenders were tried and sentenced for rape crimes in Darfur by Sudanese courts in 2006, said Mustapha, the task force leader. "They received three to five years prison, and 100 lashes" in accordance with Islamic law, she said.

In May, after the top U.N. human rights official charged that Sudanese soldiers had raped at least 15 Darfur women during one recent incident, Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardi asked where the evidence was.

"We always seem to get sweeping generalizations, without naming the injured, without naming the offenders," he told reporters.

In Kalma, collecting firewood needed to cook meals is becoming more perilous as the trees around the camp dwindle and women are forced to scavenge ever farther afield. It is strictly a woman's task, dictated both by tradition and the fear that any male escorts would be killed if the janjaweed found them.

Agreeing to tell the AP their story earlier this month through a translator, the seven women's voices wavered and hesitated, broken by embarrassed silences. All gave their names and agreed to be identified in full, but the AP is withholding their surnames because they are rape victims and vulnerable to retaliation.

The women said they set out on a Monday morning last July and had barely begun collecting the wood when 10 Arabs on camels surrounded them, shouting insults and shooting their rifles in the air.

The women first attempted to flee. "But I didn't even try, because I couldn't run," being seven months pregnant, said Aisha, a petite 18-year-old whose raspy voice sounds more like that of an old woman.

She said four men stayed behind to flay her with sticks, while the other janjaweed chased down the rest of her group.

"We didn't get very far," said Maryam, displaying the scar of a bullet that hit her on the right knee.

Once rounded up, the women said, they were beaten and their rented donkey killed. Zahya, 30, had brought her 18-year-old daughter, Fatmya, and her baby. The baby was thrown to the ground and both women were raped. The baby survived.

Zahya said the women were lined up and assaulted side by side, and she saw four men taking turns raping Aisha.

The women said the attackers then stripped them naked and jeered at them as they fled. On their way back, men from the refugee camp unraveled their cotton turbans for the women to partly cover up, but the victims said they were laughed at when they entered the refugee camp.

"Ever since, I've made sure that women living on the outskirts of the camp have spare sets of clothes to give out," said Khadidja Abdallah, a sheika, an informal camp leader, who took the women to the international aid compound at the camp to be treated.

They were given anti-pregnancy and anti-HIV pills, thanks to which their families haven't entirely ostracized them, the women said. The baby Aisha was expecting at the time is doing well. His name is Osman.

Alarming trend of assaults in camps

Sheikas in Kalma said they report over a dozen rapes each week. Human rights activists in South Darfur who monitor violence in the refugee camps estimate more than 100 women are raped each month in and around Kalma alone.

The workers warn of an alarming new trend of rapes within the refugee population amid the boredom and slow social decay of the camps. But for the most part, they added, it all depends on whether janjaweed are present in the area.

The sheikas say they are making some headway toward persuading families to accept raped women back into their embrace and let them report attacks to aid workers. One advantage is that they get a certificate confirming they were raped.

"We tell husbands they might be compensated one day," said Ajaba Zubeir, a sheika. "But I don't think that's going to happen."

The seven women say they haven't left the camp since they were attacked. They have started their own small workshop and make water jugs out of clay and donkey dung to sell to other refugees.

As they worked on their large pile of jugs and bowls, they said they are even poorer than before, because they now have to buy their firewood from other women.

"But at least we never have to go out again," said Aisha.

None of the women has any faith that Sudanese or international courts will ever give them justice. All Zahya asks is that one day she can return to her village.

"If people could at least help end the fighting, that would be enough," she said.

U.N. peacekeeper killed in Darfur

Source: CNN.

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) -- A U.N. peacekeeper was killed in Darfur, the first U.N. casualty since the world body began sending small reinforcements to a beleaguered African Union force deployed in the violent western Sudan region, the AU and the United Nations said Saturday.

The U.N. peacekeeper, Egyptian Lt. Col. Ehab Nazir, was shot by unidentified gunmen who looted his house late Friday in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state. He died hours later in an AU hospital at the African force's headquarters about one kilometer (half mile) away, the AU said.

"The senseless killing of an innocent man in the confines of his residence is beyond comprehension," said Hassan Gibril, the deputy head of the AU mission, at a memorial for the peacekeeper held Saturday at the AU's headquarters.

"He is the first peacekeeper sent to us as reinforcement to be killed in Darfur," AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni told The Associated Press by telephone.

The U.N. mission in Sudan confirmed the Egyptian officer's death -- the first time a blue helmet was slain in Darfur.

The unidentified gunmen who killed him where thought to be burglars, but an official close to the investigation said authorities would not exclude other motives for the killing. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

In Cairo, the foreign ministry deplored the Egyptian officer's death and deeply condemned in a statement the "sinful aggression" in which Nazir became the "casualty of an attack by armed elements."

African Union faces increasing hostility

The AU has faced increased hostility from warring factions in Darfur, and has lost 19 of its own peacekeepers since it first deployed in June 2004.

"Not a month goes by without a new killing, it's very difficult," AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni said.

The U.N. began deploying some 180 staff to Darfur in December as reinforcement to the overwhelmed 7,000-strong AU mission.

This "light support package" is part of a broader agreement that should lead to 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers moving into Darfur in 2007, but the AU and U.N. both acknowledge that even the first batch of 180 reinforcements have not yet all arrived.

The Sudanese government of President Omar al-Bashir has rejected a U.N. resolution for some 22,000 U.N. peacekeepers to replace the AU in Darfur, where over 200,000 people have been killed and 2,5 million chased from their homes in four years of fighting.

Since then, Khartoum, the U.N. and the AU continue to negotiate a compromise deal for U.N. forces to slowly beef up world efforts to end Darfur's spiraling violence.

Hospital ship begins trip around Africa in Liberia

Source: .

MONROVIA, Liberia (Reuters) -- The world's largest charity hospital ship docked in Liberia on Wednesday to begin a mission to bring free health care to Africa.

The 80-bed Africa Mercy, a former Danish rail ferry converted into a state-of-the-art hospital ship, will spend several months treating patients in Monrovia port before moving on to Sierra Leone on a voyage that will take it around Africa.

An enthusiastic crowd greeted the white- and blue-painted vessel with its massive square superstructure.

With six operating theaters on board, it has the capacity to carry out 7,000 operations a year including, cataract and tumor removal, lens implants, cleft lip and palate reconstruction, orthopaedics and obstetric fistula repair.

It is run by the international charity Mercy Ships, which since its creation in 1978 has sent hospital ships around the world providing free health care and services to the poor.

Africa Mercy and her 400-strong multinational volunteer crew will take over from the smaller Anastasis, another Mercy Ships vessel which will be retiring later this year after serving more than 275 ports around the world over her lifetime.

"The Africa Mercy will now lead the charge to help end despair throughout the regions of Africa," Myron E. Ullman, III, Chairman of the Mercy Ships International Board, said.

Crew members waving the flags of several countries joined in signing and dancing at the arrivals ceremony at the port.

On hand to greet the ship on Wednesday were several former patients who had been successfully treated by Mercy Ships staff.

"I am just happy, I mean too happy for the Mercy Ship to be here. I was blind for five years. I couldn't see, but when the Mercy Ship (the Anastasis) came, I was able to see after they operated on me," 68-year-old Liberian Joseph John told Reuters.

Buying the former ferry and turning it into a floating hospital cost around $62 million, funded by donations and gifts-in-kind.

Liberia, Africa's oldest republic founded in 1847 by freed American slaves, is trying to recover from a devastating on-off 1989-2003 civil war that destroyed infrastructure and public services and killed and maimed tens of thousands of people.

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa's first female elected head of state, will visit the Africa Mercy on Monday.

Report: North Korea test-fires missiles

Source: CNN.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea fired several short-range guided missiles Friday into the sea that separates it from Japan in an apparent test launch, South Korean officials and media reports said.

Analysts and media reports said the North's test was in response to South Korea's launch of its first destroyer equipped with high-tech Aegis radar technology on Friday. South Korea is now one of only five countries armed with the technology, which will make it easier to track and shoot down North Korean aircraft and missiles.

"This shows North Korea, whose navy is rather small, is extremely alarmed," said Toshimitsu Shigemura, an expert on North Korean issues at Japan's Waseda University.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed Friday's missile launches.

"The short-range missile launches are believed to be part of a routine exercise that North Korea has conducted annually on the east and the west coasts in the past," the statement said.

The missiles were fired from the communist country's east coast into the sea between Japan and the Korean peninsula, a Joint Chiefs official said on condition of anonymity, citing official protocol.

Japan's public broadcaster and other media, citing Japanese and U.S. sources, reported the missiles were surface-to-ship. Japan's Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry could not immediately confirm the reports.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency cited an unidentified Unification Ministry official as saying the tests would not strain ties because they were apparently part of regular exercises. North and South Korea are planning Cabinet level talks on reconciliation efforts next week in Seoul.

In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called the tests "extremely regrettable" but said, "We do not consider (the missile firing) as a serious threat to Japan's national security."

Public broadcaster NHK said the missiles were shorter-range, and were not North Korea's existing Rodong or Taepodong I ballistic missiles.

Kyodo News agency said the missiles were launched from Hamgyong Namdo on the east coast of the Korean Peninsula and are considered modified silkworm or miniaturized Scuds, with a range of 60 to 125 miles.

Mobile missile carriers, communication equipment and personnel were seen in the area before the launch, but they left after the missiles were fired, Kyodo said.

Last month, North Korea displayed during a military parade a newly developed ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. territory of Guam, the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported, citing an unidentified South Korean government official familiar with an analysis of U.S. satellite images.

North Korea's missile program has been a constant concern to the region, along with its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The hard-line regime test-fired a series of missiles in July last year, including its latest long-range model, known abroad as the Taepodong-2, which experts believe could reach parts of the United States.

The North rattled the world again in October by conducting its first-ever test of a nuclear device. However, experts believe it does not have a bomb design advanced enough to be placed on a missile.

Congress ignores population police in China: Help!

A few days ago in southern China, rural villagers banded together and decided to fight back against their country's coercive population policy.

When Chinese population police showed up at their door, armed with sledge hammers and cattle prods, many families with more than one child refused to pay their "social child-raising fee." In response, the population police forcibly took their property and destroyed their homes with sledge hammers.

Please contact Congress about this human rights outrage! [The toll free number is 1-866-340-9281.]

Some poor families would have paid the excessive tax, but they simply couldn't afford it. The population police didn't care. One poor farmer saw his home bulldozed before his very eyes after he told officials he couldn't afford to pay the fines. When he went to a local government office to protest, he returned with broken fingers. His neighbors were outraged. And they fought back.

This recent event was just one of many in a long campaign by the Chinese population police to enforce their so-called "voluntary" one-child policy. Unfortunately, after last week, the villagers couldn't take it anymore.

In recent months, women faced mandatory health checks and forced abortions at the hands of government officials. Poor families faced exhorbitant fines that they simply could not afford.

It breaks my heart to learn that these families were compelled to resort to violence just to defend their livelihood from the violent population police. The Chinese government likes to claim their population policies are "voluntary." The broken homes and broken bones of these villagers tell a very different story.

Coercive Population Police attacks just like these are exactly why the U.S. Government doesn't send your taxpayer dollars to the United Nations Office for Population Assistance, or the UNFPA. After Congress and the State Department found the UNFPA working hand in hand with China's Population Police to implement the coercive one-child policy, funds were cut off.

But the new abortion Congress thinks human rights abuses like these are OK. And they are calling for renewed funding of the UNFPA.

Please contact Congress today and tell them you don't want your money supporting organizations that help Chinese officials violate human rights!

Please do not let these abuses fall beneath the radar. Tell Congress today that U.S. taxpayers will not stand for these types of abuse!

Please use our new "Forward to a Friend" link below to share this important message with ten people who share your commitment to women and the unborn around the world.

For Life,







Marjorie Dannenfelser
President
Susan B. Anthony List
www.sba-list.org.

Villagers riot as China enforces birth limit

Source: Guardian Unlimited.

Officials beaten by crowd in south-western province
Large fines and seizing of property spark violence

Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Tuesday May 22, 2007
The Guardian.

Thousands of villagers in south-west China have attacked family planning officials, overturned cars and set fire to government buildings in a riot sparked by the state's one-child policy.

Riot police have been sent to at least four townships in the Guangxi autonomous region after disturbances that led to multiple injuries and unconfirmed reports of two fatalities, witnesses and Hong Kong media reported yesterday.

The unrest comes in the wake of a new crackdown by the Bobai county government against families that break birth control regulations. Financial penalties have increased and parents who fail to pay are being punished by having their property confiscated or destroyed.

At the height of the demonstrations on Saturday, a crowd of several thousand stormed the Shapi municipal office, pulled down a wall and chased and beat officials from the family planning department. This followed demonstrations in towns across Bobai county.

Under state policies dating back to the late 1970s, most urban couples can only have one child. Families from rural areas and ethnic minorities can often have two children, especially if the first is a girl. The aim of the policy is to slow the growth of the world's biggest population, which is seen as a drain on resources.

In Bobai, the rules were weakly enforced for many years, but this spring the local government established "family planning work squads" to collect penalties retrospectively.

A student who gave only his surname, Zhou, told the Guardian his family were fined 2,000 yuan (£132) because they had three sons in the 1980s. His uncle, who has five children, was fined 20,000 yuan. "He only earns 1,200 yuan per month ... But if you cannot pay, the officials come to your home and confiscate the contents. If you refuse, then smash, smash, smash."

On internet chatrooms and in telephone conversations, locals said the work teams had confiscated cattle, DVD players, crockery and other household goods in lieu of unpaid fines.

Officials from other government departments were mobilised for the campaign. One woman, Mrs Luo, said she was recruited to make up the numbers of the "work squads". "Usually we went to a house and asked them to pay the fine," she said. "If no one answered, some men in our group used hammers to break in and take away property. If there was not enough to confiscate, they smashed the walls. Before we used to force women to have abortions but now the target seems to have changed to raising money. I hate this job, but I have no choice."

Another local man, Mr Lu of Yulin village, said the riot started after the work teams bulldozed the house of a poor farmer who could not afford the fine. The farmer reportedly went to the municipal office to protest and returned with broken fingers, stirring up anger in his community.

Local governments and police refused to comment. The state-run media has been forbidden to report the incident.

A doctor at the Shabei hospital told Reuters that several injured people had been treated there. Online photographs of protests showed smashed cars, burning buildings and a rioter stealing a computer monitor. There were also images of work squads in army fatigues carrying sledgehammers.

The one-child policy has become a symbol of the wealth gap in China. Earlier this month, government officials admitted that many rich families violated the rules because they could afford the fines.

Inequality, land grabs and pollution fears have prompted a wave of unrest. According to the ministry of public security, there were 87,000 "mass incidents" reported in 2005, up 6.6% on 2004 and 50% on 2003.

Harsh Birth Control Steps Fuel Violence in China

Source: NY Times.

By JOSEPH KAHN
Published: May 22, 2007.

BEIJING, May 21 — An intensive campaign to enforce strict population-control measures, including forced abortions, prompted violent clashes between the police and local residents in southwestern China in recent days, witnesses said Monday, describing the latest incident of rural unrest that has alarmed senior officials in Beijing.

Villagers and visitors to several counties of the Guangxi Autonomous Region in southwestern China said rioters smashed and burned government offices, overturned official vehicles, and clashed with the riot police officers in a series of confrontations over the past four days. They spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing retribution.

They gave varying accounts of injuries and deaths, with some asserting that as many as five people had been killed, including three officials responsible for population-control work. A local government official in one of the counties affected confirmed the rioting in a telephone interview but denied reports of deaths or serious injuries.

The violence seemed to stem from a two-month crackdown in Guangxi to punish people who violated the country’s policy that sets legal limits on the number of children families are allowed to have.

According to accounts posted on the Internet by villagers and witnesses, officials in several parts of Guangxi mobilized their largest effort in years to roll back population growth by requiring mandatory health checks for women and forcing pregnant women who lacked approval to give birth to undergo abortions.

Corruption, land grabs, pollution, unpaid wages and a widening wealth gap have fueled tens of thousands of incidents of unrest in recent years, many of them in rural areas that have been left behind in China’s long economic boom.

The central government, expressing concern that unrest could weaken one-party rule, has eased the tax burden on peasants and sought to curtail confiscations of farmland for development. But China’s hinterland remains volatile compared with the largest cities, which are relatively prosperous and stable.

Coercive measures, including forced abortions and sterilizations, were common in the 1980s, when the so-called one-child policy was first strictly enforced. More recently, many parts of China have been relying more on financial penalties and incentives to limit the growth of its population, which is 1.3 billion.

But local officials who fail to meet annual population control targets can still come under bureaucratic pressure to reduce births or face demotion or removal from office.

Several people said in the Internet accounts of the campaign in Guangxi that officials had issued fines starting at 500 yuan and ranging as high as 70,000 yuan, or $65 to $9,000, on families who had violated birth control measures at any time since 1980. The new tax, called a “social child-raising fee,” was collected even though most violators had already paid fines in the past, the people said.

According to an account on Longtan, a Web forum, officials in Bobai County in Guangxi boasted that they collected 7.8 million yuan in social child-raising fees from February through the end of April. Many families objected strongly to the fees and refused to pay.

Witnesses said that in such cases villagers were detained, their homes searched, and valuables, including electronic items and motorcycles, confiscated by the government.

“Worst of all, the gangsters used hammers and iron rods to destroy people’s homes, while threatening that the next time it would be with bulldozers,” said a peasant who identified himself as Nong Sheng and who faxed a letter complaining of the abuses to a reporter in Beijing.

Mr. Nong said the crackdown was widespread in several counties in Guangxi. He said local courts had declined to hear any cases brought by opponents of the policy, citing an edict from local officials.

Other villagers reached by phone described an escalating series of confrontations that began Thursday and continued through the weekend.

Several described in detail an assault on the government offices of Shapi Township, Bobai County, by thousands of peasants. They said villagers broke through a wall around the building, ransacked offices, smashed computers and destroyed documents, then set fire to the building. There were inconsistent reports of death and injuries during that clash and a later police crackdown.

Editor's Note: This was copied because most articles from the NY Times disappear. I cannot use them as a source if they are not available when people look for them.