22/04 China to adopt new law to end violence in forced demolitions

REUTERS
2011/04/22

BEIJING--China is set to adopt a law aimed at ending the use of violence, intimidation and other illegal means for forced demolitions of homes, a top legal expert was quoted as saying on April 21, as the government addresses an issue that has sparked public anger.

Property disputes in a country where the government legally owns all land have led to unruly protests, fights with police, imprisonment and even suicide, and created a headache for the stability-obsessed ruling Communist Party.

The official China Daily quoted Ying Songnian, a senior legal expert on administrative laws, as saying that the latest draft being discussed by the largely rubber stamp legislature was "close to implementation, despite minor defects".

The draft law was submitted to the National People's Congress for its fourth review on April 20, two years after it was last reviewed, the central government said in a statement on its website. (www.gov.cn).

Qiao Xiaoyang, deputy director of parliament's law committee, told lawmakers that the fourth draft also sought to "protect people's legal rights and supervise administrations in the performance of their duties in accordance with the law".

The legislation follows on from rules issued in January by the government to ease public anger over demolitions, generally carried out by either private or state-linked companies but with the acquiescence of local governments. The rules promised fair prices to homeowners losing their property and an end to forced demolitions without legal approval.

Chinese media group Caixin said in January that 2010 marked the worst year for housing demolitions, citing a report from the China Construction Management and Property Law Research Centre. The report said that more local governments were taking the place of demolition or relocation companies in forced evictions.

Standoffs in property disputes often turn violent, pitting residents against police and hired thugs.

In late 2010, a village activist, Qian Yunhui, who had protested for years against a government-backed land acquisition dispute, was crushed to death by a truck.

His death triggered a firestorm of Internet comment and grassroots campaigns claiming Qian was killed as payback in his dispute with local officials.

Officials and police officers in Wenzhou, the coastal area where Qian died, said it had been an accident. But photographs of Qian's head and torso, mangled under the back tyre of the truck, spread across the Internet, followed by images of confrontations between villagers and police in anti-riot gear.

Last November, villagers in southwestern China overturned and set ablaze dozens of vehicles in a protest over what they said was an illegal land grab for a construction project.

03/04 Charity: More than 1,000 killed in Ivorian town

JOHANNESBURG (AP) -- Unknown attackers wielding machetes and guns killed more than 1,000 civilians in the neighborhood of an Ivory Coast town controlled by forces fighting to install the internationally recognized president, the Catholic charity Caritas told The Associated Press Saturday.

The U.N. mission in Ivory Coast said it has a team investigating the alleged mass killings in western Duekoue. It said most of the nearly 1,000 peacekeepers based there were protecting about 15,000 refugees at a Catholic mission in the town at the time.

Spokesman Patrick Nicholson of the Roman Catholic charity Caritas said workers visited Duekoue on Wednesday and found hundreds of bodies of civilians killed by bullets from small-arms fire and hacked to death with machetes.

They estimated more than 1,000 civilians were killed, he said.

The International Federation of the Red Cross put the death toll at about 800, in separate and independent visits Thursday and Friday.

Nicholson, the Caritas spokesman, said the killings occurred over three days in a neighborhood controlled by fighters loyal to internationally recognized President Alassane Ouattara, though it was not clear who the perpetrators were.

"The massacre took place in the 'Carrefour' quarter of town, controlled by pro-Ouattara forces, during clashes on Sunday 27 March to Tuesday 29 March," Nicholson said. "Caritas does not know who was responsible for the killing, but says a proper investigation must take place to establish the truth."

He said the victims included many refugees from fighting elsewhere in the country, where rival forces had been battling over a disputed November election.

Caritas' investigation would indicate that people were killed at close quarters in a small neighborhood of a town of just 50,000 people as pro-Ouattara fighters began a two-pronged assault that brought them swiftly to Abidjan, the commercial capital and seat of power, within days.

The charges would be a strong blow to the embattled government of Ouattara, who is calling for entrenched incumbent Laurent Gbagbo to cede power after losing November's poll.

Ouattara's camp denied forces fighting for it were involved in any atrocities including in western Ivory Coast, but did not refer to the latest allegations. Efforts to reach Ouattara's spokesman Saturday were unsuccessful.

Previously, the United Nations put the death toll at 492 from four months of fighting.

U.N. military spokesman Col. Chaib Rais said he had "no special report" of mass killings: "There was fighting two days before, on Sunday, and people were killed, but I cannot confirm those numbers."

On Monday, fighters loyal to Ouattara said they seized Duekoue from Gbagbo forces. But Nicholson said interviews with survivors indicated pro-Ouattara forces had control of Carrefour neighborhood from Sunday.

ICRC spokeswoman Dorothea Krimitsas said "inter-communal violence" erupted there, apparently on Tuesday.

"We think there is a risk that this kind of event can happen again and hope that by calling today again for protection for the civilian population, we hope that such events can be avoided in the future," Krimitsas told The Associated Press by phone from Geneva.

The area has been a hotbed for conflict between two rival tribes supporting Ouattara and Gbagbo, who refuses to accept his election defeat.

The International Organization of Migration said Friday that tens of thousands of refugees have overcrowded Duekoue and that others who had fled the violence there "are now stranded along the route, in fear for their lives."

It said some of those slaughtered apparently were killed by "mercenaries" from nearby Liberia. Liberian mercenaries have been reported to be fighting for both Gbagbo and Ouattara.

The Roman Catholic bishop for the area, the Right Rev. Gaspard Beby Gneba of Man, said he was called by a priest from Guiglo, a town near Duekoue that also is sheltering refugees. He said the priest told him refugees were dying and that they were burying two people on Saturday.

Gneba said tensions in the area are a mixture of political, ethnic and land rivalry, aggravated by the influx of tens of thousands of new Ivorian refugees and long-established refugees from neighboring Liberia. In January, an unknown number of people were killed in violence in which some homes were torched and others looted, he said.

Gneba said more than 30,000 refugees had flooded the town of about 50,000 since January. Many are being sheltered at the Salesian priests' Mission of St. Theresa of the Baby Jesus. They are among more than 1 million people displaced by the violence since January.

"There's a traumatic humanitarian situation there," Gneba said. "They need everything: food, medicine, water, sanitation. People have lost everything, houses, clothes, they do not even have a mat to sleep on."

Rais, the U.N. colonel, said there are nearly 400 peacekeepers based at Guiglo who were doing what they could to help with water and food.

Ouattara's government, in a general statement Friday responding to allegations of abuses by Amnesty International, blamed any killings on Gbagbo forces acting as they retreated.

Ouattara had long tried to distance himself from the northern-based fighters taking up his cause who fought in a brief civil war almost a decade ago that left the country split in two. Those fighters were accused of many atrocities at the time.

But Ouattara's repeated calls for an international military intervention to force out Gbagbo and end the violence have gone unheeded. This week he appeared to change tack as the rebel fighters began a swift advance on Abidjan, calling them the "Republican Forces."

"The government firmly rejects these accusations and denies all implication of the Republican Forces of Ivory Coast in any possible violations," said Friday's statement.

Human Rights Watch issued a statement Saturday saying it had documented abuses, with the vast majority perpetrated by forces loyal to Gbagbo against real or perceived Ouattara supporters, as well as against West African immigrants and Muslims.

"The documented abuses include targeted killings, enforced disappearances, politically motivated rapes, and unlawful use of lethal force against unarmed demonstrators," the statement said. "These abuses, committed over a four-month period by security forces under the control of Gbagbo and militias loyal to him, may rise to the level of crimes against humanity."

It was not immediately possible to reach Gbagbo or his ministers.

But the New York-based organization said atrocities committed by pro-Ouattara forces risk amounting to war crimes, including three detainees burned alive and four whose throats were slit, all in Abidjan.

"Human Rights Watch has also received credible reports of abuses committed when Ouattara's forces took control of several towns in western (Ivory Coast)," it said.

"The killing of civilians by pro-Ouattara forces, at times with apparent ethnic or political motivation, also risks becoming a crime against humanity should it become widespread or systematic."

(Mainichi Japan) April 3, 2011

02/04 Hundreds Killed in Ivory Coast Town as Conflict Intensifies

Hundreds Killed in Ivory Coast Town as Conflict Intensifies

Luc Gnago/Reuters

Forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara, who seeks to oust Laurent Gbagbo, near Abidjan on Saturday.

By ADAM NOSSITER

Published: April 2, 2011

DAKAR, Senegal — As rebels swept across Ivory Coast in a rapid advance last week to oust the nation’s strongman, Laurent Gbagbo, hundreds of people were killed in a single town, the United Nationsand aid groups said Saturday, in the worst episode of violence during the four-month political crisis that has plunged the country back into civil war.

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• Gbagbo Is Said to Be Close to Defeat in Ivory Coast (April 2, 2011)

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Luc Gnago/Reuters

Gun and artillery fire rocked Abidjan on Saturday as Mr. Gbagbo's loyalists resisted, and retook the state television station.

The New York Times

Duékoué is one of the strategic towns in the country’s cocoa-growing region that was seized last week by forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara.

The exact number of dead was unclear. The United Nations said that 330 people had been killed, while aid organizations put the death toll as high as 1,000. It was also uncertain how many were civilians, and how many were combatants, but Caritas, a Catholic charity whose staff members visited the town, Duékoué, in western Ivory Coast, called it a “massacre.”

The “town was full of bodies,” said Patrick Nicholson, a spokesman for the charity. “They saw bodies in the city, in the bush, mass graves.”

Humanitarian workers did not say who was responsible. But the United Nations said that more than 100 had been killed by Mr. Gbagbo’s fighters, while about 200 had been killed by forces loyal to his rival, Alassane Ouattara, the man recognized by the United Nations, the African Unionand other international bodies as the winner of the presidential election last year.

Mr. Ouattara’s government issued a statement denying responsibility for atrocities in any part of the country, saying its forces had discovered mass graves in other towns that were the result of massacres by Mr. Gbagbo’s forces.

But the killings could call into question how much control Mr. Ouattara has over his forces. If further investigation proved their involvement in civilian deaths, it could tarnish Mr. Ouattara’s reputation overseas, where he is perceived to hold the high moral ground in the standoff with Mr. Gbagbo.

Throughout most of the crisis, civilian killings have come largely at the hands of Mr. Gbagbo’s forces, eliciting threats of criminal charges from international prosecutors. Human rights groups have also accused forces loyal to Mr. Ouattara of some extrajudicial killings, but neither side has been implicated in a single event close to this scale. The United Nations had previously estimated that a total of about 500 people had been killed in the crisis, over four months of tensions and sporadic violence.

Many of Mr. Ouattara’s fighters are former rebels from a 2002 uprising that divided the country in half, and they have come under his banner only recently. The rebels have a history of human rights abuses and had stayed mainly on the sidelines of the political crisis.

Duékoué is one of the strategic towns in the country’s cocoa-growing region they seized last week. A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross “saw a very large number of bodies” there, said a spokeswoman, Dorothea Krimitsas.

“They were shocked by the scale of it,” she said. “We don’t have exact information as to who is behind this. There were at least 800.”

The conflict between Mr. Ouattara and Mr. Gbagbo has unleashed longstanding ethnic rivalries, particularly in the lawless western regions. The Red Cross said the large number of dead it saw in the town on Thursday and Friday were apparently victims of “intercommunal violence.” But it did not assign responsibility for the killings.

With Mr. Gbagbo refusing to step down — despite international condemnation, sanctions and a collapsing economy — the rebels pushed across the country in a rapid sweep last week, advancing all the way to encircle the presidential palace and Mr. Gbagbo’s residence in the nation’s main city, Abidjan.

United Nations peacekeepers are stationed at Duékoué, but it was unclear what knowledge, if any, their base might have had about the mass deaths.

“They are protecting the Catholic mission” where thousands of civilians have taken refuge, said a United Nations spokesman, Hamadoun Touré. “They didn’t tell me anything. If they knew they would have told us,” he said. “In general when there is fighting, there are incidents. Sometimes, there are exaggerations.”

In Abidjan, the country’s commercial capital, gunfire and artillery exchanges rocked the city on Saturday as Mr. Gbagbo stiffly resisted efforts to dislodge him.

Mr. Gbagbo’s loyalists retook the state television station, though Mr. Ouattara’s military spokesman dismissed the significance of its retaking.

“What is preoccupying us is the liberation of the people of Abidjan,” said Capt. Léon Alla, the spokesman. “Not the R.T.I., which is nothing but propaganda,” he said, referring to Radio Télévision Ivorienne.

Still, the station has been one of Mr. Gbagbo’s most powerful weapons in a nonstop campaign to fire up supporters with claims that he is the victim of a Western conspiracy, and both sides have waged a fierce battle for it.

The streets in Abidjan were empty, widespread looting was reported, and residents stayed home, often lying on the floor to avoid stray bullets, which killed a Swedish employee of the United Nations on Thursday. “They are still firing, without interruption,” said Ben Sylla, who lives near the large Agban military base in the Adjamé neighborhood. “Heavy weapons fire,” Mr. Sylla said, adding that dozens of families had taken refuge in a nearby school.

The United Nations spokesman, Mr. Touré, said: “There is firing. Then it calms down. The situation is unchanged.” The United Nations reported that one of its patrols was attacked Friday by Mr. Gbagbo’s forces, and fired back, hitting several of the strongman’s soldiers.

Mr. Gbagbo was believed to be either in the presidential palace downtown, the site of his offices, or in his residence in the Cocody neighborhood. Residents reported hearing gunfire and artillery in both places. His advisers could not be reached Saturday.

A version of this article appeared in print on April 3, 2011, on page A1 of the New York edition.