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JRS Dispatches No. 226

(extract)

IVORY COAST REBELS PLAY DOWN PEACE PROCESS DELAYS

On 2 November, a spokesman for the New Forces rebel group, Sidiki Konate, dismissed international criticism over delays in implementing the peace accord. The rebel group underlined the importance of implementing the deal with care and in detail, rather than in haste.

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, said he was "deeply concerned" about a failure to stick to the timeline, adding that a continued "slackening of momentum" would undermine the deal.

The rebels have controlled the north of the country since a brief 2002-2003 civil war. Last March, they reached an agreement with President Laurent Gbagbo to disarm and reunite the nation after years of failed foreign-backed peace efforts. However, analysts report little sign of progress towards disarmament or the long-delayed elections which the sides had agreed to hold by January.

JRS project directors based in the country's northern city of Bouaké report that its educational and medical programmes are still needed due to peace process delays.

"Until the administration fully re-deploys and takes active measures to rehabilitate the region, populations will remain vulnerable and in need of basic services," Regional Communications Officer, Ashley Gagné, told Dispatches on 8 November.

"Unaccompanied minors frequenting security checkpoints are especially susceptible to exploitation," she added.

JRS urges the government to implement their positive intentions both thoroughly and rapidly.

The Independent Electoral Commission says it could take until around October 2008 to organise the poll.

Voter identification, one of the most contentious parts of the peace process, began in September but mobile courts are being very slow in issuing papers to thousands of undocumented citizens, which would enable Ivorians among them to vote.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: SIXTEEN ITURI WARLORDS SURRENDER

On 6 November, a senior government official has declared the war-ravaged northeastern region of Ituri free of armed groups after 16 senior commanders flew to Kinshasa to join the regular army.

Among the 16 who left Ituri were leaders of the Congolese Revolutionary Movement (MRC) and the Front of Integrationist Nationalists (FNI). They all stressed their commitment to seeing peace return to Ituri.

On October 18, one rebel leader, Germain Katanga, 29, was taken into the custody of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In January 2007, the ICC indicted Thomas Lubanga for war crimes, specifically the conscription of children into his militia. Lubanga, 46, was arrested on 17 March 2006 in Ituri, becoming the first suspect to be taken into ICC custody, two years after the Court's prosecutor launched investigations into his activities in the Ituri conflict.

Clashes rooted in tensions between Ituri's two main ethnic groups, the Hema and the Lendu, have claimed thousands of lives since 1999, while many more civilians have been displaced. Armed groups in Ituri have been widely accused of killing, maiming and raping civilians for years.

In the other eastern provinces of North and South Kivu, the fighting in recent weeks between soldiers loyal to dissident General Laurent Nkunda and Congolese government troops has led to mass displacement. At a time when many countries are encouraging refugees to return back to the country, clashes have escalated. The recent mass movement of around 13,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) into Uganda, including 5,000 in the past week alone, is a clear indication that the country - in particular the region of North Kivu - is far from stable.

SRI LANKA: CLAIMS AND COUNTER CLAIMS OF LOSSES IN RENEWED FIGHTING

On 7 November, Sri Lanka's military reported that 52 LTTE members were killed in renewed fighting, but the rebels disputed the numbers.

The LTTE, the ethnic Tamil independence movement, responded alleging that 20 soldiers were killed and more than 100 were wounded in the clash on the northern Jaffna peninsula, and that just one of their fighters was killed. There were no independent accounts of what had happened or how many people were really killed.

This episode is just one of almost daily clashes between the two sides, and took place after an air strike last week killed the leader of the LTTE political wing in a setback to hopes of ending the two-decade conflict soon.

The military said fierce fighting erupted along a heavily defended border that separates government and rebel-held territory on the peninsula, and that troops held territory on the rebel side of the line for two hours.

Analysts say both sides, locked in a bitter parallel propaganda war, tend to exaggerate enemy losses and play down their own.

An estimated 5,000 people have been killed since early last year amid near-daily land and sea clashes, ambushes and air strikes. The death toll since the civil war erupted in 1983 stands at about 70,000.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: HAITIANS ATTACKED AND ROBBED

On the night of the 28 October, a group of Dominican nationals attacked several Haitians in their homes in the northern border area of Ranchadero. According to JRS, the assailants destroyed their clothing and household belongings, injuring three people.

The Haitians were attacked and injured by assailants wielding machetes and other objects. The entrance and contents of three houses were destroyed and money stored by the migrants was stolen. Reliable sources believe the perpetrators are members of a US-based Dominican group known as 'El Gringo'.

On 30 October, a JRS team visited the Ranchadero community to speak to the victims of the attack. JRS heard how, on hearing of the attacks and misinterpreting the events, members of the Dominican community reacted by attacking Haitian workers without first investigating what had happened.

The authorities have ordered the police and military to take additional measures to maintain the security in the area, since tension caused by certain members of the Ranchadero community has caused the situation to worsen.

JRS called on the authorities to seek solutions to the serious problems affecting communities like that of Ranchadero. Local Haitians say these problems are caused by attitudes stemming from the irrational influence of a small group of Dominicans who do not want to see foreigners working in the region.

JRS provided health, education, legal and other financial assistance to migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in the Dominican Republic in 2006.

PANAMA: FLOODING IN THE SOUTHERN TOWN OF JAQUÉ

In the last two weeks, it has rained almost continuously in Jaqué in the southern border province of Darién, seriously affecting some 700 indigenous community members, including the indigenous refugee communities from Colombia.

"Most of the communities living in the surrounding area are suffering from the flooding. This could provoke the rivers to break their banks. Community members fear flooding will damage the aqueducts, cause them to lose their crops and animals. This is one of the worst things that could happen to these communities", JRS Panama Project Worker, Mauro Opúa, told Dispatches on 1 November.

According to local sources, as of 1 November no government officials had visited these communities to see how they were coping. JRS called on the civil protection authorities and the ministries of housing, health and social development to carry out an immediate evaluation of needs of these communities. JRS also called for the speedy delivery of humanitarian aid as communities were unable to leave their areas to obtain food.

At the end of every year, the frequency and amount of rain increases in Panama and these communities, of which 98% live below the poverty line, find themselves exposed to the chaotic consequences.

In 2006, JRS assisted 1,389 refugees in Curundú in Panama City and Parque Lafevre, Jaqué, Puerto Piña and Zona del Tuira in Darién province, providing them with legal services and training, as well as assisting communities to defend their rights.

UPDATES ON JRS PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES

COLOMBIA: PRODUCTION OF BIO-FUEL BLOCKS THE RETURN OF FORCIBLY DISPLACED PERSONS

On 5 October, the Norwegian Refugee Council's Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) published a report accusing private companies cultivating African palm oil of preventing displaced communities from recovering their land.

The report, entitled 'Resisting Displacement by Combatants and Developers: Humanitarian Zones in North-west Colombia', examines how groups of internally displaced people (IDPs) in the northwestern Chocó Department have set up "Humanitarian Zones" on small patches of collective land, in a desperate bid to protect themselves and remain in their area of origin.

The Colombian government and its international partners have supported the development of African palm plantations to help eradicate illicit crops, and to provide opportunities for development and peaceful employment in Chocó, an area once blighted by Colombia's internal armed conflict.

However, there is growing evidence that the African palm industry is fuelling forced displacement and other human rights violations in the region. The Procurator General's Office has expressed concern that palm companies have commissioned human rights violations from paramilitary groups, and the Ombudsman's Office has concluded that the companies have "taken advantage of forced displacement of people".

Yet the majority of reported human rights violations, including massacres and torture, leading to the forced displacement of civilians have not been investigated, and officially-demobilised paramilitary groups are still preventing IDPs from recovering their land. In September 2007, two IDP leaders were shot and seriously wounded in a reportedly "paramilitary-type" attack.

The Humanitarian Zones illustrate many of the choices and threats facing Colombia's three million or more displaced people. The report suggests that development projects cannot provide a way out of conflict unless genuine peace has been restored between the warring parties, and unless the victims have been involved in processes to restore their rights. It shows instead how, at times, development efforts may indeed prolong and worsen the injustices faced by the victims of conflict.