United States Africa Command

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18 April 2011

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TOP NEWS RELATED TO U.S. AFRICA COMMAND AND AFRICA

Report says U.S, allies seeking refuge for Gaddafi (Xinhua)

(Libya) The United States and its allies have started an intense search for a country
willing to accept Muammar Gaddafi once the Libyan leader is forced out of power by
NATO-led military operations, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

Libya Fighting Rages Amid Conflicting Reports on Rebels Fleeing (Bloomberg)

(Libya) Shelling in Misrata, the main rebel-held city in the west and Libya’s third-
largest city, has killed five people and injured 47 since yesterday, Al-Jazeera reported.
Qaddafi’s forces have fired rockets and cluster bombs into residential areas, according
to the New York Times and Human Rights Watch.

Gaddafi’s son: We will deal with terrorists first and then talk reform (Washington
Post)
(Libya) Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the influential second son of Moammar Gaddafi who was
once seen as the great hope for reform in Libya, is clear on two points: He and his
government have done nothing wrong, and they are not going to back down.

Besieged city weathers continued attacks (Washington Post)

(Libya) The street that leads to the port of this strategic city in western Libya is known
as the road of death. Dozens have been killed here as Moammar Gaddafi’s forces battle
to retake the area’s only lifeline.

In a Medical Tent in Libya, a Grim Procession (NYT)

(Libya) Jinan Hussein Jweil rested on her back on a gurney inside the triage tent. Either
a bullet or a piece of whizzing shrapnel had struck the 5-year-old high on the right side
of her head. As the ugly math of a midsize city suffering a siege would have it, Dr.
Juwid was both a doctor in an overcrowded triage tent and an uncle of this wounded
child. He had no time to dwell on her case.

Ouattara Moves to Restore Security to Ivory Coast (VOA)

(Côte d’Ivoire) President Alassane Ouattara is moving to restore security in Ivory Coast
one week after his country's political crisis ended with the arrest of former president
Laurent Gbagbo. Mr. Gbagbo held on to power with the help of the military, refusing to
recognize that he lost November's vote.

Sudan shrugs off concerns of U.S lawmakers (Sudan Tribune)

(Sudan) Sudan has dismissed an attempt by a trio of US lawmakers to stonewall the
ongoing process of removing its name from the US blacklist of countries sponsoring
terrorism.

Nigeria's president leads election vote (CNN)

(Nigeria) Nigeria's incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan looked likely Sunday to
win the election, a CNN tally of preliminary results showed.

UN News Service Africa Briefs

Full Articles on UN Website
 Côte d’Ivoire: UN steps up humanitarian aid to ease widespread suffering
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPCOMING EVENTS OF INTEREST:

WHEN/WHERE: Tuesday, April 19th at 2:00 p.m.; U.S. Institute of Peace

WHAT: The Future of Two Sudans: A Conversation with former Presidents Thabo
Mbeki, Pierre Buyoya and Adulsalami Alhaji Abubakar
WHO: President Thabo Mbeki, Former President of South Africa, Head of the African
Union High Level Implementation Panel (Sudan); President Pierre Buyoya, Former
President of Burundi, Member, African Union High Level Implementation Panel
(Sudan); President Abdulsalami Alhaji Abubakar, Former President of Nigeria,
Member, African Union High Level Implementation Panel (Sudan)
Info: http://www.usip.org/events/the-future-two-sudans-conversation-former-
presidents-thabo-mbeki-pierre-buyoya-and-adulsalami

WHEN/WHERE: Thursday, April 20th at 2:00 p.m.; U.S. Institute of Peace

WHAT: H.E. Dr. Jean Ping, Chairperson of the African Union Commission
WHO: H.E. Dr. Jean Ping, Speaker, AU Commission
Info: http://www.usip.org/events/he-dr-jean-ping-chairperson-the-african-union-
commission
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FULL ARTICLE TEXT

Report says U.S, allies seeking refuge for Gaddafi (Xinhua)

By Unattributed Author
April 17, 2011
WASHINGTON - The United States and its allies have started an intense search for a
country willing to accept Muammar Gaddafi once the Libyan leader is forced out of
power by NATO-led military operations, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
The move came even though Gaddafi has shown defiance in recent days, declaring that
he has no intention of yielding to demands that he leave his country, and intensifying
his bombardment of the rebel-held city of Misrata in western Libya.

"The effort is complicated by the likelihood that he would be indicted by the

International Criminal Court in The Hague for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over
Scotland in 1988, and atrocities inside Libya," the report said.

One possibility, the report quoted three administration officials as saying, is to find a
country, possibly in Africa, that is not a signatory to the treaty that requires countries to
turn over anyone under indictment for trial by the court.

And the officials hope that such a prospective could give Gaddafi "an incentive" to
abandon his stronghold in Tripoli, the capital.

The NATO-led coalition has stated that Gaddafi must leave power though his ouster is
not part of the military mission. The UN Security Council has authorized "all necessary
measures" to protect the Libyan civilians but not to oust the leadership.

Of NATO's 28 member states, only six are joining the air raids on the ground targets of
Libyan government forces with some 60 aircraft. As a stalemate continues on the
ground, the military bloc is seeking at least eight additional warplanes from its
members to sustain a longer-term operation and relieve strain on pilots flying repeated
combat missions.

As the U.S. and its allies are seeking a refuge for Gaddafi, a new wave of intelligence
reports suggest that no opposition leader has emerged as a credible successor to him,
the New York Times said.

U.S. officials conceded that the opposition leaders have not settled on who might
succeed Gaddafi if he is ousted, and some fear that tribal warfare could break out if
there is no consensus figure who could bind the country together.

U.S. envoy Chris Stevens is still in the opposition's stronghold of Benghazi in eastern
Libya to get a firsthand assessment of the opposition.
-------------------------------
Libya Fighting Rages Amid Conflicting Reports on Rebels Fleeing (Bloomberg)
By Peter S. Green
Apr 17, 2011 6:01 PM ET
Shelling in Misrata, the main rebel-held city in the west and Libya’s third-largest city,
has killed five people and injured 47 since yesterday, Al-Jazeera reported. Qaddafi’s
forces have fired rockets and cluster bombs into residential areas, according to the New
York Times and Human Rights Watch.
“The rebels don’t have the logistics or organization to move forward with major
objectives at this time,” said Andrew Terrill, a Middle East specialist at the Strategic
Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. “Unless we
see large scale surrender from Qaddafi loyalists, I don’t see too many cities changing
hands.”

With NATO air attacks on Qaddafi’s troops and supplies slowly crippling his war
machine, “time is much more on the rebels’ side,” said Terrill. “The rebels are getting
stronger and Qaddafi is getting weaker; I don’t see the urgency of mounting an
offensive.”

Heavy Weapons
Libyan rebels expect to receive heavy weapons in their battle to overthrow Qaddafi, a
spokesman for the rebels’ National Transitional Council, Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, said April
17. The rebels have struggled for weeks to take and hold cities in central Libya, which
have been the focus of most of the fighting since the uprising began in February.

“We have to ask ourselves, what more can we do to protect civilian life and to stop
Qaddafi’s war machine unleashing such hell on his own people,” U.K. Prime Minister
David Cameron said in a television interview yesterday.

“This is more difficult in many ways because we can’t fully determine the outcome with
what we have available, but we’re very clear, we must stick to the terms of the UN
Security Council resolution, we must keep the support of the Arab world,” Cameron
said in the interview with Sky News.

Allied aircraft enforcing the United Nations-mandated no- fly zone and sanctions on
Libya carried out 42 strike sorties yesterday, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
said in a statement from its operational headquarters in Naples, Italy.

Near the Qaddafi-held capital Tripoli, aircraft under NATO command destroyed two
ammunition bunkers and an anti-aircraft missile site, the alliance said. Two tanks, an
armored personnel carrier and a number of other pieces of equipment and ammunition
dumps were knocked out by NATO planes. None of the reported strikes were near
Ajdabiya.

‘Crusader’ Aggression
Libya’s state-run Al-Jamahiriyah television, loyal to Qaddafi, reported that Sirte,
Qaddafi’s birthplace, was bombed by “the colonialist crusader aggression.” In a news
bulletin, the station said that “every missile and bomb that the crusaders drop on
Libyans is paid for by the governments of Qatar and the Emirates at the cost of $2
million,” according to the BBC, which monitors the newscasts.
As concern grows for the 300,000 civilians trapped in the port city of Misrata by
Qaddafi’s troops, the U.K.’s International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell,
said he will discuss plans to increase aid and medical supplies and ensure better access
to civilians at a meeting at the UN today, the BBC reported.

Qaddafi Can Be Ousted

Even without putting troops on the ground, Qaddafi can be forced out, French Defense
Minister Gerard Longuet said in an interview with the Parisien newspaper.

“Coalition aircraft can destroy Qaddafi’s supply chain as they move east in the open,
but in urban combat I have to concede that while air power can avoid a tragedy, it can’t
solve the problem.”

While the coalition has the planes it needs, it lacks identifiable targets on the ground.
“All fighting is a combination of air and ground combat and in Libya we are fighting an
air war without ground information.”

He said Qaddafi’s forces number no more than 10,000 men.

The U.S. should be doing more, said Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. National
Security Adviser. He said America should be more assertive in getting rid of Muammar
Qaddafi.

“I’m glad the British and French are taking the lead, but time is of the essence, and
requires a more decisive input than the French and British are capable of generating on
their own,” Brzezinski said, adding that he “assumes we’re doing more than we’re
saying, but we should be doing even more.”

Libyan Oil Exports

The fighting has nearly halted oil exports from Libya, which holds Africa’s largest oil
reserves.

Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Ali al-Naimi said the global oil “market is oversupplied”
and that his country will pump “a bit” more crude in April than it did in March.

Saudi Arabia, the biggest producer in OPEC, pumped 8.3 million barrels a day of crude
in March, down from 9.1 million barrels a day in February, he said in Kuwait ahead of
an industry conference.

Crude oil prices may increase on speculation that unrest in the Middle East will curb
exports as Saudi Arabia reduces production, a Bloomberg News survey showed.

Prices have advanced 18 percent this year as unrest spread from Tunisia to Egypt,
Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria. Iran may be helping Syria’s government suppress
political protests, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said April 14 in
Washington. Human Rights Watch said in an April 12 report that at least 130 people
have been killed in the Syrian crackdown.

“There are no signs that the situation in the Middle East is getting any better,” said Bill
O’Grady, chief market strategist at Confluence Investment Management in St. Louis.
“Syria is looking downright ugly right now.”
----------------------
Gaddafi’s son: We will deal with terrorists first and then talk reform (Washington
Post)
By Simon Denyer
April 17, 5:40 PM
TRIPOLI, Libya — Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the influential second son of Moammar
Gaddafi who was once seen as the great hope for reform in Libya, is clear on two points:
He and his government have done nothing wrong, and they are not going to back
down.

In an interview that reflected the defiance of the Gaddafi family more than two months
into its efforts to put down a rebellion supported by the United States and its allies, the
38-year-old said the world had gone to war with Libya based on nothing more than
rumor and propaganda.

In Saif Gaddafi’s telling, he has been betrayed by his “best friend,” who defected to join
the rebels. His father’s government is besieged by al-Qaeda. And President Obama has
proved no different from his predecessor, George W. Bush.

The comments underscore the uncompromising stance of the Libyan government at a

time when the fighting has stalemated and NATO faces internal squabbling. Although
there had been indications this month that Saif Gaddafi was interested in a diplomatic
solution to the crisis that has divided his nation, his tone during an hour-long interview
suggested that the core decision-makers in Tripoli are in no hurry to find a political way
out.

As if to bolster that point, forces loyal to the Gaddafi regime on Sunday heavily shelled
the besieged city of Misurata, the only rebel outpost in western Libya. A city council
spokesman said 17 people were killed and more than 100 were injured. Government
troops also attacked rebel positions in the strategically critical eastern city of Ajdabiya,
sending some opposition fighters fleeing back to their de facto capital, Benghazi.

One month after the uprising, the United Nations authorized a no-fly zone over Libya
in March to counter the government’s attacks on civilians. Obama has said that
international military action saved countless Libyan lives, by preventing Moammar
Gaddafi’s men from carrying out a massacre in Benghazi.
But in Saif Gaddafi’s view, Obama has it all wrong.

“We want the Americans tomorrow to send a fact-finding mission to find out what
happened in Libya. We want Human Rights Watch to come here and to find out exactly
what happened,” he said. “We are not afraid of the International Criminal Court. We
are confident and sure that we didn’t commit any crime against our people.”

Relaxing on a lounge chair in a turtleneck sweater this weekend, Saif Gaddafi spoke
confidently in fluent English without any advisers present. Every word was uttered
with the passion of absolute conviction, every question parried with a version of events
that contradicts conclusions reached by observers.

He says his father’s opponents are brutal terrorists and gangsters, led by al-Qaeda, who
will soon collapse under their internal divisions. He deems evidence that his forces fired
on peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators and killed hundreds of them as categorically
false.

The younger Gaddafi drew a comparison to the reports of weapons of mass destruction
that Bush cited in the run-up to the war in Iraq. “It’s exactly like the WMD,” Saif
Gaddafi said. “WMD, WMD, WMD, go and attack Iraq. Civilians, civilians, civilians, go
and attack Libya. It’s the same thing.”

Libya’s fall from grace

Libya, once a pariah state, had worked hard to repair its international image in the past
decade. Saif Gaddafi, who at one time had called for democracy for his country,
expressed surprise at Libya’s swift fall from grace.

“Nobody in the Middle East, and especially in Libya, thought that one day President
Obama will attack Libya or an Arabic country,” he said. “It was a big shock, a big shock
for everybody, even for my father.”

Saif Gaddafi’s international image has collapsed just as quickly. The Gaddafi scion, who
was awarded a doctorate in governance and international relations at the London
School of Economics in 2008, had many friends in the West before the crisis erupted in
February. But then he delivered an extraordinary televised address vowing to fight
until “the last man, the last woman, the last bullet.”

The speech destroyed any lingering hope in the West that the son would break with his
father’s government, and he voices no regrets about it today.

“I told them, ‘You listen, Libyans. There is a big conspiracy against Libya. You will have
a civil war, you will destroy your country, you will destroy the oil, and you will have a
foreign intervention.’ And those four points happened,” he said.
Ironically, he had brought many reformers into the government in the past decade,
while promising that Libya would move toward democracy and freedom of expression
under a new constitution.

Several of those men have since defected and play leading roles in the rebel Transitional
National Council, a fact that could help explain the younger Gaddafi’s keenness to
emphasize his nationalist credentials.

“They were my friends — we drink together, we eat together, we sit together, we travel
together. They were my own people,” he said. “Now this is my biggest problem in
Libya. I get messages from volunteers on the front. They told me: ‘After the victory,
you, Saif, have no place here in Libya. Everything is because of you. Because those
criminals, these traitors were your friends, and you brought them here.’ ”

Mahmoud Jibril, a U.S.-educated professor brought back to Libya by Saif Gaddafi to

help run the nation’s economic policy, is the rebels’ foreign affairs representative. “He
was my best friend. He changed completely. I don’t know why,” Saif Gaddafi said, his
voice lowering with a tinge of hurt. “Now he is sitting with Hillary Clinton, with
[British Foreign Secretary William] Hague, and with [French President Nicolas] Sarkozy
in the Elysee. Excuse me, he said, ‘Saif, you are too small for me now.’ ”

Jibril and other top defectors have said that they could no longer support a government
that uses such extreme violence against its citizens.

Dismissing accusations

The Gaddafi government has been accused by the United Nations, human rights
groups, doctors and foreign journalists of raining down mortar shells, rockets and
sniper fire on civilians in Misurata, killing more than 280 people.

But in Saif Gaddafi’s version of events, the army is merely rooting out terrorists hiding
in the city, just as the Russian army did in the Chechen capital, Grozny, just as
Americans did in Fallujah in Iraq.

“It’s exactly the same thing,” he said. “I am not going to accept it, that the Libyan army
killed civilians. This didn’t happen. It will never happen.”

Instead of attacking Libya, he said, the United States should be helping it fight al-
Qaeda. Then, once the “terrorists” are removed from Misurata and Benghazi, he said, it
will be time to talk of national reconciliation and democracy, under a new constitution
that would reduce Moammar Gaddafi’s role to a “symbolic” one.
“The biggest issue is the terrorists and the armed militia,” Saif Gaddafi said. “Once we
get rid of them, everything will be solved.”
-------------------------
Besieged city weathers continued attacks (Washington Post)
By Leila Fadel
April 17, 7:18 PM
MISURATA, Libya — The street that leads to the port of this strategic city in western
Libya is known as the road of death. Dozens have been killed here as Moammar
Gaddafi’s forces battle to retake the area’s only lifeline.

Misurata has been besieged for two months, and its residents are trying to flee, unable
to cope with the terror of life amid random shelling and daily killings. Gaddafi is
fighting hard to regain this rebel holdout, which is just east of Tripoli.

Misurata, a relatively wealthy merchant town with an estimated 500,000 people, stands
between Tripoli and Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte. Rebel control of the city forces his
fuel supply trucks to go through the mountains in a costly loop. It also undermines his
assertion that the east is alone in its opposition to his rule.

Residents and doctors say the past two days were agony as rockets and artillery fire
barraged the port. The death toll across Misurata on Sunday was 17, the highest since
the first two weeks of fighting in late February.

Hikma hospital, a private facility that has become a makeshift trauma center, was
sprayed with bullets Sunday, but doctors continued to work.

“The international community has to assume responsibility,” said Khaled Abu Falgha,
head of the hospital’s medical team in Misurata. “I see civilians dying every day.”

One of the wounded on Sunday was a 10-year-old boy named Mohammed. He lay
unconscious in the intensive care unit, shot to the head. The only sound was the
beeping of heart monitors.

In the past week, many victims have lost limbs because of cluster bombs, Abu Falgha
said. Since the start of the conflict, the hospital has recorded at least 300 fatalities. He
said the overall death toll is probably closer to 1,000. At least 3,000 have been wounded,
he said.

“Eighty percent of the dead are civilians,” he said, exhausted from his 24-hour days,
which are broken up by small naps on a cot in the hallway.

The deaths, injuries and food shortages have left residents begging for international
help. NATO planes fly above, but the echoes of artillery fire through the city are far
more common than the sound of airstrikes.
The International Organization for Migration has made two runs to evacuate residents
and bring in supplies. The 132-member group has cobbled together the funding for
another run as humanitarian conditions in the city worsen, said Jeremy Haslam, who
leads the Misurata mission.

“If we’re going to protect civilians, there needs to be more emphasis on the
humanitarian assistance,” he said.

The city’s streets are full of the signs of urban warfare. Barriers are fashioned out of
large pieces of water pipe and filled with sand to protect checkpoints. The city’s main
road is hotly contested.

Pro-Gaddafi towns surround the city, and the only help Misurata residents receive
comes from the sea.

Ali Hannoush, a rebel fighter and guard at the port, said that he has lived in fear for 60
days. He pointed out the gnarled cargo crates of chocolate and chewing gum that were
hit by rockets.

“For every Gaddafi soldier we kill, we lose three or four of our fighters,” he said.
“We’ve suffered since the beginning.”

But he said he is determined to stay and fight.

“We can’t leave,” he said. “If we leave, who will protect the city?”
-----------------------
In a Medical Tent in Libya, a Grim Procession (NYT)
By C. J. CHIVERS
April 17, 2011
MISURATA, Libya — Jinan Hussein Jweil rested on her back on a gurney inside the
triage tent. Either a bullet or a piece of whizzing shrapnel had struck the 5-year-old high
on the right side of her head.

A Libyan and Italian medical team worked to save her. It was not certain they could.
“Her brain is out,” said Dr. Abdullah Juwid, a surgeon.

As the ugly math of a midsize city suffering a siege would have it, Dr. Juwid was both a
doctor in an overcrowded triage tent and an uncle of this wounded child. He had no
time to dwell on her case.

A pickup truck skidded to a stop outside. Several rebel fighters carried their bullet-
riddled friend through the entrance flap. The man appeared to have been in his 20s. He
had been shot through both legs and squarely in his chest and mouth. His pupils were
fixed.

“Maybe he is dead,” another doctor said, as their assistants cut away the man’s clothes.
The assistants stopped. There was no point in searching for more wounds. “He is
killed,” one of them said.

In the battle for Misurata, a rebel holdout city under attack by Col. Muammar el-
Qaddafi’s forces for months, the tally of those killed and wounded rises daily, and often
by the hour. It can be only partially assessed at one of the several treatment centers
scattered around the rebel-controlled portions of the city. But where it is counted, it is
grim.

The wounded arrive at this triage tent throughout the day and sometimes deep into the
night, a population formed by circumstance and number into a procession of wartime
trauma.

Mustafa Madhoun, a physiotherapist who had never seen injuries nastier than those
suffered by the victims of vehicle accidents, had just participated in the amputation of
the lower left leg of a fighter, Mustafa Youssif.

Mr. Madhoun summed it up. “Yesterday was a very bad day,” he said. “I had hoped
today would be different. Today is a very bad day, too.”

In clinical terms, this triage tent has seen a catalog of the effects of modern weapons on
human life — gunshot wounds, blast wounds, shrapnel wounds, the occasional burns.
People arrive with wounds as mild as a bullet’s graze, to wounds as life-changing as a
severed spinal cord. A few arrive dead.

On average, 50 or 60 wounded people pass through this tent each day. About 10 of
them die, according to the medical staff and the flow of patients observed.

“Most of them, for sure, are civilians,” said Dr. Paolo Grosso, an anesthesiologist who is
part of a seven-member team in Misurata from Emergency, the Italian aid organization,
and was among those working to save young Jinan. The organization has been helping
Misurata’s doctors.

How many people have been fatally wounded since the siege began in February is not
readily known. Rebels say more than 1,000 people have been killed. That number is not
verifiable in the current conditions.

The hospital records available so far indicate that at a minimum 313 people have been
killed and 1,047 wounded through Sunday evening. But this count is most likely low, as
some families do not take victims who have been killed outright to hospitals. They
simply bury them instead.

(Eight people who were killed in a rocket strike last Thursday, for example, were
interred in a small public park in the Qasr Ahmed neighborhood without being tallied
by any medical staff.)

Some days, like Saturday and Sunday, in which 70 people were verified wounded each
day, have been worse than others.

Among those struck have been children, including Mohamed Hussein el-Faar, 10. He
arrived at the triage tent Saturday afternoon, howling. Blood trickled from the hair
beside his right ear. He fought the doctors as they tried to examine him, until several
assistants held him down.

At first it seemed he had been grazed by a bullet. But there was also a wound on the
opposite side of his head. After he was stabilized and moved into a facility with a CT
scanner, the images provided a fuller view: a bullet had passed through Mohamed’s
skull.

On Sunday he was still alive, though a doctor gave a discouraging prognosis. “Not
good,” he said. “Never with this kind of injury is the prognosis good.”

By late Sunday morning in the triage tent, there was little time to think of yesterday’s
patients. The sounds of battle could be heard a few blocks away, and thick smoke
billowed over part of Tripoli Street, one of the city’s main fronts. A hurried pace had
picked up again.

At 11:20 a.m. the medical staff cut away the shirt of a man who had been peppered by
light debris in an explosive blast, his back busy with small holes. An ultrasound
technician scanned his torso while doctors watched.

“No problem,” Dr. Grosso said. “His chest is free.”

Another ambulance arrived eight minutes later, with a man who was not so lucky. A
bullet had struck him near his hip — a place where blood flow can be very difficult to
stop. The crowd of men who saw him being carried off the ambulance, and saw the
wide pool of blood he left behind, realized he was likely to die.

The men immediately began to chant: “God is great,” they shouted, over and over.

Throughout the afternoon the pace was unrelenting. At times four or five fresh patients
were treated at once. As each was wheeled out of the tent, it seemed another arrived.
The trauma center was in many ways well-provisioned. Its staff and the many
volunteers who have come to support it had done the planning, and some of the
necessary scrounging, to make do. (At two sinks on Sunday, the staff washed hands
with powdered laundry soap — anything to stay clean.)

Many of its principal needs have thus far been covered. It has a generator and running
water, two things not available in much of the city. It serves its patients and those who
work here occasional bottles of water and small portions of food.

But it lacks some medicines, including opiates. For at least a week there has been no
morphine.

Some of the patients would in any other circumstance surely need it, including Mr.
Youssif, a fighter brought down by ordnance that ruined his legs.

Mr. Youssif watched as his bloody pants were cut away, revealing shins that had been
blown open and feet that pointed in ways they were not meant to. It was obvious his
lower right leg would need to be amputated. Keeping his lower left leg appeared
uncertain, too. He flashed a victory sign, laid back on the gurney, and moaned.

He began to pray.

Later, in a lull after Mr. Youssif’s lower right leg had been removed, Mr. Madhoun
paced away from the tent.

Assistants were washing bloodied stretchers and pushing them into ambulances
headed back out. The smoke over Tripoli Street was getting thicker. Some said the rebel
lines risked being broken, which might allow the pro-Qaddafi forces to push
unimpeded into the city.

Asked if he was afraid, Mr. Madhoun’s answer was quick.

“Absolutely not,” he said. He added: “We have a strong connection to God. All of us
here know that some day death will come. We know we will die. And we do not care
how we die.”

He stood quietly as patients were moved by. A refrigerated truck in the lot held rotting
remains collected in the morning on the street. He amended his answer. “It is an
honor,” he said, “to die in defense of freedom.”

So many, though, have been wounded or killed defending nothing, resisting nothing,
just trying to stay out of the conflict’s way.
As Sunday’s tallies rose, an aged woman joined the procession of the wounded, as did a
wafer-thin 92-year-old man, who was carried into the tent with bloodied face and feet.

He had been in his home, his son said, when a mortar or artillery round hit it, collapsing
the roof.

More and more fighters arrived, too, some in pickup trucks that now contained lakes of
blood. These men were in the last moments of life. By 5 p.m. the crowd around the tent
was chanting almost nonstop.

Another Libyan fighter had died, and his body was to be carried to his grave. A gantlet
of men formed, some of them weeping, and walked with the wooden casket containing
him overhead toward another waiting pickup truck. The body was wrapped in a green
blanket, prepared for the earth.

Ten minutes later, the same dirge started anew. It was another man’s turn.

Dr. Grosso watched. He had been a portrait of composure throughout the day. Now he
stood among the blood-splattered ambulances.

“It is a shame on Western nations,” he said, and slipped back inside to work.

A short while later, the word moved from the medical staff, then through the crowd.
There was another victim. Jinan Hussein Jweil, 5 years old, was dead.
---------------------------
Ouattara Moves to Restore Security to Ivory Coast (VOA)
Scott Stearns
April 17, 2011
Abidjan - President Alassane Ouattara is moving to restore security in Ivory Coast one
week after his country's political crisis ended with the arrest of former president
Laurent Gbagbo. Mr. Gbagbo held on to power with the help of the military, refusing to
recognize that he lost November's vote.

The dramatic capture of Mr. Gbagbo, who was holding out in an underground bunker
at the presidential compound, brings to an end more than four months of political
uncertainty in Ivory Coast where Mr. Gbagbo and Mr. Ouattara both claimed the
presidency.

Mr. Ouattara has ordered his justice minister to prepare charges against Mr. Gbagbo
and his wife, Simone, who ran the country for ten years and tried to hold on to power
even when the African Union and the international community recognized Mr.
Ouattara as the duly-elected leader.
More than 1,000 people died in the battle between rival presidents as pro-Ouattara
forces fought their way south toward Abidjan where United Nations and French attack
helicopters bombed Gbagbo heavy artillery and rocket launchers.

Jaqueline Yin and her daughter hid in their home. "We were shut inside for three days.
We could not eat, could not eat. We had to move to another neighborhood, but the
fighting was somewhere else, so we were OK. After three days we got out and now I
am walking around to see how things are," she said.

Modest Danon says the fight for Abidjan was the only way to remove Mr. Gbagbo from
power and respect the will of voters. "The last week was hard for the Ivorian people
because of the fight between pro-Gbagbo and pro-Ouattara forces. But the victory by
President Ouattara is a good thing because he is recognized by the international
community and was elected by the Ivorian people. Everyone wants to see their lives
improve and the country be better organized," he said.

Life is quickly returning to something closer to normal within days of Mr. Gbagbo's
capture. Produce from the interior is once again reaching Abidjan markets now that
roads are cleared of combat. Most of the big grocery stores and pharmacies are open.
Fuel is readily available.

Jaquiline Yin is hoping for a better future for her daughter. "In the future, now that we
have a president, life will better. Now that it is all over and we have a new president,
life will be good," she said.

Modest Danon says President Ouattara has what it takes to make a difference. "My
hope is that we will have a good president here. He is an economist who should be able
to make Ivory Coast better because everyone wants enough work and enough to eat to
end the suffering of our country," he said.

President Ouattara says the challenges are considerable but can be overcome if
everyone stays calm and treats one and other with respect. "We are still in a delicate
situation. We still need to secure the country, especially Abidjan, these steps are
essential and will still take a few months," he said.

President Ouattara is giving himself two months to completely restore security in Ivory
Coast. In that time, he intends to renew cocoa exports, restart the oil refinery, and
reopen banks to get the economy moving again while restoring essential public services
to improve conditions for a society disrupted by nearly 10 years of civil war, instability,
and political violence.
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Sudan shrugs off concerns of U.S lawmakers (Sudan Tribune)
By Unattributed Author
April 16, 2011
KHARTOUM – Sudan has dismissed an attempt by a trio of US lawmakers to stonewall
the ongoing process of removing its name from the US blacklist of countries sponsoring
terrorism.

The US Administration started in February the process of removing Sudan’s name from
the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, in which Sudan remained since 1993 over its
government’s support for trans-national Islamists in its early days.

The removal comes as a reward for the Sudanese government on the successful
implementation of South Sudan’s referendum on independence held in January this
year.

In due course, the administration was criticized for its decision to de-couple the conflict
in Sudan’s western region of Darfur from the process of removing the country’s name
from the terrorism-sponsoring list.

Co-chairs of the Congressional Sudan Caucus, Michael Capuano, Frank Wolf, Donald
M. Payne on Friday sent a letter to US President Barack Obama citing a list of reasons
why they were “deeply concerned” about the US policy towards Sudan.

“[We] are deeply concerned that the current approach toward Sudan is heading in the
wrong direction and that the policy – if consistent with that approach – will fail to
achieve our objectives to support peace and alleviate the suffering of the people of
Sudan,” the letter read.

The letter said that the reason for their concern was the administration’s failure to
address what it called as the Sudanese government’s efforts to undermine peace as well
as the ongoing abuses it commits.

“The NCP’s primary motivation is to remain in power at all costs,” the letter said.

The unhappy congressmen urged Obama to include in his Sudan police a “transparent”
plan that emphasizes protection, accountability, and a meaningful peace process in
Darfur, as well as “robust pressures” and “appropriate incentives” to press parties to
adhere to their commitments.

But the Sudanese ministry of foreign affairs has dismissed the congressmen as
“representing pressure groups hostile to Sudan,” according to the ministry’s official
spokesman Khalid Musa.

Musa told reporters in Khartoum yesterday that Sudan “did not officially receive
anything indicating that the US administration had adopted the conditions [proposed
by the congressmen] or decided to renege on the agreement to remove Sudan’s from the
list of countries sponsoring terrorism.”
“What concerns Sudan is that the U.S Administration had renewed commitment to
implement its promises.”

Sudanese officials have repeatedly expressed frustration over keeping their country’s
name in the terrorism-sponsoring list despite sustained counter-terrorism cooperation
provided by the Sudanese intelligence authorities to their U.S counterparts.
-------------------
Nigeria's president leads election vote (CNN)
By Christian Purefoy
April 18, 2011
Abuja, Nigeria - Nigeria's incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan looked likely
Sunday to win the election, a CNN tally of preliminary results showed.

The Independent National Electoral Commission posted on its website the count from
28 of the country's 36 states and its capital, showing Jonathan with more than 19 million
votes, compared to his main challenger -- Muhammadu Buhari -- who had close to 9
million votes.

A formal announcement of the results could come as early as Monday.

To avoid a runoff, Jonathan must get at least a quarter of the vote in two-thirds of the 36
states and the capital.

Nigerians voted Saturday for their president, a week after parliamentary elections were
marred by violence and accusations of fraud in Africa's most populous nation.

Jonathan is the front-runner despite a poor performance in those elections by his

People's Democratic Party. He is popular in the Christian and animist south.

The former vice president assumed office after President Umaru Yar'Adua died last
year following treatment for a kidney ailment in Saudi Arabia.

Jonathan has led the nation of about 150 million people since May. About 73 million
people were registered to vote.

His main challenger, Buhari, is a former military ruler and was a contestant in the 2003
and 2007 elections. He is the candidate for the Congress for Progressive Change and
enjoys support from the mostly Muslim north.

Other candidates included Nuhu Ribadu and current Kano state Gov. Ibrahim
Shekarau.
A CNN iReporter in Lagos, who gave her name as Jan Young, said Saturday she
expected the race to be tight.

"If the incumbent president wins, it won't be a landslide victory but a fair split between
the ruling and opposition parties who campaigned for our votes. I also expect our
nation would demand accountability from whoever wins at the end of the day," she
wrote.

Saturday's voting was largely peaceful, in contrast to the violence that characterized the
country's parliamentary elections on April 9. During that vote, separate bomb blasts
ripped through a polling station and a collation center in northeastern Nigeria.

Human Rights Watch has estimated that at least 85 people have been killed in political
violence so far.

A new election chief promised free and fair elections, but the electoral commission was
forced to put off elections earlier this year by a week after logistical problems, including
party logos missing from ballot papers, were reported nationwide.

It was a major setback reminiscent of the nation's 2007 elections, which the European
Union described as filled with rampant vote rigging, violence, theft of ballot boxes and
intimidation.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country and its largest oil producer, is a major supplier
of crude oil to the United States, and hosts many Western oil companies and workers.

Nigerians voted April 9 for 360 House of Representatives seats and 109 Senate seats. A
gubernatorial vote will be held on April 26.
------------------------
UN News Service Africa Briefs
Full Articles on UN Website

Côte d’Ivoire: UN steps up humanitarian aid to ease widespread suffering

15 April – United Nations agencies are stepping up their efforts to ease the suffering of
civilians in Côte d’Ivoire who bore the brunt of the post-election crisis that was marked
by ethnic tensions, human rights violations and the displacement of an estimated one
million people.