United States Africa Command

Public Affairs Office

28 April 2011

USAFRICOM - related news stories

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

Kabarebe, Africom Official Discuss Regional Development (The New Times)

(Rwanda) The Minister of Defence, James Kabarebe, yesterday, met with Ambassador
Anthony Holmes, a senior official with US Army Africa Command (USAFRICOM) and
discussed closer cooperation.

U.S. still not ready to recognize Libyan opposition (CNN)

(Libya) The United States considers the Libyan opposition group worthy of support but
is not yet ready to formally recognize it, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz said
Wednesday. Cretz said the lack of formal support has not stopped the United States
from aiding the opposition.

WRAPUP 1-U.S. helps Libyan rebels, fighting rages in west (Reuters)

(Libya) The United States took steps to throw a financial lifeline to rebels controlling
eastern Libya while forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi focused their firepower on
pockets of resistance in the west.

NATO Strike Kills 12 Libyan Rebels in Misurata (NYT)

(Libya) At least one NATO warplane attacked a rebel position on the front lines of this
besieged city on Wednesday, a rebel commander said, killing 12 fighters and wounding
five others in what he called an accident that could have been avoided.

Libya Arms Civilians to Fight Insurgency (Wall Street Journal)

(Libya) Libyan authorities are instructing civilian volunteers, some as young as 11, in
the use of automatic rifles and distributing the weapons among households here to
combat an insurgency against Col. Moammar Gadhafi, according to people being
trained.

Ivory Coast militia leader killed (AlJazeera)

(Ivory Coast) The leader of a militia that helped Alassane Ouattara defeat rival Laurent
Gbagbo for the presidency in Ivory Coast has been killed. Ibrahim Coulibaly died in a
gun battle on Wednesday after he and his men refused to obey presidential orders to
disarm.
The U.S. Role In Setting Up South Sudan (NPR)
Transcript of Interview between NPR's Neal Conan and U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan
Princeton Lyman
April 27, 2011
(Sudan) On July 9th, South Sudan will become the world's newest independent nation.
Questions remain about the partition process, and fighting has already broken out over
a disputed border region. U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Princeton Lyman explains the
U.S role in setting up the new country.

Sudan's Bashir says disputed Abyei belongs to north (Reuters)

(Sudan) Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Wednesday the disputed oil-
producing Abyei region will remain part of the north after the south secedes in July.

Suspected Somali pirate pleads not guilty in US (AP)

(Somalia) A Somali man the U.S. believes is the highest-ranking pirate it has ever
captured pleaded not guilty in federal court Wednesday to piracy, kidnapping and
weapons charges related to the February hijacking of a yacht that left four Americans
dead.

'Africa Ready for Business' (The Analyst)

(Pan Africa) Liberia’s foremost youth activist, Kimmie Weeks has told 5,000 delegates
attending the World Ventures International Convention in Las Vegas Nevada that
Africa is “open and ready for business and investments.” Mr. Weeks, who served as
keynote speaker for this international conference told his audience that Africa’s rapidly
growing economy offered investors incredible opportunity for high returns on
investment and for new markets.

UN News Service Africa Briefs

Full Articles on UN Website
 Security Council extends UN mission in Western Sahara for another year
 UN cites urgent need to boost humanitarian aid in aftermath of Ivorian crisis
 UN report reveals increasing spending on education in sub-Saharan Africa
 Mandate of UN peacekeeping force in Sudan extended until independence date
 UN rights expert urges Algerian Government to probe killing of political activist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPCOMING EVENTS OF INTEREST:

WHEN/WHERE: Thursday, April 28th at 10:00 a.m.; USIP, 2301 Constitution Avenue
NW, Washington, DC.
WHAT: The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) Discussion on "Behind the Scenes of
Sudan's Referendum." Speakers: Prof. Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil, Chairman of the
Southern Sudan Referendum Commission; Justice Chan Reec Madut, Chairman of the
Southern Sudan Referendum Bureau; Ambassador Mohamed Osman Einijoumi,
Secretary General at the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission; and Jon Temin,
Director of the USIP's Sudan Programs
Info: Allison Sturma, 202-429-4725, asturma@usip.org; web site: http://www.usip.org

WHEN/WHERE: Thursday, April 28th at 4:30 p.m.; SAIS, Rome Building Auditorium,
1619 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
WHAT: Johns Hopkins University, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies (SAIS) Discussion on “The Crisis of Authoritarian Rule in North Africa.”
Speaker: Lahouari Addi, professor of political science at the Institute of Political Studies
at the University of Lyon
Info: Felisa Neuringer Klubes at fklubes@jhu.edu or 202-663-5626; web site: www.sais-
jhu.edu

WHEN/WHERE: Friday, April 29th 10:00 a.m.; USIP, 2301 Constitution Avenue NW
WHAT: The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) Discussion on "What's Next for Cote
d'Ivoire?" Speakers: I. William Zartman of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced
International Studies; Gina Lambright of George Washington University; Jonathan
Elliott of Human Rights Watch; and Dorina Bekoe of USIP.
Info: Allison Sturma, 202-429-4725, asturma@usip.org; web site: www.usip.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FULL ARTICLE TEXT

Kabarebe, Africom Official Discuss Regional Development (The New Times)

By James Karuhanga
April 27, 2011
The Minister of Defence, James Kabarebe, yesterday, met with Ambassador Anthony
Holmes, a senior official with US Army Africa Command (USAFRICOM) and discussed
closer cooperation.

According to Holmes, they also conferred on peace and security in the region.

"We talked about Somalia, Congo [DRC], the East African Community, and the
EASBRIG standby force of the African Union and how to move beyond the progress
we've made, bilaterally, between the US and Rwanda, to expand the progress to the
entire region," Holmes said.

The US diplomat noted that the RDF has drawn enough lessons that the region can
benefit from.

"They are improving their curriculum and they are making suggestions on both how to
make their own training more effective and how to improve the effectiveness of the
training for other forces in the region," he said.

According to the outgoing US Ambassador to Rwanda, Stuart Symington, Rwanda is

drawing on its experience in Darfur to help strengthen the training it has to offer.
Before the meeting, Holmes visited Gisozi Genocide Memorial, where he laid a wreath
to honour victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
---------------------
U.S. still not ready to recognize Libyan opposition (CNN)
By Jill Dougherty
April 27, 2011 7:03 p.m. EDT
Washington - The United States considers the Libyan opposition group worthy of
support but is not yet ready to formally recognize it, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene
Cretz said Wednesday. Cretz said the lack of formal support has not stopped the United
States from aiding the opposition.

Cretz said the United States has found the opposition Transitional National Council to
be a "credible body" and a "serious group." He said, however, recognition is a "very
complex" issue and the State Department's legal department is examining it carefully.

"Recognition remains a legal and international obligations issue that we're still
studying," Cretz said. "We're a very legalistic country and we're looking at all the
different complexity" of whether to recognize the rebels. He said the United States
needs to study what constitutes a government and what has historically been U.S.
precedent on recognition.

"We have seen progress," he said. "Are they in the throws of establishing themselves?
Yes. Can we expect that they will have some problems? Yes. Are they going in the right
direction? Absolutely."

Cretz said the Obama administration's special representative to the opposition in Libya,
Chris Stevens, has met with a wide range of Libyans, including the political and
military leadership of the Transitional National Council, mostly in the eastern rebel
stronghold of Benghazi. Because of security issues, Stevens has not been able to reach
remote areas, Cretz said.

The ambassador also indicated the United States is getting daily assessments of the
situation in Libya through contacts maintained by staff from the U.S. embassy in
Tripoli. Those staffers have been working in Washington since the State Department
closed operations in LIbya.

"From these people we have been able to get almost daily reports about the situation in
the west and about the brutal kinds of activities that (LIbyan leader Moammar) Gadhafi
is taking" in mountain towns in the west of Libya, Cretz said.

The ambassador said life in the rebel-held city of Benghazi has changed considerably
since the uprising began. Nongovernmental organizations are springing up, he said,
and there are cultural events, newspapers, poetry readings and people are debating
political issues. Stevens, he said, has described the situation as "a world that you
wouldn't recognize on February 16. ... We're seeing what could be the world to be."

Asked by one reporter to clarify U.S. policy on targeting Gadhafi for assassination,
Cretz said: "I don't believe that any credible group or individual sees the solution to the
Libyan problem without the removal of Moammar Gadhafi, one way or the other, but
our job and our goal is to get a political solution, but through the means that we are
allowed to by our own laws."

Members of Gadhafi's regime have indicated to American diplomats that they would
like to separate from the Libyan leader but fear for their lives and the lives of their
families, Cretz said. He said the United States is in touch with some of these officials
from "time to time".

Gadhafi's loyal inner circle includes family members and those in the military and
security apparatus who have benefited from the Libyan leader's largess and probably
believe they have no future if he falls, Cretz said.
-------------------------
WRAPUP 1-U.S. helps Libyan rebels, fighting rages in west (Reuters)
By Lin Noueihed
April 28, 2011 12:09am GMT
TRIPOLI - The United States took steps to throw a financial lifeline to rebels controlling
eastern Libya while forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi focused their firepower on
pockets of resistance in the west.

Rebels said Gaddafi's forces fired Russian-made Grad rockets, which rights groups say
should not be used in civilian areas, at the rebel-held western towns of Misrata and
Zintan following NATO strikes to free Misrata's port.

In Zintan, the rebels struck back.

"Rebels attacked posts belonging to Gaddafi forces east of Zintan in the early evening.
The posts have been used to fire rockets into Zintan," the spokesman, called
Abdulrahman, told Reuters.

"The rebels destroyed at least three tanks and captured two others."

Remoter areas of western Libya also came under fire from forces loyal to Gaddafi,
trying to break an uprising against his four-decade rule that has put most of the east in
rebel hands since it began in mid-February.

"Many in the Western Mountains in towns such as Yefrin, Zintan and Kabau are being
killed by this indiscriminate shelling,"senior rebel National Council spokesman Abdel
Hafiz Ghoga told a news conference in Benghazi in the east.
The United States voiced confidence in the Benghazi-based main opposition council
Wednesday as the U.S. Treasury moved to permit oil deals with the group, which is
struggling to provide funding for the battle-scarred areas under its control.

The order by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control may help
to clear up concerns among potential buyers over legal complications related to
ownership of Libyan oil and the impact of international sanctions.

The first major oil shipment from rebel-held east Libya, reported to be 80,000 tonnes of
crude, was expected to arrive in Singapore on Thursday for refuelling but oil traders
told Reuters finding a buyer was not straightforward, with many of the usual traders
still worried about legal complications.

A tanker booked for Italian oil company Eni to carry crude to Italy from Gaddafi-held
territory in Libya never arrived in port and left empty last week because the sanctions
meant the government would not have got paid, trade sources said.

"They didn't want the crude to go, because they wouldn't have gotten any money for it,"
an industry source said on Wednesday, adding, "They could use it to refine into
gasoline."

FIGHTING OUT OF SIGHT

Residents say pro-Gaddafi forces have been surrounding mountain-top towns in

western Libya, cutting them off from food, water and fuel supplies and unleashing
indiscriminate bombardments on their homes with rockets and mortars.

Libyan officials deny targeting civilians, saying they are fighting armed gangs and al
Qaeda sympathisers who are terrorising the local population.
Rebels who seized a remote post on the western border with Tunisia hurriedly dug
trenches after hearing that forces loyal to Gaddafi were on their way to re-take the
crossing.

The sound of distant explosions could occasionally be heard coming from the Libyan
side of the border, signs of a battle that has been going on for weeks in the Western
Mountains region, largely out of sight of the outside world.

The rebel spokesman in the Western Mountains town of Zintan, scene of some of the
region's most intense fighting, said there was heavy bombardment there on
Wednesday, that at least 15 people were wounded and five houses destroyed.
Misrata also came under fire from Grad missiles, the rebels said, after NATO air strikes
forced Gaddafi's troops away from the port, the only connection the besieged city has
with the outside world.

Both the rebels and the European Union said the shelling of the Misrata port threatened
a vital supply and rescue route.

"We are receiving reports of hospitals being overwhelmed by a growing number of

wounded," EU Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva said in a statement.

An aid ship took advantage of a brief lull in the fighting to rescue Libyans and a French
journalist wounded in the fighting in Misrata, along with migrant workers, from the
western rebel enclave and headed for Benghazi, centre of the rebel heartland in the east.

"Despite heavy shelling of the port area ... about 935 migrants and Libyans have been
rescued and are now safely en route to Benghazi," the International Organisation for
Migration (IOM) said.

A U.N. human rights group is in Libya to investigate accusations pro-Gaddafi forces

have violated human rights and attacked civilians.

------------------------------
NATO Strike Kills 12 Libyan Rebels in Misurata (NYT)
By C. J. CHIVERS
April 27, 2011
MISURATA, Libya — At least one NATO warplane attacked a rebel position on the
front lines of this besieged city on Wednesday, a rebel commander said, killing 12
fighters and wounding five others in what he called an accident that could have been
avoided.

The rebels were at first reluctant to admit the killings had occurred, saying they did not
want to discourage further airstrikes against the forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi,
which have been shelling Misurata and pounding it with ground-to-ground rocket fire.
The pace of NATO strikes had picked up noticeably in recent days, after rebel leaders
complained of a lack of support since the United States turned over operational control
of the air campaign to NATO at the end of March.

But as the bodies of the fighters who had been killed were being collected at a medical
clinic in the Qasr Ahmed neighborhood, a grieving rebel commander, Abdullah
Mohammed, provided an account of the errant strikes.

Mr. Mohammed said that as pro-Qaddafi forces tried to outflank the city’s port from the
east in recent days, rebels moved into a salt factory and fortified it as a blocking
position. They first occupied the building on Tuesday, he said, and informed NATO of
their presence.

They continued to occupy the building, and on Wednesday they were struck from the
air around 4:30 p.m. “We stayed in exactly the same place,” he said. “And they hit it.”

As he spoke, women were wailing on the clinic’s steps. At least two strikes hit the
building, Mr. Mohammed said, which was a little more than a mile from the nearest
loyalist position. Before the rebels moved into the building on Tuesday, he said, it had
been empty.

This was not the first time that NATO warplanes had struck the rebels. In early April,
NATO admitted its warplanes twice hit rebel positions, killing more than a dozen men,
and it expressed regret after the second strike. NATO could not be immediately reached
for comment on this latest occurrence.

Mr. Mohammed said he hoped NATO would learn from its mistakes and not repeat
them. But he added, “We hope this does not delay strikes on our enemy.”

The fight for Libya continued on other fronts. At a remote border crossing in the
country’s mountainous southwest, rebels worked feverishly to build defenses as
Colonel Qaddafi’s forces bore down on them, Reuters reported.

The rebels seized the crossing last week, allowing them to resupply rebel-held towns
and cities that had been running short of food, fuel, water and medical supplies in a
siege imposed by the government forces in early April.

Earlier Wednesday, a ferry chartered by an international aid organization docked in

Misurata’s besieged port and returned to sea after taking aboard more than 800
stranded migrant workers.

The ferry, the Panamanian-flagged Red Star I, had been held off the coast overnight on
Tuesday as Qaddafi forces pummeled Misurata and its harbor with ground-to-ground
rocket fire. The rockets fell even though the organization that had chartered the vessel,
the International Organization for Migration, had provided the Qaddafi government
with the aid ship’s plans.

“We notified everybody of our mission,” said Othman Belbeisi, the relief mission’s
leader. “Everybody knows, and everybody should know.”

Dawn found the vessel anchored just off the coast. Its crew was uncertain whether it
would try to dock or turn back for Benghazi, the rebel capital, a roughly 20-hour voyage
away.
Mr. Belbeisi said the ship should try to reach the harbor in the morning. At 8:45 a.m. the
word came over the vessel’s intercom: “Crew on standby, crew on standby.” Its engines
shuddered to life.

By 10 a.m. the Red Star I had entered the port unescorted, as dark smoke billowed in the
air. The effects of the shelling were visible in holes in warehouse roofs and in a
blackened shipping container beside where the vessel tied up, from which smoke also
rose.

After the port’s employees unloaded a couple of ambulances and 10 containers of food
and medical supplies, the human cargo began to arrive — hundreds of migrant
workers, most of them from Niger, crammed into trucks. They were a forlorn sight,
crowds of exhausted men between a smoldering container and a ferry with a jittery
crew. They formed into long lines, many with nothing more than a blanket and single
piece of luggage.

They spoke of their weeks of waiting to be evacuated from the country to which they
had come for work, only to be stranded by war. Adel Ibrahim Moussa eyed the ship. “I
will go home now, God willing,” he said. When the war began, more than 10,000
migrant workers were stranded in Misurata. Many have been living in camps since
February, exposed to the elements and occasional violence and shelling.

The weeks of shelling in Misurata have continued even as the pro-Qaddafi forces have
pulled back and been driven by the rebels from much of the city.

While still cut off overland by pro-Qaddafi forces, the rebels were fighting Qaddafi
holdouts at the city’s edge. Along and near Tripoli Street, a main boulevard and the site
of intensive fighting this month, lightly armed rebels wandered the ruins, mingling
with shopkeepers who had returned to claim what remained of their goods.

Misurata Falls More Fully Under Rebel ControlIn one shop, a family packed away
leather belts and shoes. In another, the owners pointed to a cluster-munitions canister
on the floor as they looked at the shattered display cases that formerly held cellphones.

Abdul Skair, 28, surveyed the wreckage. Before him was a cityscape of barricades,
roasted cars, shattered glass and burned storefronts. The red ribbons of expended
cluster munitions littered the streets, bits of color among the rubble.

“Qaddafi is No. 1 for terror,” he said angrily.

The rebels now control most of Misurata, but lack heavy weapons and as yet have not
taken control of the airport. They worry as well that the Qaddafi forces will still try to
seize the harbor, cutting off the city’s sole source of supply.
Fighting continued in the afternoon at the end of Tripoli Street, where a remaining
pocket of loyalist troops exchanged gunfire with rebels. The Qaddafi forces still held the
approaches to the city, and positions beyond the range of the rebels’ weapons from
where they could strike the city with artillery and ground-to-ground rocket fire.

More than 1,000 residents of the city, and an untold number of pro-Qaddafi soldiers,
have been killed in the siege, medical officials say. Since the war started, it has been
difficult to get an accurate count of fatalities, because many deaths go unreported.

In Washington on Wednesday, the United States ambassador to Libya, Gene A. Cretz,

said that American officials had seen estimates of the dead from the violence in Libya
ranging from 10,000 to as many as 30,000 people, Reuters reported. He did not offer any
explanation or any supporting evidence for that estimate.

Whatever the number of fatalities, officials in Misurata said the humanitarian costs have
climbed, with electricity rationed, many medicines in short supply, schools and
businesses closed and the rockets and artillery rounds continuing to fall.
-------------------
Libya Arms Civilians to Fight Insurgency (Wall Street Journal)
By RICHARD BOUDREAUX
April 27, 2011
TARHOUNA, Libya—Libyan authorities are instructing civilian volunteers, some as
young as 11, in the use of automatic rifles and distributing the weapons among
households here to combat an insurgency against Col. Moammar Gadhafi, according to
people being trained.

The extent and quality of the instruction, which the government stage-managed for
foreign journalists Wednesday in this Gadhafi stronghold, are unclear. But the effort, if
widely carried out, would appear to raise the risk of widening Libya's 10-week-old
conflict.

"We want every home to have a Kalashnikov in case of necessity to fight against the
enemy," Abdel al-Muftah, who oversees the training in Tarhouna, told students in a
high school classroom, a pair of binoculars hanging over his desert-camouflage
uniform. "Any day now, we expect the enemy to attack us here."

Behind him as he spoke, 16-year-old Sannah Kanouni fumbled with a Kalashnikov rifle,
trying to follow a trainer's tip on disassembling it. The gun toppled on its side. Losing
focus, Ms. Kanouni got swept up in a mini-demonstration by her classmates, pumping
her fist and chanting: "Only Allah, Moammar and Libya!"

Adult weapons trainers led a similar rally in the courtyard of an elementary school,
firing their weapons skyward. Among the participants was Abdullah Iyad, a fifth
grader in a brand-new camouflage uniform his mother had purchased. Smiling, the 11-
year-old said he had just received his first hour of training to take apart a Kalashnikov
and put it back together.

The foreign journalists had been bused to this rural district 80 kilometers, or 50 miles
southeast of Tripoli to watch weapons training at schools, the grounds of a clinic and a
windswept desert plain.

As did Ms. Kanouni, many of the trainees displayed more enthusiasm for their 69-year-
old leader, at least when television cameras were rolling, than competence with the
weapons placed in their hands.

The government's message was that people here and in other rural districts outside
Tripoli would pose an obstacle to any advance by the rebels toward the capital from the
cities they hold in eastern Libya. This community of 300,000 people is seat of the
Tarhouna tribe, a pillar of Col. Gadhafi's regime.

Yet people interviewed here about their training said they would simply defend their
home ground rather than join in any government offensive. Reflecting the government's
line, many of them sounded incredulous that Libyans had risen against Col. Gadhafi,
whom they said was being attacked mainly by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
with an assist on the ground from militants of Al Qaeda.

"Our enemy is the barbarian, colonialist crusader aggression," said Ms. Kanouni, who
wore a black headscarf fully covering her hair. "It's NATO, [French President Nicolas]
Sarkozy and Barack Obama."

Col. Gadhafi's government has in the past distributed weapons to civilians, including
children, and for years has put high school students through military instruction. But
many adults being trained now say they are receiving weapons for the first time, and
school officials here say military training is now being given to children before high
school, though they say it is not required below seventh grade.

Mr. al-Muftah, the training overseer, said the new emphasis on arming civilians here
began after NATO air strikes demolished a sprawling local army facility in late March
in its campaign to blunt Col. Gadhafi's armed assault on protesters seeking his ouster.
The wreckage of dozens of buildings resembling hangars and the remains of scattered
armored vehicles were visible behind a tall concrete wall that had been partly blasted
away.

He said about 200 people were being trained for four hours each day for up to nine days
at each of 15 locations in the district. Each person completing the training goes home
with a Russian-made Kalashnikov, he said.
"My job is to lead a group to fight NATO; we heard NATO will bring in soldiers on the
ground," said Moamar Abugarar, a 37-year-old high school Arabic teacher who is
helping to train 40 men, ages 18 to 70, on the lawn of a local clinic. He said his pupils—
drivers, computer engineers, doctors and farmers—were learning to use Kalashnikovs,
shoulder-fired grenade launchers and Russian-made artillery guns mounted on pickup
trucks.

Those weapons, along with some M-60 machine guns, also were on display outside
town along with 100 volunteers who had been bused from Tarhouna to fire them across
the desert and pose for TV crews.

Omar Musbah Omar, a 23-year-old jobless resident of Tarhouna, said the desert
gathering was more than a media pseudo-event. He said he and each of his three
brothers had recently been given Kalashnikovs and trained to use them—his first such
instruction since high school.

But he voiced a sentiment heard from other recent trainees: If the regime's enemy really
turns out to be Libyans, rather than some foreign force, he would try to reason with
them as brothers rather than shooting. "I'd put my gun down," he said.
--------------------
Ivory Coast militia leader killed (AlJazeera)
By Unattributed Author
April 28, 2011 02:41

The leader of a militia that helped Alassane Ouattara defeat rival Laurent Gbagbo for
the presidency in Ivory Coast has been killed.

Ibrahim Coulibaly died in a gun battle on Wednesday after he and his men refused to
obey presidential orders to disarm.

The insurgents have been accused of not meeting a deadline to surrender arms and join
the new army under Ouattara.

"I can confirm that Ibrahim Coulibaly was killed during fighting today," Captain Alla
Kouakou Leon, a defence ministry spokesman, told Reuters news agency.

Ouattara had on Friday ordered Coulibaly and his forces to disarm or expect to have
weapons seized by force. Coulibaly said that disarming would take time to organise.

Coulibaly's 'Invisible Commando' insurgents had fought alongside what is now the
Ivorian national army to topple Gbagbo.
Last week Coulibaly pledged loyalty to Ouattara saying his 5,000 men were ready to
join to new army. He requested a meeting with Ouattara but was told to disarm without
condition.

It is believed that Coulibaly turned the gun on himself instead of surrendering to a

group that he once considered an ally.

Fighting broke out on Wednesday night in the Abidjan neighbourhood of Abobo near
the militia's headquarters as Ouattara's forces attacked the insurgents.

"Our positions were attacked this morning by Republican Forces (FRCI) while our
soldiers had met to wait for disarmament overseen by the UN," Felix Anoble, a
spokesman for Coulibaly, said.

Coulibaly had led a successful 1999 coup that installed General Robert Guei, who was
assassinated after elections in 2000.

In 2002 Coulibaly helped lead a failed coup against Gbagbo and made no secret of his
own presidential aspirations. Later that year, he began the rebellion that divided Ivory
Coast between a rebel-held north and government-run south.
-----------------------
The U.S. Role In Setting Up South Sudan (NPR)
Transcript of Interview between NPR's Neal Conan and U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan
Princeton Lyman
April 27, 2011
NEAL CONAN, host:
On July 9th, Southern Sudan becomes the world's newest nation: South Sudan. A
referendum to secede from the northern half of the country was approved by an
overwhelming majority three months ago. But many issues remain, including a new
constitution, allocation of oil reserves with the north and a territorial dispute that has
escalated into a flashpoint.

Former Ambassador Princeton Lyman was recently appointed special envoy to Sudan
and assigned by President Obama to help facilitate conversation between the two sides.
If you have questions about Sudan, Southern Sudan, Darfur or the separation process,
we're taking them by email today. The address is talk@npr.org.

Ambassador Lyman joins us here in Studio 3A. Nice to have you on TALK OF THE
NATION.

Mr. PRINCETON LYMAN (U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan): Thank you, Neal.

CONAN: And...
Mr. LYMAN: Good to be here.

CONAN: I have to ask, what is the role of the U.S. envoy in the creation of a new
country?

Mr. LYMAN: Well, the role is to facilitate the negotiations between the north and the
south as well as to help establish a presence in South Sudan of a future embassy, an aid
program and deal with the many issues that South Sudan will have in becoming a new
country. And negotiations are complicated and sometimes very difficult, and we try to
get involved as well as we can to help the parties through them.

CONAN: It's important to remember the United States was one of the principal brokers
of the agreement that ended the long and bloody civil war between the north and the
south and provided for a referendum on secession to be held this year.

Mr. LYMAN: That's true. The agreement was in 2005, called a comprehensive peace
agreement, and laid out the plans for a referendum and a number of other steps that
had to be taken over the next six years. And as you pointed out, January 9th, the south
voted to separate from the north.

CONAN: And no doubt about the numbers.

Mr. LYMAN: No doubt about the numbers, and the process was peaceful and credible
and immediately recognized by the government of Sudan as well as the rest of the
international community.

CONAN: Yet, there have been incidents since then.

Mr. LYMAN: There have been several incidents, and they're very worrisome. There are
a number of militias operating in the south, which are causing havoc, civilian casualties,
clashes with the Southern People's Liberation Army. There are charges back and forth
between the two, north and south, over who's supporting those militia, and so that's
complicating the situation.

The north in turn had accused the south of helping rebels in Darfur, and we've taken
the position with both of them that that kind of tit-for-tat support of rebels in each
other's territory is a very dangerous road to go down.

CONAN: In the meantime, both countries, or one proto-country and Sudan, the existing
country, have sent forces into a disputed area.

Mr. LYMAN: They have both sent forces into one of the most difficult disputed areas,
and that's Abyei. This is an area that was also to have a referendum, but there was no
agreement on who could vote, and the two parties are still arguing over the future of
Abyei.

The south believes that the people, the Ngok Dinka who live there, have a right to self-
determination and to come into the south. The north feels that the nomadic groups who
also have regular used that area, the Messiria, should either vote in that referendum or
have the right to keep Abyei in the north where they will have permanent rights to the
land. And that dispute is one of the most explosive between the two.

CONAN: And the presence of military forces in that region threatens, well, obviously,
an explosion.

Mr. LYMAN: It does, and they're both in violation of an agreement not to have such
forces there, and even though there is a recent agreement to have those forces withdraw
in place of joint police units, that agreement has not been implemented.

CONAN: In the meantime, there is so much going on in what will be South Sudan in -
for example, I think they're trying to write a constitution.

Mr. LYMAN: They are, indeed. They're writing what they call an interim constitution
that would effect July 9thm and would - according to the proposals, the government
lasts for four years, in which the current president of the south, President Salva Kiir,
would become president. And they would use that period not only to govern the
country, but to develop a final constitution. And there's some controversy about the
draft of this interim constitution that's just been released.

CONAN: The controversies include?

Mr. LYMAN: Partly because of the opposition parties feel they were not part of the
process, partly because they think the transition period of four years is too long and that
there should be a government of national unity during that period, not simply a
continuation of the present regime.

CONAN: In the meantime, there are so many other institutions that have to be
established: a legal system, you have to design a flag and currency and passports, a
million things.

Mr. LYMAN: A million things. And there is not a deep level of cadre in the south to
handle all these things. They have to set up - as you say, they have to set up a central
bank if they're going to have their own currency. They have to set up ministries at the
state level, as well as the national level, to deliver services, create courts with the
appropriate personnel, passports, as you say, establish treaty relationships as a new
country with all the other countries with whom they're dealing - a tremendous amount
of work. And they are working very hard at it, but it is quite challenging.
CONAN: In the meantime, they have a host of challenges that are built into the
structure of the way this country will be designed. It is a landlocked country, and its
only port for exports will be in its neighbor, new neighbor and the former northern -
former - well, as some in the south saw it, occupier, North Sudan.

Mr. LYMAN: Well, this is the interesting and challenging thing, but also an area for
productive relations. These two countries are still going to be in inextricably linked. For
the south, which has most of the oil, the north contains all the pipelines, infrastructure
for exporting it. Many people live right on the border and go back and forth, either as
nomads or as business people, et cetera. So the two countries' economies are going to be
linked.

And even though they had have this very, very painful past, they have to work together
for the benefit of each of them.

CONAN: And there's an email question on that point from Herschel in Birmingham:
Where are the Sudanese oilfields, in the south or the north? You say mostly in the south.

Mr. LYMAN: Mostly in the south. Some in the north, but about 75 percent of the oil's in
the south.

CONAN: And are there contracts? There were contracts with Chinese developers to buy
most of that.

Mr. LYMAN: You know, this is one of the most complicated areas for them to negotiate.
There are contracts with private companies, the Chinese, the Indians, the Malaysians.
There are two state-owned corporations that also operate part of the infrastructure. And
then you have two governments that will be involved. And sorting all that out is
proving to be extraordinarily complicated.

In this case, the Norwegian government has been providing a lot of expertise to both
parties on how to manage this negotiation.

CONAN: The Norwegian government, of course, has tremendous expertise with oil
from the north field, the North Sea developments, but, of course, little with these kinds
of political disputes. I expect they're going to get a lot more very quickly.

Another email question, this from Jordan in Cambridge, Massachusetts: Other than the
referendum vote, it seems there's been a lack of coverage of events occurring in the
Darfur, giving the impression that the atrocities we've heard so much about in the past
are not as serious as they once were. What's the current situation in Darfur?
Mr. LYMAN: The situation in Darfur is not as dire as it was in 2003 and '04, when the
world was rightly deeply, deeply affected by what was going on there. But fighting still
goes on in parts of Darfur. There are still some two million people displaced from their
homes. There are still hundreds of thousands of refugees across the border in Chad. So
this is a situation that has not been resolved after eight years. And it's one of the highest
priorities for me and for the U.S. government in the coming months, to see how we can
bring peace to this area.

It's more complicated in that we don't have a framework like we have for the north-
south negotiations, a comprehensive peace agreement. So we're dealing with a lot of
different rebel organizations, a lot of different international actors. And we don't have
the framework that we need, in my view, to move this process forward.

CONAN: Some have criticized the United States and others for focusing on the north-
south dispute and putting less emphasis on Darfur, saying essentially -and this is the
criticism - that the importance of the north-south treaty and that process was put over
the situation in Darfur, that to focus on Darfur would have threatened the resolution in
the south.

Mr. LYMAN: I know that feeling is out there. I was part of the north-south negotiations
before I took this present job. But my predecessor, General Gration, was spending a
great deal of time on Darfur.

But he was right to put a great deal of emphasis on assuring that that referendum in
January in the south went forward, and went forward peacefully, because a return to
war between north and south would have been a calamity, and it would not have
contributed at all to peace in Darfur. So while we were working on the peace processes
in Darfur, I think the tremendous international effort to assure that the CPA would go
forward peacefully was a right emphasis.

CONAN: CPA, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

Mr. LYMAN: I'm sorry, yeah. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

CONAN: Part of the deal, it seemed, was if Sudan agreed to accept the results of the
referendum peacefully, whatever they were, that the United States would take Sudan
off the terrorism list.

Mr. LYMAN: Well, what the president said and has started is that he would begin the
process of examining the removal. That process requires two things: It requires that
they meet the terms under the law for getting off the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
So they have to go through a very careful review of that. And second, that they
complete the negotiations on the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
So my guess is that the president will be ready to make that decision sometime around
July, and then it goes to the Congress for comment for 45 days. But even after that's
done and if it's successful and they come off the list - which I think would be
extraordinarily important - most of our economic sanctions in our legislation are linked
to Darfur.

CONAN: We're talking with Ambassador Princeton Lyman, the special envoy to Sudan.
You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.

And what's the difference between an ambassador and an envoy?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. LYMAN: Well, an ambassador is a personal title. Usually, you're an ambassador to

somewhere. But if you've been in the service and been an ambassador, you get to keep
the title. But an envoy is job, and it's an assignment. And as an envoy, you're charged
with, in this case, working to bring peace to Sudan.

CONAN: One of your previous jobs, though, was ambassador to South Africa during
the transition to apartheid. And I wonder if you see any similarities here.

Mr. LYMAN: There are some. And that was an extraordinary time and an extraordinary
time to be there. There are some lessons to be learned on negotiation, on how you
overcome problems that seem intractable. But I think one of the differences is that in
South Africa, both Nelson Mandela and President de Klerk were determined to do the
negotiations themselves with help from outside, but not direct participation.

In Sudan, because of the long civil war and some of the other kind of problems, the
international community - particularly through the Africa Union, but in other ways - is
more directly involved in the process in bringing the parties together and helping to
negotiate or implement agreements like the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

CONAN: One of the principal players in this process, John Garang - who once ran the
SPLA, the Sudan People's Liberation Army - shortly after the completion of the
agreement, died in a plane crash. I wonder, would things, do you think, be easier today
if John Garang had lived?

Mr. LYMAN: I think they'd be different in this way: John Garang had a vision of
transforming all of Sudan, and was not focused so much on separation, as transforming
all of Sudan into a more pluralistic and democratic country. With his death, the
progress under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement evolved much more toward
independence of the South. And so I think that changed the atmosphere and the
direction that the process took after his death.
CONAN: There's another leader, and that's, of course, the president of Sudan, who's
under indictment for war crimes. How does that factor into this?

Mr. LYMAN: Well, President Bashir was indicted by the International Criminal Court
for war crimes in Darfur. We do not have any direct contact or relationship with the
president because of the indictment. We work with a lot of other senior officials, and
there are others in the international community who do have direct contact with him.
But that's a factor in the process, and it does complicate, somewhat, the negotiating
process.

CONAN: There is also, some fear, a precedent that may be established here. We saw
Eritrea break away from Ethiopia some years ago, now, South Sudan breaking away
from Sudan. There are all kinds of border disputes and boundaries in Africa that, well,
the people say if you're going to start rectifying these, it's never going to stop.

Mr. LYMAN: African nations have generally been very wary of this kind of split, ever
since the end of colonialism, when they accepted the colonial boundaries, simply
because they felt to try and alter them would lead to instability and warfare. So when
Eritrea split from Ethiopia, that was quite a challenge for what is now the African
Union.

And the African Union was, to some extent, very wary of this process. But they
assigned former South African President Thabo Mbeki to work with the parties on this
process. And I think he helped a great deal to convince the African Union that this was
the right way to go, that after two, long civil wars, the sentiment in the south was so
great, that achieving a peaceful separation, in this case, was the better alternative.

CONAN: There continues to be friction between Ethiopia and Eritrea. There is already
friction between South Sudan and the north.

Mr. LYMAN: There is friction. And we're learning some lessons from Ethiopia and
Eritrea. It's interesting that the U.N. special representative in Sudan is an Eritrean who
fought for the Eritrean independence and has experience in what happened
subsequently. And his advice has been extremely helpful to the two parties not to make
the same mistakes that happened between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

CONAN: Ambassador Lyman, thanks very much for your time. We wish you the best
of luck.

Mr. LYMAN: Thank you very much, Neal. Appreciate it.

CONAN: Princeton Lyman, special envoy to Sudan. He joined us here in Studio 3A.
Tomorrow, life after the streets. We'll talk with NPR's Jacki Lyden about her recent
series on recovery after prostitution.

This is TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan, in Washington.
----------------------------
Sudan's Bashir says disputed Abyei belongs to north (Reuters)
By Unattributed Author
April 27, 2011; 1:45pm GMT
KHARTOUM - Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Wednesday the
disputed oil-producing Abyei region will remain part of the north after the south
secedes in July.

Abyei straddles north and south Sudan and both sides have been building up forces
there, according to satellite images and the United Nations.

South Sudan's draft constitution, to be adopted after the south becomes independent on
July 9, lays claim to Abyei, according to a copy seen by Reuters. Bashir rejected the
claim.

"Abyei is located in north Sudan and will remain in north Sudan," he told a rally in the
province of Southern Kordofan where long-delayed parliamentary and gubernatorial
elections start next week.

The audience for his speech, which was televised, was largely from the Arab nomadic
Misseriya tribe who lay claim to Abyei, where they graze their cattle a few months a
year.

The pro-south Dinka Ngok tribe who reside there all year say Abyei is their territory.

Southern Kordofan, which borders Abyei, contains much of the north's future oil
production and Bashir's ruling National Congress Party is fielding Ahmed Haroun as
its candidate for governor there in the elections.

Haroun is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Sudan's
western Darfur region.

North and south Sudan fought each other for all but a few years since 1955 over
differences in ethnicity, ideology, religion and oil. The conflict claimed at least 2 million
lives and destabilised much of the region.

Southern Sudanese voted in January to separate from the north and form a new nation,
a referendum promised to them as part of a 2005 peace deal which ended the decades of
civil war.
An Abyei referendum on whether to joint the north or south was meant to run parallel
to the January vote, but it did not take place. Talks on Abyei's future have stalled.
----------------------
Suspected Somali pirate pleads not guilty in US (AP)
By Unattributed Author
April 27, 2011
NORFOLK, Va. — A Somali man the U.S. believes is the highest-ranking pirate it has
ever captured pleaded not guilty in federal court Wednesday to piracy, kidnapping and
weapons charges related to the February hijacking of a yacht that left four Americans
dead.

Mohammad Saaili Shibin, 50, is accused of acting as chief negotiator for more than a
dozen pirates who took control of the yacht Quest in the Arabian Sea.

The owners of the Quest — Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, Calif. — were shot
to death along with friends Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay of Seattle after they were
taken hostage several hundred miles south of Oman.

Unlike the other suspected pirates, court documents say Shibin never boarded the
Quest and that he operated from land. He is the first suspected pirate to be taken into
custody in Somalia rather than at sea. Court documents say Shibin researched the
hostages online to determine how much of a ransom to seek for them. Shibin has also
acknowledged acting as a negotiator for a German vessel, the M/V Marida Marguerite,
that was taken hostage by pirates in May and released in December, receiving $30,000
for his services, prosecutors said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph DePadilla said the U.S. government is currently in
negotiations with the German government and that additional charges could be
forthcoming in that case.

In court Wednesday, Shibin said he made a living as a teacher, social worker and oil
worker. Federal agents confiscated $1,600 in U.S. currency from Shibin when they took
him into custody, but he said he couldn't afford an attorney because the money he
made in Somalia had been spent on him and his five children.

Shibin's court-appointed attorney, James Broccoletti, said he believes Shibin is college

educated and speaks three languages, English, Somali and Italian.

Pirates have increased attacks off Africa's eastern coast despite an international flotilla
of warships dedicated to stopping the assaults.

U.S. naval forces were tracking the Americans' captured yacht with unmanned aerial
vehicles and four warships, and negotiations were under way when the pirates fired a
rocket-propelled grenade.
Special forces boarded the vessel and found the Americans had been shot, according to
the military. Pirates have blamed the deaths of the American hostages on the U.S. Navy,
saying the pirates felt under attack.

It was the first time U.S. citizens have been killed in the pirate attacks that have plagued
the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean in recent years. The pirates are typically
motivated by the potential for millions of dollars in ransom money.

The Adams, who were retired, had been sailing full-time on their 58-foot yacht and
delivering Bibles around the world. The indictment accuses at least three of the indicted
men of shooting and killing the four Americans without provocation.
------------------
'Africa Ready for Business' (The Analyst)
By Unattributed Author
27 April 2011
Liberia’s foremost youth activist, Kimmie Weeks has told 5,000 delegates attending the
World Ventures International Convention in Las Vegas Nevada that Africa is “open and
ready for business and investments.” Mr. Weeks, who served as keynote speaker for
this international conference told his audience that Africa’s rapidly growing economy
offered investors incredible opportunity for high returns on investment and for new
markets.

Speaking for thirty minutes, Kimmie Weeks highlighted a wide range of issues affecting
African nations ranging from civil conflicts, corruption, high unemployment amongst
youth and high rates of extreme poverty. He noted: “there is poverty everywhere in
the world, but the poverty that affects much of Africa is the extreme poverty that kills.”
Mr. Weeks went on to share his own experiences as a child in the midst of the Liberian
civil war.

While outlining the problems faced by Africa, Weeks closed his speech on a positive
note and pointed out that the resilience of Africa and Africans was a key factor driving
the growth of the continent. “There is a great deal of hope and resilience across the
continent,” Weeks told his audience. He also pointed out economic indicators to
support his call to investors by highlighting that on the whole African countries were
experiencing rapidly growing GDPs, low inflation, and major increases in capital
investments and returns. He also encouraged the World Ventures Company to
explore starting to offer tours to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ghana. He proudly
pronounced: “I can tell you for a fact that much of the beaches across the continent are
like paradise on earth.”

The 5,000 delegates from around the United States and over 19 countries had gathered
to attend a three day conference called the World Ventures International. World
Ventures is a Texas based lifestyle company engaged in marketing travel-related
products and high-end luxury tours at discount prices.

Later this month, Kimmie Weeks will address the World Forum on Early Childhood
Development in Honolulu, Hawaii and is expected to call for major reforms to pre-
primary education in Liberia.
--------------------------
UN News Service Africa Briefs
Full Articles on UN Website

Security Council extends UN mission in Western Sahara for another year

27 April – The Security Council today extended for another year the mandate of the
United Nations mission tasked with monitoring the ceasefire in Western Sahara and
organizing a referendum on self-determination for the people of the territory.

UN cites urgent need to boost humanitarian aid in aftermath of Ivorian crisis

27 April – The post-electoral crisis in Côte d’Ivoire may have ended but thousands of
civilians are still suffering from the consequences of the four months of turmoil that
engulfed the West African nation and require increased humanitarian assistance, the
United Nations said today.

UN report reveals increasing spending on education in sub-Saharan Africa

27 April – Countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been increasing expenditure on
education by six per cent every year over the past decade, but many are still lagging in
efforts to provide children with quality primary education, the United Nations agency
tasked with promoting universal education says in a report unveiled today.

Mandate of UN peacekeeping force in Sudan extended until independence date

27 April – Security Council members today agreed to extend the mandate of the United
Nations peacekeeping mission set up at the end of the north-south civil war in Sudan
and establish a replacement operation once the south formally separates in July.

UN rights expert urges Algerian Government to probe killing of political activist

27 April – The independent United Nations expert on the right to freedom of opinion
and expression today called on the Algerian Government to investigate the killing of a
political activist he had met on a recent official visit to the North African nation and to
bring those responsible to justice.