Uganda, Rwanda deny U.N. accusations of backing DRC rebels

Uganda and Rwanda angrily rejected accusations of backing rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after a United Nations report tying them to the insurgents was leaked to reporters this week.

The confidential U.N. report, leaked to Reuters on Tuesday, reportedly asserted that the Rwandan defense minister was commanding the rebellion and that Rwanda and Uganda have funneled weapons and troops to the rebels.

Rwandan foreign minister Louise Mushikiwabo rejected the accusations and claimed the expert panel had been “hijacked” by the political biases of its coordinator, the Rwanda News Agency reported. Rwandan officials have accused the coordinator of being an apologist for the forces behind its genocide.

Uganda also denied the accusations.

"It's hogwash, it's a mere rumor that's being taken as a report,” Ugandan military spokesman Felix Kulaigye told Radio France Internationale.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been roiled by the rebellion, which includes soldiers who mutinied with a Congolese army general wanted by the International Criminal Court. The soldiers had been brought into the army as part of an earlier peace deal.

Suspicions that other countries are involved in the conflict have simmered since violence erupted this year. Human Rights Watch also has accused Rwanda of aiding the rebels, saying officials had armed and backed the mutiny. Western countries cut their aid to Rwanda this year over the allegations.

Despite the furor over the allegations, Rwanda won a temporary seat on the U.N. Security Council on Thursday. Temporary members of the group do not have the power to veto action, as do permanent members France, China, the United Kingdom, the United States and Russia, but sitting on the powerful body is still a coveted position.

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Photo: Henry Okello Oryem, the Ugandan minister for foreign affairs, speaks to members of the media in Kampala on Wednesday. Credit: Phil Moore / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images

Ebola outbreak coming to an end in Uganda, continues in Congo

While Ebola continues to kill in the Democratic Republic of Congo, an outbreak of the virus in neighboring Uganda appears to be coming to an end, the World Health Organization said Monday, reporting that no new cases of the deadly virus had been confirmed in Uganda for a month.

Since the Ugandan outbreak began, 24 people are believed to have suffered from the virus, including 17 who died, the United Nations agency said. The last person confirmed to be stricken recovered from the virus and was discharged more than a week ago.

“All contacts of probable and confirmed cases have been followed up daily and have completed the recommended 21 days of monitoring for any possible signs or symptoms of Ebola,” the WHO said in a statement Monday. Ebola isolation facilities remain on standby.

The Ugandan outbreak was first declared by its health ministry in late July, spurring health officials and the president to warn Ugandans against handling dead animals and burying those who might have died from the virus. Many of the recent cases have been tied back to the funeral of a baby girl whose mother was also sick, Doctors Without Borders said last month.

While the outbreak in Uganda has waned, the neighboring Congo is still grappling with a separate outbreak of the virus. As of late August, the Congo outbreak had sickened 24 people and killed 11 more in the northeastern region of Province Orientale.

The two outbreaks were caused by different kinds of Ebola and “are not epidemiologically linked,” the WHO said. The highly infectious virus, which has no known treatment or vaccine, has caused more than 1,200 deaths since it was discovered, according to the U.N. agency.

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Photo: A handout photograph released by Doctors Without Borders shows its staff launching an emergency intervention against an Ebolaoutbreak at the Kagadi hospital in western Uganda on July 31. Credit: Agus Morales / Doctors Without Borders / European Pressphoto Agency 

Clinton calls to 'rid the world' of Kony as attacks rise

The notorious militia headed by Joseph Kony that has kidnapped hundreds of children and forced them to fight and serve as sex slaves must be stopped, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday in Uganda.

But refugee and activist groups say the Lord’s Resistance Army has only stepped up its attacks in recent months, underscoring the difficulties faced by the forces trying to capture Kony in central Africa. The U.S. sent military advisers to the region in October to assist regional armies in stopping the group.

“We have to put our heads together to find out what additional equipment and support you need to lead this effort to rid the world of this terrible man and his criminal behavior,” Clinton was quoted as saying Friday by the Associated Press while visiting a Ugandan military base.

Reported attacks have more than doubled from January to June compared to the previous six months, according to the advocacy groups Invisible Children, the San Diego-based nonprofit that created an explosively viral video about the militia earlier this year, and Resolve. In a new report, the two groups say 311 people were abducted and 38 were killed in 190 attacks.

More Ebola cases suspected in western Uganda

At least three dozen people in western Uganda are now suspected to be suffering from Ebola, a highly infectious virus that has killed 14 people in the area, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. The new number is an increase from the 20 cases the group reported two days earlier.

The Ugandan Health Ministry first declared the outbreak in the Kibaale district on Saturday after the Uganda Virus Research Institute confirmed that  the virus that had left patients suffering diarrhea, vomiting and fever was Ebola. The Kibaale hospital quickly created an isolation ward for suspected and confirmed Ebola sufferers and began to trace "all possible contacts" with infected people.

It urged the public to report any suspected cases and suspicious deaths and to use gloves and masks when at risk of coming into contact with infected bodily fluids. President Yoweri Museveni likewise warned Ugandans to avoid kissing, promiscuity and burying those who may have died from Ebola.

“When we handle this case well, we can eliminate Ebola quickly,” the president said Sunday.

Health officials also advised Ugandans to steer clear of public gatherings and funerals and to avoid dead animals; Ebola has been shown to spread through handling infected animals. More than 200 schools in Kibaale  are expected to close at the end of this week, the New Vision newspaper reported.

In the capital,  Kampala, many people were alarmed by news that one of the infected people had died at a Kampala hospital, causing fear that the virus had spread from western Uganda to the city. The World Health Organization reassured Ugandans on Tuesday that no infections had occurred outside Kibaale; the patient had been transferred to Kampala from Kibaale, it said.

The WHO also sought to clamp down on fear elsewhere, saying that Ebola outbreaks are normally localized with very small risk of spreading from country to country. The health agency said it did not think any travel or trade restrictions on Uganda were needed.

No treatment or vaccine is available for Ebola. About 1,850 cases causing more than 1,200 deaths have been documented since the virus was discovered, according to the WHO. This is the fourth time Ebola has appeared in Uganda since 2000, when an outbreak killed 224 people, the Associated Press reported.

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Photo: Officials of the World Health Organization wear protective clothing Saturday as they prepare to enter Kagadi Hospital in the Kibaale district, where an outbreak of Ebola virus has been reported. Credit: Isaac Kasamani / AFP/Getty Images

Former Congo warlord sentenced to 14 years over child soldiers

Former Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga was ordered to spend 14 years in prison Tuesday for enlisting children as soldiers, the first sentence handed down by the decade-old International Criminal Court.

The “vulnerability of children mean that they need to be afforded particular protection,” presiding judge Adrian Fulford said as Lubanga listened, grave-faced, to his fate.

Lubanga was convicted in March after a three-year trial that centered on enlisting children to fight during a civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo nearly a decade ago. Human rights groups have also said his forces committed rapes, torture and killings, accusations that were not put before the court.

Prosecutors had sought 30 years in prison for Lubanga. The court handed him a lesser sentence after weighing “the lack of any aggravating circumstances” and his cooperation with the court. Lubanga, who was seen in videos alongside child soldiers, did not mean to recruit children but “was aware that in the ordinary course of events this would occur,” Fulford said Tuesday.

Six years will be deducted from Lubanga's sentence to cover the time since he first surrendered to the court, aggravating critics who called the sentence too light.

"Lubanga will serve less time than the [court] has been open!" Northwestern University international law professor Eugene Kontorovich lamented on Twitter.

International court gets first African female head prosecutor

Fatou Bensouda was sworn in Friday at The Hague as the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the second person to hold that title, the first African to do so and the first woman.

Bensouda takes the reins at an uneasy moment in the short history of the court. Several of its staffers have been detained for more than a week in Libya after a meeting with the son of Moammar Kadafi led to accusations of spying, despite the court's  insistence that they have immunity.

African leaders have complained that the only cases the court has taken up are against Africans. Some have been loath to turn over Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, wanted by the court on charges of war crimes and genocide.

On top of those political headaches, the court probably will face a financial squeeze as the countries that accepted the court's jurisdiction scrape to survive their own economic crises, leaving it with less money to take on a growing list of cases.

Bensouda has been greeted by experts as exactly what the court needs at this perilous time. As a longtime deputy prosecutor within the court, she is a known and trusted face to the staffers. As a Gambian woman, she is better poised to rebut accusations that the court only targets Africans.

"Will she wave a magic wand and cure all the difficulties that exist at the ICC at the moment? No. Can she bring positive disposition over time to transforming the polluted atmosphere in which the institution has been operating in Africa? Absolutely," Chidi Odinkalu, chairman of the Nigerian national human rights commission, told the Guardian.

And with a softer touch than her predecessor, the firebrand attorney Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Bensouda is expected to ease the tension over surrendering war crimes suspects, help marshal financial support and guide the young institution toward greater maturity.

“She just exudes this warmth that Ocampo didn’t have,” said Michael Scharf, director of the international law center at Case Western University. “I think that will be her secret weapon.”

Gay South African man slain in apparent hate crime

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- A 23-year-old black South African was killed last week in an apparent hate crime after getting into an argument about his sexuality, according to South African reports.

Thapelo Makutle, who lived an openly gay and transgender life in Kuruman township in the Northern Cape province, was found Friday with his throat cut in the room where he lived, according to reports.

Shaine Griqua, director of Legbo Northern Cape, a lobby group for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, said in a phone interview that the group was trying to clarify details of the crime after initial reports incorrectly said the man was beheaded.

Makutle was a volunteer with Legbo Northern Cape and worked in a furniture shop.

According to the reports, witnesses said two heterosexual men accosted Makutle about his sexual orientation and appearance. Some reports cited the witnesses as saying the men followed him home, but those reports couldn't be confirmed.

Ugandans outraged after officer gropes opposition leader

Outrage erupted in Uganda after a female opposition leader was groped by a police officer as she was pulled out of a car and arrested outside Kampala, the capital, en route to a banned protest.

Footage of the Friday incident, televised and spread online, showed Ingrid Turinawe crying out as an officer grabbed and manhandled her breast. “Leave my breast alone!” she shouted, slapping the officer's hand away. (Warning: This NTV video clearly and repeatedly shows the incident.)

A small group of infuriated Ugandan women protested in their bras Monday outside a Kampala police headquarters. Turinawe, who leads the women’s league of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change, called the episode “sexual terrorism” in an interview published Monday in the Daily Monitor.

"I was tortured at the hands of those goons in that van but there is no turning back," she said.

Deputy Police Chief Andrew Kaweesa apologized and said the incident will be investigated, the BBC reported. Ugandan police, reacting to angry bloggers on Twitter, said an officer had been suspended as of Saturday.

The Ugandan opposition has complained of frequent harassment, beatings and arrests under President Yoweri Museveni; Turinawe is one of six opposition members charged in an ongoing case with plotting to overthrow the government. She is also linked to an activist group that has railed against growing fuel and food prices. The government recently banned the group as "unlawful."

Her motto is, "I would rather die as a lion than live as a rat," the Observer reported this year in an article that recounted her repeated arrests and beatings. 

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Photo: Opposition activists known as Concerned Citizens of Uganda confront a policeman on Monday in Kampala during a demonstration against the recent arrest of Ingrid Turinawe, during which a police officer was seen grabbing her breast. Credit: Isaac Kasamani / AFP/Getty Images

Kony video sequel tries to tackle some of the criticisms

 

The makers of an explosively popular video that spotlighted the brutality of a Ugandan guerrilla leader have released a second video that redoubles their calls to stop Joseph Kony and grapples with some of the criticisms aimed at their controversial campaign.

Last month the San Diego-based nonprofit Invisible Children released a viral video urging the world to stop Kony, whose militia has terrorized northern Uganda and surrounding countries, kidnapping children and forcing them to fight as soldiers and serve as sex slaves.

Its goal was to make Kony so infamous that the world would demand his capture, it said. While Kony was already reviled, the campaign immediately became a flashpoint of debate. Critics said the video dangerously oversimplified the dilemma and made Western activists the stars.

The half-hour film met with frustration from many Ugandans who felt it gave a dated and inaccurate picture of their country. A series of screenings in northern Uganda spurred outrage by viewers. But other Ugandans praised it for the attention it gave to the grotesque horrors inflicted by Kony and his militia.

The new video, titled "Kony 2012: Part II -- Beyond Famous," is focused more heavily on Africans telling their stories. It emphasizes that the warlord's Lord's Resistance Army is now in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan -- not Uganda, a fact that was alluded to briefly in the first video.

Kony and beyond: Could a video work for Syria activists? [Video]

  

If viral video can catapult notorious Ugandan militia leader Joseph Kony onto Twitter trends, can it make more people care about the bloody, lengthy conflict in Syria?

A new video created by Syrian opposition activists is trying to do just that. Styled like a movie trailer with sweeping music and dramatic cuts, the activist video posted on YouTube on Wednesday splices amateur and news images of the uprising that has raged for a year.

If the video that zeroed in on Kony was criticized as being overly simplistic, the Syrian faux movie trailer is more so. Syrian President Bashar Assad is never mentioned.

Instead, the video focuses mainly on the killing and suffering of civilians. The video includes a SkyNews interview with wounded Sunday Times of London photographer Paul Conroy in his hospital bed, saying, "It's not a war. It's a massacre."

When the nonprofit Invisible Children launched Kony to Internet stardom with its video, pundits questioned why Syria hadn't attracted the same attention through online social networks. Riffing on that theme, comedian Jon Stewart aired a parody video of a talking dog explaining the Syrian crisis.

Foreign Policy magazine asked Al Jazeera social media head Riyaad Minty why Syria hadn't gone viral in the same way Kony did. It wrote that "grainy YouTube clips or dry accounts of dozens of people slaughtered in an anonymous city ... isn't favorable for attracting a wider audience."

"Syria isn't as personal, in terms of the narrative that is being presented," Minty told Foreign Policy. "There's a lot of death and destruction, but it just doesn't have that personal connection for people."

Thursday is the one-year anniversary of the uprising in Syria, estimated to have cost 8,000 lives. The United Nations has condemned rampant human rights abuses under the Assad regime and backed a plan that calls for the president to step down. Syria says it is defending itself against armed terrorists.

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Video: An activist video about the Syrian conflict styled like a movie trailer. Credit: YouTube