Month: May 2005

On a normal morning in March 2001, hundreds of young men from the Pokot ethnic group in Kenya, armed with small arms, violently attacked neighboring Marakwet villages. The raiders left 47 people dead, stole livestock, and burned an estimated 300 homes. Officials minimized the raid as part of traditional practice. 

The story was much the same in 1999, when up to 1000 men, also presumably Pokot, killed dozens, including 28 women and 15 children under 12, at a Kenyan market. The raiders fled with cattle, goats, and donkeys. read more

At least a quarter of the half million people who live in Kenya’s Kwale district, near the Indian Ocean coast, eventually may be evicted to make way for a controversial mining project by the Canadian firm Tiomin Resources Inc. The rest, and others living along the coast, could face significant health risks due to the toxic emissions associated with titanium mining.

As controversy rages, Kenya’s government is caught between pleasing the company and remaining accountable to its citizens. The standoff also pits the government and Tiomin Kenya Limited, the Kenyan subsidiary of the Canadian firm, against local and international environmental groups. The critics include farmers, the Coast Mining Forum, Action Aid (Kenya), Muslims for Human Rights, Coastwatch, Environment Trust of Kenya, and coastal leaders. read more

The wide-spread and systematic abuses of human rights carried out by the current National Islamic Front (NIF) government in Sudan are well-documented. Most of what is reported by international human rights organizations concerns the extensive abuses, including genocide and slavery, that have occurred in the war-torn areas of southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains.

These horrors certainly deserve the attention that they have received. But the NIF government has pursued similar policies with equally brutal results in other parts of Sudan, and these cases have been covered in only the most cursory manner. A glaring example is the brutalities meted out on the Massaleit people of Western Sudan, a campaign in which thousands have been killed and tens of thousands more forced to flee into neighboring Chad. read more