Saturday 23 March 2013

Hailstorms in southern China kill 12, injure hundreds


Hailstorms that hit southern China this week have killed 12 people, injured hundreds more and caused tens of millions of dollars in damage.

The official Xinhua News Agency says nine people were killed in the city of Dongguan in southern Guangdong province after a Wednesday hailstorm. It says 272 others were injured from the storm, which caused economic losses of 357 million yuan ($57.5 million).

Three other people died from hailstorms that began Tuesday in neighboring Hunan province, where 1,900 houses have collapsed, according to Xinhua's report Saturday.

Southern China has seen thunderstorms, hurricanes and hailstorms in the past few days. China's Meteorological Administration says the severe weather is expected to continue through the weekend.

Saturday 23 March 2013

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/hailstorms-china-kill-12-injure-hundreds-article-1.1297095

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Kano bombings: Igbo reject mass burial


Senate yesterday pleaded with the presidency to end the recurring loss of lives to bomb blasts even as it urged President Jonathan to consider other security options in tackling insecurity. This is coming even as Igbo leaders insisted that the victims of Monday’s blast at the Luxury Bus Park in Kano should not be given mass burial. Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over Wednesday’s plenary, described the explosions as “unfortunate and regrettable”.

His words: “We must do everything as a country to end this carnage. The life of every Nigerian means a lot to all of us…We must do everything to put a stop to what is happening. All the relevant committees should find a solution to what is happening”. Following the suicide bomb attacks in which five luxury buses were targeted, killing more than 22 people, the leadership of the Igbo in Kano have demanded three remedial actions from the Federal Government. Igbo leaders in the North tacitly passed a vote-of-no-confidence in Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, over his inability to commiserate with the victims 48 hours after the unfortunate incident.

The remedial actions sought by Igbos are: Rejection of mass burial for the victims ; setting up of a committee to collect and manage compensation funds and that Federal Government should beef up security around Ndigbo and other endangered groups in the North. Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, Uche Chukwumerije, made these known on the floor of the Senate yesterday. Shortly before the plenary, Chukwumerije raised Order 43 (personal explanation) of the Senate Standing Rules (2007, as amended). Unlike other motions, Chukwumerije’s motion was not opened to debate as stipulated by the order.

Chukwumerije stood ramrod straight in his all-white attire and told the Senate that based on the deluge of phone calls from Ohanaeze and the leadership of Igbo in Kano and eyewitnesses, the dead were between 100 and 120, while 80 per cent of the victims were Igbo. Besides, Chukwumerije said, “Ndigbo will not continue to be the sacrificial lamb of Nigeria’s fractured history. “The point of what happened in Kano, the multiple explosions, that aroused our concern is the fact that the target, this time, seems to be unquestionably ethnic/regional. Most of the former targets had been vaguely religious, had been vaguely the masses.

But from the feedback we got from Kano and from the consequences of the bombings, it now seem that the attack is ethnic/regional and we believe this must be addressed at the earliest possible opportunity because we know that the social fabric of this country suffers from two fault lines: ethnicity and religion. “These are fault lines enemies of the state can exploit in order to cause tension within the country. A total of five buses were involved. After the first bus which was heading to Lagos was involved in a head-on collision which became engulfed in fire, a second bus heading towards Port Harcourt was also hit, which set three other buses on fire.

“Far more than that, the first two buses were fully loaded and put together, both buses had 155 passengers, excluding the drivers and attendants were affected. Going by the estimate of eyewitnesses, they said the dead were at least 100 and 120 and from the perception of one ethnic group, 80 per cent of those killed were Igbo. The remaining 20 per cent is made up of different ethnic groups were other southerners and some northerners who were hawkers… “In our country, the two most sensitive areas which our history has shown up always are tribe/religion…The group perception of Igbo all over Kano was that the attack was targetted primarily at them because they lost so much property and human beings.

“They expected the governor to come and say: ‘Sorry, please.’ They said that would show that the governor cares for them. The (state) government has lost an opportunity of isolating the terrorists as marginal on the fringe of society. The victims would have the impression that everybody is involved; they are all against us which is not true! “The least the people expect now are three: Government must do all it can on security, not only for the Igbo in the North, but for all citizens: the Igbo in the North are saying that let the Federal Government manage whatever compensation funds they want to give for this. The people say they do not trust such funds in the hands of Kano State Government; and three, they don’t want mass burial. They want to quietly take their people home and give them decent burial…”

On his part, Chairman of the State and Local Government Administration, Senator Kabiru Ibrahim Gaya, who represents Kano South, bemoaned a situation where some states are better policed than Kano which had been the victim of Boko Haram attacks. “Mr President, it is appalling that we have only 8,000 policemen in Kano to monitor security in the state when Lagos has 33,000, Kaduna has 13,000 and Port Harcourt also has 13,000 policemen! From history, Kano State has been business partners with other tribes in Sabon Gari but some forces are being deployed to fan embers of disunity. “Some people are working against the unity of this nation.

Yet, government is not doing anything. Nobody lives in peace anymore and people are afraid to move around. The latest report I got now is that our children are even afraid to go to school because of what happened in Maiduguri. Are we going to continue like this?”, he querried. Ekweremadu however, shot down attempts by Senators to conribute to Chukwumerije’s and Gaya’s comments. He reiterated that the extant order cited by Chukwumerije did not allow for debate on the floor. Senate thereafter observed a minute silence in honour of the victims.

Saturday 23 March 2013

http://ireporters247.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/kano-bombings-igbo-reject-mass-burial.html

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‘How We Survived Calabar Boat Mishap’


For almost two days (last Friday and Saturday), two survivors of the boat mishap which occurred off the coast of Calabar, Cross River State clung to an oil installation without food but later on the second day, when hunger was really hit them hard, out of the blue came a floating bottle of soft drink.

Quickly, Kive Sani, 27 from Togo grabbed it, opened it with his teeth and shared with Hafst Zakari, 13, from Benin Republic. Minutes later, a can of energy drink floated close by and they grabbed it and shared.

The drinks served as meal until they were rescued on the third day, Sunday. Two other passengers who also clung to the installation with them were not so lucky. They got exhausted and drowned.

Last Friday, a giant wooden boat had left the shores of Oron heading for Gabon with 128 passengers but half way into their journey in Ado near Addax platform, the boat capsized. Ninety-nine passengers are feared dead while 29 survived.

Sani and Zakari were rescued by Addax workers on Sunday afternoon. They were taken to Calabar on board a drilling vessel being operated by Addax on Tuesday at about 6.30 pm.

Sani who spoke in broken English at the Bakor Clinic along the Murtala Mohammed Highway where they were admitted, said the tragedy was caused by the boats failed engines. As a result, were started entering the boat.

He said they were in the water from 9pm on Friday night when the incident happened, till Sunday at about 3pm when they were rescued.

When the engines stopped working, Sani said the captain asked them start praying. “The Muslims prayed first then the Christians and he told us our life was at the end. Some were shouting Allah, others were shouting Jesus. Ten minutes later, water was still entering the boat and people started jumping into the water.”

Sani who had paid his master 300,000 CFA to get a job in Gabon and to pay the balance of 200,000 CFA after getting the job, said there were 128 passengers and five crew members and he acted as an interpreter to those who understood only French.

He revealed that after jumping off, he saw an oil installation in the water and held unto it with his master and two other young ladies. “My master at a point got tired and exhausted and could not hold on again and he fell into the water. Later, the second lady lost grip and fell into the water too but I told the remaining lady to hold on and pray.

“At a point, when she almost gave up. I asked her to climb my back as she was very weak. She did and we remained there battling and hoping to survived. On the second day, we were terribly hungry and weak but later in the day, we saw a bottle of Coca Cola floating to our direction. I grabbed it and drank then gave half to the lady. A few minutes later, we saw a can of Bullet energy drink. Again, we got it and shared. This was what kept us. At this point there was nothing again we could do so I asked the girl her religion, she said Muslim and she asked me mine and I said Muslim as well. We prayed and hoped for rescue.

“On the third day (Sunday), I saw smoke from a distance in the morning and I told the girl to continue to lie on my back as I decided to pick up courage to swim towards the smoke. I swam with only one hand with the other clinging to the cylinder and the lady on my back in the morning until about 3pm when we saw a white man in a boat in the direction of the smoke. Immediately, he ordered his men to come and rescue us. They came with a smaller boat and picked us. It was just God that did it for us,” Sani said.

He said on Tuesday they were brought down to Calabar and to the hospital for treatment and check up. Sani gave the names of the mishap boat crew members as Theo, Kpakpa, Ibrahim, Daniel and Francis. They are all Nigerians but “most of the passengers were from Ghana, Togo, Niger, Benin.”

Hasaft, who spoke only Yoruba through an interpreter, said she did not remember much, but only that the engine stopped working close to an oil field and they were in great danger. “We were asked to start praying when the accident happened,” she added.

Meanwhile, the Director General of the Cross River State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Mr. Vincent Aqua has confirmed that 99 passengers are still missing. “From all indications, 128 persons including the crew members were on board the ill-fated boat and not 133 or 166 as speculated,” he said.

Aquah added that out of the 128, only five were crew members and “so far, the number we can say died are nine and 29 survived while the remaining number are still missing. Two survivors are in Calabar while 27 more survivors found were taken to Oron.”

The Coordinator of the Eastern Zone of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Mr Olayemi Abbas said last Sunday at 21.30 hours, they got a message from Kaztec Engineering Limited who are operators for Addax Petroleum that there was an unfortunate mishap at sea, that a vessel carrying passengers allegedly capsized at about the oil field OML 123 which is 40 nautical miles off the Calabar.

“In the ensuing search and rescue operation embarked on by Addax, nine bodies were recovered and two survivors. The NIMASA team from the local office in Calabar and the zonal office in Port Harcourt which I head, immediately swung into action and we received the bodies on Monday 18 at about 6.30 pm at the NPA terminal operated by Ecomarine Terminals.

“They were brought on board a vessel called SWAL LINK SIX and the bodies were immediately taken to the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital for embalmment and safe keeping. The bodies were bloated and all nine bodies were women and unfortunately, one of them was heavily pregnant at the time of death. They were brought in well packaged in body bags in a dignified manner. Also recovered were two bags containing clothing, shoes and other personal effects.

“The other items recovered were a vital clue to a foreign SIM card belonging to one of the passengers and the SIM card is operated by a company called MOOVE, apparently operating in Gabon. When we did an analysis of the SIM card, we were able to recover some of the numbers on it and made contact with some of the people who claimed to know the owner of the telephone number and identified him as Joe marine who is still missing. He was identified as a Nigerian living in Oron with his family,” Abass said.

A marine transporter at the Calabar Inland Waterways, Mr. Ikechukwu Egwu said the traders came from the South East and headed to Oron in Akwa Ibom to board the wooden boat to Gabon and “they are mostly Igbo traders who headed to Oron to board the wooden boat because it was cheaper.”

So far, the wreckage of the giant wooden boat has not been found and The Guardian gathered that the casualty was so high because the boat, as it is the case with other boats plying that route, did not carry life jackets.

Saturday 23 March 2013

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=117017:how-we-survived-calabar-boat-mishap&catid=3:metro&Itemid=558

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45 dead in refugee camp fire: Thai official


The toll from a blaze that swept through a camp in northern Thailand has risen to 45, authorities said Saturday, after hundreds of shelters for refugees from Myanmar were reduced to ashes.

Over 100 people were injured in Friday's fire, which destroyed about 400 homes at the Mae Surin camp in Mae Hong Son province, Thailand's Interior Ministry said as it updated the death toll.

Rescue workers were searching for bodies in the wreckage of the shelters at the remote mountainous camp area, according to a spokesman from the provincial authorities.

"All of (the) dead bodies I seen this morning are burnt beyond recognition," he said, adding that some 2,300 people had been left homeless by the blaze.

Aerial footage of the area shown on Thai television showed huge swathes of the camp completely incinerated.

Authorities believe the fire was sparked by an unattended cooking flame.

A local district official said hot weather, combined with strong winds had caused the fire to spread quickly among the thatched bamboo shelters.

Women, children and the elderly are believed to make up the majority of the victims.

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said it was rushing to provide plastic sheets, bed mats and other resources to make emergency shelters.

"We are deeply saddened by this tragic incident and doing what we can to provide instant relief," said the UNHCR's Thailand representative Mireille Girard in a statement.

The Interior Ministry's Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Bureau said a school, clinic and two food warehouses had also been destroyed.

The Thai government pledged an investigation into the fire at the camp, which was set up in 1992 and houses roughly 3,500 refugees.

Ten camps strung out along the Thai-Myanmar border are home to a total of about 130,000 people, who first began arriving in the 1980s.

Many of the refugees have fled conflict zones in ethnic areas of Myanmar, also known as Burma.

Families often live cheek-by-jowl in simple bamboo-and-thatch dwellings.

Many of the camp's residents have been registered with the UN as refugees, and an ongoing resettlement programme has allowed tens of thousands to move to other countries.

After a new quasi-civilian government replaced the long-ruling junta in Myanmar two years ago, Thailand announced it wanted to shut the border camps, raising concern among their residents.

But so far they have been allowed to stay and the Thai government has stressed that it will only send them back when it is safe to do so.

Many of the refugees are from Myanmar's eastern Karen state, where a major rebel group, the Karen National Union (KNU) signed a ceasefire deal with the new regime last year after decades of civil war.

Vast numbers of people fled the former Myanmar junta's counter-insurgency campaign, which rights groups say deliberately targeted civilians, driving them from their homes, destroying villages and forcing them to work for the army.

Years of war have left the Karen region littered with landmines while development has been held back, leaving dilapidated infrastructure and threadbare education and health services.

Ten camps strung out along the Thai-Myanmar border house a total of about 130,000 people, who first began arriving in the 1980s.

Many of the refugees have fled conflict zones in ethnic areas of Myanmar, also known as Burma.

The density of the housing and lack of firefighting equipment mean large numbers of shelters are often destroyed, but Friday's death toll was unusually high.

Hundreds of homes were destroyed at a different border camp in February last year by a fire that the authorities also blamed on cooking.

Saturday 23 March 2013

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130323/45-dead-refugee-camp-fire-thai-official

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Update: Bihar racket in bodies comes to light


The Araria district police have stumbled upon a case in which a group of persons is suspected to be involved in a racket of bodies, particularly of those struck dead by lightning.

Two instances where bodies have been exhumed have come to light, Superintendent of Police Shedeep Lande told The Hindu . “We were investigating a case of theft of an elephant tooth when we came across a case of a body being exhumed. On the basis of a statement given by an accused, we investigated the matter and found around 35 witnesses.”

Mr. Lande said Majid, who was involved in the theft case, had paid money to two persons in 2011 to exhume the body of a person who was struck by lightning in Madhulata village.

Another instance was recorded at Lali Tola in the same village.

“We are probing the possibility of a racket and would be filing a charge sheet. Mostly people do not report to the police cases of death by lightning as they believe it is an act of God. They want to avoid post-mortem examination and registration of a case as unnatural death,” Mr. Lande said.

Majid, who has a previous case under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, “used to work as a bidder at the Kolkata Customs House mainly dealing in antiques, local snakes, elephant teeth, rhino and penguin skins, which are used for medicinal purposes,” Mr. Lande said.

The police are trying to find out where the bodies were taken.

“There is a dearth of bodies in medical colleges in Western Europe. They are also in demand in China and Nepal,” Mr. Lande said.

The police have announced a cash reward of Rs. 1,000 for information on such incidents.

Saturday 23 March 2013

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-otherstates/bihar-racket-in-bodies-comes-to-light/article4536702.ece

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Army base in Peru yields secrets, galvanizes advocates for the disappeared


Forensic scientists have identified the bodies of three Peruvians who disappeared thirty years ago at a notorious army base in Southern Peru, breathing new life into efforts to account for over 15,000 people who disappeared in Peru's dirty war against terrorism.

The three bodies were among 53 recovered from the base of Los Cabitos, in the province of Ayacucho. They were identified by the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF), a long-time partner of The Advocacy Project (AP).

Los Cabitos served as a center for the army's counterinsurgency efforts between 1980 and 2000, and by some estimates may hold over 600 bodies. Information about the identifications became known on Wednesday at the trial of army commanders who oversaw operations in Ayacucho in the 1980s.

Jose Pablo Baraybar, the director of EPAF, predicted that the identifications would prompt deep anguish and an outpouring of demand from relatives. "The expectations are huge," he said. "This could be the tip of the iceberg."

Mr. Baraybar spoke from Washington, where he testified last Saturday before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights alongside advocates from Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. They told Commissioners that over 107,000 persons have disappeared in the four countries, and called on the Commission to create a permanent unit to monitor disappearances.

The disappearances in Peru have attracted less attention than elsewhere on the Continent because most of the victims were from Quechua-speaking Indian communities who lived outside the mainstream of Peruvian society. But the impact was devastating and it has worsened as efforts to identify the dead and prosecute the guilty have stalled.

Peru's Truth Commission concluded that 8,558 Peruvians disappeared, but estimates today put the number at well over 15,000. According to Mr. Baraybar, only 117 victims (0.8%) have been identified. They include 29 bodies that were exhumed by EPAF at the village of Putis in 2008. AP attended the Putis exhumation - the largest in Peru's history - and helped EPAF reach out to relatives of the dead.

Since Putis, efforts by civil society to demand accountability have met with stubborn resistance from the state. Peruvian courts have prosecuted 199 individuals in connection with the dirty war, including former President Alberto Fujimori, but acquitted 133. The courts threw out one recent case because plaintiffs were unable to show signs of torture after 29 years. Another case was dropped because of the lack of written orders from military commanders. The prosecutor's office has also imposed time constraints on cases which make it more difficult to secure a judgement. Added to all this, several long-time donors have stopped funding transitional justice in Peru.

EPAF hopes that its breakthrough at Los Cabitos will trigger new funding and enable civil society to address the needs of more families. The work at Los Cabitos was financed through a special earmark from the US Senate after lobbying by EPAF's allies in Washington including AP, the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA), and Creative Learning.

By joining advocates from Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala, EPAF also hopes to present a united front at the Inter-American Commission. The Commission has played a key role in putting disappearances on the international agenda, but the witnesses were critical of Commissioners following last week's hearing. After flying to Washington at their own expense they were given seven minutes each to speak and asked cursory questions.

"After telling them about all of this bad practice, they asked us for examples of good practice," said Doria Yanette Bautista Montanez, whose sister has disappeared in Colombia. "We practically cried when we heard that question."

Although Ms. Montanez and the others hope that the Commission will step up its work on disappearances, the Commission is under growing pressure from Ecuador and other governments over its human rights work, particularly on freedom of expression. The US has limited leverage in the dispute because it has not ratified the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights.

Saturday 23 March 2013

http://www.internationalpeaceandconflict.org/profiles/blogs/army-base-in-peru-yields-secrets-galvanizes-advocates-for-the?xg_source=activity#.UUz5AkzVWCA

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Will El Salvador end amnesty?


March 15 marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the findings of a truth commission that investigated human rights abuses committed during the 12-year civil war in El Salvador. Five days after the release of the finding, the Salvadoran legislature passed an amnesty law that protected the perpetrators of acts including the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero on March 24, 1980, the murders of six Jesuit priests in November 1989, the massacre of some 1,000 people in the town of El Mozote in December 1981, and offenses committed by Farabundo Martรญ National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas.

But a decision on Dec. 10, 2012, by the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered a reversal of the amnesty law, raising the possibility that crimes committed during the civil war may be prosecuted after all.

The seven-member court ordered the Salvadoran government to investigate the massacre at El Mozote – which by one count took the lives of 500 children – create a registry of victims (the number is currently uncertain), prosecute the perpetrators and provide reparations for the victims’ next of kin.

The ruling effectively, though not explicitly, calls for overturning the 1993 amnesty that followed the civil war, which ended with a U.N.-brokered agreement in 1992.

The court’s rulings are binding for states that recognize its jurisdiction, but the judicial body that operates under the auspices of the Organization of American States has no enforcement powers.

The Salvadoran government of President Mauricio Funes, of the disarmed FMLN, immediately issued a statement saying it would abide by the decision.

“The Salvadoran state, beginning with this government, has recognized these and other cases, has opened dialogue with the victims, and undertaken efforts to abide by the sentences and recommendations of the courts and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights,” the Salvadoran Foreign Ministry stated in a press release.

However, to date no official move has been made to set aside the amnesty law.

Massacre at El Mozote

The elite, U.S.-trained Salvadoran Army’s Atlacatl Batallion carried out the slaughter at El Mozote, in the department of Morazรกn, from Dec. 11-13, 1981. Though FMLN guerrillas were active in the area, the human rights court determined that no rebels were in the vicinity at the time of the massacres.

The court found that the massacres were the part of a deliberate “scorched earth” campaign to eliminate potential support in rebel-held areas “to deprive the fish of water,” not the isolated aberration of soldiers run amok.

“The massacres of El Mozote … responded to a policy of the state characterized by counterinsurgency military actions, like the ‘scorched earth’ operations, that had the goal of massive and indiscriminate annihilation of the populations that were targeted for suspicion (of supporting) the guerrillas,” the court said.

The court also expressed its desire that the ruling serve as a condemnation of such anti–insurgency strategies.

“In attention to the preservation of historical memory and the evident need that similar acts don’t happen again, it is the duty of this court to stress that the massacres of El Mozote and neighboring areas undoubtedly constitute an exponential example of this state policy, given the dimension of the operation and the number of victims executed,” the court added.

The Salvadoran Catholic Archbishop’s Legal Office reported to the court that based on testimony of surviving family members, the victims numbered 1,061 – 54 percent children, 18 percent women, some pregnant, and 10 percent older than 60.

The court said that 440 victims have been identified to date, but that many more, including many children, remain unidentified.

Exhumations performed to date at 28 sites have turned up at least 281 individuals, 74 percent children. At one site, the convent in El Mozote, of 143 individuals identified, 136 are children with the average age of 6, the ruling stated.

The court determined that an amnesty established one year after 1992 peace accords between the government and the FMLN should not apply to the massacres, because they potentially involve war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“[The court] said that the approval of the Amnesty Law and its following application in the present case to dismiss the investigation, is contrary to the [American Convention on Human Rights] and the letter and spirit of the Peace Accords signed in this country, which, read in light of the American Convention, reflects a grave effect to the international obligation of the State to investigate and sanction the grave violations of human rights,” the court said in a press release.

Geoff Thale, program director at the Washington Office on Latin America, said Funes has few options in responding to the court’s ruling, given that overturning the amnesty would be in the hands of the country’s Supreme Court, and opening an investigation would be up to the country’s autonomous Attorney General’s Office.

“Funes, even if he wanted to, couldn’t do anything about these two things,” Thale said. “The only thing he could do is perhaps make a public statement urging the attorney general to launch an investigation and maybe present a case before the Supreme Court to try to overturn the amnesty.”

Thale said that given the thorny political issues at play in overturning the amnesty, including the possibility that members of his own party could face accusations, and the potential for a confrontation with the army, Funes would likely prefer to “let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Would he like to see military officers prosecuted? Yes. Would he like to be the one to make it happen? No,” Thale said.

Funes issued a public apology for the massacres in early 2012 on behalf of the Salvadoran government, and he also ordered the creation of a registry of victims’ relatives.

Another case that could test the amnesty declaration, Thale said, is that of retired Col. Inocente Orlando Montano, who was found guilty – despite his name – in a U.S. court in Boston, Massachusetts, of perjury and immigration fraud.

On Jan. 15, the Boston court ruled during sentencing that it would take into consideration the former colonel’s alleged role in the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador. Montano is among 20 people, including 13 military officers, indicted in Spain in 2011 for the murders.

If Montano is given enough jail time in Boston, Spain would have enough time to seek his extradition to face charges there, Thale said.

“If he’s extradited to Spain, the trial of the military officers would go forward, and that would be a powerful blow against the amnesty,” he said.

He pointed to the precedent of Chile, where an amnesty toppled after former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was tried in Spain. Pinochet eventually faced justice in his home country.

Thale said that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling could have the effect of “strengthening the rule of law and weakening the military, and that would be a good thing.”

“Overturning the amnesty and investigating the massacres would mean jail time for some retired members of the military, and civilian allies would push back through public opinion. You’d see a lot of reaction from the military,” Thale said.

The human rights court found the Salvadoran state responsible for a whole list of violations of the American Convention, including violations of the right to life and the rights of children, as well as women’s rights, as several village women were raped.

“It added that the fact that these persons had been subjected to intense suffering violated, also, the right to personal integrity,” the court press release stated.

The court ordered a total of $17.6 million in reparations to 612 surviving next of kin, or $10,000-$30,000 per survivor, and payment of the trial costs of the human rights groups that brought the suit against the Salvadoran government.

Miguel Montenegro, director of the nongovernmental Salvadoran Human Rights Commission, told Agence France Presse he hopes the government of El Salvador now “assumes responsibility” for implementing the sentence handed down.

“This sentence reaffirms the hope for justice that victims’ families have been demanding, and that we defend human rights. We will remain vigilant to ensure [the court’s ruling] is implemented, and if those responsible [for the massacre] are identified, they should ask forgiveness and face the justice system,” he said.

The mainstream media paid little attention to the news of the court’s decision, with The New York Times running a short story focusing on the court ruling that Salvador’s amnesty law can’t apply to the massacre. The Associated Press and Agence France Presse published accounts of the ruling that were picked up by several newspapers and other outlets.

But El Mozote, despite the dimensions of the tragedy, hardly has become a household name, partly because the administration of U.S. President Ronald Reagan made a concerted effort in the 1980s to discount the accounts of the massacres, which were courageously reported at the time by Raymond Bonner of The New York Times and Alma Guillermoprieto of The Washington Post.

In 1981, the U.S. Congress had to certify the progress of the Salvadoran Army in respecting human rights for continued assistance, and the Reagan administration’s assertions that “no evidence” existed of the massacre guaranteed a continuation of the flow of aid to the army.

The murder of some 500 children, made all the more appalling because it resulted from a deliberate state policy, cannot easily be forgotten. In its ruling, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights takes an important step toward seeing that the El Mozote massacres do not end in impunity.

Saturday 23 March 2013

http://www.ticotimes.net/Region/Will-El-Salvador-end-amnesty-_Friday-March-22-2013

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Passenger bus collide with electric pole on Faisalabad road, 20 killed


At least 20 people have been killed and more than 40 others injured after a passenger bus collided with an electricity pole on Faisalabad road on Saturday night.

According to sources, the passenger bus fell on the road after the collision leaving almost 20 people killed and more than 40 others injured. The bus was traveling to Faisalabad from Sheikhupura.

“The incident occurred due to the over speeding of the bus,” they said.

The causalities increased after the passengers were trapped inside the bus. Meanwhile, rescue officials have started to pull out the bodies and injured from the bus.

The bodies and injured have been shifted to a nearby hospital in the area.

Identities of the dead and the injured were yet to be ascertained.

Friday 22 March 2013

http://www.thenewstribe.com/2013/03/23/passenger-bus-collide-with-electric-pole-on-faisalabad-road-12-killed/

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