Arcadia Foundation

United Nations torture expert Manfred Nowak today stated that he would recommend that the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) take action against Zimbabwe after his expulsion from the country.

Zimbabwean officials denied him entry and forced him to board a South Africa-bound plane on Thursday after he was detained by security officials on arrival overnight

Nowak, the UNHRC’ special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, told reporters after arriving in South Africa that his mission had failed.

“I think that it is the end of the mission. I think I have not been treated by any government in such a rude manner than by the government of Zimbabwe. I will not (go) back,” Nowak said.

Nowak said he remained concerned about torture in Zimbabwe and would recommend that the UNHRC take action against the country.

“I will report to the Human Rights Council and I will recommend to them to take necessary action in respect of Zimbabwe.”

Nowak said actions open to the council included the adoption of a resolution condemning Zimbabwe and requesting an investigation, or the council could set up an independent investigation team to look into human rights in the country.

He said he had been invited to Zimbabwe by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, whose power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe is under severe strain.

“I think it sheds light on the present power structure of the unity government if the prime minister invites me for a personal meeting and his office is not in a position to clear my entrance to the country. That is a very alarming signal about the power structure of the present government.”

The refusal to allow him entry to Zimbabwe was either a misunderstanding or something more deliberate on the part of some members of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party.

“There was a lot of either miscommunication, or it was a clear strategy by certain sections within the ZANU-PF, including of course the minister of foreign affairs, who just wanted to deny me entry and to deprive me of the possibility of assessing the human rights situation in the country,” he told Reuters.

Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has stopped cooperation with ZANU-PF in the unity government.

Zimbabwe’s state-owned Herald newspaper accused Nowak of trying to “gatecrash into the country.”

The newspaper said Nowak had been informed by the government that he could not visit because the country was hosting foreign ministers from the Southern African Development Community.

Gold Reserve Inc. said Venezuela took over the Brisas del Cuyuni site where the company spent $300 million to develop a copper and gold mine, sending the shares down as much as 17 percent.

“We had a permit and developed the property,” Doug Belanger, president of the Spokane, Washington-based company, said today in a phone interview. “We had a permit to construct and they revoked it without a basis in law.”

Gold Reserve fell 9 cents, or 8.2 percent, to $1.01 on the American Stock Exchange, after earlier dropping as low as 91 cents, the biggest decline since Sept. 28.

Gold Reserve now has no active operations, Belanger said. The company last week filed for international arbitration to get Venezuela to pay it for the project.

The government plans to mine the Gold Reserve site and the adjacent Las Cristinas mine site where Crystallex International Corp. holds a license, President Hugo Chavez said Jan. 13. The sites may be developed by a joint venture between the government and Rusoro Mining Ltd., Chavez said.

In Uganda, police have arrested three people who allegedly attempted to waylay the Minister of State for Youth and Children Affairs, Ms Jessica Alupo.

Another suspect, Muhamad Buyinza, died at Mbale Hospital of injuries he sustain in a gun battle with the minister’s bodyguards.

Buyinza and the three others allegedly staged an illegal road block at Naboa on Tirinyi Road and attempted to stop Ms Alupo, who was on her way from Mbale to Kampala last Thursday.

In other Ugandan affairs, all Somali visitors and refugees arriving in Uganda are to be registered in response to militants threatening to attack the capital, Kampala.

Somali community leaders living in Kampala said they would help to root out any insurgents.

It comes after al-Shabab said they would attack Kampala because Ugandan soldiers were serving with the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia.

Islamist insurgents control much of southern and central Somalia.

In the capital, Mogadishu, they are fighting for control with troops loyal to the government, which is backed by UN and AU peacekeepers.

The BBC’s Joshua Mmali stated that many Somalis in Uganda have unclear refugee status, so fear any unwanted attention. They believe an al-Shabab attack on Kampala would lead to indiscriminate arrests in search of the perpetrators.

Following the threat by al-Shabab, Somali elders met Ugandan security officials to discuss combating the threat.”We are ready to help the government to report any movement of these people,” said Abdulaye Hassan Roble, a Somali community leader in Uganda.

“If they [al-Shabab] appear here in Uganda we shall report them to the government.“

Comments