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By Paul Ndiho
March 15, 2012
The international war crimes court found former Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo guilty on Wednesday of recruiting and deploying child soldiers during the War in Eastern Congo. More than a decade ago, I was a reporter embedded with rebel groups supported by Uganda– and I witnessed the recruitment of child soldiers and killings that took place in some parts of Eastern Congo. Here is my account of events that happened.
A Three judge panel of the International Criminal Court found that Thomas Lubanga was the president of the militia group known as the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo during an armed conflict that has lasted for over a decade.

“The Chamber spent a considerable amount of time, investigating the circumstances of a substantial number of individuals, whose evidence was at least in part, inaccurate or dishonest. Prosecution’s negligence in failing to verify and scrutinize this material sufficiently, before it was introduced, led to significant expenditure on the part of the court.”
The judge said that Lubanga was essential to a plan to conscript young girls and boys below the age of 15. Lubanga, 51, was detained six years ago and faced three counts of war crimes. He could face up to life imprisonment, although a sentence will not be passed immediately. An appeal can be filed within 30 days.
Two other Congolese warlords are on trial at the International Criminal Court on charges they instructed their subordinates to attack civilians, rape women and enlist child soldiers in what has been called “the greatest armed conflict” since World War II. Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo are charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes.
From 1999 – 2001, I was embedded with rebel factions in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. But nothing prepared me for the violence I witnessed there in 2001
One morning I was caught in the middle of the Lendu militia attacks against the Hema in Bogoro a village near Bunia. In this and other villages, scores of people were killed and thousands were driven from their homes.
What started as a land dispute between two normally peaceful groups grew into a larger clash when Ugandan forces entered the region? The Ugandan forces sided with
The Hema and this favoritism caused a backlash from the Lendu, leading to the widespread killing.
According to eyewitness accounts, the Lendu attacked the Hema in Nyekunde at dawn, killing everyone they encountered, including women and children. A cloud of heavy smoke covered the village. The stench from the burning bodies was unbearable. That same night, the Lendu militia also invaded Nyekunde hospital, where hundreds of people were hiding and cut them into pieces. Scores of other nearby villages were burned to the ground. I saw several mass graves where a hundreds of people were being buried, and the Hema was armed with bow and arrows, ready to defend their village.
It was this kind of carnage, recruiting and deploying child soldiers that I witnessed in 2000 for which Thomas Lubanga Dyilo was found guilty of during the War in Eastern Congo.

By Paul Ndiho
March 12, 2012
A study by nonprofit organization, the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ says that in 2011 the Horn of Africa was one of the world’s worst places for the press. VOA’s Paul Ndiho recently asked Mohamed Keita, an advocacy coordinator for CPJ’s Africa program about press freedoms in Africa.

By Paul Ndiho
March 6, 2011
The National Secretary-General of the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) says his party is making preparations for the country’s presidential election slated for November this year.
However, Mr. Sulaiman Banja Tejan-Sie is concerned that the ruling party, All People’s Congress (APC) is bringing in people from outside the country into opposition strongholds. VOA’S Paul Ndiho recently talked to Mr. Sulaiman Banja Tejan-Sie about the upcoming elections and here is more.

By Paul Ndiho
March 6, 2012

In Benin, child trafficking is a crime that is strongly punished, but child trafficking still is at all-time high. Young children are being sold into domestic servitude or the commercial sex trade in Cotonou.
Dossou concentrates hard on geometry exercise. He is only 12. But he knows what it’s like not be able to go to school. After his parents split up, his father sold him. He spent three months alone and scared in Nigeria.
“One day my daddy said to me come, we’re going somewhere. And we went to Nigeria. The place he took me to, there was a lady there. She was selling maize. He told me to stay with the lady. When he left I cried. The lady told me to be quiet and I was quiet.”
Dossou’s story is not unique in Benin, a small country with porous borders where thousands of children are trafficked every year. There are also about 600-child laborers in Benin. Boys are forced to work on farms, in construction, produce handicrafts, or hawk items on the street.

“Child trafficking is big issues in Benin so UNICEF is supporting the government to fight against this phenomenon to be able to save these children, recuperate them and get them back into their childhood and to train them.”
UNICEF supports organizations such as Don Bosco and the Salesiane Sisters, which help children from the streets and victims of child trafficking like Dossou.
“With this type of child the first thing to do is reassure them, because he’s a child who has been sold by his own father. So the first thing to do was to reassure him, to guarantee his protection and to tell him that in this place he will feel safe. That’s the first thing. Then we had to motivate him so he would rediscover the joy of living, of going back to school.”
The Don Bosco Centre in Porto Novo touches the lives of vulnerable children in various ways. Some of them, like Dossou, live here. Others do fast-track schooling or learn a trade.
Three outreach centers have been opened in marketplaces for vulnerable children.
14 year-old bread seller Honorine started coming to this shelter in Cotonou’s market two years ago.
She didn’t know how to tell her mother she was taking time off from work. So she gave her a necklace she had made at the outreach center.
“I have noticed that my daughter has changed since coming here. There have been great improvements in her upbringing. I have definitely noticed changes in Honorine’s behavior.”
“The barraques that you see behind me were put in place by NGOS and they are very important step for children in life because they give them a second chance to return to childhood and begin their livelihood like a child and to start on a new path on their lives.”

By Paul Ndiho
February 24 ,2012

Ethiopia is often lauded for its economic development and for its role in the fight against Al Shabaab militants in Somalia. Yet, like many countries with a strong ruling party and ethnic factions, multi-party democracy in Ethiopia has stalled.
In 2005, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians protested the disputed elections that resulted in the street violence that killed more than 200 civilians. The government’s repression of the protests, along with internal party leadership disputes, fragmented Ethiopia’s political opposition and left it unable to deliver democratic reforms.
But Birtukan Midekssa, a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, says the time to engage Ethiopia’s government is now.
“I think democratization is the only way we are left with and if Ethiopia is to democratize obviously opposition political parties would have an indispensable role to play.”

Birtukan Midekssa is a former federal judge and leader of the pro-democracy opposition in Ethiopia. Often hailed as the Aung San Suu Kyi of her country, she was among those sentenced to life in prison in 2005 after her party, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, won an unprecedented number of seats in parliamentary elections.
After eighteen months in prison, she was pardoned in 2007, but rearrested in 2008. Midekssa says that she’s still committed to fighting for democracy. She also notes that Ethiopians in the Diaspora need to keep pushing for major reforms in the horn of African nation.
“The Diaspora has been playing a very significant role. But those efforts and activities have been very episodic for example in 2005 the Ethiopian Diaspora even managed to get a bill introduction in the congress of United States to support democracy in Ethiopia. But currently we may not see that kind of enthusiasm and influence but we should try to maximize that kind of influence from the diaspora because the local population is very constrained.
Ethiopia’s opposition parties have routinely accused the government of harassment since the violent post-election protests of 2005. Adrienne LeBas, a professor at American University, says that Ethiopia is yet another African country dealing with a protracted democratic transition.
“I think what Ethiopia really highlights are the challenges of organizing opposition actually building opposition parties are much more severe in these kinds of closed political systems. Democratization is going to take a lot longer, it’s going to take a lot more protests and confrontation and it’s just going to be a protracted process.”
Analysts say that over the past ten years, Ethiopia’s opposition has focused on building institutions from the top down. But the opposition has been weakened by the imprisonment of many its top figures. In 2010, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s ruling party won landslide victories which extend his term in office to nearly 25 years. Opposition parties cried foul and observers say the elections did not meet international standards.