The News Review:

- The Neediest Cases; Escapee From a Nightmare That Loved Ones May…
- Powerful enough to bring justice: setting up the special court for…
- Rights of children, racism, protecting human rights while combatting…

The Neediest Cases; Escapee From a Nightmare That Loved Ones May…
New York Times – Dec 1, 2003
He is kept awake by images of atrocities, the sight of family members being killed during his country’s civil war, which forced him to flee to the United States in 2001 in search of asylum. Sidibey managed to escape from Sierra Leone with one photograph of his father, Ibrahim, and another of his family and neighbors, who are clad in formal attire in front of their homes. He also has a pink-and-green 500-leone note, which he carries in his wallet. ”My father gave it to me to go buy one bag of corn,” Mr. ”The next day it happened…
Sidibey was then forced into the rebels’ work crew, he says. The abused members of this group had their hands restrained; they were tied together like a chain gang and taken to other villages. During one raid by the rebels, government soldiers from Sierra Leone and neighboring Guinea approached. The truck carrying the captives, including Mr. Sidibey, made a sharp turn to evade the armies and people fell out of the back. Many captives were injured, he says, but they were also free to run as much as their restraints would allow. ”An old man was running behind me,” Mr.

Powerful enough to bring justice: setting up the special court for…
Free with registration – UN Chronicle – AccessMyLibrary.com – Dec 1, 2003
–> COPYRIGHT 2003 United Nations Publications War in Sierra Leone broke out in 1992 and ended with an uneasy peace in 2002. Over that terrible decade, some 75,000 civilians are believed to have been killed and half a million made refugees. Atrocities, in some respects unique in their grotesquery, have been reported: chopping off the hands of civilians who had cast electoral votes, kidnapping children for use as gunmen or sex slaves; butchering prisoners; and so on. It is a poignant irony that these things should happen where the world’s first humanitarian mission took place–in Freetown, where the British navy in the nineteenth century set free the slaves. On 12 June 2000, the President of Sierra Leone asked the United Nations to set up a court powerful enough to bring justice to his country…
Atrocities, in some respects unique in their grotesquery, have been reported: chopping off the hands of civilians who had cast electoral votes, kidnapping children for use as gunmen or sex slaves; butchering prisoners; and so on. It is a poignant irony that these things should happen where the world’s first humanitarian mission took place–in Freetown, where the British navy in the nineteenth century set free the slaves. On 12 June 2000, the President of Sierra Leone asked the United Nations to set up a court powerful enough to bring justice to his country. The Security Council responded in August with resolution 1315 (2000), declaring that the situation in Sierra Leone constituted a threat to international peace and requesting Secretary-General Kofi Annan to negotiate an agreement with the Government to set up an independent Special Court, as well as recommending that its jurisdiction should include crimes against humanity, war crimes and other serious violations of international humanitarian law, and crimes under Sierra Leonean law committed within the territory. There was no precedent for such a body; Nuremberg had been a military tribunal run by the four victorious powers, and the tribunals dealing with war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda had not been set up through any agreement with the countries concerned. The Special Court Agreement was signed by the Government and the United Nations in January 2002 and ratified by the parliament of Sierra Leone.

Rights of children, racism, protecting human rights while combatting…
Free with registration – M2 Presswire – AccessMyLibrary.com – Dec 1, 2003
83) was approved by a recorded vote of 72 in favour to 54 against, with 25 abstentions, as follows: In favour: Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Federated States of Micronesia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Samoa, San Marino, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Timor-Leste, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Venezuela. Against: Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Brunei Darussalam, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, China, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Lesotho, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritius, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Sudan, Syria, Togo, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of Tanzania, United States, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe. Abstain: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Barbados, Belize, Bhutan, Botswana, Ethiopia, Guyana, Honduras, India, Israel, Jamaica, Kuwait, Lebanon, Maldives, Mali, Mongolia, Mozambique, Saint Lucia, South Africa, Suriname, Swaziland, Uganda, Viet Nam. Absent: Cambodia, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Cuba, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Gambia, Grenada, Guinea, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Latvia, Liberia, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu.