Sudan: Over 50 Killed in Fighting

The Monitor (Kampala)

22/05/08

Over 50 people have been reported killed in Tuesday’s violent clashes between the Sudan army and their rival Sudanese People’s Liberation Army forces in the contested oil-rich Abyei region.

Initial information from the restive region suggests that at least 21 Sudan Armed Forces (Saf) soldiers are among the dead counted after the four-hour skirmish that also claimed lives of 20 to 50 civilians.

Aid workers separately reported that at least 100 people had been injured in the renewed violence.

Figures of fatalities on the side of the SPLA, blamed by Khartoum government for igniting the latest round of fighting, were not readily available but Saf spoke out on its losses.

“Over 21 Sudan Armed Forces soldiers were killed and 54 were injured,” Brig. Uthman al-Agbash, the spokesman of the Sudan armed forces said.

By press time, unease calm was said to have returned to Abyei that is being claimed by both Khartoum and officials of the semi-autonomous Government of South Sudan.

Diplomatic and military sources said yesterday that the two rival armies had agreed to a ceasefire on Tuesday evening although it remained uncertain for how long the guns would remain silent.

On the same day, the ruling government of national unity and congress in Khartoum hurriedly dispatched a joint-member ad hoc committee to halt the conflict from spreading to outlying areas.

“The Sudan government does not want the tense situation in Abyei to escalate,” Mr El Rahim El Saddiq Mohammed, the deputy head of mission at the Sudanese embassy in Kampala said yesterday.

The rival parties fought on Tuesday on the back of accusations and counter-accusations of violations of the May 16, Abyei agreement.

 

Somali parliament building raided

22 May 2008

Press tv

Somali rebels attack the parliament building in the southwestern town of Baidoa, killing five guards amid more blasts in the town.

Somali lawmakers were shocked as they found anti-government militias shooting mortars at parliament compound, also known as ADC Building, Press TV correspondent said.

Five parliamentary guards were killed in the crossfire that followed and continued for less than an hour.

Meanwhile, many civilians have left their homes to go to safe places outside Baidoa since hundreds of insurgents entered the town and targeted the parliament premises.

The attack marked a rare incident among the usual hit-and-run skirmishes between the Ethiopian-backed Somali soldiers and anti-government gunmen.

The clashed are still going on in Baidoa while the insurgents have vowed to drive the foreign troops and their ‘puppets’ out of Somalia.

Africa’s ‘Miami’ boasts Art Deco trove

Reuters | 22 May 2008

When Italian architect Giuseppe Pettazzi inaugurated Eritrea’s plane-shaped “Fiat Tagliero” service station in 1938, he stunned onlookers by pulling out a gun.

There, the story behind Africa’s finest piece of Futurist architecture goes hazy.

In one version, Pettazzi stood defiantly on one of his 59 ft concrete “wings” – used as decorative shades for cars entering the garage – and threatened to kill himself should the structure collapse as wooden supports were pulled away.

In another, the excitable architect held the gun to the head of a disbelieving builder, who had hesitated to pull away the struts for fear the long slabs would tumble down.

Either way, the wings stayed up, nobody was shot, and Pettazzi’s design skills were vindicated.

Seven decades on, this extraordinary piece of Italian Art Deco, which resembles a plane at takeoff, is still standing in Asmara, the central capital of this former Italian colony.

The “Fiat Tagliero”, named for the car firm and the old gas station’s owner, is one of 400 buildings that make the remote Eritrean capital one of the world’s most fascinating centers for Art Deco and other architectural styles.

One of a tiny number of books on the subject – “Africa’s Secret Modernist City” by three Asmara-based writers – calls Asmara “the Miami of Africa” in reference to the US city’s fame for Art Deco, a design in the Modernism trend known for stylish geometric shapes, bold curves and soft colors.

“The Italians felt they would be here for hundreds of years, so they built and built, and left us this remarkable legacy,” said Samson Haile Theophilos, who has written about Eritrean architecture, as he purred lovingly over the Fiat building.

“But I want to stress the workers, skilled and unskilled, were all Eritrean, so we consider this architecture ours.”

Asmara’s Art Deco boom came during 1935-41, the last six years of Italian colonial rule of the vast Horn of Africa region then known as Abyssinia.

Unrestrained by European norms, and confident they were laying foundations for the continued expansion of their African colony, Italian architects turned Asmara into an experiment.

A 1937 garage looks like the bottom of a ship with porthole windows. The distinctive “Bar Zilli” imitates a 1930s radio set with windows like tuning knobs. Office blocks are modeled on space rockets.

“Desperate to build quickly, the colonial government of the time allowed radical architectural experimentation that would not have found favor in the more conservative European environment,” says “Africa’s Secret Modernist City”.

“Asmara therefore became the world’s prime building ground for architectural innovation during the Modern Movement… a blank canvas on which its Italian colonizers were able to design and build their own urban utopia in east Africa,” adds the 2003 publication.

But Fascist leader Benito Mussolini’s grand plans for an African empire with Asmara as capital crumbled with World War Two.

British forces overran the Italians, who were allied with Germany’s Adolf Hitler at the time, in Eritrea. Asmara’s architectural experiment came to an end.

Remarkably, in the intervening decades of near-constant turbulence for Eritrea, the buildings have remained untouched.

Neither the 30-year war for independence from Ethiopia nor a devastating 1998-2000 border war between the neighbors, brought major fighting to Asmara, a city of some 500,000 on a high plateau.

Compared to Miami by some, Asmara could also be likened to another city whose architectural style has stood relatively still since a seminal moment in its history: Havana after the 1959 Cuban revolution.

Like Havana, a few high-rise structures built after independence have tarnished Asmara’s Art Deco aesthetic. The government has said it would like Asmara to be declared a world heritage site.

While Art Deco is perhaps the most eye-catching, two other “made in Italy” styles make Asmara a true architectural treasure trove: Neo-Classical designs brought by Rome-inspired architects from the 1890s, and the Monumental style that dovetailed with fascist ideas.

“Monumental buildings were meant to dwarf you when you go in and emphasize the power of the occupant,” said Samson. “You could almost imagine ‘Il Duce’ (Mussolini) striding out.”

Lying on the main Harnet (Liberation) Avenue, the former Fascist Party headquarters – now Eritrea’s education ministry – has a soaring main tower, jagged roofline and imposing entrance.

If an onlooker was in any doubt about the structure’s purpose, a twist of the head to the left would reveal that this Monumental building was shaped – on its side – as the letter F.

Not surprisingly, Asmara residents are ambivalent towards their architectural heritage.

On the one hand, they are proud of their forefathers’ workmanship, enjoy strolling around a city considered by many the most beautiful in Africa, and know the architecture could be a major tourist draw in the future.

But the buildings also remind the residents of Africa’s youngest nation of their colonial subjugation.

“I remember well all this building around 1935 when so many Italians were coming and they were preparing to invade Ethiopia,” said 101-year-old Eritrean Zeray Kidanemariam, who said he worked as a porter for Italians for decades.

“But they did it for themselves. We were forced to live in poor areas. To them we were just niggers, nobodies.”

Ethiopian PM gives terms for quitting Mogadishu

ADDIS ABABA, Wednesday

21/05/08

Ethiopian prime Minster, Meles Zenawi has said his troops may withdraw from Somalia any time soon, but would never countenance any threat against Ethiopia.

Speaking in Parliament  on Wednesday, Mr Zenawi disclosed that Ethiopian troops would stay in Somalia until his country was convinced that there is no imminent danger from the “Jjihaddist” groups against Ethiopia.

“We may withdraw from Somalia  soon, but we would never leave our Somali brothers in the middle of crisis” the prime minister said.

He said he hopes that more countries would send peace keeping troops to Somalia in the coming  months.

Mr Zenawi said Ethiopia is confident of securing a safe corridor to port Djibouti, if the war broke out between Eritrea and Djibouti.

“If it is beyond Djibouti’s control and Eritrea tries to block the route to the port, we are ready to secure and protect a safe route,” he  said.

Ethiopia says 95 pc of Ogaden rebels killed, captured

ADDIS ABABA (AFP)

22/05/08

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has claimed that government troops have killed or captured 95 percent of rebels in the separatist Ogaden region.

“Around 95 percent of the total troops the ONLF had last year have either been killed or captured. The figure includes senior officials,” Meles told lawmakers at a parliamentary session.

The Ogaden National Liberation Front, formed in 1984, is fighting for the independence of ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia’s vast oil-rich Ogaden region, whom they say have been marginalized by Addis Ababa.

Speaking Wednesday, Meles said his forces were now “mopping up die-hard ONLF rebels scattered in various parts of the Ogaden and accused arch-foe Eritrea of supporting up the rebel group.

“We are aware of the fact that the Eritrean government has recently been training forces in areas around Assab (inside Eritrea). We know each member of that group and we are on standby to deter any infiltration or attack.”

The authorities in Addis Ababa routinely accuse Asmara of arming and training Ethiopian separatist armed groups — allegations denied by Asmara.

The Ethiopian army launched a crackdown in Ogaden after ONLF rebels attacked a Chinese oil venture in April 2007 that left 77 people dead.

The discovery of oil has fueled conflict in Ogaden, an impoverished region roughly the size of Britain and home to around four million people.