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World in brief

Investigation finds human rights abuses in Morocco

By wire services
Published December 17, 2005

RABAT, Morocco - A truth commission tasked with investigating more than four decades of human rights abuses in Morocco uncovered nearly 600 disappearances and the deaths of about 500 people during street riots or while in police custody, the state news agency reported Friday.

The commission - the first of its kind in the Arab world - called for reform of the country's judicial and security sectors, along with constitutional guarantees of human rights, presumption of innocence, and fair, open trials, the MAP news agency reported.

The findings of the two-year investigation were submitted to King Mohammed VI, who established the Equity and Reconciliation Commission to examine alleged abuses during the reign of his father, King Hassan II.

The commission has no mandate to punish perpetrators or to name them. Human rights activists and some Moroccans have criticized that policy, but commission members argue that naming perpetrators violates their rights.

MAP said the truth commission recommended compensation for 9,280 victims of various human rights abuses over the decades. Some 1,499 victims had already received compensation between 1999 and 2003.

UNITED NATIONS - Myanmar's increasingly authoritarian military junta has denied its people essential human rights and created a humanitarian emergency, including food shortages and a rapid rise in HIV infections, the U.N. political chief said Friday.

In a rare briefing to the Security Council requested by the United States, Ibrahim Gambari said the junta had blocked moves toward democracy, and he painted a grim picture of a country heading toward "humanitarian crisis."

He cited in particular rising HIV and AIDS rates, food shortages and the detention of more than 1,000 political opponents.

The United States has been trying to step up pressure on Myanmar's military regime and succeeded in getting the council to agree to a closed-door briefing - without putting the issue on the council's agenda.

UNITED NATIONS - Louise Frechette, the U.N.'s first deputy secretary-general who was strongly criticized for tolerating corruption in the oil-for-food program, will step down in April to join a research center in her native Canada, the U.N. announced Friday.

Frechette has served as Secretary-General Kofi Annan's deputy since March 1998, taking a mainly behind-the-scenes role in dealing with U.N. management and overseeing key programs.

She was the direct boss of Benon Sevan, the oil-for-food program's executive director now being investigated for allegedly accepting kickbacks.

Frechette will become a distinguished fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation, a leading Canadian international relations and policy research center, said Jim Balsillie, the group's chairman.

BEIJING - A local Communist Party official and 26 other people were being tried on charges of organizing a bloody attack on protesting villagers that killed six people in June, the government said Friday.

The announcement of the trial came as the government tried to defuse public anger over a separate clash last week in which police opened fire on protesters in a southern village northeast of Hong Kong, killing at least three. Villagers said as many as 20 were killed.

In the June conflict in Hebei province near Beijing, as many as 300 men with knives and guns attacked villagers protesting the seizure of land for construction of a power plant.

Dozens of people were injured and more than 100 people were detained.

He Feng, a former local Communist Party secretary, was among the 27 who went on trial Thursday on charges of causing "intentional injuries," the official Xinhua News Agency said.

[Last modified December 17, 2005, 01:02:06]