The Week That Was, July 15 to July 28, 2010

Sudan 

• AU delegates at a summit in Uganda this week agreed to remove a resolution barring its members from arresting Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. However the new resolution also urges the UN Security Council to freeze the arrest warrants against the Sudanese leader.
• President al-Bashir traveled to Chad last week, marking his first visit to a country that is an ICC member. Despite strong international protest, Chad did not arrest Bashir.
• JEM signed a landmark deal with the UN, pledging to release all children associated with rebel movements in the region to UNICEF and to facilitate their reintegration into society.
• Fighting escalated last week between the Sudanese Army and JEM rebels.  300 rebels and 75 soldiers were reportedly killed in the clashes.
• UNAMID peacekeepers moved into Kalma camp after gunmen reportedly associated with the SLA’s Abdul Wahid faction assaulted a sheikh in the camp. The rebel group has denied involvement.
• Two German aid workers who had been held hostage in Darfur for over a month were released on Tuesday.
• Three Sudanese journalists working at an opposition party newspaper were sentenced to jail on charges of attempting to destabilize the constitutional system. The judge also ordered the closure of the newspaper.
• One of the nineteen teachers accused of being behind violent student demonstrations in Rumbek, southern Sudan last week has declared that they have been mistreated by local police while in custody.
• Northern and southern Sudanese leaders pledged to work towards a sustainable peace to resolve outstanding issues of oil-revenue sharing, nationality and citizenship in advance of the potential independence of South Sudan.  

Burma 

• The Burmese army attacked a Hpapun township village in eastern Karen state on July 23, burning the village and mining the area to prevent the return of displaced villagers.
• Karen State residents continue to fear clashes between the Burmese army and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army over the proposed border guard force. At least 700 people fled to Thailand this past last week over rumors that fighting could break out in the near future.
• The Karen National Union has reported increased military operations in Karen areas in advance of the country’s national elections later this year. These attacks may also be linked with the construction of a hydro-electric power plant in the area.
• Burma’s military government has week permitted the merging of the nation’s largest government-controlled social welfare organization into the army’s recently formed political party, the USDP. According to human rights groups the move essentially guarantees that the Burmese government will dominate this fall’s elections.

Democratic Republic of Congo 

• At least 60,000 people were displaced in the Beni area of North Kivu province due to fighting between the Congolese army and the Ugandan rebel group, Allied Democratic Forces – National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF-NALU) which began in June.
• The LRA intensified its campaign in the northeastern province of Orientale last week, killing at least 7 people and kidnapping others.
• The International Criminal Court’s first trial chamber has ordered the release of accused war criminal Thomas Lubanga Dyilo after asking for a stay in the proceedings. Lubanga Dyilo, charged with recruiting child solders in the eastern DR Congo will remain in custody until the court’s appeals chamber rules on whether the case will continue.
• The governments of India and the DR Congo are currently engaged in talks over an Indian pilot who was recently kidnapped by Congolese rebels on a remote air strip in the tin mining area of Walikale in North Kivu. The Congolese army blamed the attack on FDLR rebels.
• Global Witness is suing the British government for failing to name the companies and individuals involved in trading conflict minerals from the DR Congo, as is required by UN sanctions.
• UN peacekeepers in the DR Congo faced 21 allegations of sexual abuse in the second quarter of this year, roughly the same amount of allegations the organization was charged with during the same period last year.

Afghanistan 

• Documents published by WikiLeaks, an online transparency group, on July 26 show that the situation in Afghanistan is worse than official portrayals. The reports, which were delivered to the Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel, highlight the ways in which coalition troops’ attacks have affected civilians and the problems of corruption and lack of training in the Afghan government.
• The Kabul Conference, Afghanistan’s largest international meeting since the fall of the Taliban, concluded July 21 with support for the Afghan government’s peace and reconciliation program with the armed opposition. Also at the conference President Hamid Karzai said Afghanistan will be responsible for its own security operations by 2014
• At least 25 Afghan civilians were killed and another 20 wounded when a roadside bomb struck a passenger bus in western Afghanistan Wednesday morning. This comes just days after two separate IEDs in Badghis province killed four Afghan civilians.
• According to the Afghan government, a NATO rocket attack in Helmand province last Friday killed at least 45 civilians, mainly women and children. NATO denies the accusation.
• A shura, or consultation, this week in Zabul province revealed allegations of abuse and intimidation of local citizens by insurgent groups in the region. 

Iraq

• Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia killed at least 6 people in an attack on the TV station Al Arabiya Monday, July 26. The station was targeted as part of a series of attacks carried out by the group across Iraq. 

Pakistan 

• The Pakistani military has engaged in extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment during counterterrorism operations in the Swat valley according to Human Rights Watch.
• Registration of IDPs at two centers in Peshawar has been suspended after officials received letters threatening to bomb the centers if the registration process continued. 

Somalia 

• Guinea is set to deploy a battalion of troops to join the AMISOM mission, part of an additional 2,000 troops requested to reinforce the peacekeeping mission.
• According to the Kenyan government, Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani insurgents have relocated to Somalia.
• After twin al-Shabaab bombings in Kampala killed 74 people, Uganda is seeking a change to the AMISOM rules of engagement to allow peacekeepers to go on the offensive against insurgents in Somalia.
• Ongoing fighting in Mogadishu has killed at least 52 people since July 13, according to the Somali-based Elman rights group.