Burundi papal nuncio killed

Dec. 29 - Burundi papal nuncio shot dead

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- The pope's ambassador in Burundi was shot and killed by gunmen who opened fire at his car in the Central African nation, the Vatican and a missionary news agency said Monday.

Monsignor Michael Courtney was shot in the head, shoulder and a limb, according to the Misna missionary news agency. He died from a major hemorrhage during surgery.

A Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the death of the papal nuncio but would offer no details until his relatives had been informed.

CNN has some information about the intermittent civil war there.

The report from Fox is from the same AP feed, but they do offer a bit more information about Monsignor Courtney:

Courtney was born in 1945 in Nenagh, 85 miles southwest of Dublin. He was ordained in 1968, and worked as a parish priest around Ireland until 1976, it said. He then moved to Rome and entered the Pontifical Diplomatic Academy.

Beginning in 1980, he was a papal representative in South Africa, then in Zimbabwe, Senegal, India, Yugoslavia, Cuba and Egypt, the 2000 announcement said. Prior to going to Burundi, he worked for five years as special envoy in Strasbourg, France, monitoring the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights.

Given the rumours about a terrorist threat against the Vatican, I thought it worthwhile to find out what I could about religion in Burundi. According to this, 67% are Christians (62% are Roman Catholics and 5% are Protestants,) 23% retain indigenous beliefs, and 10% are Muslims.

The civil war there is the most likely connection, but I haven't found any theories as to which faction could be behind it or how it would advance anyone's cause.

UPDATE: This report from the Daily Telegraph (UK) says that Courtney was well-known to the rebels of the Forces for National Liberation (FNL), the prime suspects, because last year he had negotiated the release of a fellow priest held hostage by the FNL.

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Next step: human rights in Libya

Dec. 22 - I like Peter Worthington (not the least because he spells the name of Libya's ruler almost the same way I do!) and he delivers his judgement on the unilateral move by Libya to break with the Axis of Evil with a suggestion for a Canadian application in today's column Khadaffy's new stance break in war on terror.

When Libya (Khadaffy) was elected to chair the UN Human Rights Commission (members included such repressive regimes as Zimbabwe, Vietnam, China, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Syria) it was a low-water mark for the UN -- and typical of the flaccid values of that increasingly impotent body.

Only three of 33 countries voted against Libya's chairmanship (the U.S., Canada and Guatemala), while 17 ideologically craven countries (mostly European) abstained.

Is it too much to hope that Khadaffy will now take human rights seriously? His is a brutal regime that dabbles in torture and slavery, but if he benefits from abandoning his WMD program and terrorism, perhaps the next phase will be easing intolerance inside Libya.

[...]

Iraqis, too, want normality, and already have more freedom than they ever had under Saddam.

Arab countries aren't brainless.

The gesture of Moammar Khadaffy, who is as "Arab" as any, will not be lost on other tyrants and quasi-despots.

That Libya will now benefit should be a guide for our own foreign aid policy: Help countries that behave decently, give nothing to tyrannies that use our aid to entrench their repression.

The Cold War is over. It's past time to adjust policies and use foreign aid to encourage better, higher goals such as the pillars articulated by Pres. Bush in his Whitehall Speech and principles of international human rights the Canadian federal government claims to respect.

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Libyan Surprise

Dec. 20 - I was caught off guard (in a good way) when I saw Libya's surprise announcement late last night, and however much spin Gadhafi's son may put on it, anyone who doubts that the declaration of the war on terror and US presence in Iraq isn't having predictable results is either living on another planet or never studied history.

Did anyone bookmark an article that appeared a few months ago in which Italian President Berlusconi said he received a phone call from Gadafi asking for help in repairing relations with the US? It was shortly thereafter that a settlement for the Lockerbie victims was reached (until France got greedier).

I hate posting information based on my own memory, but if I posted the article I can't find it.

CNN remembered last weekend whose side they were on when they reported the news of Saddam's capture, and today they remembered how much they despise the French when they reported on the international reactions to the news from Libya:

However, French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin urged Libya to "implement without delay" its commitment to compensating families of victims of the bombing of a French airliner in 1989.

[...]

De Villepin said France wanted more compensation for the families of 170 victims of a UTA plane bombed over Niger in line with the $2.7 billion Libya paid to families of 270 people killed in the 1988 bombing of an airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The French, having settled that claim already, wanted to re-negotiate. Remember why we don't trust the French? They themselves make it hard to forget the reasons.

A giggle note: a CNN poll on this page asks Will it be possible to trust Libya again and welcome the country back to the international community?

CNN notes the 1986 attack ordered by President Reagan, but Fox has a timeline of US relations with Libya which notes (unlike the CNN report) the Berlin discotheque bombing and the 1979 ransacking of the US embassy in Tripoli.

CNN has "C" and "L" but still needs to buy two vowels: "U" and "E."

Okay, I'm a bitca today. I have to leave for work shortly so I'm just anticipating.

UPDATE: The Daily Telegraph (UK) calls it a case of good cop, bad cop of US-British dealings with Libya. The Sun calls it a massive coup for Blair and Bush and notes

Colonel Gaddafi's move also further undermines the anti-war stance of French President Jacques Chirac and many Labour MPs. They claimed liberating Iraq would make the world more dangerous. But Libya's decision hugely vindicates the invasion.

It is also a blow to Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida terror network as it shows the West and previously hostile Muslim nations can work together to find peace.

It's too soon to do the Dance of Victory, but this will be interesting. I've no doubt Howard Dean has his own spin, but is anyone listening?

Colby Cosh says "Bush lied, people died, Colonel Gadaffi came onside" makes a nice couplet.

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Archbishop Tutu

Dec. 16 - Despite my sarcasms, I have sympathy for those who, on the one hand are distressed by policies and actions in their own countries, organizations and even families yet, on the other, do not wish to appear disunited in public. They aren't entirely wrong to fear that others might see and exploit differences to make the country or organization weaker.

On that level I can comprehend why some African nations defend Robert Mugabe, but this man has decided that principles outweigh dubious solidarity: Tutu hits out at Mugabe's African supporters:

The archbishop hit out at those who have called for the Mugabe regime to be readmitted to the Commonwealth in the face of continuing human rights violations and abuse of the rule of law.

Archbishop Tutu, a Nobel peace prize winner, said the struggle against apartheid would not have been won if Mr Mbeki's logic had been applied in the 1970s and 1980s.

"Had the international community invoked the rubric of non-interference then we would have been in dire straits in our anti-apartheid struggle," the former archbishop of Cape Town said in a statement released yesterday by his office.

"We appealed for the world to intervene and interfere in South Africa's internal affairs. We could not have defeated apartheid on our own. What is sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander too."

The former head of the Anglican Church in South Africa also said he was "baffled" by the behaviour of Mr Mbeki and other apologists for the Mugabe regime.

[...]

"Human rights are human rights and they are of universal validity or they are nothing.

"There are no peculiarly African human rights, what has been reported as happening in Zimbabwe is totally unacceptable and reprehensible and we ought to say so regretting that it should have been necessary to condemn erstwhile comrades. The credibility of our democracy demands this.

"If we are seemingly indifferent to human rights violations happening in a neighbouring country what is to stop us one day being indifferent to that in our own?" (Emphasis added)

What indeed?

Like so many Telegraph articles, this one ties Archbishop Tutu's comments to other issues in South Africa, notably Nelson Mandela's position on AIDS which is markedly different from that of Mbecki's as well as a seeming generational divide in the African National Congress, so RTWT and follow some of the links.

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Chretien on Africa

Dec. 5 - Doesn't it just figure that in his final days as Canada's Prime Minister, Jean Chretien would not only make sense but fail to blame the West for all the ills of the world?

The PM, attending his last Commonwealth leaders meeting [in Nigeria], said African nations have to help themselves.

He said nervousness would disappear when they can assure business they have "an honest system of justice, that the decisions of the courts will be implemented, that human rights will be protected, and that elections will be fair."

He also told his audience they must "stop this bloody conflict that you have too often in some parts of Africa" and restore political stability.

"There's nothing more nervous than a million dollars," the outgoing PM lectured. "It does not speak French, it does not speak English, it does not speak German and it moves very fast."

Normally I would point that that Chretien's personal fortune is several million dollars, he too doesn't speak any of those languages and his speed is subject to personal whimsy, but my mind is boggled at this truly frightening prospect: Is it possible that he's always been lucid?

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