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ABC News interview



Dear friends,

If you have any questions in regard to this interview, please contact my US based collegue Jim Roberts at jroberts@xxxxxxxxxxxx

Warm wishes, Anja

By Edward Mazza
ABCNEWS.com
Dec. 27 - One thousand years ago, historians say, many people were ignorant of the year in which they lived, let alone its millennial significance - or lack thereof. 

Their lives were bleak, their futures grim, and an apocalypse may have seemed like a good idea. After all, the world beyond couldn't have been any worse, could 
it? 
For many, the feeling today is much the same. Who can celebrate while being tortured at the hands of their own government? Who understands what year it is while enslaved and denied even the ability to read and write? Who wants to party when an unseen enemy lobs missiles, mortars and rockets at villages and marketplaces? 
Life is still hellish in many parts of the world. Here's a look at how some people will be spending the start of the new millennium: 

Angola
The prospect of getting blown to bits by an assailant who left the scene days, months or even years ago is not a pleasant one, but it's one faced daily by many of the people of Angola. 
Decades of civil war have left the country littered with land mines and, as the fighting continues, more mines are being laid, according to Liz Bernstein, coordinator for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. 
"It's one of the most heavily mined countries in one of the most heavily mined continents on earth," she said. 
According to the U.S. State Department, Angola is rife with "high-intensity military actions, bandit attacks, undisciplined police and military personnel, and land mines in rural areas." 
Angolans are killed or maimed regularly for merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time, with both government and rebel UNITA forces placing the deadly devices in civilian locations to punish populations suspected of sympathizing with the other side. 
That means common areas such as water holes and places where firewood is gathered can be mined. "That's the terror of the land mine," Bernstein said. 
In the province of Moxico alone, at least 52 people were killed by 133 land-mine explosions in the area this year. Over the same period of time, 59 locals had their legs amputated as a result of injuries sustained from land mines. 
Other areas facing land mine problems include Afghanistan, Kosovo, Chechnya, Mozambique, Namibia and Botswana, Bernstein said. In Cambodia, no new mines have been laid and progress has been made clearing those still planted, but it remains a problem - up to 10 million mines remain. 
In Central America, the rains of Hurricane Mitch caused many of the mines in Honduras and Nicaragua to shift, meaning they have to be located all over again before they can be cleared - and until they are found, they are a threat to all passers-by. 
 

The Balkans
While multinational troops have, for the time being, defused much of the conflict in the Balkans, the region's problems are by no means solved. 
Witness the recent death of a U.S. serviceman, killed when his vehicle hit a land mine on a road supposedly cleared. Land mines laid during the war remain a threat to civilians and peacekeepers alike. 
The problem, said Steve Claborne, Mercy Corps' director of program operations for the Balkans, is that mine-clearing operations have been suspended for the winter. Although most were marked, rain and other weather conditions have caused some of them to shift, putting the civilian population once again in harm's way. 
"People who need to plan or plant their winter wheat seed are taking a huge risk," he said. 
Violence still mars much of the region, especially Kosovo, where ethnic tensions often lead to street fighting. People are still beaten and sometimes killed because they are a Serb or ethnic Albanian in the wrong place at the wrong time. 
"That's still very much the major issue looking forward," said Claborne. "It has not been sorted out." 
In Bosnia, many people have a roof over their heads - for the time being - just not their own. Some 700,000 people are displaced, and living in homes that belong to someone else. The trouble begins when the family that originally owned the home comes back to reclaim it. 
"Where do they go?" Claborne asked. 
For many in Kosovo, the housing situation is even worse. 
"There's still lots of people living in tents or houses with no windows or doors or roof," he said. 
These people will need to be relocated to "collective centers," basically indoor refugee camps. 
But the situation is far better than it has been; food is far from plentiful, but most people have enough to eat, thanks in large part due to foreign aid. 
 

Burma
Disease, hunger, forced labor and civil war are daily facts of life in many parts of Burma, also known as Myanmar. 
"If you're a citizen of Burma, you're in danger of having to become a refugee from war," said Amnesty International's Jim Roberts. "You're in danger of being conscripted into forced labor battalions. If you're politically active, you're in danger of being jailed. If you're in prison, you're in danger of contracting AIDS - they use unsterilized syringes on prisoners." 
The Burmese government is considered one of the world's least-pleasant regimes. The U.S. State Department has warned that the "military government suppresses expression of opposition to its rule," and says even foreign nationals are detained if they are suspected of helping to foment democracy. 
Torture is common, said Roberts. Amnesty believes that at any given time, about 1,500 people are in jail for their political beliefs. Because many are then released and others then picked up, the actual number of people who have been jailed or beaten for their beliefs is much higher, he said.
"You're in distinct danger of being tortured if you're arrested," he said. "Virtually every type of torture you could think of is reported, but mostly it's beatings, electric shock and near-drowning." 
But Roberts says the government's abuse goes beyond torture.
"In many parts of Burma, you're going to be hungry," he said. This, he added, is due to mismanagement of the land by state authorities. Rice paddies often lie fallow as the military carries out counter-insurgency operations. 
The true extent of the problems in Burma is unknown. The regime is careful about what information it makes public. 
"We would like to send Amnesty International monitors or some other acceptable international human rights investigating team to Burma to study the problems on the ground, problems in the prisons and jails and in the field near military bases, but the government of Burma doesn't seem willing at this point in time to allow that," Roberts said.
However, the government has agreed to allow some Red Cross workers into the country, a move he called "a very positive step." 
But that's about the only good news to come from Burma in recent years. 
"We haven't seen much change in Burma in the nature of the types of violations that have been reported," he said. 
 

Chechnya
In early December, Moscow gave the people of Grozny, the capital of the breakaway republic of Chechnya, an ultimatum: Leave or die. 
While many had already fled to places such as the neighboring republic of Ingushetia, others were either too old or frail to leave. Even the healthy ones feared being attacked as they left, since there are no real safe corridors out of the city, said Amnesty International's Maureen Greenwood. 
Moscow says it is fighting a war against terrorists and bandits. But Amnesty says the human toll among civilians has been enormous, and continues to get worse. 
"If you're a Chechen that just fled into Ingushetia, you're facing a freezing cold winter and shortages of food," she said. "Many children are living in train cars or sheds on a dirt floor with low levels of food. There's no international humanitarian aid workers there." 
Inside the borders of Chechnya, the situation is even more dire. In addition to a cold winter and lack of food, the people are subject to indiscriminate bombing campaigns by the Russian military, she said. 
One attack in October on a Chechen marketplace left 137 civilians dead and 400 wounded. Among the dead were 13 mothers and 15 newborns at a nearby hospital and 41 people gathered in prayer, she said. 
Making matters worse, villages that try to expel the guerillas sought by Moscow face reprisals. In the village of Gekhi, she said, the people tried to expel the fighters. The guerrillas in turn attacked the villagers. 
"You're absolutely caught in the crossfire with no place to go in winter," she said. But aid workers will not go to Chechnya because Russia will not guarantee safe access, a move Greenwood called "unprecedented." 
"I'm not optimistic," she said. 

East Timor
The massive violence that broke out after this summer's independence vote in East Timor has subsided, but many continue to suffer. 
On Dec. 22, for example, pro-Jakarta militiamen launched a grenade attack on a market, injuring at least seven. Many of the militiamen have left East Timor, but most have not gone far. From border camps and bases in West Timor, they harbor thoughts of revenge and allegedly plan to renew the violence. 
Although the militias had promised to disarm, a spokesman for U.N. operation there said he had seen no sign of them honoring that pledge. 
Then there are the corpses. Mass graves are found throughout East Timor with alarming regularity, as if the victims themselves will not allow the bloodshed to be forgotten. 
Food aid flows through East Timor, and the situation is far better than it was in September, when tens of thousands of refugees faced starvation in the mountains and death by armed gangs in the streets. 
But reports of hunger - some of which are denied by U.N. workers - continue to emerge, as it seems that aid is not reaching everyone. 
 

North Korea
Some places just give people a bad feeling. North Korea, according to some of the few foreigners who have been there, is one of them. 
"When you go through the countryside you see a real strain," said Ellsworth Culver, senior vice president of Mercy Corps. "You feel it. You sense it. It's on the faces of the people." 
That strain may come from poverty and starvation. Cities have become cold urban ghettos. In the countryside, people have created a non-nutritional food made of grass, weeds and trees simply to fill the stomach and fight off the hunger pangs, said Culver, who has been to North Korea several times to assist with his organization's relief effort there. 
Making matters worse is a serious tuberculosis outbreak, he said. 
This is not true of the capital, Pyongyang, he added, but most of the people outside of the city are suffering. 
They are hungry, he said - and winters in North Korea can be bitterly cold. 
"One of the things that's very obvious is the lack of smoke coming out of the chimneys," he said. Most of the coal mines are shut because they were filled with water during the floods of recent years, or the mining equipment is no longer useable. They have little oil and other fuel, and whatever is brought into the nation is appropriated for military and industrial purposes, he said. 
The State Department has noted "serious shortages of food and other supplies," in the country, and Washington has supplying food for the relief effort there. Culver estimates that foreign aid makes up some 20 percent of North Korea's food supply. 
And up to 300,000 North Koreans have sneaked across the border into China, seeking help from communities of Koreans that live on the Chinese side of the border. 
But there, they have no status. And if they are caught by Korean authorities trying to leave - or trying to get back in - the treatment can be harsh indeed, he said. 
"They have moved from their homes out of desperation, so they're in bad circumstances to begin with," Culver said. "When they get there, they haven't really improved their situations because they're outlaws." 

Sudan
Some of the people in Sudan, the largest nation in Africa, will welcome the new millennium in shackles, according to human rights activists. 
While the government denies the presence of slavery, state-sponsored or otherwise, reports from southern Sudan are grim. 
"If you were a young African child in Sudan, you risk being abducted in a slave raid by government militia forces, having your school or church bombed by the government air force or dying from a forced famine caused by the government," said Jesse Sage of the American Anti-Slavery Group. 
A civil war has been raging in Sudan for 16 years, claiming 2 million lives and creating 5 million refugees - not to mention tens of thousands of slaves, he said. But Sage added that the Sudanese have a strength we lack. 
"If there's one thing we should do it is not to pity them, but respect that they have one thing we lack. And that is a strong community," he said. "That is enormously inspiring. They demand our respect and our support, not our pity." 
The government maintains that the areas in the south are rebel-held and beyond the control of the government, and the slave situation has been created by the rebels and other groups as a means of collecting money from those who would pay the liberate the slaves.