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AFRICA NEWS
Mali wives prevent loyalist soldiers' arrest
by Staff Writers
Bamako (AFP) Aug 1, 2012



The wives of dozens of Malian armymen Wednesday physically blocked a group of policemen from arresting two soldiers close to the west African nation's former president who was ousted in a March coup.

"Armed men came here to the camp to arrest our 'husbands' and we refused. We do not agree that they can carry out arrests in this way," said one woman, who identified herself as Mariam.

The women acted as a group to prevent the arrest of the two colleagues of their husbands.

They then launched tear gas to try to get past the wives, two of whom were pregnant and fainted, before opening fire, a military wife Fatoumata Toure claimed, adding: "We are ready to defend them to the death."

Mali suffered a coup on March 22, when a group of soldiers overthrew then-president Amadou Toumani Toure, saying he was not effectively handling an Islamist rebellion in the north of the west African desert country.

Though the soldiers, led by Captain Amadou Sanogo Haya, have since handed power to a transition government, they remain influential in Bamako and have arrested many people close to the former president, including soldiers.

An official from the Malian security service told AFP there would be no "arbitrary arrests" and that civil liberties would be scrupulously guarded.

More than 300 soldiers' wives demonstrated July 16 in Bamako to demand the release of their husbands.

The March coup was a disaster from a military perspective, with Islamist and Tuareg rebels quickly exploiting the power vacuum in the capital to seize more than half of the country's territory.

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Sierra Leone lifts ban on small arms and light weapons
Freetown (AFP) Aug 1, 2012 - Sierra Leone lawmakers have lifted a ban on small arms in new legislation which seeks to regulate ownership of weapons in a country ravaged by a decade-long civil war, an official said Wednesday.

"The act will regulate the private ownership of guns and other weapons in the country to control the proliferation nationwide," said deputy Internal Affairs Minister Raymond Kabia, who piloted the bill.

"The act will also ensure that stockpiles of small arms and weapons by manufacturers, dealers as well as individuals are securely stored in accordance with prescribed standards and procedures," he said on public radio.

Kabia said a national commission would be responsible for the "regulation and licensing of the transfer, manufacture, sales and use of small arms and light weapons throughout the country."

He added that government would soon destroy a cache of over 6,000 weapons and ammunition collected by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2004.

Kabia also said no new licences would be issued until after the November 17 presidential election.

At the end of a civil war in 2002 which claimed about 120,000 lives, government banned all private ownership of small arms and ordered that all such weapons be handed over to police stations for safekeeping.

Under a massive UN disarmament programme in 2004, 75,000 combatants including 6,845 child soldiers were demobilised.

Local hunters and farmers have welcomed the lifting of the ban as many possess home-made guns to hunt or protect their farm crops.



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AFRICA NEWS
Brother of exiled Rwandan ex-army chief gets 9 years' jail
Kigali (AFP) July 26, 2012
A Rwandan military court jailed a brother of an exiled former army chief to nine years in prison for threatening state security, the defence ministry said in a statement Thursday. On Wednesday, the military high court found Lieutenant-Colonel Rugigana Ngabo guilty and "sentenced him to nine years following accusations of threatening state security," the ministry said. The court found him ... read more


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