Baraza

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jan 22 2009 | By: baraza

 Dear all,

First, don’t forget it’s Sheryls birthday tomorrow. Now is a great opportunity to make her happy with a gift towards WildlifeDirect. Check out the donations widget on the right. Thanks Sheryl for being so generous.

I am re-posting the Garamba story because we now have photos.

We have just been informed that the fall out of LRA attacks in Garamba National Park in DR Congo are worse than we reported on earlier with photos here, in total ten people including 6 Garamba Park staff were killed.   Six people are still missing. This is from their official website posted on 20th January.

“Below is the list of the courageous rangers and the innocent civilians who lost their lives, were injured or were abducted during the sad events of 2 January. The toll is high, but could have been much higer without the strong resistance showed by the rangers and their wardens. African Parks express its deepest condolences and sympathy to the families that lost their loved ones.

Names of casualties:

People killed:
1.   Takipi Mawotama (Ranger)
2.   Bakpe Miso (Ranger)
3.   Atandroa Mokobe (Ranger)
4.   Makili nZambia (General Worker)
5.   Mbili Moke (General worker, electrician)
6.   Wife of Principal Warden Ligilima
7.   Wife of Warden Shematsi
8.   Silu (daughter of ranger officer Tamwasi)
9.   Guapa: Nagero villager
10. Ranger Officer Atolobako Vukoyo, abducted by the LRA and found dead on 19 January

People wounded:
1.  Chief Ranger Officer Atakuru Surandi
2.  Aguma (Nagero villager)
3.  Ayezema Madrandele (worker)
4.  Ngbapay (Nagero villager)
5.  Vene (Ranger’s wife)
6.  Chief Warden Bernard lyomi

People missing, probably abducted
1.  Ranger Azangia Nakengia
2.  Atakuru Manyanga, son of a ranger
3.  Aumbo Mandima, son of a ranger”

Please join us in sending our sympathies and condolences to the families and friends of all the slain rangers and their wives. We will also pray for the safe return of those missing.

Since the attack security at Nagero station in Garamba has been  stepped up and a cleanup operation is ongoing

If you would like to send a letter to the Garamba Park expressing your sympathies write to

African Parks Foundation
Adminstration Centrale Station de Nagero
Territoire de Dungu
District du Haut-Uélé
Democratic Republic of Congo

contact by e-mail -garamba@gmail.com

For more photos from Nagero

http://picasaweb.google.cz/Marakeita/GarambaNPMarkTaAntonNov?authkey=mkXmkmqwwE8#

http://picasaweb.google.cz/Marakeita/GarambaNPStPhaneCarr?authkey=AVFcfYoXWqQ#

http://picasaweb.google.cz/Marakeita/GarambaNPNageroLuizArranz#

http://picasaweb.google.cz/Marakeita/GarambaNPNageroMarketaAntoninova#

The two first links show the aftermath of the attack.

The two last ones show all the reconstruction and cleaning up activities since the attack.

Thank you

Paula Kahumbu

Tags: Attacks, conflict, DR Congo, Garamba, LRA, wildlife, wildlifedirect

4 responses so far

Category: National Parks and protected areas, Uncategorized, enforcement | Date: Jan 06 2009 | By: Maina

The partnership that manages Garamba National Park which consists of the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) and the African Parks Network, has issued a press release about the attack on the Park headquarters by Lords Resistance Army of the Ugandan rebel, Joseph Kony on which Paula reported in her post earlier today. Garamba park rangers were poised to start blogging at WildlifeDirect presently, but before that, we at Baraza would like to help them convey this urgent message.

Rangers at Nagero Station that was attacked (Photo (c) African Parks Network)

Press release
6 January 2009

On 2 January 2009, the headquarters of Garamba National Park, located in Nagero, Democratic Republic of Congo, have been attacked by the Ugandan rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Despite strong resistance by the park rangers together with elements from the Congolese Armed Forces, numerous casualties and material damages have been incurred. A first report mentions 8 people killed, including two park rangers and two wives of wardens, and 13 injured, most of them by bullets. An unconfirmed number of rebels have also been killed or wounded.

Several essential buildings of the headquarters have also been destroyed, along with many items of transport and communications equipment, and stocks of fuel and food rations.

“The headquarters in Nagero are in a state of havoc” mentions the Chief Warden Bernard Iyomi who directed the resistance during the attack and who narrowly escaped death. “The heroic behaviour of our rangers and wardens has prevented an ever heavier death toll”.

It will take several days before these first figures are confirmed, once the management team has completed the final assessment.

Military and humanitarian assistance is being rapidly deployed in order to secure the area and to help the populations displaced by the attack.

“We strongly condemn this attack launched by the LRA, and request the military authorities of the region and the international community to continue their involvement in solving this problem caused by the rebel group for so many years” says Mr Cosma Wilungula, the head of the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN).

“Our immediate concern is for the safety and wellbeing of our people, particularly those that are injured. Thereafter we will immediately begin rebuilding the administrative base and staff morale, both of which are essential for the continued management of this important park” adds Mr Peter Fearnhead, the Executive Director of African Parks.

Background information

Garamba National Park (NP) is located in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo along the border with Sudan. The park was established in 1938 by a Belgian royal decree as one of the first national parks in Africa, and has been associated with the elephant domestication centre created in the 1920s in Gangala-na-Bodio. The park has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980.

Garamba NP is surrounded by three game hunting reserves – Azande to the west, Gangala na Bodio to the south and Mondo Missa to the east. The total area of the Garamba complex is 12427 km², including 4900 km² for the park itself.

The Garamba complex still harbours populations of elephants, giraffes, buffaloes, hippos and numerous other species of ungulates. The presence of the Northern white rhinoceros still needs to be confirmed.

The ICCN (Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature) is the governmental authority in charge of the management and conservation of protected areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The ICCN controls a network that accounts for about 10% of the total land area of the country, including 7 national parks (among them 5 World Heritage sites) and numerous reserves.

African Parks Network is a private foundation based in Johannesburg (South Africa) and specialised in the management of protected areas. African Parks is currently active in 5 national parks and reserves across Africa. African Parks has officially assumed the management mandate for Garamba National Park on 12 November 2005, in partnership with ICCN.

Besides African Parks, Garamba National Park currently receives financial assistance from the European Union, the Spanish, Italian and Belgian governments, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Technical or scientific support is also provided by UNESCO, IUCN (World Conservation Union), United Nations for the Environment Programme and Fauna & Flora International.

Contacts :

For ICCN (Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature) :
Pasteur Cosma Wilungula, Administrateur Délégué Général
pdg.iccn@yahoo.fr
+243 998 97 6686

For African Parks Network
Dr. José Kalpers, Country coordinator for DRC
jkalpers@gmail.com
+254 737 576232
+32 495 141348

Tags: African Parks Network, DRC, Garamba Nationa Park, ICCN, LRA, rangers, Uganda

11 responses so far

Category: National Parks and protected areas | Date: Jan 06 2009 | By: baraza

Our thoughts today are with the rangers and their wives who were killed by Joseph Konys Lords Resistance Army in Garamba National Park in the DR Congo. On Friday twenty people were killed in a raid by the LRA rebels on a park ranger station in at Nagero in Orientale Province in northern Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to Reuters two park rangers and their wives were killed, our sources indicate that up to 8 rangers and some of their wives were killed.

Ten rebels were also killed in the battle that lasted four hours. It was part of the three-week-old multinational assault on LRA strongholds in northeastern Congo, which by many accounts has gone disastrously wrong. The multinational military offensive against the LRA which is sanctioned by the UN has not been executed well according to the media and sources on the ground.

Forces led by Uganda and including Congolese and South Sudanese soldiers began bombing LRA bases in the park on December 14 after the rebels’ leader Joseph Kony again failed to sign a deal to end his rebellion against Uganda’s government. Although Ugandan and Congolese officials have said the offensive is going well, coalition forces have so far failed to locate Kony, who along with two deputies is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In response to the attacks, his rebellion is now waging a brutal campaign against local villagers and so far between 400 and 500 civilians have been killed in attacks in towns of Doruma and Faradje, which had been left undefended by coalition forces.

One person has described the outcome of this failed military offensive against the LRA as the equivalent of “stirring up a hornets nest”…the situation is much worse now than before.

Tags: DR Congo, Garamba National Park, LRA

3 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Dec 14 2008 | By: baraza

We have all been inundated with images of the conflict raging in the Congo and how it has affected the Virunga National Park, rangers, gorillas and the forest not to mention other species.

Well today’s news  is both good and bad. The good news is that a new offensive against the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) has just been launched in Garamba National Park, also in Eastern Congo. For years the LRA which is led by Joseph Kony have been terrorising northern Uganda, southern Sudan and Congo, killing and maiming thousands of people. They are famed for the abduction of children leading to a nightly migration of children from villages into small towns where they sleep on the streets in huddles - for safety in numbers. Kony and his top commanders are accused by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of raping, mutilating and murdering civilians as well as forcibly recruiting child soldiers. Kony wants the charges dropped and has stalled peace negotiations with the Uganda’s government demanding that arrest warrants for him and his associates are dropped before any agreement can be struck.

The Ugandan news paper The New Vision, Reuters, BBC and Al Jazeera all report that yesterday morning, Uganda, South Sudan and DR Congo attacked the LRA in Garamaba forest in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The attack was backed by the American government and other Western powers. Initial reports say that the attack was successful, and Kony’s  main camp was set on fire.

The bad news? This fight is taking place inside a national Garamba Park.   is n’t any old park, it is a world heritage site, and home to the worlds last northern white rhino. It is also famed for its African elephant domestication programme started in the 1960s. Our thoughts are with our friends in Garamba who are working in extremely tough conditions.

Bull fighting called

I wrote earlier about a planned bull fight in Nairobi to celebrate the ‘Obama circuit’. Well, a public protest in Kenya seemed to have been quite effective and the fight was called off as it contravened Kenyas  Animal Welfare Act. I feel jubilant about this - perhaps the worlds and concerns of Kenyans matter to our authorities? Well I’m holding my breath on that one.  Today I was stopped on the highway by protestors against two much more nationally important issues, our politicians, though some of the most highly paid in the world, refuse to pay taxes, and they have just passed a bill in parliament to muzzle the press who have been condemning them for their greed.  The minister of information and communications who is accused of illegally taking tens of thousands of dollars in allowances, pushed the bill through. He is a trained journalist but obviously doesn’t like it when his illegal actiosn get exposed. Kenyans are outraged and protests are being met with force, over 40 journalists have been arrested and another 70 people were arretesd wearing for wearing T-shirst saying Yes to Members of Parliament paying taxes. As usual our president is silent on the matter though he will make the final decision. Muzzling the press will affect all of us, and our ability to get stories out whether about corruption, illegal trade in wildlife, or issues affecting our parks.  I came away from the protest feeling quite angry at how things seem to be going backwards when it comes to freedom of the press press. We’ve seen how it has held Zimbabwe back and kept us from getting up to date information about what is happening on the ground in all spheres.

Tags: DRC, garamba Park, Jospeh Kony, LRA, Nairob Bull fight, wildlifedirect

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