U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 38
16 - 22 September 2000



CONTENTS:

DRC: Rebels reject Kabila's negotiation offer
DRC: Humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate
DRC: Unexplained killings in South Kivu
DRC: MONUC denied clearance to Mbandaka
DRC: CAR president in Kinshasa for talks
BURUNDI: Pro-Tutsi parties sign accord
BURUNDI: CNDD-FDD "not isolated" 
BURUNDI: More than 300,000 still internally displaced
RWANDA: Museveni arrives in Kigali
RWANDA: Government condemns OAU genocide report
RWANDA: Tribunal dismisses fresh appeal by suspect
KENYA: EU announces further food aid
UGANDA-KENYA: Uganda extends amnesty to rebels 


DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Rebels reject Kabila's negotiation offer

The two Ugandan-backed rebel groups, the Mouvement de liberation du Congo
(MLC)  and the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-MLC), have
rejected President Laurent-Desire Kabila's offer to revive the Lusaka
accord by setting up a commission to negotiate with rebel groups, MLC
leader Jean-Pierre Bemba told IRIN.

Meanwhile, the MLC has recaptured Dongo in northeastern DRC after heavy
fighting, and has vowed to recapture Imese, further south, both towns
having been taken by government forces in June. Diplomatic sources told
IRIN that DRC government forces in the northwestern town of Mbandaka had
been heavily reinforced by 3,000 troops from the government's southern
African allies to help block a possible rebel advance. 

DRC: Humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate

The humanitarian situation in the DRC has reportedly continued to
deteriorate, humanitarian sources have said. According to the UN Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the number of
displaced persons has risen from about 1.4 million in June to 1.8 million
in mid-September, as a result of the Rwandan-Ugandan clashes in Kisangani,
intensified hostilities in the Kivus and the current fighting in northern
Equateur. 

Meanwhile, humanitarian agencies recently launched a major initiative in
Equateur Province, under which more than 400,000 war-affected persons will
receive urgently needed life-saving support. Humanitarian sources said
that agencies involved in this operation were currently encountering
serious problems in obtaining government clearances to operate in the
south of the province. 

DRC: Unexplained killings in South Kivu

Killings continue being perpetrated along the main road linking Uvira to
Bukavu in South Kivu in eastern DRC, a local source told IRIN on Tuesday.
The trend had caused fear in the area, prompting people to flee to "safer"
areas. It had also left travellers wishing to move between the two towns
"with no options but to go to Cibitoke via Bujumbura and then on to
Bukavu, or get there through Cyangugu in Rwanda", the source noted. He
said local authorities had held a meeting with local communities with a
view to finding a solution. 

DRC: MONUC denied clearance to Mbandaka

The DRC government has denied clearance to the UN Observer Mission in the
DRC (MONUC) to enter the northwestern town of Mbandaka in Equateur
Province.  MONUC's Chief Support Officer, Colonel Regis Barman, confirmed
to IRIN on Thursday that because of the lack of clearance, the
organisation had not been able to visit, resupply or change their three
officers currently in Mbandaka. He said discussions were in progress with
the authorities to find a solution to the problem. The UN Security Council
in February allowed for the deployment of 500 military observers and some
5,000 troops in the DRC to observe the ceasefire and the withdrawal of
foreign troops in the country. However, the deployment has been delayed
because of ceasefire violations and the government's refusal to grant full
freedom of movement to the officials. 

Meanwhile, a DRC official in charge of government relations with MONUC,
Leonard Ntwaremba Onfre, dismissed Colonel Barman's complaints. "These are
fake allegations," the Associated Press (AP) quoted him as saying. 

DRC: CAR president in Kinshasa for talks

The Central African Republic president, Ange Felix Patasse, is in the DRC
for talks with President Laurent-Desire Kabila, the BBC reported. The
talks are expected to focus on the fighting between government forces and
rebels near the common border. 

BURUNDI: Pro-Tutsi parties sign accord

Three pro-Tutsi parties, which did not sign the Arusha peace accord -
ANADDE, PIT and RADDES - put their signatures to the document in Nairobi
on Wednesday, but "with reservations", sources attending the ceremony told
IRIN. However, the main rebel armed groups, PALIPEHUTU-FNL and Forces pour
la defense de la democratie (FDD), did not sign. FDD leader Jean-Bosco
Ndayikengurukiye did not show up, but instead sent low-level
representatives. The PALIPEHUTU-FNL leader, Cossan Kabura, was in Nairobi
and had a closed-door meeting with regional heads of state. He said during
a news conference in Nairobi on Wednesday: "I didn't come here to sign a
ceasefire. Peace talks have to start with political issues and so far we
have been excluded from them." 

A communique issued after the Nairobi meeting said that "regrettably,
despite the facilitator's concerted efforts, the parties concerned have
not been able to conclude a ceasefire agreement, which is crucial for the
implementation of the agreement". Summit participants called upon the
parties to resolve the matter and sign a ceasefire agreement within 30
days, the communique said. It further called on them to declare an
immediate suspension of hostilities, pending the conclusion of a ceasefire
agreement. The summit statement noted that "it reserved the right to take
such action or initiative as may be necessary in conjunction with the UN
and the international community in general to put and end to the cycle of
hostilities". 

Heads of state participating in the summit included Presidents Pierre
Buyoya of Burundi, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Daniel arap Moi of Kenya,
Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, as well as the
mediator, Nelson Mandela. 

BURUNDI: CNDD-FDD "not isolated " 

Following the talks, CNDD-FDD on Friday stressed that unless two
preconditions were met there could never be face-to-face talks with the
Burundi government. CNDD-FDD spokesman Jerome Ndiho told IRIN that before
there could be a ceasefire there would have to be negotiations, and these
could not be held before all the regroupment camps were dismantled and
"political prisoners" released.  He dismissed warnings by the mediator
Nelson Mandela that his movement risked political isolation, saying the
region's "biased" leaders - whom he named as Yoweri Museveni, Paul Kagame
and Pierre Buyoya - had always regarded CNDD-FDD as "isolated". At the
Nairobi meeting, the heads of state refused to meet the CNDD-FDD
delegation, declaring it was too low-level. "The main belligerents in the
conflict are ourselves and the army," Ndiho stated. "So we cannot be
isolated."  Reiterating the movement's rejection of the Arusha accord as
"zero", he said CNDD-FDD would not attend the Nairobi follow-up meeting,
slated for Arusha, Tanzania, on 25 September "as the agreement has nothing
to do with us". In any case, he added, a new political agreement involving
his rebel group was "essential".
 
BURUNDI: More than 300,000 still internally displaced

About 327,506 people are still internally displaced in Burundi, an
assessment conducted by the community assistance umbrella programme and
the government has established. The team said these people were either
living in camps and similar sites or with host families as of the end of
August. Meanwhile, the drought-affected provinces of Kirundo and Muyinga
in the north and Cankuzo in the northeast have been identified as the
first priority for the distribution of seeds, seed protection and food
aid, WFP said in its weekly emergency update, with about 128,000 families
being targeted. The provinces of Kayanza and Ngozi in the northwest,
Karuzi (north central), Ruyigi and Rutana in the east and Gitega (central)
were regarded as the second priority, with 65,013 families in need of food
aid. 

RWANDA: Museveni arrives in Kigali

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni arrived in the Rwandan capital Kigali on
Friday for talks with his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame. The one-day
visit is Museveni's first to Rwanda since troops from the two countries
clashed in the DRC city of Kisangani in June. "The Kisangani clashes are
in the past and will not be central to the talks," Rwandan presidential
adviser on the Great Lakes, Patrick Mazimhaka, told IRIN. "Regarding the
unification of the Congolese rebel groups, the heads of states are likely
to review the progress but there is a commission dealing with the issue
and the rebels are already making contact with each other." 

RWANDA: Government condemns OAU genocide report

The Rwandan government last week described as "biased" the recently
released report by the International Panel of Eminent Personalities (IPEP) 
on the country's 1994 genocide. 'The EastAfrican' weekly reported on
Monday that Rwanda had condemned the report, which accused its army of
"systematic abuse of human rights", arguing that the findings were biased
and that the IPEP did not carry out an independent investigation. 

RWANDA: Tribunal dismisses fresh appeal by suspect

The appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
(ICTR)last week dismissed the appeal filed by genocide suspect Jean-Bosco
Barayagwiza's lawyers seeking his release. The lawyers sought to review a
31 March appeal judge's ruling reversing a November 1999 decision ordering
Barayagwiza's release, the Internews agency reported. 

The ICTR also dismissed a defence motion seeking the disqualification of
two judges from hearing Barayagwiza and two other journalists charged with
promoting the 1994 genocide via the media - Ferdinand Nahimana and Hassan
Ngeze. Barayagwiza was the director of public affairs in the Rwandan
foreign ministry in 1994 and a co-founder of the extremist "hate"  radio,
Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). Ngeze was an editor of
the Hutu extremist newspaper, 'Kangura', while Nahimana was the director
of RTLM. 

KENYA: EU announces further food aid

In response to the food shortage caused by the drought, the European
Commission announced on Thursday its decision to finance a further
shipment of 25,000 mt of cereals to the country to be channelled through
the WFP. An additional three million Euros (US $2.5 million) have been
allocated for small-scale food security projects. 

UGANDA-KENYA: Uganda extends amnesty to rebels

The Ugandan government is continuing its efforts to repatriate more than
2,500 former rebels still in Nairobi. On Tuesday, Kenyan television quoted
a Ugandan high commission official as saying the amnesty issued by his
government which expired in July had been extended for another six months
to enable those still remaining in Kenya to go home. 

 
Nairobi, 22 September 2000


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irin-cea@ocha.unon.org ]



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