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 49
2 - 8 December 2000



CONTENTS:

DRC: Pweto fighting sends 50,000 refugees into Zambia
DRC: Annan recommends extending MONUC mandate
DRC: ICJ rejects request in Ndombasi warrant case
DRC: "Serious fighting" in Makobola
DRC: Belligerents sign troop withdrawal deal
DRC: UN Secretary-General recommends MONUC extension
DRC: Government acts to curb independent newspapers
BURUNDI: Sabena airliner hit by small arms fire
BURUNDI: Peace prospects "remain dim" - ICG
RWANDA: EU special envoy visits to promote DRC peace
UGANDA: Evaluation of presence in DRC underway


DRC: Pweto fighting sends 50,000 refugees into Zambia 

The intensification of fighting in the southeastern province of Katanga
early this week, in which a joint RCD/Rwandan army force took control of
the town of Pweto on Lake Moero, has caused some 50,000 Congolese refugees
to flee into the Luapula and Northern Provinces of Zambia, according to
the UNHCR. About 500 of these 50,000 people had opted to apply for refugee
status, with the rest either wanting to be assisted to proceed to the
southern DRC city of Lubumbashi and the remainder to be allowed to settle
in and around Zambian villages where they have relatives or friends, it
said. In addition to 547 soldiers of the DRC army, the Forces armees
congolaises (FAC), who fled into the Kaputa area of Zambia in the past
four weeks, the new arrivals in Zambia as a result of this week's clashes
included up to 600 DRC soldiers, who had already been disarmed by the
Zambian security forces and were being assembled in Chiengi township, the
UNHCR stated.

Twenty kilometres or so away from Chiengi, however, there was reported to
be up to 3,000 soldiers of the DRC army, of , who were still to be
disarmed and moved to the township. Armed forces crossing the border from
DRC into Zambia and who refuse Zambian military injunctions to disarm,
constituted a potential danger to refugees in the region, UNOCHA reported
this week. The Zambian government - which has been keenly involved in the
DRC peace process - is looking for advice and assistance from the
international community on the matter of dealing with soldiers entering
the country having fled the conflicts in the DRC or Angola. 

DRC: Annan recommends extending MONUC mandate

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has recommended that the mandate of the
United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) be
extended to 15 June 2001. MONUC's current mandate expires on 15 December.
If approved by the Security Council - which was meeting on the DRC on
Friday - the extension would allow, as a first step, additional military
observers and support units "if conditions both required and permitted
such deployment". As a next step, infantry units could be deployed to back
up the observers. However, Annan's report drew attention to continued
armed clashes in Equateur and Katanga provinces, stressing that "fighting,
threatened to spill over into the Republic of Congo and the Central
African Republic to the north, and Zambia to the south". He also noted
that a Security Council resolution demanding the withdrawal of Rwandan and
Ugandan forces from the town of Kisangani had not been fully heeded. 

DRC: ICJ rejects request in Ndombasi warrant case
  
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has rejected the DRC's request
that provisional measures be invoked in a court case in which the DRC was
seeking to quash an international arrest warrant issued by Belgium against
DRC former Foreign Minister Yerodia Abdoulaye Ndombasi. The court recalled
that provisional measures, the object of which is to preserve the rights
of respective parties pending the decision of the court, "are justified
solely if there is urgency". Ndombasi ceased to be foreign minister
following a cabinet reshuffle on 20 November, when he was appointed
education minister. The ICJ concluded that inasmuch as Ndombasi's new
functions involved less frequent travel, "no irreparable injustice would
be caused in the immediate future to the Congo's rights", nor that the
degree of urgency was such to warrant the protection of these rights by
the indication of provisional measures. 
 
The ICJ also unanimously rejected Belgium's request that the Congo's
application should be removed from the list. The ICJ ruled that the arrest
warrant still related to the same individual, notwithstanding his new
ministerial duties, and that the Congo's application had therefore "not
been deprived of its object". 

DRC: "Serious fighting" in Makobola

Serious fighting is going on in Makobola some 30 km from Uvira, in South
Kivu, eastern DRC, between troops of the RCD-Goma and the Mayi-Mayi
militia. A local source told IRIN on Thursday that RCD was "making
progress" and heading to open the Uvira-Baraka road, which had been
"impassable" for many months now due to ambushes by Mayi-Mayi. The area is
reportedly a Mayi- Mayi stronghold together with the Interahamwe and
Burundian rebel Forces pour la defense de la democratie (FDD), the source
said. He expressed fears that the war could cause suffering to civilians.
RCD-Goma spokesman Kin-Kiey Mulumba confirmed that there had been fighting
in the area. 

DRC: Belligerents sign troop withdrawal deal

Defence chiefs from six African countries and rebel groups fighting in the
DRC on Wednesday signed a deal in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, in which
they agreed to pull their forces back at least 15 km from their frontline
positions. Under the deal, countries are to begin the withdrawal on 15
December, according to Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge. The
combatants will have 45 days thereafter to withdraw the 15 km, Mudenge
said. "Let today be a day of renewal of our common determination,
commitment and resolve to ensure that peace wins in the DRC," Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe said at a signing ceremony in Harare. 

DRC: UN Secretary-General recommends MONUC extension

Encouraged by the latest ceasefire pledge signed in Harare on Wednesday,
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has recommended that the mandate of the
United Nations Mission in the Congo (MONUC) be extended to 15 June to
allow UN troops to continue monitoring the fragile situation there,
according to a report released on Wednesday at UN headquarters in New
York. In his latest report to the Security Council, Annan welcomes the
"intense diplomatic activity" during the past two months in support of the
peace process in the DRC, noting in particular the personal initiatives of
regional heads of state. According to Annan, a six-month extension would
allow MONUC to deploy, as a first step, additional military observers and
support units "if conditions both required and permitted such deployment".
As a next step, infantry units could be deployed to back up the observers.
[For full report see IRIN separate report of 8 December headlined DRC:
Annan recommends MONUC extension]

DRC: Government acts to curb independent newspapers
 
The directors of Kinshasa's main independent newspapers have been ordered
to stop publishing information about the army and security services,
according to the nongovernmental organisation Journalistes en Danger
(JED). The press freedom campaigning group reported on Monday that the
National Information Agency (ANR) had issued the order following a
statement that articles carried by the independent newspapers were
"increasingly subversive". The ANR was referring to a recently published
article in the newspaper 'L'Alarme', which declared that "Kabila's power
will end on 15 December", the JED press release added. The order was
issued by an ANR official, who summoned the directors of the main
independent newspapers in Kinshasa to his office, on 30 November, JED
stated, adding that many of the publishers had refused to obey the order.
The ANR official subsequently ordered that the director of the daily, 'La
Reference Plus', be arrested and brought before him, the statement added. 

BURUNDI: Sabena airliner hit by small arms fire

A Belgian Sabena airliner was hit by small arms fire as it prepared to
land at Bujumbura airport, at about 2 a.m. (local time) on Tuesday
morning, UN sources in the Burundi capital told IRIN. "The incident took
place about five kilometres from the city," an official said. A flight
attendant and a passenger were "slightly hurt" in the incident, according
to IRIN's sources. Burundi army spokesman Colonel Longin Minani called the
attack a "terrorist action" which should be condemned in the "strongest
terms" by the international community. The Sabena flight, from Brussels to
Nairobi via Bujumbura, could not continue its journey and about 80
passengers were booked into a local hotel after the attack, Minani told
IRIN. Later on Tuesday, the Burundi news agency, ABP, quoted a government
communique condemning the attack. According to the communique, the attack
had been mounted by rebels. The agency quoted the government spokesman,
Luc Rukingama, as saying the security forces had reacted immediately after
the incident took place and had neutralised the assailants. [For full
report see IRIN separate of 5 December headlined "BURUNDI: Government
condemns "terrorist" plane attack]

The rebel group, PALIPEHUTU-FNL, on Tuesday issued a statement denying
having fired on the airliner, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
reported on Tuesday. "We did not shoot [at] the plane," it quoted the FNL
secretary-general, Paul Ndiriraha, as saying. He warned that the group was
"about to increase fighting in the country, because the government was
doing the same". He said his group was aware that the government was
"planning to carry out killings" and then "claim that we are responsible".
However, Minani, on Wednesday dismissed claims: "The allegations are
untrue and people who were at the scene and know the area well know it is
all lies they are saying," he said. "Security officers followed them and
they retreated into the Rukoko reserve, on Burundi's border with the DRC,
where they used to hide in the past," Minani added. Sabena, the Dutch
freight airline, Martinair, and Air Tanzania subsequently suspended their
flights to Bujumbura in the wake of the incident. 

BURUNDI: Peace prospects "remain dim" - ICG

Just three months after the signature of the Arusha peace agreement on 28
August, "the prospects for a permanent resolution of the Burundi conflict
remain dim" and the fear is that a new round of intense fighting may be on
the way, according to the latest assessment by the International Crisis
Group (ICG), published on its website on Monday. Signed under pressure
from the peace process facilitator, Nelson Mandela, and regional leaders,
the peace agreement did not include a ceasefire and had not managed to
quell the violence, but rather marked the start of a resurgence of
violence to which there was no end in sight, it said. President Pierre
Buyoya emerged a winner from the Arusha accord - the signing of which
rehabilitated him in the regional community - and from the regional summit
in Nairobi in September, which warned rebel groups to lay down their arms
or face sanctions, it said. Buyoya now intended "to capitalise on the
ensuing limbo", involving neither war nor peace, and "negotiate his
appointment as leader of the transition, which would then take place on
his terms", ICG stated. "Burundi is likely to hang between war and peace
as the agreement's implementation becomes an endless cycle of
negotiations", the ICG added.

RWANDA: EU special envoy visits to promote DRC peace

The European Union's (EU) special envoy for the Great Lakes region, Aldo
Ajello, was in Kigali last week to explore new avenues and initiatives of
reviving the Lusaka peace accords for DRC with the Rwandan authorities,
Rwandan News Agency (RNA) reported last weekend. Ajello told journalists
in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, that he was concerned about the deadlock
in the DRC peace process, despite EU support amounting to US $1 million
for the Joint Military Committee charged with implementing the peace
agreement on the ground. Ajello said Rwanda had previously indicated it
was ready to withdraw its troops from the DRC if MONUC forces were
deployed and if militia troops, including the Interahamwe and the ex-FAR
(ex-Rwandan armed forces), were disarmed and repatriated, as stipulated in
the Lusaka accords. He said the EU was now hoping for a new element which
would revive the DRC peace process.

UGANDA: Evaluation of presence in DRC underway

A committee examining the presence of the Uganda People's Defence Forces
(UPDF) in the DRC was "continuing its work", Ugandan army spokesman Major
Phineas Katirima said on Monday. "The committee started its work some time
back, but took a month's break to attend a seminar," he told IRIN. The
committee's mandate was "to assess the current relevance of UPDF in the
DRC", he said. The committee is "very independent" and "regulates its own
activities", according to Katirima. "It will receive testimonies from
whomever it chooses and report its findings, which will in turn help in
policy formulation," he said. The committee had not been given any time
frame in which to complete its work, he added. 

'The New Vision' semi-official newspaper reported on 1 December that the
four-member committee was also charged with investigating, analysing and
reporting on the Kisangani clashes between the Ugandan and Rwandan armies
in June this year. The assessment would take into account the (unstated)
"developments which have taken place" and make recommendations on the way
forward, the paper added. 

Nairobi, 8 December 2000


[IRIN-CEA Weekly: Tel: +254 2 622147 Fax: +254 2 622129 e-mail:  
irin-cea@ocha.unon,org]


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