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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 91
15 - 21 September 2001


CONTENTS:

DRC: 6,000 Interahamwe to be handed over
DRC: Government supports Mayi-Mayi participation in talks
DRC: Warring parties ask UN for more troops
DRC: Joint Military Commission HQ to move
DRC: Rights groups protest death sentences, military trials
DRC: Government releases more than 200 prisoners
DRC: Massive civil servant payroll fraud uncovered
DRC: Some 200 Ugandan soldiers reach eastern town
RWANDA: Government cooperating with Uganda to expose divisive elements
BURUNDI: Navy sinks rebel boat with 50 aboard
CAR: Inquiry into abortive coup ends, report issued

DRC: 6,000 Interahamwe to be handed over

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is ready to hand over to Rwanda
6,000 Hutu Interahamwe militia and ex-FAR (pro-Hutu ex-Rwandan Armed
Forces), the Rwanda News Agency reported on Tuesday, quoting Leonard She
Okitundu, the DRC foreign minister.

"Our government shall no longer accept rebel groups from neighbouring
countries to fight their home government from the Congolese territory," he
said.

Okitundu, who said his government was determined to mend fences with
Rwanda and Uganda, added that the Interahamwe militiamen would be handed
over to either the UN Observer Mission in DRC (MONUC) or the Rwandan
government, under the terms of the 1999 Lusaka peace accord. He said,
however, that the DRC government could only surrender those militiamen
within its reach and not the 40,000 men the Rwandan government estimates
are inside the DRC.

"Rwanda should remember that a fraction of the territory is not under
government control," he said.

DRC: Government supports Mayi-Mayi participation in talks

The DRC government supports the incorporation of its Mayi-Mayi allies into
the inter-Congolese peace and reconciliation talks due to begin on 15
October, AFP reported Tuesday.

DRC Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu told diplomats and reporters in
the capital, Kinshasa, that the proposal was discussed at a weekend
meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, of the Political Committee charged with
implementing the Lusaka peace accord. Okitundu said the Rwandan government
had moved closer to accepting that the Mayi-Mayi are Congolese rather than
one of a number of foreign armed groups in eastern DRC - labelled in the
Lusaka accord as "negative forces". He said the committee had asked
Botswana's former president, Ketumile Masire, the facilitator for the
approaching talks, "to find a solution to the question of including the
Mayi-Mayi in the dialogue", AFP reported.

Mayi-Mayi forces are based in the eastern Kivu provinces on land mainly
controlled by Rwandan-backed rebels who took up arms against Kinshasa in
August 1998. The late DRC president, Laurent-Desire Kabila, had integrated
them into an anti-rebel coalition fighting alongside the regular army,
under the combined name of the People's Self-Defence Forces.

Meanwhile, the governor of South Kivu Province, Norbert Bashengezi
Katintima, has announced that the inter-Kivu dialogue would take place
between 22 and 25 September in Bukavu town, rebel-controlled RTNC radio
announced on Tuesday. The inter-Kivu dialogue is an initiative of the
Rwandan-backed rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie
(RCD-Goma). The RCD-Goma wants talks between various parties in North and
South Kivu provinces in preparation for the national inter-Congolese
dialogue due to begin on 15 October in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Civil
society organisations have threatened to boycott the event.

DRC: Warring parties ask UN for more troops

The main warring parties in the DRC have asked the UN to accelerate the
deployment of peacekeeping troops to help disarm militia groups in the
country, Reuters reported on 16 September.

The call came in Kigali after a meeting of government ministers and rebel
representatives involved in the three-year war in the DRC, according to
Rwanda's presidential adviser on the DRC, Patrick Mazimhaka.

"We're calling for them to speed up phase three," Reuters quoted Mazimhaka
as saying, referring to the planned third phase of MONUC, which would
involve sending thousands more troops to supervise the voluntary
disarmament of the Mayi-Mayi, ex-FAR and Interahamwe militia groups in
eastern DRC. "In our understanding, the deployment should have come much
earlier than now."

Mazimhaka was speaking as chairman of the Political Committee of the 1999
Lusaka peace accord. The two-day Political Committee meeting ended on 15
September. It was attended by DRC Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu,
ministers from Angola, Burundi, Namibia, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Zambia,
representatives from the UN and from the office of the facilitator of the
inter-Congolese dialogue. Okitundu's was the first visit to Rwanda by a
DRC government minister since war began in the DRC in August 1998.

MONUC has already deployed hundreds of unarmed military observers, backed
by around 2,000 troops, to monitor a ceasefire and withdrawal from
front-line positions of the conventional armies involved in the war. Now
that the withdrawal is almost complete, the UN is drawing up plans to send
more troops to help in the disarmament of the militia groups involved in
the war. However, the UN asserts that primary responsibility for the
disarmament process lies with the countries involved in the war.

DRC: Joint Military Commission HQ to move

During its meeting held last weekend in Kigali, the political committee
implementing the DRC peace agreement announced that the headquarters of
the Joint Military Commission (JMC) would be relocated from Lusaka,
Zambia, to Kinshasa in October, a year after this was proposed by the DRC
government, the Congolese Agence Presse Associee (APA) reported.

The commission comprises military officials from countries and rebel
groups involved in the DRC conflict. Speaking on government-controlled
RTNC TV, the commission's chairman, Brigadier Njuki Mwaniki, a Kenyan
infantry commander, said, "It is a great pleasure ... to let the people of
the DRC know that it has been decided today that JMC and MONUC must
co-locate before the latter part of October 2001."

Secretary-General Azarias Ruberwa of the Rwandan-backed RCD-Goma rebel
movement said much progress had been made in the search for peace. "We
were - what should I say - inflexible for more than a year, but during
this meeting we felt that the progress made with regard to the
inter-Congolese dialogue is such that there is a minimum level of trust
between us and the DRC government, which has made serious pronouncements
on the security of the persons who will be sent to Kinshasa," he said.

RTNC TV also reported that Angola was elected to chair the next meeting of
the Political Committee, followed by Uganda which holds the
vice-presidency.

DRC: Rights groups protest death sentences, military trials

The international human rights NGOs Amnesty International on Monday and
the DRC human rights NGO ASADHO (l'Association africaine de defense des
droits de l'homme - African Association for the Defence of Human Rights)
on 14 September protested against the death sentences imposed on eight
people by the Cour d'ordre militaire (COM - Military Order Court) in
Likasi, Katanga Province after being convicted of plotting to overthrow
the DRC government in early 2001.

Amnesty International said it "is concerned that they [Major Wozango Lele
Kongbo, Major Kesangana Mafu, Lieutenantt Gerengbo Ngakola, Warrant
Officer Iluku Isofa, Major Kpakasa Ngazali, Major Kayekwe Ngoysu, Major
Jean Ngato, and Yangba Samuluma, a civilian] may soon be executed if they
are not granted a presidential pardon. Virtually all those tried are known
to have been tortured in order to force them to implicate themselves or
other co-defendants. They were also denied access to lawyers before their
trial."

Eighteen others who were charged with a similar offence were sentenced to
between five and 20 years' imprisonment. ASADHO also protested against the
conviction of 11 other individuals, accused of conspiring against DRC
President Joseph Kabila.

DRC: Government releases more than 200 prisoners

More than 200 prisoners have been released in the DRC, including four
Ugandan prisoners-of war (POWs) and scores of people suspected of
involvement in the January 2001 assassination of President Laurent-Desire
Kabila, AP reported on Monday.

The four Ugandans were handed over to the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC), Human Rights Minister Ntumba Luaba told AP. According to
AP, Luaba said that just one POW, a Rwandan, remained behind bars. "We
expect the Ugandans and Rwandans to do the same thing for our POWs," the
agency quoted Luaba as saying.

About 200 people suspected of involvement in the elder Kabila's death had
been released after a government investigation failed to link them to the
killing, Luaba was reported to have said. A number of human rights
activists had also been freed, leaving just one prisoner of conscience - a
journalist - in jail, Luaba was also reported to have said. Human rights
groups questioned the government's claims and demanded permission to
verify them.

"Knowing the situation in our country, I think there are still prisoners
of conscience in numerous private dungeons existing in Kinshasa," AP
quoted the ASADHO president, Justin Abongo, as saying.

DRC: Massive civil servant payroll fraud uncovered

The DRC government has suspended pay to more than 21,652 "ghost" civil
servants put on the country's payrolls by corrupt government employees,
news agencies reported on Monday.

Hordes of civil servants and some former ministers profited from the
scheme, Civil Service Minister Benjamin Mukulungu told AP, while telling
the BBC that the fraud had cost the government several million dollars.
Mukulungu told the BBC that his team of auditors discovered the fraud by
comparing the payroll and staff lists. Mukulungu also told AP that the
discovery saved the government US $619,000 in salaries it was about to pay
out.

DRC: Some 200 Ugandan soldiers reach eastern town

Some 200 Ugandan soldiers who trudged through jungles for over two months
on their way home arrived in the northeastern Congolese border town of
Beni on Wednesday, 'The New Vision' Ugandan government-owned newspaper,
reported.

The soldiers left Bafwaboli, about 110 km east of Kisangani, early in
July, passing through Bafawasende and Mambasa before reaching Beni, some
50 km short of Uganda's western border, the Kampala daily reported. They
form part of the 800-member 65th battalion still stuck on the 120 km of
highway between Mambasa and Beni because of a breakdown of trucks and
tanks, it added.

"We are dispatching equipment to them immediately," Brig Joram Mugume, the
Ugandan deputy army commander, said. These will include spare parts for
the repair of the vehicles, the paper quoted him as saying.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni ordered his troops out of the DRC in
early March, in line with the 1999 Lusaka peace deal between warring
factions in the DRC.

RWANDA: Government cooperating with Uganda to expose divisive elements

The Rwandan and Ugandan governments are working together to expose
security officials who are damaging relations between the two countries,
the privately-owned Ugandan newspaper 'The Monitor' reported. Major
Emmanuel Ndahiro, Rwandan President Paul Kagame's military adviser, told
the Kampala daily that the plan had been agreed by both countries'
presidents.

"The objective is to completely demonstrate to the Ugandans that the
intelligence organisations there have got it completely wrong," The paper
quoted Ndahiro as saying.

His comments come one week after President Museveni warned political
rivals believed to be in Rwanda to abandon their plans to attack Uganda
from Rwanda. In a direct reference to Museveni's comments, Ndahiro
promised that former Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) officers
Colonel Samson Mande and Lt-Col Anthony Kyakable, who have declared war
against Uganda, would not attack the country from Rwanda. "Nobody will
train rebels from here," he told 'The Monitor'. UPDF spokesman Lt-Col
Phineas Katirima, meanwhile denied, Rwandan allegations that Rwandan
rebels were being trained in Uganda.

BURUNDI: Navy sinks rebel boat with 50 aboard

Fifty rebels were reportedly killed in Burundi on Wednesday when the navy
sank a boat they were travelling in on Lake Tanganyika near the port town
of Nyanza-Lac in southwestern Burundi, army spokesman Colonel Augustin
Nzabampema told AFP on 14 September.

"A military vessel attacked two rebel boats, one was sunk with the crew
and rebels it was carrying, while the second managed to escape to Ubwari,
a lake island in the DRC," AFP quoted Nzabampema as saying.

The island is allegedly used as a haven by Burundian rebels of the Forces
pour la defense de la democratie (FDD). "Rebels were stepping up attacks
on civilian boats, they even attacked a Tanzanian boat. It is hard to tell
the fishing boats from the rebel boats," Nzabampema was quoted by AFP as
saying.

CAR: Inquiry into abortive coup ends, report issued

An official commission of inquiry established to investigate the failed
coup of 28 May in the Central African Republic has submitted a preliminary
report to authorities after questioning 250 people, more than 100 of whom
have been arrested.

Speaking to Radio France Internationale (RFI) on 13 September, the
commission's chairman, Joseph Bindoumi, warned that implicated CAR
nationals who fled to neighbouring DRC and Republic of Congo (ROC) "will
be tried [in absentia] without using the necessary means made available to
them for their defence, and this will not be in their interest". When RFI
pointed out that many people had fled for fear of reprisals because they
were of the same Yakoma ethnic group as the coup ringleader and former CAR
president, Andre Kolingba, Bindoumi said "that is not true," citing "many
Yakomas" who were still living and working in the capital.

"The legal action we are taking is not something targeting the Yakomas...
All those we have in detention today are not only Yakomas," he said,
adding that Kolingba "is indeed the first person I have been looking for
since the investigation began", and cautioned any country providing him
refuge that "they are harbouring a criminal with bloodstained hands."

Bindoumi noted that the commission's investigation led to the recent
detention of former CAR defence minister Jean-Jacques Demafouth, "because
the commission had enough clues likely to justify the measures taken
against him". According to RFI, Demafouth has hired three lawyers - two
CAR nationals and a French citizen named Herve Dupont-Moneau. RFI also
reported that 17 CAR nationals remained in the home of French ambassador
Jean-Marc Simon as refugees seeking asylum in France. Kolingba's wife,
Mireille, and her three children had sought refuge at the embassy but
secretly fled the country in late August.


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001


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