U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Central and Eastern Africa

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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 96
20 - 26 October 2001


CONTENTS:

GREAT LAKES: Levels of human suffering rise
DRC: Rise in refugees "a sign of continued fighting"
DRC: Groups hold informal talks after dialogue adjourns
RWANDA: Another genocide suspect transferred to Arusha
RWANDA: Parliament passes anti-discrimination law
RWANDA: First envoy to France in five years presents credentials
EAST AFRICA: IFRC warns of declining refugee protection
UGANDA: Kampala views Rwanda as security threat
UGANDA: Human rights issues raised
ROC: Lack of money hinders UN effort at post-war recovery
TANZANIA: NGOs to profile scale and scope of corruption
KENYA-TANZANIA: Zanzibari refugees dwindling in Dadaab
KENYA: Doubt cast on positive anthrax analysis


GREAT LAKES: Levels of human suffering rise

Levels of human suffering continue to rise in the Great Lakes region -
mainly in Burundi, where the numbers of internally displaced persons and
refugees has risen slightly to 3.01 million and 1.14 million respectively,
the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has
reported. In a regional overview of the affected populations in the Great
Lakes as of 30 September, OCHA reported that Burundi and the eastern DRC
remained the areas of most concern, "where a lack of humanitarian access
is still a major obstacle to effective assistance from the international
community".

In addition, it reported, there was widespread food insecurity across the
entire region, due to drought and heavy rains (as in Burundi and Rwanda)
or by "man's own doing". It added that "huge displacements" of people
throughout the region had meant that farms were neglected, resulting in
reduced food supplies. The outcome of this has been malnutrition, and
susceptibility to meningitis, measles, malaria and cholera. Faced with
food shortages, vulnerable populations had often resorted to eating seeds
means for planting crops, OCHA reported. "This is most starkly evident in
the DRC," it added.

Meanwhile, in the latest edition of its annual 'The State of Food
Insecurity in the World', the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
reported that the DRC was among the "worst performers in terms of
proportional change" of 98 countries analysed. "There has been a
considerable increase in the number of people suffering from
under-nutrition and other forms of deprivation," it stated. It deplored
the fact that the DRC, a potentially rich country, had seen its proportion
of malnourished people grow from 35 percent in 1990-92 to 64 percent in
1997-99. [For complete report, go to:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/y1500e/y1500e00.htm]

DRC: Rise in refugees "a sign of continued fighting"

In the past two weeks, more than 6,000 Congolese have fled South Kivu
Province in eastern DRC across Lake Tanganyika to Tanzania, with an exodus
of more than 500 each day over the past four days, the NGO Refugees
International (RI) reported on Thursday. "They are arriving in Tanzania
with stories of thousands more who cannot get out of the Congo," it said,
adding that the new arrivals were being screened and placed in camps
already in place. Tanzania is currently host to more than 540,000 assisted
refugees (as well as about 200,000 non-assisted refugees from the 1970s),
according to statistics from the UN refugee agency.

"The new arrivals report heavy fighting by many armed groups, including
the [Rwandan-backed] Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie [armed
opposition movement], the Mayi-Mayi [Congolese militias], and various
other armed groups. But this time, new arrivals are stating that it is the
Mayi-Mayi in South Kivu who are not letting the refugees cross to
Tanzania," RI stated. Unconfirmed reports of hostilities and continued
fighting in the DRC were substantiated by the increasing number of
arrivals of refugees in neighbouring countries such as Tanzania, it added.

DRC: Groups hold informal talks after dialogue adjourns

Rebel delegates and opposition leaders from the DRC met informally on
Monday (22 October) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, after the indefinite
adjournment of the inter-Congolese dialogue, AFP reported. Rebel
representatives, politicians and civic leaders were meeting on the
sidelines, since several groups said they wanted to keep working, to
"harmonise their viewpoints" on the agenda, procedural issues and the
difficult question of who should take part in the dialogue, AFP reported.
"The outcome of this work could be to ease the duties of the
[facilitator]", who was not taking part, the reported quoted a source as
saying.

It is widely believed that the talks will resume in November in South
Africa, whose government has offered to assume a large share of expenses.
A spokeswoman for the DRC government delegation at the talks told IRIN
last week that Durban was the most likely venue. South Africa had earlier
offered to help meet the cost of accommodation and transport.
Telecommunications links are far superior in South Africa, from where
televised sessions of the meetings could be relayed to the DRC.

RWANDA: Another genocide suspect transferred to Arusha

The former governor of Kigali-Rural prefecture, Francois Karera, was
arrested on Saturday 20 October in Nairobi, Kenya, and immediately
transferred to the detention facility of the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, the Tanzania-based court reported.
Karera has been charged with genocide and extermination. He is accused of
having spearheaded the campaign of destruction of Tutsi homes and the
murder of Tutsi civilians in his home commune of Nyarugenge in
Kigali-ville and in Kigali-rural prefectures.

"In one instance, Karera is alleged to have instructed policemen under his
authority not to destroy or kill the occupants of a specific household
near to his own residence, because he wanted to see how long a Tutsi could
survive without food or water. The occupants of the house were locked
inside for over two months and several of them starved to death," the ICTR
said.

RWANDA: Parliament passes anti-discrimination law

Rwanda's transitional assembly has passed a law imposing a maximum
two-year prison term, up to a million-franc (US $2,252) fine and damages
on any person practising discrimination and segregation in the country,
the Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported on Tuesday, 23 October. "In my
opinion and indeed that of this honourable house, this organic law is in
compliance with our national development policies and strategies because
it provides a flexible framework that makes it possible and legal to
enforce positive discrimination in favour of vulnerable groups like the
Batwa, the disabled and the girl child. It also gives exclusive employment
opportunities to nationals in the national interest," said Vincent Biruta,
Speaker of Parliament.

The Batwa (or Twa) form 1 percent of Rwanda's 7.3 million people, and the
same percentage of Burundi's 6.2 million, where they are largely ignored
and have little or no representation in high levels of government and
state institutions. Biruta promised full enforcement of the law that has
been passed as a result of the country's 1994 genocide of between 800,000
and one million Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus. The law defines
discrimination as "any act, utterance or writing aimed at depriving a
person or group of persons, their rights, by reason of sex, ethnicity,
age, race, colour, opinion, religion nationality or origin," Nicholas
Shalita, the presidential press secretary, stated on Wednesday.

RWANDA: First envoy to France in five years presents credentials

Rwandan's ambassador to France, Jacques Bihozagara, has presented his
credentials to President Jacques Chirac, marking another milestone in
improved relations between the two countries, Radio Rwanda reported on
Wednesday, 24 October. He is the first Rwandan ambassador to France in
five years. Bihozagara handed Chirac a message urging greater cooperation
between the two formerly estranged nations. After fighting its way into
power in 1994, the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front government in
Kigali accused France of protecting fleeing Rwandan army troops and
Interahamwe militia, mostly Hutu, who unleashed the genocide.

On 15 January 2000, French Overseas Cooperation Minister Charles Josselin
visited Rwanda, the first such visit by a French cabinet official, since
the 1994 genocide. However, he refused to apologise for France's refusal
to intervene to prevent the killings, and urged Kigali to focus on present
and future cooperation rather than dwelling on the past.

EAST AFRICA: IFRC warns of declining refugee protection

Humanitarian organisations are increasingly concerned by declining
standards in refugee protection in East Africa, the International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reported this week. At
a recent inter-agency training workshop for relief service providers,
speakers painted a picture of deteriorating refugee protection -
particularly in Kenya, which hosts over 250,000 refugees - and of serious
constraints to effective action, the Federation stated on Monday.

In this region, excepting a few bright spots, refugee numbers were
continuing to climb, UN refugee agency spokesman Paul Stromberg told IRIN
on Friday. At the source of this were a number of "intractable conflicts"
[in the DRC, Burundi and Sudan, for instance] which failed to motivate
donors, so that his agency and others had difficulty raising funds. "It is
fair to say that East Africa has, these last few years, suffered more than
most because the number of refugees has moved forward - even though there
is no [acute] 'emergency' - while funding has moved resolutely backwards,"
Stromberg added. [for further details, go to:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/cea/countrystories/other/20011026.phtml]

UGANDA: Kampala views Rwanda as security threat

The Ugandan government has said it intends to push ahead with increases in
defence expenditure, beyond the 1.9 percent of Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) agreed with donor countries, because of external security threats.
Security threats - including from neighbouring Rwanda, a former ally -
required Uganda to spend over 2 percent of GDP on defence and security,
regardless of whether or not donors agreed, The New Vision
government-owned daily reported on Tuesday, quoting a senior government
official (unnamed).

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has reportedly asked donors to accept
plans for Uganda to increase the defence budget from almost 200 billion
Uganda shillings (about US $113 million) to about USh 443 billion (some
$252 million) annually over the next three years, to professionalise the
army and counter what Kampala terms "possible aggression from Rwanda", the
independent Monitor newspaper reported. Donors fund about half of Uganda's
budget, which stands at about USh 2,600 billion (almost $1.52 billion) for
2001/02, it added.

Museveni told British Secretary of State for International Development
Clare Short at the end of August of his country's intention to increased
defence spending in the context of Rwanda giving sanctuary to renegade
Ugandan army officers Lt-Col Anthony Kyakabale and Col Samson Mande, who
wanted to destabilise Uganda, and its (allegedly) allowing them to open
training centres inside Rwanda.  Mande told the 'Monitor' on Thursday that
he and Kyakabale were "fighting for democracy in Uganda", but that their
"declaring a struggle" did not mean an armed rebellion, the paper reported
on Friday. Mande denied that he and Kyakabale were involved in rebel
recruitment in Rwanda, to which they fled in June.

Britain has warned that any unilateral increase in the defence spending
agreed with donors would divert resources away from priority sectors
outlined in Uganda's Poverty Eradication Action Plan, force donors to
reconsider their levels of support for the country, and have severe
implications also for its broader relations with the donor community. The
World Bank senior vice-president, Nicholas Stern, visiting Uganda
recently, also expressed strongly "that the proportion of defence spending
to that of development spending should not increase".

UGANDA: Human rights issues raised

The Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) this week called on the
government for a full-scale investigation into last year's Kanungu tragedy
in which hundreds of Ugandans were reportedly burnt to death by leaders of
the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God cult
movement. In a report launched in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, on
Tuesday, the organisation said the government had failed to unravel all
the mysteries behind the cult deaths, and owed it to the victims, their
relatives and all Ugandans to fully investigate the matter.

In a spearate development, the coordinator of the national NGO forum
Warren Nyamugarisu has asked the government to carry out a swift and
thorough investigation of the shooting of Zie Gariyo, coordinator of the
Uganda Debt Network, on 16 October. "The incident could have been a
robbery or an intended assassination. Either way, it reflects an increase
in lawlessness and insecurity in the country," the Monitor quoted
Nyamugarisu as saying. He said civil society was increasingly concerned by
insecurity not just in the capital, Kampala, but also in Teso (Soroti
District), east-central Uganda, Karamoja in the northeast, and other
parts. Nyamugarisu said the shooting would not silence the voices of civil
society activists if that was its intention.

ROC: Lack of money hinders UN effort at post-war recovery

A lack of funding has meant missed opportunities in the UN's drive to aid
the Republic of Congo (ROC) to recover from a devastating decade-long
civil war, even though successes have been recorded in some areas of
activity, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reported in its
2001 mid-term review for the country. As of 1 August, the UNDP said, 34.4
percent of the requirements outlined in its plan had been funded. While in
rehabilitated schools attendance increases have averaged 30 percent, 1,714
schools still need remodeling and re-equipping. The UNDP also said it had
distributed "the totality of its available stock of condoms", and that
many planned AIDS awareness activities had not been implemented due to
lack of money.

While underfunded, the UN reported it had achieved significant successes,
including: a country-wide polio eradication campaign, the reintegration
and vocational training of at least 7,000 ex-combatants and the collection
of at least 10,000 weapons, as well as the provision of non-food aid to
87,000 refugees from the DRC. "The 10 UN agencies active in ROC are
convinced that additional funding will allow them to extend activities
further in the rural areas," UNDP stated.

TANZANIA: NGOs to profile scale and scope of corruption

A consortium mandated by the Tanzanian government to evaluate the state of
corruption in the country has launched an internet appeal and
questionnaire in an effort to increase public participation in the
anti-corruption campaign. The NGO Economic and Social Research Foundation
(ESRF) and the Front Against Corrupt Elements in Tanzania (FACEIT) are
combining to evaluate the government's anti-corruption drive, and hoping
to involve internet users in an "Online Corruption Forum."

Apart from the internet forum, the consortium is seeking to collect
information from government departments and agencies, NGOs and other
organisations with a view to examining experience in different sectors,
and sharing knowledge, ideas and experiences of corruption - and ways of
tackling it. [for more details, go to:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/cea/ceafp.phtml]

KENYA-TANZANIA: Zanzibari refugees dwindling in Dadaab

The UN refugee agency said on Wednesday that most of the Zanzibari
refugees remaining in Dadaab, northeastern Kenya, could be voluntarily
repatriated within not much more than a week. The refugees were among more
than 2,000 Zanzibaris who sought sanctuary in the fishing village of
Shimoni, south of Mombasa on the Kenyan coast, when political
demonstrations on the Tanzanian island chain turned violent in January.

Of the 83 Zanzibari refugees remaining in Dadaab refugee camp, some 54 had
already registered for repatriation to Tanzania, and plans were being made
to fly them home as soon as possible, according to an official from the
office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Most of the 2,000
refugees who fled Zanzibar after the January clashes had returned to
Tanzania by the end of May, but several hundred refused to go, and 506
Zanzibaris were transferred to Dadaab in May. One hundred and forty eight
of the Dadaab group of refugees had already been successfully repatriated,
and another 275 had left Dadaab voluntarily, without the knowledge of camp
officials, UNHCR stated.

KENYA: Doubt cast on positive anthrax analysis

In Kenya, a US embassy spokesman on Wednesday cast doubt on a positive
anthrax test result reported by the Ministry of Health for a letter sent
from the US on 8 September. After repeated testing of the letter, sent to
a private citizen in Kenya, the initial positive result could not be
replicated or confirmed, according to news reports citing American
sources. It was discovered that the letter was covered in fungus, which
may have accounted for the test result, Kenya Television Network (KTN)
reported. The United Nations system in Nairobi had earlier confirmed that
two suspect postal items sent to it had tested negative for anthrax
contamination.

Health Minister Sam Ongeri stood his ground on the positive anthrax
analysis in one case in Kenya. The positive test in Kenya, now being
queried, had been the only such example outside the US, which has been on
a bio-terrorism alert since the disease, apparently spread through the US
postal system, has infected at least 13 individuals, three of whom have
died.

Nairobi, 26 October 2001


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


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