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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 100
23 November 2001


CONTENTS:

DRC: ICG analyses impasse in peace process
DRC: UN confirms continuing exploitation of resources
DRC: Search crews recover 36 bodies from ferry accident
DRC-CAR: Transfer of CAR soldiers done, civilians to be moved
RWANDA: US $250 million needed for poverty reduction
RWANDA: Court sentences seven to death for genocide
BURUNDI: WHO representative found dead
KENYA: Rising concern over media restrictions
KENYA: Fourteen killed in Tana River clashes
TANZANIA: Zanzibar violence demands prompt inquiry - Amnesty


DRC: ICG analyses impasse in peace process

The failure of the inter-Congolese dialogue in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in
October was foreseeable, according to a new report from the International
Crisis Group (ICG), entitled The Inter-Congolese Dialogue: Political
Negotiation or a Game of Bluff?. "President Joseph Kabila and his backers
refuse to consider power-sharing through the dialogue with anti-government
rebels without guarantees of Rwanda and Uganda's full withdrawal from
DRC," the 16 November report stated. "At the same time, the rebels and
their sponsors, including Rwanda and Uganda, refuse to consider full
withdrawal until a transition government is established through the
dialogue and their security is guaranteed. As a result, low-intensity
conflict remains the preferred option for most of the external actors."

"Neither President Kabila's allies, nor his enemies, will allow full
restoration of Congolese sovereignty and territorial integrity until their
own political, economic and security 'shopping lists' have been
satisfied," said ICG Central Africa Project Director Francois Grignon.
"The international community should become more proactive in countering
the dynamics that maintain the conflict in the Kivus. Until this occurs
the inter-Congolese dialogue will remain a game of bluff." [Full report at
http://www.crisisweb.org]

DRC: UN confirms continuing exploitation of resources

A newly-released addendum to the April report of the UN panel of experts
on the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the DRC has "confirmed
a pattern of continued exploitation carried out by numerous state and
non-state actors, including rebel forces and armed groups, conducted
behind various facades in order to conceal the true nature of the
activities". According to the report, presented on Monday to the UN
Security Council, a wide array of interests has ensured that the war in
the DRC remains a self-financing and self-sustaining affair. While parties
to the three-year conflict in the country may have been originally
motivated by security concerns, it said, they have remained in the DRC
largely for economic gain.

In the exploitation of natural resources, Zimbabwe was reported to be "the
most active" of the countries allied to the Kinshasa government. On the
side of the "uninvited forces" (Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi), the panel
reported that "commercial networks put in place by Ugandan military
commanders had allowed them to continue their exploitation activities
despite the withdrawal of a significant number of troops". The Rwandan
military "continued to collect and channel profits from trade in natural
resources through a sophisticated internal mechanism," it said. As for
Burundi, the panel "found no evidence directly linking the presence of
Burundi in the DRC to the exploitation of resources".
[http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/letters/2001/1072e.pdf]

Reaction to the report has, so far, been mixed. DRC Information Minister
Kikaya Bin Karubi said his country rejected any suggestion that Angola,
Namibia or Zimbabwe were looting the resources of the Congo. Zimbabwean
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo said on Wednesday that the UN report
lacked balance, and ignored the fact that Zimbabwe intervened in the war
at the invitation of a legitimate DRC government. He accused the report's
authors of succumbing to pressure from powers such as Britain, which is at
loggerheads with Zimbabwe over its land reform, to condemn Harare's
intervention, PANA reported. In Kampala, the head of a committee
established after the UN's first report accused Uganda of involvement in
DRC resource exploitation has asked the UN panel to hand over proof about
allegations against Ugandan military officers, the government-owned New
Vision newspaper reported on Thursday.

[Further details at Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=15830]

DRC: Search crews recover 36 bodies from ferry accident

Search crews have recovered 36 bodies from Lake Tanganyika following
Sunday's collision of two ferry boats near Uvira, eastern DRC, on Sunday,
according to news agency reports. "We have given up search operations
because hopes of recovering more bodies have grown slim," Norbert
Bashengezi Katintima, South Kivu's provincial governor, told Reuters on
Thursday.

Rescue workers pulled 28 survivors from the lake on Sunday, AP and Reuters
reported. The boats, one from Baraka, the other from Ubwari, sank
immediately after they collided. They were carrying cargo and an unknown
number of passengers. Katintima reported that 27 bodies were found near
the harbour of Uvira, and another nine recovered 50 km away, on the
Burundian side of the lake. He said that the final death told might never
be known. Local officials said the collision was most likely caused by
poor visibility outside the harbour, noting that neither ferry was
displaying any lights.

There have been several fatal ferry accidents in Lake Tanganyika and other
central African lakes and rivers, due to overloading or bad weather. At
least 43 people died in May when a ferry sank in heavy rain in the harbour
of the eastern DRC torn of Goma on Lake Kivu. Lake Tanganyika, one of the
world's deepest lakes, runs some 640 km from Burundi in the north to
Zambia in the south, between Tanzania and the DRC.

DRC-CAR: Transfer of CAR soldiers done, civilians to be moved

The Un refugee agency reported on Tuesday the successful transfer of some
1,000 former Central African Republic (CAR) soldiers from the border town
of Zongo in northern DRC to a site at Bokilio, 120 km to the southeast.
UNHCR said it could now proceed with the relocation of civilian refugees
who fled fighting in the CAR after an attempted coup by dissident soldiers
on 28 May. An estimated 24,000 refugees entered the DRC, but only about
10,000 were likely to ask for a transfer to the new camp at Mole south of
Zongo, the agency reported. The others were likely to remain in local
communities where they have settled, which, it said, was "in line with its
strategy for refugees in the DRC given the poor security conditions and
lack of access to many parts of the country". [Full report at
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=15582]

RWANDA: US $250 million needed for poverty reduction

Rwanda's government needs US $250 million "at the very least" in the first
two years if its poverty reduction strategy is to be implemented properly,
Finance and Economic Planning Minister Donat Kaberuka said on 17 November.
After a four-day international conference on the country's plan to reduce
poverty, he told reporters the success of the strategy hinged on revamping
the rural economy, rural infrastructure and industry, and the provision of
jobs, Radio Rwanda reported. The government, he said, would inject $60
million into rural areas. At least 90 percent of Rwanda's 8.6 million
people (growing at some 2.9 percent per year) live on subsistence farming,
according to UN Population Fund estimates.

The Kigali meeting brought together cabinet ministers, parliamentarians,
civil society, the private sector, donors and international organisations.
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) reported on Monday that the meeting
also reviewed Rwanda's progress in promoting good governance. Progress had
been made, it said, on civil service reform; formulation of a
decentralisation policy; establishment of national commissions on human
rights, unity and reconciliation, and the constitution. [Full report at
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=15200]

RWANDA: Court sentences seven to death for genocide

A lower court in the northern Rwandan prefecture of Ruhengeri has
sentenced seven people to death and five others to between 18 years and
life imprisonment, Rwandan radio reported on Wednesday. At this last stage
of a joint trial, which began on 17 April, the Court of First Instance
convicted the defendants for genocide and crimes against humanity, the
radio reported. Another 10 people were acquitted. Rwanda has thousands of
genocide suspects in its prisons and is seeking to speed up trials by
employing traditional Gacaca courts in parallel with regular courts. The
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is also hearing genocide
cases in Arusha, northern Tanzania.

BURUNDI: WHO representative found dead

Fishermen on the northeastern shores of Lake Tanganyika on Tuesday found
the body of Kassi Manlan, the head of the World Health Organisation's
(WHO) office in Burundi, declared missing earlier that day. A WHO official
in the capital, Bujumbura, said on Wednesday that Manlan's body was
discovered by fishermen late in the afternoon close to a lakeside
restaurant, the Circle Nautique, near the city. News organisations
reported that Manlan, 54, an Ivorian, had gone for a morning jog on
Tuesday. So far, no motive has been established for the killing.

Burundi police on Wednesday charged four men with complicity in Manlan's
death, government sources and news organisations reported. The suspects,
who were guards at Manlan's home and office, worked for the private
security firm Protection, Surveillance et Gardiennage. State Prosecutor
Gerard Ngendabanka told the BBC the guards had last reported seeing Manlan
leaving his home early on Tuesday morning. "I have just ordered that
charges be brought against four employees of Protection, Surveillance et
Gardiennage," Ngendabanka wrote in a letter to the justice minister, a
copy of which AFP obtained. Ngendabanka told the BBC that investigators
had found blood in Manlan's home.

KENYA: Rising concern over media restrictions

Proposed changes to Kenyan media laws have given rise to considerable
concern among media firms and human rights groups, some of whom have
called them "draconian" measures aimed at muzzling press freedom ahead of
presidential and parliamentary elections due in 2002. Kenyan media
practitioners maintain that the measures - including increased libel
bonds, more severe sanctions in the event of libels and stricter licence
requirements for broadcasters - would give the government too much control
over the media.

"The media business is only going to be for the rich [under the new
proposals]," Joseph Odindo, editor of Kenya's largest circulating
newspaper, the Daily Nation, told IRIN. "In a country like ours, where
capital is so scarce, how many people can deposit a million shillings in a
libel suit?" he added. The media have urged the government to drop the
bill and instead support its efforts to effect self-regulation through a
new Code of Conduct for journalists, already introduced, and a voluntary
Media Council to be launched later this year. [Full report at
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=14990]

KENYA: Fourteen killed in Tana River clashes

Fourteen people were killed and 13 seriously injured in Tana River
District, eastern Kenya, on 18 November when tensions between Orma and
Pokomo communities over the use of land and water resources erupted into
violence. Some 1,200 Pokomo agriculturalists were forced to flee their
homes to escape the fighting and sought sanctuary in a Catholic mission in
the village of Tarasaa, Pius Murithi, assistant development coordinator
for the international NGO Caritas told IRIN on Tuesday. Many Orma
pastoralists had also moved away from the area to seek greater security
among relatives elsewhere, Murithi added. The violence had broken out
following a misunderstanding as some Orma tribesmen were driving their
cattle past a Pokomo settlement, accordign to Murithi; the Pokomo thought
they had come under attack and began fighting the pastoralists with
machetes and spears, he said.

[Full report at Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=15412]

TANZANIA: Zanzibar violence demands prompt inquiry - Amnesty

The human rights body Amnesty International (AI) on Tuesday welcomed the
recent agreement to establish an independent commission of inquiry to
investigate alleged human rights violations during political
demonstrations in Zanzibar in January - part of a broader political
agreement between the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party and the opposition
Civic United Front (CUF). AI said the decision was "an important step for
the future of human rights in Tanzania" and that it was important that it
should be "prompt, independent and impartial". AI said it had set out
details, in a memorandum sent to the governments of Tanzania and the
semi-autonomous island chain of Zanzibar, of human rights violations by
the security forces during political clashes in Zanzibar in January,
including killings, mass arrests, torture and rape.
[http://www.amnesty.org]

At least 22 people were shot dead by armed police on the Zanzibari island
of Pemba in circumstances suggesting unlawful use of lethal force during
demonstrations by the opposition CUF against the outcome of October 2000
elections, according to Amnesty. There were also mass arrests, and some of
those arrested were subjected to torture and ill-treatment, it stated.
More than 2,000 refugees fled Zanzibar for neighbouring Kenya following
the clashes, with the last of those in the main body of refugees having
been repatriated by the UN Refugee agency only in early November.

[Full report at Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=15789]


[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001


[This item is delivered in the "africa-english" service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this
item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial
sites requires written IRIN permission.]

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


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