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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 102
01 - 07 December 2001


CONTENTS:

DRC: RCD refuses to demilitarise Kisangani
DRC: UN confirms Rwandan troop reinforcements in east
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Opposition rejects call for peacekeeping force
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Refugees want guarantees before repatriation
UGANDA: Karamojong start handing over illegal guns
UGANDA: LRA, ADF on American terrorist list
KENYA: Compensation sought after Tana River clashes
RWANDA: Number of vulnerable households down almost 50 percent
RWANDA: Mali police arrest genocide suspect
BURUNDI: Buyoya leads delegation to aid talks
BURUNDI-SOUTH AFRICA: Dutch provide US $ 3.6 million for defence forces


DRC: RCD refuses to demilitarise Kisangani

The Rwandan-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma)
armed opposition movement have said that the appointment of provincial
governors in rebel-held territory by Democratic Republic of the Congo
(DRC) President Joseph Kabila would delay the demilitarisation of the
northeastern city of Kisangani.

While acknowledging that the RCD had "accepted the demilitarisation of
Kisangani" and giving assurances that his organisation "remained
respectful of having given its word" on the matter, RCD spokesman and head
of its Department of Communication and Culture, Tryphon Kin-kiey Mulumba,
said on Monday that Kabila's appointment of governors in RCD territory
would "delay the demilitarisation of the city of Kisangani".

On 23 November, Kabila appointed 11 governors throughout the DRC - four to
provinces under rebel control as part of a reform in territorial
administration. AFP reported on 30 November that officials in Kinshasa
said that the governors named to rebel-held territory would not assume
their functions until circumstances allow, but that they have already been
given the paperwork concerning their respective provinces. [Full report
at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=16846]

DRC: UN confirms Rwandan troop reinforcements in east

Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC) Amos Namanga Ngongi reported on Monday that
the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) was reinforcing its troops in Isiro
(Orientale province), Fizi (South Kivu province) and Kalemie (Katanga
province) and, to that end, was recruiting young people, including
adolescents. "This deployment foreshadows a major confrontation in the
region," he said in a report to the UN Security Council.

On Wednesday, DRC Minister of Communication Kikaya Bin Karubi told Reuters
that some troop movement was acceptable, but that the arrival of up to
2,000 Rwandan-backed soldiers near the eastern towns of Kalemie and
Rutshuru was cause for concern.

However, Rwandan government spokesman Joseph Biberi said no additional
Rwandan government troops had been sent to Congo, Reuters reported. "If
anything, we have been scaling down the number of our troops in the
Congo," it quoted Biberi as saying. "We are going by the Lusaka accord to
the letter," he added, referring to the July 1999 peace agreement that
called for the withdrawal of foreign troops from the DRC.

UN peacekeeping force commander in the DRC, General Mountaga Diallo, said
on Wednesday that a variety of seemingly disparate troop movements that
were "not at all easy to understand". The UN peacekeeping force (MONUC)
was following and analysing these movements, he said. "For the moment, we
can not say that there are any signs or indications of any offensive," he
added. [Full report at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=17261]

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Political opposition rejects call for
peacekeeping force

Opposition political parties in the Central African Republic (CAR) have
rejected a proposed plan to deploy a regional peacekeeping force in the
country, news agencies reported on Thursday. A meeting held on Monday in
Khartoum, Sudan, under the auspices of the Community of Sahel-Saharan
States (COMESA) called for a regional peacekeeping force consisting of
soldiers from member states to help resolve ongoing unrest in the CAR.

In response, a coalition of 14 opposition parties issued a statement that
"categorically rejected" what they said was a "make-believe peacekeeping
force". They also called it a thinly-veiled attempt by Libya to keep CAR
President Ange-Felix Patasse in power, AFP reported on Wednesday.

Following a failed coup launched on 28 May, Libya sent troops to support
forces loyal to Patasse in efforts to quash a rebellion by former CAR
president Andre Kolingba. Patasse has held power since winning elections
in 1993, ending Kolingba's 12-year military rule. Libya sent additional
troops in early November, following hostilities that erupted when former
CAR army chief of staff General Francois Bozize resisted arrest on 2
November for questioning in connection with the failed May coup. [Full
report at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=17263]

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Refugees want guarantees before repatriation

Refugees from the Central African Republic (CAR) have spurned their
president's request that they return home, saying the conditions were not
yet right, the UN refugee agency reported on Thursday. The refugees had
fled to escape the botched coup of 28 May and related fighting.

Twenty officials from CAR visited the refugees in Zongo, northwestern
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) this week and urged them to repatriate
voluntarily, according to the office of the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR).

However, the refugees said the government must rebuild their homes and put
on trial looters involved in the failed coup attempt. The refugees, most
of whom are civil servants, also demanded payment of their salary arrears
and guarantees of their safety should they return home.

UNHCR said it was preparing to transfer 23,000 refugees to a new camp
"within the next few days". This is to follow last month's the relocation
of 1,250 former CAR soldiers from Zongo to Mole, a site 45 km south of
Zongo able to host 10,000 people. The soldiers had also fled after the
failed coup.

UGANDA: Karamojong start handing over illegal guns

Karamojong pastoralists in northeastern Uganda have voluntarily handed in
some 7,000 illegal weapons since the beginning of a government-sponsored
disarmament programme on 2 December, according to the Ugandan authorities.
"The appeal is working so well that it looks as though a hardline approach
will not be needed," presidential spokeswoman Mary Okurut told IRIN on
Friday. "The latest estimate is that about 7,000 have been handed in," she
said.

In return for disarmament, Museveni has pledged to develop the
marginalised northeastern subregion of Karamoja.  All Karamojong
'warriors' that surrendered their guns before the end of the six-month
amnesty period would be rewarded with ploughs and chains to assist
cultivation, and would be given oxen in the next financial year, a
government statement quoted Museveni as saying on Monday 3 December.

The Karamojong have been widely criticised for carrying out armed raids
against neighbouring districts in eastern Uganda, most notably in Katakwi
District where some 80,000 people have been forced into - and to remain in
- displacement camps as a result of the raids. [Full report at:
www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=17355]

UGANDA: LRA, ADF on American terrorist list

The US Department of State on Wednesday included the Ugandan rebel Lord's
Resistance Army (LRA) and Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in a list of the
US Patriot Act's "Terrorist Exclusion List" designed to protect the safety
of the country and its citizens. State Department spokesman Philip T
Reeker did not expand on the significance of the US listing the LRA and
ADF, but said "the campaign against terrorism will be a long one, using
all the tools of statecraft."

Led by the self-proclaimed mystic, Joseph Kony, the LRA has been fighting
a guerilla-style war against Ugandan government forces since the late
1980s, ostensibly in a desire to have Uganda ruled according to the Ten
Commandments of the Bible.

The ADF, operating from the Rwenzori Mountains in western Uganda and from
eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is a combination of rebels
from the Tabliq Muslim sect and remnants of the National Army for the
Liberation of Uganda (NALU), loyal to former Ugandan President Milton
Obote. It also links up with the ex-Forces Armees Rwandaises (ex-FAR) and
Rwandan Hutu Interahamwe militias operating from eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) - both of which were also cited as terrorist
organisations in Wednesday's US listing.

Both groups have frequently committed atrocities against civilian
populations: killing, maiming and displacing people, and attacking camps
for internally-displaced people (IDPs). Both groups have also abducting
thousands of men, women and children to serve variously as fighters,
porters and sex slaves, according to humanitarian and human rights groups.
[Full report at:  http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=17363]

KENYA: Compensation sought after Tana River clashes

Over 1,000 members of the Pokomo community who lost their homes as a
result of violent clashes with neighbouring Orma pastoralists in Tana
River District, eastern Kenya, are planning to sue the Kenyan government
for compensation. Local lawyer Danson Buya Mungatana said he would support
the Pokomo people in their legal action because "the government has
refused to take responsibility" for their problems, the East African
Standard reported on Monday 3 December.

Pokomo agriculturalists were continuing to shelter in the Catholic mission
in the village of Tarasaa as their manyattas (dwellings) had been burned
down in Orma attacks, Pius Murithi, Assistant Development Coordinator for
the international nongovernmental organisation Caritas told IRIN on
Tuesday, 4 December. "The people cannot go home because they do not have
shelter," he added.

Nineteen people were killed and some 20 seriously injured during violent
clashes between the two communities from 20 to 22 November - the most
recent clashes in a year of violence in the district which has claimed the
lives of more than 70 people. [Full report at:
www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=16994]

RWANDA: Number of vulnerable households down almost 50 percent

The number of vulnerable Rwandans without proper shelter has dropped by
almost 50 percent since 1999, according to a survey by the Ministry of
Human Settlement in collaboration with the UN Development Programme
(UNDP), the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as
well as donors and other development partners.

A 14-day 'Rapid Assessment of Immediate Shelter Needs' survey that ended
on 21 October showed that 191,844 Rwandan households were still living
under sheeting and grass-thatched shelters compared to 370,000 in 1999.

The survey attributed the downward trend to five factors, among which was
that displaced and other returnee populations recovered their properties.
Some other factors were that non-governmental organisations - funded by
France, Switzerland and Canada - built more homes; government urging of
the public to build their own shelters, as well as UNHCR and WFP provision
of food-for-work programmes to resettle homeless families. [Full report
at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=17126]

RWANDA: Mali police arrest genocide suspect

Malian police on Tuesday arrested genocide suspect Paul Bisengimana at the
request of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the
organisation's spokesman Kingsley Moghalu told Internews in Arusha,
Tanzania. The ICTR Office of the Prosecutor indicted Bisengimana, the
former mayor of Gikoro commune in Kigali Rural province, for allegedly
distributing guns and grenades used in the 1994 genocide against Tutsis
and moderate Hutus, Moghalu said.

Another genocide suspect, Col. Aloys Simba, was arrested in Senegal on 27
November at the request of the chief ICTR prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte,
Internews reported.

"Both accused will be transferred to the United Nations Detention Facility
in Arusha very soon," Moghalu told Internews. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=17134]

BURUNDI: Buyoya leads delegation to aid talks

Burundian government officials, lead by President Pierre Buyoya, began a
two-day round-table meeting with development partners on Thursday to
discuss the country's HIV/AIDS pandemic and public debt, Communications
Minister Albert Mbonerane told IRIN.

The Geneva meeting would also evaluate the level of aid contributions
received since the December 2000 Paris donor conference, during which
development partners pledged US $440 million for an economic recovery
package, Mbonerane said. The European Community, the World Bank and the UN
Development Programme (UNDP) are among Burundi's major development
partners. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=17258]

BURUNDI-SOUTH AFRICA: Dutch provide US $ 3.6 million for defence forces

The Netherlands government has agreed to grant at least 40 million rand
(US $3.6 million) to support the 701 South African troops in Burundi, news
organisations reported on Wednesday.

South Africa's secretary of defence, January Masilela, and The Netherlands
ambassador to South Africa, Laetitia van den Assum, signed the agreements
on Tuesday in Pretoria, the capital. The South African news agency, SAPA,
quoted Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota as say Belgium, the European Union,
the United Kingdom, and the US have also promised financial aid for his
troops. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=17262]


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


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