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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 115
23 - 29 March 2002


CONTENTS:

DRC: UN Security Council welcomes withdrawal from Moliro
DRC: Refugee organisation issues update on IDPs
DRC: Government and rebels blame each other for grenade attack
CONGO: EU "deplores" lack of opposition in vote for president
CAR: China to provide US $1.2 million in support
CAR: UN envoy completes diplomatic and advocacy tour
RWANDA: ICTR to embark on fund-raising for Trust Fund
RWANDA: Tribunal to finish work no later than 2008
BURUNDI: Outbreaks of fighting continue
BURUNDI-TANZANIA: Large-scale refugee repatriation begins from Tanzania
TANZANIA: Teams arrive for Bulyanhulu gold mine enquiries
UGANDA: Soldiers executed for murder of Irish priest

ALSO SEE: KENYA: Focus on forest excisions at
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27017


DRC: UN Security Council welcomes withdrawal from Moliro

On Wednesday the UN Security Council welcomed the withdrawal the same day
of rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) troops from the
town of Moliro, Katanga Province, southeastern Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC). The Security Council president, Ole Peter Kolby, called on
all the parties to the conflict to comply with the other demands of the
Council's resolution, adopted on 19 March, which demanded the withdrawal
of RCD forces from Pweto, government forces from Kayaya and Yayama, and
the demilitarisation of Kisangani. The Security Council "called on the
parties to resolve the status of all outstanding New Defensive Positions
in a conclusive manner", and appealed for calm in order to facilitate the
withdrawals. Sources told IRIN that before the withdrawal, the RCD rebel
troops had captured or destroyed a large stock of munitions built up at
Moliro by Burundi rebels of the Forces pour la defense de la democratie
(FDD), with help from the DRC government.

Meanwhile, an agreement has been reached at the inter-Congolese dialogue
at Sun City, South Africa, on a review of business deals concluded during
the DRC conflict. A commission dealing with finance and the economy has
adopted guiding principles for experts to use in "examining and assessing
the validity of financial and economic agreements signed during the war",
notably with foreign countries, AFP quoted a source close to the
facilitator of the talks as saying. The review of the contracts will be
completed during a political transition phase for the DRC, which will last
from the end of the 45-day inter-Congolese (ICD) dialogue on 12 April,
until elections are held in the country.

AFP quoted a representative from the RCD, who is participating in the
ICD's economic commission, as saying that the guiding principles for
assessing wartime contracts pertained to "the transparency of the deal,
the absence of excessive advantage for one party or prejudice to the
nation, the absence of personal enrichment and the official capacity of
the signatories". The committee dealing with humanitarian and social
policies has also made considerable progress. AFP quoted a rebel source as
saying that delegates from all groups were nearing agreement on the issue
of nationality for all DRC citizens, including the ethnic Tutsi minority -
the Banyamulenge - who are deeply concerned about marginalisation and
persecution. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=27009]

DRC: Refugee organisation issues update on IDPs

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on Tuesday said that despite a
ceasefire between primary armed groups in the DRC since January 2001,
fighting is still in progress in the north and northeast, where most of
the 2.2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) are located, as of
February 2002. In a new profile of the DRC, the organisation points out
that the humanitarian situation remains desperate and, due to insecurity
and lack of funding, the international response is far from sufficient to
cover the needs of the displaced.

The organisation said most of the over 2.2 million IDPs were in the east,
particularly in North and South Kivu, Province Orientale and northern
Katanga, the areas most affected by the war. It was estimated that more
than 2.5 million people had died in the DRC since 1998 in the context of
the war, although most of them had succumbed to disease and malnutrition,
NRC said. The dramatic internal-displacement situation in the DRC was the
result of confrontations between various groups - both external and
internal - to accede to power, accompanied by inter-ethnic rivalry in the
central and eastern regions, NRC said. It said 16 million people, or 33
percent of the DRC population, had critical food needs as a result of
prolonged displacement and other factors. It had been reported that about
64 percent of people in eastern DRC were undernourished, NRC said, noting
that this was the highest figure in the world, according to Oxfam.

The human rights situation was very critical, it said, citing UN agencies
as well as nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) as regularly reporting
widespread killings, torture and other human rights abuses against
civilians by armed groups on all sides. The organisation also noted that
access to government-controlled regions had improved as a result of the
simplification of procedures for international humanitarian agencies.
Humanitarian agencies have frequently been forced to suspend operations in
rebel-held territory because of insecurity and localised violence in
certain parts of the Kivus, Maniema (which is to the east of South Kivu),
northern Katanga and Ituri in the northeast. The full report can be
accessed at http://www.idpproject.org

DRC: Government and rebels blame each other for grenade attack

The DRC government and rebel delegations at the ICD have traded
accusations following a grenade attack in Goma on Sunday which killed a
priest and two young girls and left many more injured. The grenade was
thrown during a Palm Sunday procession. In a statement issued on Monday,
the RCD, which controls Goma, described the incident as a terrorist attack
by the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR): "ALIR is one of 16
terrorist organisations identified by the United States government," said
RCD Secretary-General Azarias Ruberwa, "and it is backed by the government
in Kinshasa."  ALIR is composed of Rwandan Hutu rebels (including
ex-government soldiers), some of whom took part in the Rwandan genocide in
1994.

Meanwhile, the DRC government claimed there had been a heavy presence of
Rwandan troops at the procession, and that a Rwandan government soldier
threw the grenade. "It has even been established that the person who threw
the grenade is from the Rwandan Patriotic Army," said DRC Information
Minister Kikaya Bin Karubi at a press conference. "It's not us who say so,
but independent sources at Goma." The DRC official in charge of liaising
with the UN, Vital Kamerhe, said the background to the event was a
peaceful student demonstration protesting against a rise in tuition fees.
Rwandan troops had crossed the border - just a mile away - to police the
demonstration, which had begun on Friday 22 March, he said. Asked why the
government had not reacted to earlier reports that a student had been
killed on Friday, Kamerhe said: "We decided not to throw ourselves into
demagoguery on the basis of unverifiable facts." [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=26970]

CONGO: EU "deplores" lack of opposition in vote for president

The European Union (EU) has stated that it "deplores the low level of
participation by opposition parties throughout the [presidential]
electoral process and the withdrawal of several candidates in the days
preceding the poll" in the Republic of Congo (ROC). In a landslide
victory, Denis Sassou-Nguesso was elected president of the ROC for the
next seven years, having won over 89 percent of the vote in elections held
on 10 March. This was the first time Sassou-Nguesso was elected to the
presidency, an office he first seized in 1979 and held until 1992, and
then seized again in 1997 until this month's elections.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the EU urged the Congolese
government "to put corrective measures in place to ensure that the
forthcoming parliamentary elections are better organised". It repeated its
call to the government and opposition parties to intensify and maintain
the national dialogue, and noted that it remained "ready to assist the
Congolese authorities in activities aimed at strengthening the rule of
law, respect for human rights and consolidation of the democratisation
process in the country".

The EU had an election observer mission in the ROC from 22 February to 15
March. On the basis of the conclusions of that mission, the EU said it
"would draw the attention of the Congolese government to certain
shortcomings it noted in the organisation and conduct of the presidential
election, particularly the difficulty for the public to gain access to
electoral texts, lack of control over changes to the electoral rolls, the
late distribution of polling cards, the insufficiently clear division of
tasks between the national electoral commission and the administration,
and the limited access of some candidates to the national media". Despite
its criticism, the EU said the election had "provided an opportunity for
the Congolese people to express their desire for peace and their rejection
of violence". [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=27006]

CAR: China to provide US $1.2 million in support

The governments of the Central African Republic (CAR) and China signed an
economic cooperation agreement worth 10 million yuan (US $1.2 million) on
Tuesday, 26 March, Radio Centrafrique reported from the CAR capital,
Bangui. The Chinese embassy in Bangui confirmed this information to IRIN
on Thursday, and noted that discussions between the two governments were
in progress as to how the funding could best be used.

China and CAR established diplomatic relations on 29 September 1964, at
which time CAR severed its relations with Taiwan, with whom it had
established diplomatic relations in 1962. However, when Jean-Bedel Bokassa
came to power in 1966, the regime decided to suspend diplomatic relations
with China, and resumed relations with Taiwan in May 1968. Relations
between China and CAR were normalised following the signing of a joint
communique between the two countries on 20 August 1976.

On 8 July 1991, the CAR government again resumed its relations with
Taiwan, causing China to suspend relations. Most recently, on 29 January
1998, the two countries resumed diplomatic relations after signing a joint
communique in which CAR agreed "to recognise the government of the
People's Republic of China as the sole legal government representing the
entire Chinese people".

CAR: UN envoy completes diplomatic and advocacy tour

The Representative of the UN Secretary-General in the CAR, General Lamine
Cisse, recently completed travels to the US and Europe in an effort to
draw attention to ongoing efforts to consolidate peace efforts in that
nation, the UN Peace-Building Office in the CAR (known by its French
acronym, BONUCA) reported from the capital, Bangui, on Wednesday. Cisse's
tour began with a visit to UN headquarters in New York, at the invitation
of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, for a meeting with other
representatives of the secretary-general in which the participants could
share their experiences. Cisse gave a presentation on BONUCA's efforts in
the domains of arms control and the demobilisation, disarmament and
reintegration of former combatants into society.

After participating in a number of other conferences in the New York
region, Cisse travelled to Brussels, Belgium, where he met representatives
of the European Commission's foreign development division.

Following his return to Bangui on 20 March, Cisse held meetings with CAR
Prime Minister Martin Ziguele and President Ange-Felix Patasse, during
which he briefed them on his recent mission and on prospects for continued
support from the international donor community. They also discussed
ongoing efforts to resolve tensions with neighbouring Chad, where the
former army chief of staff, General Francois Bozize, sought refuge last
November after being accused of involvement in a failed coup attempt
launched in Bangui on 28 May 2001.

RWANDA: ICTR to embark on fund-raising for Trust Fund

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) hopes to start
fund-raising for its voluntary Trust Fund in the course of this year,
according to the Tribunal's spokesman, Kingsley Moghalu. He told IRIN on
Thursday that the fund had received US $8 million since its inception in
1995 (when the ICTR was established) and that "these funds are almost
finished". "The Trust Fund is different from the regular contributions,"
he said, adding that contributions to the fund were made on a voluntary
basis. He explained that the funds were to be used for the outreach
programme to Rwanda and for certain programme activities for the Tribunal.
The Tribunal hopes to get involved in the sensitisation of organisations
and individuals to let them know that they can contribute to the fund. He
noted that whereas the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia,
based at The Hague, in the Netherlands, had received US $30 million so far
for its Trust Fund, the Arusha, Tanzania-based ICTR was lagging behind.

Meanwhile, Simon Bikindi, a well-known Rwandan composer and singer of
popular music and director of the performance group Irindiro Ballet, was
on Wednesday transferred from The Netherlands to the Tribunal in Arusha to
answer charges linking him with the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, a statement
from ICTR said. Bikindi is charged with six counts of conspiracy to commit
genocide, genocide or in the alternative, complicity in genocide, direct
and public incitement to commit genocide and crimes against humanity for
murder and persecution, the ICTR said on Thursday. The accused, who was
also an official in the Ministry of Youth and Sports and a member of the
ruling political party in 1994, is alleged, inter alia, to have composed a
nd performed songs which mobilised and incited the Interahamwe militia and
civilians to kill Tutsis. He is also alleged to have participated with
others in planning, instigating and preparing the killing of Tutsis, apart
from playing a major role in recruiting and training the Interahamwe to
commit the crimes, the statement added.

On Wednesday, the former organiser of the youth movement in southern
Rwanda commune of Ngoma, in Butare Prefecture, Joseph Nzabirinda, pleaded
not guilty to four counts charging him with crimes of genocide he
allegedly committed in Rwanda in 1994, an ICTR statement said. Nzabirinda
is alleged to have invited Tutsi refugees and others from Ngoma commune to
seek refuge at Kabakobwa hill, telling them their safety would be assured
there, the statement said. Soon thereafter, soldiers and Interahamwe
arrived and launched a massive attack on the Tutsis, resulting in
thousands of deaths. He is also alleged to have hunted down the survivors
and killed them, the statement said, adding that the girls and women
amongst the survivors were raped before being killed. Nzabirinda himself
is accused of raping several Tutsi girls in Sahera sector before they were
killed. Nzabirinda was transferred to the UN Detention Facility in Arusha
on 20 March from Brussels, Belgium, where he was arrested on 21 December
2001.

RWANDA: Tribunal to finish work no later than 2008

By reducing the number of suspects targeted for investigation and ending
all enquiries over the next couple of years, as well as adding a pool of
temporary judges, the ICTR will be able to wrap up its work no later than
2008, according to its president, Judge Navanethem Pillay. In a letter to
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, released on 12 March, Pillay notes
revisions to the workings of the court, recently instituted to allow it to
complete its work before the designated date: The chief prosecutor of the
ICTR, Carla del Ponte, has reduced the number of investigations the court
will proceed with to 111 (from 136); has agreed not to undertake any new
investigations after 2003; and has submitted a proposal to shift trials to
national jurisdictions, thereby relieving the Tribunal's caseload. Her
proposal has been forwarded to the presidents of the UN Security Council
and General Assembly, the UN reports.

The issue of transferring trials to Rwanda is likely to remain a
contentious one, however. The spokesman for the ICTR, Tom Kennedy, told
IRIN on Monday that while the prosecutor would like to see the cases being
transferred, for the moment it remains impossible as the legal provisions
to allow this are not in place. "Firstly, the rules would have to be
amended to allow it, and secondly it would raise practical and logistical
difficulties," Kennedy said.

There were many obstacles in the way of transferring cases to Rwanda,
Kennedy told IRIN, refusing to comment on how likely it was to actually
happen. "Lots of countries that extradited people to the ICTR would not
have done so to Rwanda because of the presence of the death penalty. It
would be an act of bad faith to transfer those people to a jurisdiction
where the death penalty is given," he said. "While Rwandan authorities
have said they would not impose the death penalty in such cases, the
judiciary is independent and therefore the government cannot make that
commitment," he added. Logistical problems would also be huge, he said.
"Even with the best will in the world, it would also be very difficult for
the authorities in Rwanda to provide an adequate and full defence for
detainees. Defence witnesses would be very reluctant to go back to
Rwanda." [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=26947]

BURUNDI: Outbreaks of fighting continue

Fourteen people were injured when an ex-soldier hurled a grenade into
Kayanza market, northern Burundi, security sources confirmed to IRIN on
Tuesday. "An argument started when the ex-soldier refused to pay a
'bicycle-taxi' owner his dues. When he [ex-soldier] saw the police coming
towards them, he threw the grenade, which exploded," a security source
told IRIN on Tuesday. News organisations reported that after a police
search at the ex-soldier's house, more grenades were found, along with
bags of marijuana.

The army spokesman, Augustin Nzabampema, confirmed the incident, but
asserted that there had been no casualties. He also told IRIN that reports
that 27 people were killed at dawn in Kirombwe, Kanyosha commune,
southeast of the capital, Bujumbura, were "not true". The local Radio
Publique Africaine (RPA) had reported 27 people were killed in Kanyosha
early on Monday, but it could not ascertain whether they were civilians or
soldiers. It quoted "certain sources" as saying they were civilians going
to Bujumbura market, adding, however, that the Kanyosha administration
categorically said that no one had been living in Kirombwe. "All the
residents fled fighting between the army [and rebels] a week ago," RPA
quoted the commune administrator as saying, and that no civilian would
dare venture into Kirombwe. Nzabampema said sporadic fighting was going
on, but "it is nothing serious as such".

Meanwhile, at least 20,000 people had fled continued fighting in parts of
Burundi since early March, the US Committee for Refugees (USCR) said in a
statement last week. It noted that despite the peace agreement reached in
mid-2000, fighting had continued, uprooting an estimated 150,000 or more
Burundians during the past 15 months. The latest violence erupted on 11
March, some 20 km from Bujumbura, in the hilly region of Nyambuye, where
several dozen people were reportedly killed, it said. It said that
fighting between the government army and the rebel group Forces nationales
de liberation had continued to disrupt the lives of tens of thousands
during the past weeks, with some reports estimating that as many as 80,000
civilians had been displaced since January, USCR said. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=26972]

BURUNDI-TANZANIA: Large-scale refugee repatriation begins from Tanzania

A large-scale operation to repatriate thousands of refugees from Tanzania
began on Thursday, with approximately 430 people, a spokesman from the
office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirmed to IRIN.
A total of 500 had been expected, but only about 430 had actually gone, he
added. The first convoy, going from Ngara in western Tanzania through the
Kobero border crossing, would stop in a transit camp in Fongore for one or
two days. The refugees would then be transported to their respective
homes, mostly in the northern provinces of Muyinga, Ngozi and Cankuzo.

Meanwhile, former Vice-President Frederic Bamvuginyumira has added his
voice to those who are expressing reservations about the repatriation
campaign. "It is inconceivable to think of a movement to return refugees
to their homeland as long as the war continues," he said on Burundi
Bonesha radio on Tuesday. "Repatriation of refugees: it is a very
difficult issue. Why is so difficult? This is because the refugees will
tell you they fled the country following the outbreak of the war. The war
has not yet come to and end," he said. Saying that a "favourable
environment" was not yet in place, he added that the internally displaced
people in Burundi must also return to their homes.

As of 25 March, 48,000 people had signed up with UNHCR officials to be
repatriated under a tripartite agreement with the Tanzanian and Burundi
governments. Both these governments have actively been encouraging the
refugees to go home in recent months, while UNHCR has declared itself
prepared to assist those who wish to go home voluntarily, without
encouraging them.

TANZANIA: Teams arrive for Bulyanhulu gold mine enquiries

Two independently organised teams of investigators have arrived in
Tanzania to look into various aspects of the 1996 evictions and alleged
killing of small-scale artisanal miners at the Bulyanhulu gold mine in the
north of country. There have been repeated allegations of human rights
abuses during the Bulyanhulu evictions, and that some miners were buried
alive when the artisanal shafts were filled in to make way for the
large-scale development of the mine.

The first group of investigators to arrive at the weekend comprised Rachel
Kyte, a senior specialist, and John Ambrose, a consultant, from the office
of the Compliance Adviser Ombudsman (CAO) - a specialist agency that
investigates complaints and concerns of people directly affected by
projects of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation and the
Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). The organisation can also
help stakeholders resolve issues by providing a context and process for
parties to find mutually satisfactory solutions. [see
http://www.tomoye.com/]

A separate, unrelated, group of five representatives from various
international nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and media has also
begun a fact-finding mission in the country. Despite some confusion in the
Tanzanian press, the mandates of the two investigation teams are
different. Moreover, the investigations are not believed to be linked in
any way to calls made earlier this month by the Tanzanian former
attorney-general, Judge Mark Bomani, for an independent probe into
repeated claims of wrongdoing in Bulyanhulu in 1996. In this case, the
CAO's concern is with a formal complaint to MIGA, which aims to promote
foreign direct investment into emerging economies by offering political
risk insurance to investors and lenders, according to an official from the
Tanzanian Lawyers Environmental Action Team. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=26967]

UGANDA: Soldiers executed for murder of Irish priest

Two soldiers convicted of murdering an Irish Catholic priest were publicly
executed by firing squad on Monday in the Karamoja subregion of
northeastern Uganda. The soldiers had been found guilty by a field court
martial of shooting dead Father Declan O'Toole, his driver and a passenger
in an ambush as they travelled along the Moroto-Kotido road, at around 6
p.m. local time on Thursday 21 March - four days before they were
convicted and executed. The BBC quoted witnesses as saying the men were
tied to trees, had their faces covered and were then shot. A crowd of some
1,000 people witnessed the executions, it added. The two UPDF soldiers
were named by The New Vision government-owned newspaper as Cpl James
Omediyo and Private Abdullah Muhammad.

"I see them [the executions] as arbitrary," Livingstone Sewanyana,
Executive Director of the Kampala-based Foundation for Human Rights
Initiative, told IRIN on Tuesday. "The soldiers were not able to exhaust
the legal guarantees available to them." According to Sewanyana, the court
martial had breached provisions of the Ugandan constitution. "Everyone is
afforded a right of appeal under the Ugandan constitution," he said. The
men were not given the right of appeal against the verdict because "field
courts martial are so stringent", the BBC quoted a Ugandan army spokesman
as saying. "We want to show the public that the crime was carried out by
individuals, but not by the army as an institution," Lt Peter Twesigye, a
military officer in the subregion, told the BBC on Monday. [Full report
at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=26971]

The executions attracted concern from the Irish government, religious
leaders and an Irish aid agency. The Mill Hill Missionaries in Uganda said
in a statement that they felt "extreme unease" at the manner in which the
sentence of death was carried out. The Irish embassy in Kampala also
expressed concern. "As a matter of policy, we are opposed to the death
penalty. It would have been better to have full investigations," The New
Vision quoted the charge d'affaires, Mairtin O'Fainin, as saying. The
minister of state at the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, Liz
O'Donnell, said in a statement on 22 March that she was "shocked and
saddened" at the killing of the priest and his companions. The issue
prompted the Irish NGO GOAL - which itself works in Uganda, focusing
mainly on HIV/AIDS and street children - to call on the Irish government
to withdraw its diplomatic representation in Uganda, The Irish Times
newspaper reported on Wednesday. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=26985]


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