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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 123
18 - 24 May 2002


CONTENTS:

CENTRAL & EASTERN AFRICA: UN Security Council conference proposal made
public
DRC: Efforts to resume inter-Congolese dialogue
DRC: RCD guilty of "grave violations of human rights" - UN
DRC: Government meets financial partners
DRC-UGANDA: General testifies before DRC exploitation commission
RWANDA-UGANDA: Interahamwe reported present in Uganda
UGANDA: Disarmament exercise leads to clashes in Karamoja
ROC: Kindamba besieged, humanitarian access denied
BURUNDI: Eleven killed in ambush, including only pygmy senator
BURUNDI: Hutu rebels free kidnapped bishop
BURUNDI: Iteka concerned over freedom of speech
TANZANIA: Condom shortage
KENYA: Humanitarian concerns mount over Somali refugees
KENYA: Anti-AIDS groups demand urgency to match crisis

ALSO SEE:

KENYA: Focus on the national flooding emergency at
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27883

UGANDA: Special report on resettlement of Kikagati returnees at
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27906

CENTRAL & EASTERN AFRICA: UN Security Council conference proposal made
public

A supplementary UN Security Council proposal for a regional summit on
security and development in Africa's Great Lakes region says the agreement
of "all countries concerned" in conflicts in the area should be obtained
on "principles and procedures" capable of ensuring peace and stability.
The proposal is an addendum to the final report of the Council's mission
to the region from 27 April to 7 May. The Council submitted the document -
"International Conference on Peace, Security, Democracy and Development in
the Great Lakes Region" - to parties to the conflict for their
consideration.

The proposal aims at "laying the foundations for just and lasting peace
and stability in the Great Lakes Region by dealing in global and long-term
fashion with the factors able to help in achieving" the objectives of
peace, security, democracy and development. The Council said it would be
up to the parties to the conflict to decide when the conference should
start, "keeping in mind that the process could begin as soon as the
withdrawal of each of the foreign contingents currently deployed on the
territory of the DRC has started being implemented".

Noting that the organisation of the conference was "a matter for the
African countries alone to decide", the Council suggested that the
Organisation of African Unity (OAU), with UN backing, could lead it.

With regard to participants, the Council suggested that the OAU invite the
countries in the region directly concerned with the conflict - namely
Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Namibia,
Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe - and those with past involvement in mediation
attempts; as well as those hosting refugees stemming from conflicts in the
region. The UN, the Southern African Development Community, international
financial institutions, the EU and interested countries, including donors,
could also participate "under a status that could vary depending on the
issues tackled and the assistance they could provide to support the
implementation of the outcome of the conference". [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=27876]

DRC: Efforts to resume inter-Congolese dialogue

The facilitator of the inter-Congolese dialogue (ICD), Ketumile Masire, is
continuing efforts to resume the inter-Congolese dialogue, with the
assistance of the OAU. At a meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa,
on Thursday, Masire said "only a minute fraction" remained to be done to
complete the dialogue, adding that if the parties could come back to the
negotiation table an inclusive deal could be clinched in which there would
be neither "victor nor vanquished", the Office of the Facilitator
reported. Following the meeting in Ethiopia, Masire would travel to the
DRC capital, Kinshasa, where he would meet President Joseph Kabila, and
hoped "in the very near future" to continue negoting with the other
Congolese belligerents in the conflict, the facilitator's office said.

Meanwhile, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, Chairman of the OAU,
announced on Thursday that he had arranged a meeting of regional heads of
state - to take place in Zambia on 30 May - to try to restart the ICD,
Reuters reported. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda indicated his support
for the meeting in a press release issued on Thursday. "They reviewed the
ICD, and agreed that until an inclusive agreement is reached by all
Congolese parties, the problems of the DRC and her neighbours will not be
resolved," said a statement issued by the office of the Rwandan president.

President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, who met Kagame at the COMESA summit
in Addis Ababa on Thursday, reportedly also expressed his support for the
meeting, the office of the Rwandan president said. "They [both presidents]
expressed support for the proposal to convene a summit of all stakeholders
to discuss how best to realise a power-sharing arrangement in the DRC that
would enable a stable transition," said the statement. [Full report at:

Earlier, on 17 May, at a "brainstorming" session held in New York, the
facilitator for the inter-Congolese dialogue, Masire, received the
unanimous backing of the international community to continue his role as
facilitator. The meeting - organised by the UN Department of Peace Keeping
Operations - brought together representatives from the UN, donor
countries, the IMF and the World Bank. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=27845]

DRC: RCD guilty of "grave violations of human rights" - UN

The United Nations mission in the DRC (known by its French acronym MONUC),
has accused the Rwandan-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie
(RCD-Goma) armed opposition movement of "grave violations of human rights
and humanitarian law" in the eastern DRC city of Kisangani, where the RCD
is the de facto administrative authority. "In light of overwhelming
evidence, and even though a mutiny appears to be at the origin of the
reprisals committed by the RCD, MONUC considers the exactions to have been
unjustifiable and unacceptable," the UN mission said on Thursday in a
preliminary report on a mutiny within RCD-Goma in Kisangani from 14 to 21
May.

While still compiling a definitive list of victims, MONUC has, so far,
recorded the deaths of at least 23 people, including civilians, which
occurred when hostilities erupted early on 14 May. On 15 and 16 May,
executions took place on Kisangani's Tshopo Bridge and at the UNIBRA pier.
MONUC personnel reported seeing corpses floating in the River Congo, some
of which had been mutilated and stuffed into plastic bags. Twenty other
corpses were found in a mass grave to the east of the airport.

In an interview with Voice of America radio on Wednesday, the RCD-Goma
spokesman, Kin Kiey Mulumba, said his organisation was calling for the
establishment of an international independent commission of inquiry.
"Killing a man, whether he is a Tutsi or Hutu or Muntu, is an atrocity. We
must condemn these atrocities wherever they come from. Now RCD is accused,
but I wonder, in what interest would our movement engage in a diabolic
operation that would eventually mar its image? And who would profit by
these sombre events?" he said. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=27913]

Meanwhile, a barge carrying humanitarian goods arrived in Kisangani on
Wednesday, Jean-Bosco Mofiling, an assistant humanitarian affairs officer
at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told IRIN. He
said the barge had carried 1,000 mt of medical material, fishing
equipment, seeds, food, cooking utensils, school supplies, construction
material and other non-food items, three-quarters of which had already
been discharged at Kisangani. Of the total consignment, he said, 131 mt
was discharged in ports of Lisala, Bumba and Isanga along the River Congo.
Soldiers of the UN mission to the DRC had escorted the consignment. [Full
report at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=27885]

DRC: Government meets financial partners

Delegates at a meeting between the DRC government and its development
partners have expressed readiness to respond positively to a call by a UN
Security Council mission for more economic aid to the country, the World
Bank reported on Tuesday. It said that several delegations also expressed
readiness to contribute to a bridging loan for settling the country's
arrears to the Bank and the IMF.

Delegates at Tuesday's meeting discussed the country's economic situation,
debt, ways to speed up and increase financial aid, and eligibility for the
Highly Indebted Poor Country Debt reduction initiative. DRC Finance
Minister Matungulu Nguyamu, the World Bank, the IMF, the African
Development Bank Group, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),
and individual donor countries attended the meeting.

The World Bank reported there was general agreement among delegates on the
analysis of the country's economy, which included the following:
satisfaction with the implementation of the IMF-monitored economic
programme, which has been in place for over one year; encouragement by
recent political progress in the DRC; concern with the "dire humanitarian
and social needs" in the country which could destabilise the transition
process; and support for the Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper,
which was broadly endorsed at the recent inter-Congolese dialogue. [Full
report at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=27908]

DRC-UGANDA: General testifies before DRC exploitation commission

Facing threats of arrest, the Ugandan acting army commander, Maj-Gen James
Kazini, testified on Monday before a six-member government judicial
commission set up to investigate allegations of the nation's involvement
in the illegal exploitation of natural resources of the DRC, the
commission's chairman, Justice David Porter, a British expatriate, told
IRIN on Tuesday. Although Kazini made no startling revelations, Porter
admonished him for having been caught telling "at least 10 lies" to the
commission in the course of his testimony on Monday. [A transcript of
Kazini's testimony can be found on the website of The New Vision Ugandan
government-owned daily newspaper at
http://www.newvision.co.ug/detail.php?story=42143]

Porter told IRIN that Kazini's prior failure to appear before the
commission had delayed its investigation "by two or three weeks", and that
it had therefore brought the matter to the attention of the foreign
ministry, which would then decide if an extension of the commission's
mandate, due to expire on 31 May, would be granted. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=27861]

RWANDA-UGANDA: Interahamwe reported present in Uganda

Members of Rwanda's Hutu militia group, the Interahamwe, who were
responsible for the 1994 genocide and have since been in exile, are active
in Uganda, news agencies have reported. AFP cited what it said was a
report from a military commission - the Joint Verification and
Investigation Team (JVIT) - set up by Rwanda and Uganda to probe the
activities of Rwandan dissidents stating that "there has been some
Interahamwe activity in the national Mgahinga Park area" of southwestern
Uganda.

According to the document there were "unconfirmed reports of Interahamwe
presence in the dense forest of Bwindi" in southwestern Uganda, AFP
reported, and that "small groups of Interahamwe would transit from the DRC
to Rwanda". Moreover, clashes had also broken out in February between the
Interahamwe and the Ugandan army, following the discovery of Interahamwe
camps and leaflets containing propaganda against Rwandan President Paul
Kagame.

The JVIT, comprising two Rwandans, two Ugandans and a British
representative, conducted its interviews with civilians, Ugandan army
representatives, local police officers and a national park warden between
14 and 16 May.

Responding to the allegations, the Ugandan army spokesman, Maj Shaban
Bantariza, told IRIN on Wednesday that whereas the report had mentioned
"some Interahamwe activity", it had not specified what the word "activity"
actually meant. "It is very important to define what those activities
are," he said. "It [the JVIT] was set up to establish whether the
Interahamwe had established camps in Uganda and whether that was with the
Ugandan government's support," he said. "Neither of those things has been
found. There are no camps in Uganda and no attacks have taken place from
Uganda." [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=27889]

UGANDA: Disarmament exercise leads to clashes in Karamoja

The Ugandan army has said it is facing difficulties in persuading one of
the five ethnic groups in the districts of Moroto and Kotido in the
northeastern Karamoja subregion of Uganda to disarm. The Uganda People's
Defence Forces (UPDF) has been carrying out a disarmament programme in
Karamoja since December. Maj Shaban Bantariza, the UPDF spokesman, told
IRIN that the Jie, one of the five main Karamojong groups, was resisting
efforts to disarm them and had instead dug trenches around their huts,
from which they were shooting at soldiers.

"All the other ethnic groups in Karamoja are cooperating. The problem is
only the Jie," Bantariza said. "When we go there, they shoot at us from
their manyattas [settlements], and we shoot back," he added. Bantariza was
responding to recent claims of alleged harassment of civilians in the
Karamoja region by the Ugandan army. Ugandan media reported on 17 May that
the Karamojong in Moroto had been demonstrating against soldiers, whom
they accused of looting property, beating and molesting civilians and
assaulting girls and women. The protests allegedly followed an operation
by the UPDF on 13 May within Moroto municipality, the government-owned New
Vision newspaper reported.

Bantariza said the UPDF had, on Thursday 16 May, carried out a major sweep
of Kotido, in which a number of military uniforms, rocket-propelled
grenades, more than 30 rifles and several hundred rounds of ammunition
were recovered. Two soldiers died in the operation, while up to 13
Karamojong were killed, he said. "We lost two soldiers in the operation.
Isn't that a battle? Why do they want us to be nice and courteous in
battle?" Bantariza asked. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=27857]

ROC: Kindamba besieged, humanitarian access denied

At least 5,000 people have been trapped since 31 March in the town of
Kindamba, in the Pool region of the Republic of Congo (ROC), and the
Congolese government has not yet granted the international community
access to assess humanitarian needs there, the office of the United
Nations Humanitarian Coordinator reported on Monday. "The UN and its
partners have attempted on two occasions to fly to Kindamba to assess
humanitarian needs," the report said. "Each time they were denied, because
the military was unable to guarantee the safety of the plane and
personnel."

It added, "Available information suggests that close to 50,000 persons
have now been displaced by fighting in Congo's Pool region, a number that
it seems likely will continue to grow in the coming days."

Using testimonies collected from internally displaced people arriving in
the capital, Brazzaville, the UN has gained some understanding of what
life has been like for the population of Kindamba. "Packed into three
displacement camps, they have faced the threat of starvation and disease,"
the UN reported. "Their rights have been violated and their homes
destroyed. It is unclear for how long this situation will continue." The
UN also reported that women are being raped "by more than one soldier at
once, and threatened that they will be shot if they report it". [Full
report at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=27899]

Meanwhile, the first round of national legislative elections are scheduled
to take place on Sunday in the ROC, despite calls from the opposition for
a postponement in order to update and verify lists of registered voters,
and continued insecurity in the Pool region, which borders the capital,
Brazzaville. The government has stated that if instability prevented
elections from taking place in certain regions, they would simply be held
at a later date. A second round of legislative elections is due to take
place on 23 June, concurrent with local and municipal elections.

At stake in this election are 137 seats in the National Assembly and 66 in
the Senate. Since 1998, ROC has had a National Transitional Council (NTC)
consisting of 75 non-elected members. The NTC was created to replace the
bicameral parliament that existed prior to the 1997 civil war. The NTC
will be replaced by the bicameral parliament chosen in this election.
According to the International Foundation for Election Systems, the number
of registered voters in the ROC is about 1,600,000, of a total estimated
population of three million. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=Great_Lakes&SelectCount
ry=Congo]

BURUNDI: Eleven killed in ambush, including only pygmy senator

Eleven people, including the only senator from the minority Twa community,
were killed on Wednesday when rebels ambushed two minivans were ambushed
near Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, a local journalist told IRIN on
Friday. The National Assembly had confirmed the death of Senator
Jean-Bosco Rutagengwa, AFP reported. The Twa, or pygmy, ethnic group
represents 1 percent of Burundi's 6.5 million inhabitants. The Twa are
believed to have been the first people to settled in the region, preceding
successive migrations of Hutu farmers and Tutsi herders. It is believed
that Rutagengwa was not specifically targeted.

Eight other civilians and two government soldiers were among the dead, and
an additional six civilians were seriously wounded in the incident at
Gasozo, 17 km east of the capital, on Route Nationale 1. The highway has
come to be known as "the Road of Death", the news agency reported. In the
nine years of Burundi's civil war, more than 100 civilians have been
killed on the this road.

Military sources blamed the ambush on the Forces nationales pour la
liberation (FNL), known to operate in Bujumbura Rurale, the province that
surrounds the capital. "The FNL rebels are losing the war in Bujumbura
Rurale," an army officer told AFP on Thursday. "The army has lost dozens
of soldiers there, but rebel losses are 20 times as high," he added. A
rebel official told AFP this, noting that "not only have the rebels lost
many fighters, but the FNL is now divided, which weakens us a little
more". [Full report at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27940]

BURUNDI: Hutu rebels free kidnapped bishop

Burundi Hutu rebels freed on Thursday the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ruyigi,
Monsignor Joseph Nduhirubusa, whom they seized in an ambush seven days
ago, the Missionary Service News Agency, MISNA, reported. He was freed to
the papal nuncio in Burundi, Monsignor Michael Courtney, in a village near
to the city of Bubanza, some 31 km north of Bujumbura. Courtney described
Nduhirubusa as being exhausted, but "in good condition".

The rebels, the Forces pour la defence de la democratie, seized
Nduhirubusa and his driver on Saturday as they drove through the Kabire
forest toward Ruyigi, in the east of the country. The rebels shot dead two
government army escorts. However, in a communiqué announcing the
abduction, the FDD said they had taken Nduhirubusa "to guarantee his
safety" since there was a war on in the country.

Earlier this week, MISNA quoted Western diplomats in the Kenyan capital,
Nairobi, as saying that Nduhirubusa's abduction was most likely as a
result of mistaken identity. The Associated Press reported that he was the
second high-ranking Roman Catholic cleric the rebels had abducted since
1996, when they killed the archbishop of Gitega, Joachim Ruhuna.

BURUNDI: Iteka concerned over freedom of speech

The indigenous human rights advocacy group, Iteka, expressed concerned on
Thursday over the transitional government's restriction of civil liberties
in Burundi. In a statement, Iteka expressed concern at "the tendency" of
the government to try to achieve this objective by intimidating the media.

Iteka cited the case of a meeting held by journalists on 16 May at which
the state prosecutor and the defence minister had issued "threats". During
the meeting, the prosecutor banned Radio Publique Africaine from reporting
on investigations into the November 2001 killing of the World Health
Organisation's head of operations in Burundi, Dr Kassi Manlan, Iteka
reported. The defence minister, for his part, had ordered journalists to
desist form interviewing Burundi rebels while ceasefire negotiations were
in progress.

Iteka said prohibiting coverage of investigations into Manlan's death
stimulated the phenomenon of impunity that was "eroding" Burundi society.
It added that the ban on interviewing rebels failed to conform to press
laws or the journalistic code of ethics, whose principal mission was to
inform the public on the ceasefire negotiations. Iteka, therefore,
demanded that the government revise all the injunctions imposed at the 16
May meeting, that it allow the media to inform the public freely on the
peace process, and that it permit all the protagonists in the conflict to
express themselves freely.

TANZANIA: Condom shortage

The government of Tanzania has expressed concern that the country is
facing a shortage of condoms, with only a million now in stock -
sufficient for one month - although their wide availability is a central
plank of national strategy to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Deputy Health Minister Hussein Mwinyi told reporters of the condom
shortage on 17 May as he announced that a consignment of defective condoms
returned to the manufacturer last month would be replaced "as soon as
possible" with quality ones by the United Nations Fund for Population
Activities (UNFPA), the Guardian newspaper reported on Saturday.

The shortage follows the return of a batch of 10 million condoms the UNFPA
imported for free distribution across Tanzania, but rejected in April as
sub-standard by the Tanzania Bureau of Standards and the Ministry of
Health. The UNFPA announced on 11 May that it would replace the condom
shipment intended for use in Tanzania, after a laboratory in the United
States confirmed defects in samples submitted for testing. None of the
condoms had been released from storage in Tanzania, it added.

An estimated 50 million condoms are used in Tanzania each year, according
to the BBC. Tanzania's National Policy on HIV/AIDS, a 45-page document
published in November 2001, supports and promotes the use of condoms as a
key method of curbing HIV transmission. In mainland Tanzania, some 12
percent of the sexually active population is HIV-positive, though there
are serious regional variations, according to informed sources. And the
HIV/AIDS pandemic - which has now infected about two million people in
Tanzania - poses a serious challenge to the country's development,
undermining the capacity of both public and private sectors to deliver on
national development goals, according to the UNDP. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=27849]

KENYA: Humanitarian concerns mount over Somali refugees

An unprecedented influx of refugees from Somalia into the northeastern
Kenyan town of Mandera as a result of escalating inter-clan fighting which
broke out in southern Somalia in April is putting a heavy strain on the
local population in the arid district, where malnutrition levels have
risen to between 30 percent and 40 percent in recent weeks. At the same
time, humanitarian officials said that international relief organisations
were concerned over reports that Kenyan officials had forced the thousands
of refugees who had fled the fighting in Bulo Hawa, in Gedo Region, to
return to their country. According to media and humanitarian reports, the
inter-clan fighting has sent two waves of refugees into Mandera. The
first, of some 5,000 refugees, entered it nearly a month ago. The second,
at the beginning of May, brought the estimate to 10,000, according to
international media organisations and the office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees.

However, at least 6,000 of the refugees were now living just inside
Somalia, having been forced to leave Mandera, after Kenyan authorities
began using threats and intimidation, the BBC reported on Tuesday. "The
police came to the camp and told us through loudspeakers to leave Mandera
in two days or face the consequences," the BBC quoted one of the affected
refugees as saying. A humanitarian source told IRIN that NGOs and UN
agencies were "frustrated with the Kenyan government's attitude", and were
seeking ways of bringing pressure to bear on the authorities to reconsider
their position, either by involving the donor community or by making a
public statement on the situation. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27935]

KENYA: Anti-AIDS groups demand urgency to match crisis

AIDS organisations meeting in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on 19 May urged
political, religious and community leaders to step up, expand and
intensify the fight against the disease, and provide better leadership and
guidance to society in the face of the scale of the pandemic. "The current
budgets and support levels do not reflect the urgency of the pandemic,"
the activist organisations asserted, pointing out that the disease had now
infected some 2.2 million people in the country, and was claiming 700
lives a day.

The organisations urged Kenya's leaders to address structural problems in
the health sector, fight discrimination against HIV-infected people, and
help society overcome the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS issues. They also
demanded the speedy introduction of cheaper, generic AIDS drugs as
provided under in the new Industrial Property Act, which became law in
Kenya on 1 May.

The groups issuing the call for an intensified push against HIV/AIDS
included the National AIDS Control Council of Kenya; Women Fighting AIDS
in Kenya; The Association for People With AIDS in Kenya; the Post-Test
Club; Soul to Soul; the Kenya AIDS and Drugs Alliance; Action Aid (Kenya);
and Medecins Sans Frontieres. They were marking the 19th International
AIDS Memorial Day at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre in
Nairobi with public mourning for the loss of loved ones and a call to
strengthen the commitment to fighting the pandemic. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=27838]


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