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Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 108
26 January - 01 February 2002


CONTENTS:

DRC: Aftermath of volcanic eruption at Goma
DRC: Belgian foreign minister starts four-day visit
DRC: Inter-Congolese dialogue to resume 25 February
DRC-RWANDA: Rebel issue fraught with "ambiguity" - Kagame
BURUNDI: Rebels step up ambushes
BURUNDI: Former president to return home
BURUNDI-TANZANIA: 24 Burundian refugees killed
KENYA: UNHCR head accepts Nairobi corruption report


ALSO SEE:

KENYA: IRIN interview with secretary of the Constitutional Review
Commission: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20254

DRC: Aftermath of volcanic eruption at Goma

Goma, the volcano-stricken town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC), from which 350,000 people fled 12 days ago, is "doomed" in the
short-to-medium term, Piero Calvi of the United Nations Disaster
Assessment and Coordination team told IRIN on Monday.

"The picture that emerges is really, really terrible. The next eruption
will be in someone's house," he said. The continuing tectonic movements in
the Rift Valley, site of a string of volcanoes, meant that the earth
fractures from which magma was flowing were progressing towards Goma and
Lake Kivu, he added. A precise time-scale for another eruption was
impossible to estimate, he said, but a quake under Kivu would release
carbon dioxide and suffocate people.

Calvi said that the continuing earthquakes in the region were not
volcano-induced. Rather, they were tectonic quakes that resulted in
volcanic activity, by creating fissures through the earth's crust from
which the magma flowed. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20163]

Meanwhile, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) on Monday reported that significant disagreement persisted over the
number of homeless people in Goma as the result of the eruption.

While OCHA agrees with the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie
(RCD), the anti-government force in control of the town, on a figure of
100,000 homeless, the international donor community believes it to be
60,000. Moreover, OCHA and RCD put the town's population at between
400,000 and 500,000 while donors say it is 300,000. Despite the
differences, there is agreement that some 30,000 homeless people were now
outside the town, OCHA reported. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20203]

On Wednesday, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported that at
least 600 children separated from their parents in Goma had been
identified in the DRC and across the border in Rwanda. UNICEF said it
teamed up with a local radio station to broadcast the children's names in
the effort to reunite them with their parents. So far, 31 children on the
Rwandan side had been reunited. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20230]

Contributions to aid volcano victims in Goma had reached US $26 million,
the UN reported on Wednesday. The contributions are initially aimed at
meeting the most basic needs of the affected population, the UN said.
However, OCHA said it would shortly appeal for funding to meet specific
needs.

The UN Mission in the DRC (known by its French acronym MONUC) - sent to
support the implementation of the country's peace agreement of July 1999 -
has spent $700,000 to transport personnel and relief aid by air and ground
transport. Agencies estimated that it would be necessary to truck in water
for two months, when the water system could be restored to its previous
capacity, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) reported on
Wednesday. There are now 30 water bladders in the town, receiving a total
of one million litres of water per day trucked in from the town's water
network. There were also 24 chlorination stations along the waterfront to
provide potable water, the agency added. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20256]

DRC: Belgian foreign minister starts four-day visit

Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel said during a four-day visit to the
DRC that there is a "strong will" for peace in the country, AP reported.

Michel arrived in the country's capital, Kinshasa, late on Wednesday and
met President Joseph Kabila for one and a half hours on Thursday to
discuss the Inter-Congolese dialogue set to resume in South Africa on 25
February. There was no-one else present at the meeting.

"President Kabila is happy with the way the peace process is being
conducted," the Belgian news agency, Belga, reported Michel as saying. "My
visit in Kinshasa has left me with the impression that preparations for
the dialogue are steaming ahead," Michel was quoted by AP as saying
afterwards at a news briefing. The agency also quoted him saying that
controversy over the presence in DRC of ethnic Hutu militia fighters from
Rwanda was one of the few major stumbling blocks in the peace process.

Michel also had meetings with political parties, civil society and the UN
Mission in the DRC, MONUC. Michel was expected to meet with Jean Pierre
Bemba, leader of the Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo, on Friday,
Belga reported.

The progression of the inter-Congolese dialogue and the question of the
disarmament, demobilisation, repatriation, reintegration, reinstallation
of armed factions were expected to be on the agenda for discussion. "Peace
also concerns journalists, who shouldn't just write about the divisions in
the process, but also the conditions necessary to instigate peace," Michel
told reporters in Kinshasa.

The spokesman for the Belgian Foreign Ministry, Koen Vervaeke, said on
Wednesday that Belgium would continue to work closely with France and the
United Kingdom on the question of the DRC.  During the latest Council of
EU Foreign Ministers, held last Monday in Brussels, French and British
representatives briefed their colleagues on their joint trip to the region
in mid-January, while Belgian representatives spoke of the inter-Congolese
dialogue meeting held in Brussels two weeks ago.

DRC: Inter-Congolese dialogue to resume 25 February

The facilitator of the inter-Congolese dialogue, Ketumile Masire,
announced on Tuesday that peace negotiations between the government, civil
society, political parties and the rebels would resume on 25 February in
Sun City, South Africa.

He told reporters in Kinshasa, capital of the DRC, that the date was
decided "after consultations with different Congolese stakeholders" and
consideration of "some technical issues". These had taken place on a
fact-finding tour of Kinshasa, Gbadolite in the northwest, and Goma in the
east. The tour started on 24 January, his office in Botswana reported.

Past attempts to host the inter-Congolese talks were bogged down by the
lack of money and agreement on who should participate. However, this time
Masire expressed optimism that the talks would be held as planned. "Even
if many financial commitments have not been honoured, I can say with
confidence that we are in a reasonable situation and can start the meeting
now." He said. In addition, he said the issue of representation of some
groups at the talks was being discussed "through consultation mechanisms
with the Congolese themselves". He urged them to be more cooperative and
not to place more obstacles ahead of the Sun City meeting.

DRC-RWANDA: Rebel issue fraught with "ambiguity" - Kagame

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said that the international community
has not taken seriously enough, the continued presence of an extremist
Hutu militia and former Rwandan soldiers threatening his country from the
neighbouring DRC.

"What I do not understand is why there has been so much ambiguity for so
long about dealing with this problem," he said in a nationwide broadcast
on 25 January.

The prime cause of the Congolese conflict, he said, was the presence there
of the two dissident groups - the Interhamwe and the ex-FAR - which are
widely acknowledged as being responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Various estimates put the number of Tutsis and moderate Hutus killed at
between 500,000 and one million.

"If we do not go to the root cause of the problem, if we do not find the
actual solutions that are required, and continue to be diplomatic about
these issues, then I think the outcome is very clear. We will continue to
have confused reports about the causes of the conflict," he added.

Kagame has conditioned the total withdrawal of his troops from Congo on
the disarmament of the Rwandan Hutu militias. Referring to the possibility
of militia cross-border attacks on Rwanda, he said his government could
not "to fold its arms and simply wait for another genocide to take place".

BURUNDI: Belgian minister urges rebels to join peace process

Belgian Secretary of State for International Cooperation Eddy Boutmans has
urged rebel groups in Burundi's eight-year civil war to stop fighting and
join the peace process.

"There is a lot of poverty and killing in Burundi. The rebels must join
the peace process to end the conflict," AP quoted him as saying on Monday.
The rebel groups Boutmans referred to are the Conseil national pour la
defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie and the
Forces nationale de liberation. Both have refused to participate in the
Arusha peace accord, signed by 19 Burundian parties in August 2000.

Boutmans said Belgium fully supported the peace efforts and the
reconstruction of Burundi, which is a former Belgian colony, a Tanzanian
agency, Internews, reported. Belgium has offered US $5 million for the 701
South African troops in Burundi, deployed there to guard returned
political exiles serving in government bodies and the cabinet. "We support
all arrangements agreed by the Burundian parties to end the war," AP
quoted Boutmans as saying.

He is leading a seven-man delegation on a five-day official visit to
Tanzania, which borders Burundi and is home to almost 350,000 Burundians.
The Burundians, in western Tanzania, are receiving aid from the office of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Another group
of about 470,000 Burundians live in Tanzanian settlements and villages,
but are not receiving help. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20231]

BURUNDI: Rebels step up ambushes

Armed anti-government forces in Burundi have stepped up ambushes in the
past week, particularly on the main roads in the west and south of the
country, diplomatic and official sources told IRIN on Tuesday.

The army spokesman, Colonel Augustin Nzabampema, told IRIN rebels had last
weekend ambushed Gihanga, on the main road linking the capital, Bujumbura,
and Cibitoke in the west. "It seems the driver managed to drive off,
although the vehicle was damaged with gunshots," he said.

No deaths were reported in this incident.

However, a diplomatic said there had been two ambushes in Gihanga in the
past few days with an unconfirmed number of deaths. "I heard that not more
than three people died as a result of the ambushes in this area," he said.

There had been other ambushes on Sunday on public transport at Kabezi,
south of the capital, along the road from Bujumbura to Rumonge, he added.
Others had been carried out in Muhama and Gitanga in the south.

"The attacks have been quite frequent and by Friday [25 January] operators
of public transport threatened to stop plying the routes on the main roads
in the absence of army patrols," he said. "The problem, however, is that
most of these vehicles travel at wrong times - either too early or too
late - when the army have either not arrived at the patrol points, or when
those manning the points have been picked up for the day."

Nearly all the attacks or ambushes take place between 15:30 GMT and 17:00
GMT, or occasionally earlier than 08:00 GMT, he added, whereas the army
goes on patrol from 08:00 to 15:00 GMT.

On Monday, Reuters quoted government officials as saying that 11 people,
including a child and an elderly woman, had been killed in rebel road
ambushes and in a clash between rebels and government troops near the
capital, Bujumbura. In one on the attacks, the rebels had opened fire on a
minibus on Sunday on the road near Kabezi, south of Bujumbura, killing
three civilians, the officials said.

"It was less than 24 hours after another attack on Gitaza [south of
Bujumbura], when the rebels killed three, two of them civilians," Reuters
quoted Balthazar tamahungiro, the governor of Bujumbura Rural Province,
was quoted as saying.

It also reported local officials as saying that an army patrol shot and
killed at least five alleged rebels in the same vicinity south of
Bujumbura on 25 January.

BURUNDI: Former president to return home

A leading Burundi opposition politician, Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, told IRIN
on Wednesday he was preparing his return home but wanted to ensure that
there would be no assassination attempts on him and members of his party.

"We are still negotiating with government about security," he said. "There
is a problem here that Burundians do not want to talk about. We want to be
guarded by the Burundian army, but the government wants to give us South
Africans. We will be forced to accept it if we want to return home."
Bagaza, a one-time president of Burundi, is now leader of the Parti pour
la reconciliation du peuple (Parena).

He said he was planning on negotiating his party's entry into the
power-sharing transitional government, installed 1 November 2001, and in
all state institutions such as the National Assembly and the Senate.

Parena signed the Arusha peace accord in August 2000, but did not commit
itself to implementation of the agreement. For this reason, the party is
not represented in the current government and nor does sit on the
Implementation Monitoring Committee which oversees the implementation of
the accord.

Referring to Parena's possible entry in the government, Bagaza said: "The
transitional government was not negotiated at Arusha, but in Johannesburg
between Buyoya and Minani of Frodebu [Front pour la democratie au
Burundi]. I will negotiate with them to enter the transitional
government."

He added that the important thing was that he had signed the peace accord.

BURUNDI-TANZANIA: 24 Burundian refugees killed

In the past three weeks, unknown assailants have killed 24 Burundian
refugees in Tanzania's Kibondo District in what one official described as
attacks aimed at discouraging voluntary repatriations to Burundi.

The governor of the Ruyigi Province in eastern Burundi, Isaac Bujaba, told
IRIN on Thursday that the victims were killed in two series of attacks. He
said seven people died in the first attacks - between 14 and 19 January.
Buyaba said a survivor managed to escape to Ruyigi, which borders on
Tanzania.

Seventeen more were killed on 24 January, including five children and five
women, two of whom were pregnant, according to Buyaba. "The only survivor
of this carnage is a young man who is residing now in this province," he
said.

Investigations were under way, he added, to establish the cause of the
incidents. However, another Burundian state official told IRIN that "these
attacks are meant to discourage the voluntary repatriation process under
way" in Tanzania.

An official of the office of the UNHCR told IRIN: "We have done some
investigation, and we cannot confirm the incident."

KENYA: UNHCR head accepts Nairobi corruption report

An investigation by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services has found
evidence that UNHCR employees in Nairobi took bribes from refugees seeking
permanent resettlement in third countries, the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees said on 25 January.

"I and thousands of other past and present UNHCR staff worldwide who have
devoted their lives to helping refugees are both shamed and outraged by
the despicable actions described in this report," UNHCR head Ruud Lubbers
said in a statement in which he accepted the investigation's findings.

"There is no excuse, no defence, for such contemptible behaviour. Those
who prey on poor and desperate refugees must be punished to the full
extent of the law," Lubbers added.

The investigation, carried out at the request of UNHCR, found that up to
70 people were involved in a complex scheme during the late 1990s to
extort money from refugees for services at the Nairobi office, including
demanding bribes of between US $3,000 and $5,000 to ensure resettlement,
UNHCR said. UNHCR does not charge for resettlement programmes. Direct
threats made against a number persons who tried to assist with the
investigation forced five UNHCR employees, including the then country
representative, to be evacuated, the UN refugee agency said.

Kenyan authorities have so far arrested nine people in connection with the
allegations, including three UNHCR staff members and two members of an
affiliated nongovernmental organisation . The nine are currently facing a
total of 78 charges under the Penal Code of Kenya, including conspiracy to
threaten to kill the US ambassador and the then UNHCR representative, the
UN said. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20160]


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