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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 127
15 - 21 June 2002


CONTENTS:

DRC: MONUC's mandate extended for 12 months
DRC: Rape as a weapon of war in the east
DRC: Government takes Rwanda to International Court of Justice
ROC: At least 10,000 flee fighting in Brazzaville
ROC: ICRC evacuates dead, wounded without hindrance
ROC: Health team traces 40 people with contact to Ebola fever
BURUNDI: Congolese Tutsis refuse transfer to northeastern refugee camp
RWANDA: Gacaca courts system becomes operational
RWANDA: Genocide trial of former minister begins
KENYA: WFP raises concern over food shortage at refugee camps
UGANDA: Government in peace deal with UNRF-II rebels
TANZANIA: New effort to address key environmental issues

ALSO SEE:

KENYA-RWANDA: Focus on Felicien Kabuga evading justice at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28309

KENYA: Focus on nationwide measles campaign at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28398

DRC: MONUC's mandate extended for 12 months

The United Nations Security Council has extended the mandate of the UN
Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) until June 2003, UN
News reported. The Council also called on UN member states to contribute
personnel so that the mission, known as MONUC, could attain its authorised
strength of 5,537, including observers. Currently it has just over 3,800
personnel. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28359]

DRC: Rape as a weapon of war in the east

Sexual violence, perpetrated by all parties to the conflict in the DRC, is
"rampant" in rebel-controlled eastern part of the country, says the
advocacy group Human Rights Watch. Its report issued on Thursday on "The
War within the War: Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Eastern
Congo" details the widespread, and in some cases systematic, use of rape
on the part of Rwandan troops and their rebel allies, the Rassemblement
congolais pour la democratie, as well as armed groups opposed to them from
Burundi and Rwanda, and an ethnic militia groups known as the Mayi-Mayi.
[Full report at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28443]

DRC: Government takes Rwanda to International Court of Justice

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, The Netherlands,
began hearings on 13 June in a case the DRC government brought against
Rwanda. The DRC has accused Rwanda of committing "genocide against more
than 3.5 million people" on Congolese territory, and has demanded the
"immediate, unconditional withdrawal" of Rwandan troops. The application
submitted to the court stated that Rwanda had been guilty of "armed
aggression" in the DRC since August 1998, and that it had resulted in
"large-scale human slaughter" in the east of the country, including the
victims of the recent "massacres" in Kisangani. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28360]

ROC: At least 10,000 flee fighting in Brazzaville

At least 10,000 people fled Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo
(ROC), following two days of fighting between government forces and Ninja
militias that began on 14 June, the United Nations Humanitarian
Coordination Office in the country reported.  On 14 June, it said,
Brazzaville endured two sustained military attacks in the northeastern
outskirts of the town. The first was against the military based near the
international airport at Maya Maya, and the second targeted a police
school and a station of the gendarmerie in the neighbourhood of Moukondo.
Hundreds of rounds of rockets, mortars, and heavy-calibre machine-gun fire
were directed on both areas, the UN reported. The Ninjas tried repeatedly,
in vain, to destroy the government military helicopters at the airport.
[Full report at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28353]

ROC: ICRC evacuates dead, wounded without hindrance

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday that -
with the help of Congolese Red Cross volunteers - it had evacuated scores
of dead and wounded following fighting which broke out in Brazzaville on
14 June. As at Tuesday, the ICRC had taken 17 people to the city's
hospitals and transferred 19 bodies to the city morgue. In its statement,
the ICRC said it had also provided the military hospital with medicines,
dressing materials and supplies for treating bone fractures. [Full report
at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28377]

ROC: Health team traces 40 people with contact to Ebola fever

No new cases of the Ebola haemorrhagic fever have been reported since the
last death on 6 June, but a three-member health team has traced 40 people
who have had contact with six others suspected to have been infected by
the disease, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday. The
health workers, from the ROC Ministry of Health and the WHO, are
investigating the suspected cases in the Mbomo District, Cuvette Ouest
Region of the country. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28433]

BURUNDI: Congolese Tutsis refuse transfer to northeastern refugee camp

Hundreds of Congolese Banyamulenge refugees in the Burundi capital,
Bujumbura, refused to board trucks belonging to the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Tuesday for relocation to a camp in
Kinama village, Gasorwe Commune, in the northeastern province of Muyinga,
an official of the UN refugee agency said.  "UNHCR doesn't know why the
Banyamulenge are refusing to go to Kinama," Gabriel Bangui, the agency's
senior field officer in charge of operations, said on Wednesday. However,
he added, "There's a lot of pressure being put within the Banyamulenge -
and from some politicians in UPRONA [Union pour le progres national] - for
their members not to go". [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28404]

RWANDA: Gacaca courts system becomes operational

Rwanda's Gacaca justice system, adapted to judge the tens of thousands of
people accused of participation in the 1994 genocide against some 800,000
Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus, was launched officially on Tuesday
in the capital, Kigali. Referring to the 115,000 genocide-related cases
awaiting trial in Rwanda, President Paul Kagame said at the launch that it
was "a known fact" that normal courts could not conduct these trials and
bring them to their conclusion at a reasonably short time, Radio Rwanda
reported. "That is why Rwandans found another way to solve these problems
of justice caused by the massacres and genocide," he said. [Full report
at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28376]

RWANDA: Genocide trial of former minister begins

Former Information Minister Eliezer Niyitegeka went on trial on Monday
before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania,
accused of crimes against humanity and other offences committed during the
genocide of 1994, the tribunal's Public Affairs Unit reported. It said
that in his opening statement, the trial attorney, Ken Fleming, told the
court he would prove that the accused was guilty of the 10 counts with
which he is charged. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28367]

KENYA: WFP raises concern over food shortage at refugee camps

The United Nations World Food Programme has warned that hundreds of
thousands of refugees living in camps in northern Kenya face a severe food
shortage crisis, and appealed to the international community to "come
forward" with contributions in order to avert a further deterioration of
the situation. In a message emotively entitled, "Refugees in Kenya
celebrate World Refugee Day without enough to eat," the UN agency said it
lacked the funds to supply food aid to 205,000 refugees currently living
in the two main refugee camps of Dadaab and Kakuma, both in northern
Kenya. World Refugee Day is celebrated annually on 20 June. [Full report
at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28434]

UGANDA: Government in peace deal with UNRF-II rebels

The government of Uganda and the rebel Uganda National Rescue Front
(UNRF-II) signed a formal ceasefire agreement in Kuru sub-county, Yumbe
District, northwestern Uganda on Saturday, with the aim of paving the way
for political dialogue in the West Nile region. Minister for Internal
Affairs Eriya Kategaya, for the government, and the UNRF-II chairman,
Maj-Gen Ali Bamuze, signed the peace agreement in which the parties said
they would "mutually and unequivocally" to stop all forms of hostility and
belligerence, according to local media. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28399]

TANZANIA: New effort to address key environmental issues

While many Tanzanians marked World Environment Day on 5 June with
localised tree-planting and cleanups, environmental activists have drawn
attention to what they say is a weak legal and institutional framework for
environmental management and protection in the country.

"This legislation is not coordinated, and we don't have an agency with a
final word on environmental matters. Nor do we have the essential
environmental management tools that are recognisable," says Rugumeleza
Nshala, president of the Lawyers' Environmental Action Team. This body is
acting as the secretariat for the Environment Coalition, a collection of
civil society organisations involved in environmental management in
Tanzania. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28395]


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2002


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