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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 128
22 - 28 June 2002


CONTENTS:

KENYA: Somali refugees being transferred from Mandera to Dadaab
UGANDA: Renewed LRA attacks raises fresh humanitarian concerns
BURUNDI-TANZANIA: Joint delegation to seek repatriation of Burundian refugees
BURUNDI-TANZANIA: Spontaneous returns continue despite security concerns
BURUNDI: Impunity on the rise, says Amnesty International
DRC: RCD rebel forces facing mutiny again
DRC: Oil drilling in east set to start August
DRC-RWANDA: Government opposes plan to establish ICTR office in DRC
RWANDA: Genocide survivors demonstrate against ICTR chief
RWANDA: Judges give Kigali more time to produce witnesses

ALSO SEE:
BURUNDI-DRC-TANZANIA: Focus on positive aspects of refugee crisis
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28553

KENYA: Somali refugees being transferred from Mandera to Dadaab

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, has
transferred up to 1,043 Somali refugees, who have been stranded for weeks
in the northeastern Kenyan border town of Mandera, to the Dadaab refugee
camp 500 km to the south. The refugees are part of a group of 10,000 who
fled inter-clan fighting in the Somali town of Bulo Hawa near the border
with Kenya starting in April, and have been camped in and around Mandera
under difficult conditions. [Full report at:
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28517]

UGANDA: Renewed LRA attacks raises fresh humanitarian concerns

A new spate of attacks over the past week by the rebel Lord's Resistance
Army (LRA) in northern Uganda on villages, burning huts and abducting
people, is producing a new wave of internal displacement and putting a
strain on ongoing relief and development work in the region, humanitarian
workers have said.

One of them in the northern town of Gulu told IRIN on Wednesday that
"virtually all" NGOs had halted their operations in northern Uganda due to
the rise in insecurity. All roads linking the northern districts of Gulu,
Kitgum, Pader, Lira and Pakwac have become unsafe due to increased rebel
activity in the area in the past week, thereby limiting the movement of
relief workers, with severe humanitarian implications.

Recent news reports indicate an upsurge of attacks on northern Ugandan
districts by part of a group of 400 LRA fighters believed to have recently
slipped into Uganda from Sudan, where their leader, Joseph Kony, has
remained with his main force, believed by the Ugandan army to number about
2,000. [Full report at: Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28515]

BURUNDI-TANZANIA: Joint delegation to seek repatriation of Burundian
refugees

Burundi and Tanzania announced on Tuesday that they would send a
delegation to Geneva to ask the UNHCR to facilitate the repatriation of
all Burundian refugees now in Tanzanian.

The announcement was made at a news conference after the end of the fourth
tripartite meeting in the Burundi capital, Bujumbura, between Burundi,
Tanzania and the office of the UNHCR on the refugee repatriation issue.

Close to 500,000 Burundian refugees are camped in Tanzania, thousands of
who have been returning home on their own or under UNHCR-sponsored
operations. However, the UNHCR position is to facilitate repatriations
only to safe areas, while extending "limited assistance" to refugees
insisting on going elsewhere in Burundi. [Full report at:
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28519]

BURUNDI-TANZANIA: Spontaneous returns continue despite security concerns

Bernard Ndorainywe, 39, is a Burundian who has lived in the Nduta refugee
camp in western Tanzania since 1996, and he wants to go home. However, as
with many of the 100,000 refugees in the camps in Kibondo District, his
home is in southern Burundi, where the UNHCR is not facilitating
repatriation. Undeterred, Ndorainywe is prepared to hike the 40-km back to
the border.  "We'll leave this evening, and will get home in about three
days time," he said as he and 20 family members were preparing to set off
on 21 June. "If people want to help us, we will accept it, but I am tired
of waiting in the camps and am going to return home anyway." [Full report
at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28556]

BURUNDI: Impunity on the rise, says Amnesty International

Failure on the part of the Burundi transitional government to condemn the
increasing number of killings of civilians perpetrated by its armed forces
amounts to acquiescence, says the human rights advocacy group, Amnesty
International.

In a report issued on Monday, entitled "Punishing the Population -
Reprisal Killings Escalate", the rights body documented the Burundi army's
deliberate killing of unarmed Hutu civilians in reprisal for military
activity by Hutu-dominated rebel armed political movements. [Full report
at: Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28478]

DRC: RCD rebel forces facing mutiny again

Heavy fighting has broken out again in South Kivu Province, southeastern
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), between the leader of a mutiny
among troops of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma)
and loyal forces of the Rwandan-backed rebel movement, news agencies
reported. The Rwandan News Agency reported an outbreak of fighting in the
Hauts Plateaux region of South Kivu on 23 June, while RCD
Secretary-General Azarias Ruberwa Manywa was touring the region to urge
people to dissociate themselves from the leader of the mutineers, Capt
Patrick Masunzu. AFP reported "violent clashes" around the Ngoma hills
near Baraka, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, since 10 June, and RTNC
radio reported heavy fighting around Minembwe on Thursday. [Full report
at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28496]

DRC: Oil drilling in east set to start August

Heritage Oil Corporation of Canada says it will in early August begin
drilling an area in eastern DRC; nominally controlled by a Uganda-backed
former rebel group, the Rassemblement congolais pour la
democratie-Kisangani-Mouvement pour la liberation (RCD-K-ML).

Heritage announced that it had received "pro-active cooperation" from the
government. Heritage said it was the first such commercial arrangement in
eastern Congo since the Sun City deal between the Congolese government and
the former rebel groups; the Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo, led by
Jean-Pierre Bemba; RCD-K-ML led by Mbusa Nyamwisi, and some 32 other
unarmed political groups.

Heritage's concession, which covers parts of Ituri and Butembo provinces,
extends over 3.1 million ha. On the Ugandan side of the border, Heritage
has since 1997 had a concession for Block 3 that covers a further 404,700
ha, its chief executive, Michael Wood, said. [Full report at:
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28514]

DRC-RWANDA: Government opposes plan to establish ICTR office in DRC

The government of Rwanda is opposed to plans to establish of an office of
the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in the DRC, empowered to
arrest and prosecute suspected genocide suspects on Congolese territory,
Rwanda's spokesman, Joseph Bideri, told the East African newspaper.

Bideri said it was the responsibility of the DRC government to arrest the
genocide suspects and hand them over to the Tribunal, in Arusha, Tanzania.
"It is nauseating that both the Tribunal and the DRC have a list of the
suspects, and yet not a single indictment has been effected there - in a
country that hosts the highest number of genocidaires," the East African
weekly quoted him saying.

US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Pierre-Richard Prosper told
reporters in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on 12 June that, in principle,
an agreement had been reached to open an office of the Tribunal in the DRC
capital, Kinshasa, and that the US would support the project. [Full report
at: Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28516]

RWANDA: Genocide survivors demonstrate against ICTR chief

The prosecutor of the ICTR, Carla del Ponte, returned from the Rwandan
capital, Kigali, to Arusha, Tanzania, on Friday, a day after some 3,500
genocide survivors marched through the streets of Kigali, in a
demonstration against her office and the alleged harassment of witnesses
at the court. The demonstrators, some carrying placards inscribed "No
justice from ICTR" and "No justice without compensation", had marched from
central Kigali to the ICTR's office in the suburbs, the Rwanda News Agency
reported. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28557]

RWANDA: Judges give Kigali more time to produce witnesses

Judges at the ICTR have adjourned till Wednesday the trial of two
prominent genocide suspects, because an insufficient number of witnesses
have arrived at the trial venue in Arusha, due to new travel regulations
introduced by Rwanda. Former Foreign Minister Eliezer Niyitegeka was due
to appear before the court Tuesday, while the collective trial of former
Family and Women's Affairs Minister Pauline Nyiramasuhuko - and her six
associates together known as the Butare Group - had been adjourned five
times over the last two weeks, Internews reported. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=28498]


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


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