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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 109
02 - 08 February 2002


CONTENTS:

DRC: 15,000 displaced by ethnic and political fighting
DRC: Belgium apologises for Lumumba killing
DRC: Targeted food distribution for volcano victims to begin
BURUNDI: UN Security Council calls on rebels to join peace process
BURUNDI: Amnesty calls on government to end rights abuses
RWANDA: Former premier testifies before ICTR
RWANDA: ICTR dismisses lawyer for "financial dishonesty"
UGANDA: Kikagati resettlement plans delayed
KENYA: US military exercises under way
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: OAU asks UN to redeploy peacekeepers

DRC: 15,000 displaced by ethnic and political fighting

Humanitarian agencies in Bunia, northeastern Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC), estimate that more than 15,000 people have been displaced in
the surrounding region in the past few weeks by ethnic conflict among the
Lendu, Hema and Alur tribes and among political factions of several rebel
groups, the UN special representative to the DRC, Amos Ngongi, said on
Thursday. Ngongi called on neighbouring Uganda to protect civilians in the
Ituri Province of eastern DRC. "The security of the population in the
territory is the job of the local authority... or of the occupying force,
Uganda," Ngongi said on Wednesday. "The Ugandans have troops on the
ground, and they have a responsibility to provide security for civilians,"
he added.

Ngongi said he intended to pursue his contacts with the rebel movements,
as well as with the Ugandan and Rwandan governments, to stop the "war
within the war" immediately. "The civilian population must no longer be
held hostage by political ambitions which they do not share," he said.
"Currently, the old conflict between Hema and Lendu seems to be instigated
and supported by political leaders." Three different rebel movements - the
Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Kisangani-Mouvement de
liberation (RCD-K-ML), the Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC), and the
lesser-known RCD-Nationale - are vying for control of the region. Ngongi
arrived by helicopter on Wednesday in Bunia, the main town in Ituri, where
he saw a column of exhausted villagers, "women in rags and unaccompanied
children carrying bundles on their heads - fleeing senseless killings".

Following an upsurge in violence in December, at least 15 attacks in
January had resulted in 120 casualties, and the clashes had continued ever
since, said a spokesman for the Hema tribe, Felix Kabwizi, on Tuesday.

"The current clashes are hindering the UN in its mandate," Ngongi said,
"at a time when the inter-Congolese dialogue seems almost within reach,
and all efforts must be concentrated on this decisive rendezvous with
history".

DRC: Belgium apologises for Lumumba killing

Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel has expressed "sincere regrets" on
behalf of his government for Belgium's role in the killing in 1961 of then
Congolese leader, Patrice Lumumba. "The government feels it is pertinent
and right to present to the family of Patrice Lumumba... and the Congolese
people its profound and sincerest regrets," Reuters reported him as saying
on Tuesday during a parliamentary debate on the findings of an inquiry
into Lumumba's death, completed last November, and which found Belgium to
be "morally responsible". "Certain members of government... and certain
Belgian officials of that time carry an irrefutable part of the
responsibility in the events that led to the death of Patrice Lumumba,"
Reuters quoted him as saying. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20429]

The apology was greeted with mixed feelings in the DRC. "Saying sorry
doesn't help. We are looking to ask for some kind of reparations... not
only for the family of Lumumba but also for the Congolese people," Reuters
quoted the DRC information minister, Kikaya Bin Karubi, as saying.

"We want Belgium to support us in the war. We want the Belgians to show us
that they have the Congolese people in their hearts," a spokesman of the
DRC Embassy in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, told IRIN. However, AP quoted
Lumumba's son, Francois, as saying: "Forty-one years after the murder,
Belgium has taken its responsibility in light of what occurred. We are
ready to turn the page."

Lumumba, widely regarded in Congo as a nationalist hero, was one of the
key players in the fight against Belgium's 75-year occupation of the
country. His anti-colonialist stance and socialist leanings alienated
Western powers during the height of the Cold War. The Republic of the
Congo - as the country was then called - gained its independence from
Belgium on 30 June 1960. Five days later, the armed forces mutinied. The
UN, which sent troops to the country to maintain order, condemned
Belgium's actions during the ensuing disorder and its support for the
secession of Katanga Province. President Joseph Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba
as prime minister in September, after they disagreed over the secession of
Katanga. Lumumba was imprisoned in December and, early in 1961, taken to
Katanga by his rivals, and killed. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20449]

DRC: Targeted food distribution for volcano victims to begin

The general humanitarian focus in the volcano-stricken town of Goma,
eastern DRC, is shifting from an emergency intervention to longer-term
needs. The World Food Programme (WFP) said that food aid would now
primarily target the homeless, in-patients of health centres, child-headed
households, families supporting displaced people, and those who have lost
their livelihood because of the volcanic eruption on 17 January. Based on
these criteria, local authorities were coordinating a registration of
those eligible for assistance, WFP said on Monday. General food
distributions had been made to 58,000 families in the Goma region since
the crisis began, the organisation said. The UN says about 150 people were
killed in the eruption and 87,500 made homeless.

One of the major issues remaining was the resettlement of the volcano
victims, as well as alleviation of overcrowding in existing homes, the UN
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported at the
weekend. The matter, it added, had been "complicated by a complex
emergency situation that engenders distrust among local populations". A
Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Committee had agreed to rebuild basic
infrastructure in Goma, including schools and health centres, WFP said on
Monday. In addition, an urbanisation plan and the construction of basic
social infrastructure would be considered for 10,000 people in a permanent
site outside Goma. WFP added that more people would be encouraged to
relocate to the site, once it is identified and provided with basic
infrastructure.

Spokespersons from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the International
Committee of the Red Cross told IRIN on Monday that about 8,900 Congolese
victims of the volcano remained in Mudende and Nkamira, camps in Rwanda
about 20 km from the border with the DRC. The camps were set up in the
aftermath of the eruption to care for the thousands who fled to Rwanda.
The Rwandan government closed a third camp with less than 800 remaining
people in Ruhengeri, about 100 km from the border, UNICEF reported. A
total of 122 unaccompanied children remained in the camps on Monday. "We'd
like to provide them with temporary shelter to allow them to go back," a
spokesman for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told
IRIN on Monday.

BURUNDI: UN Security Council calls on rebels to join peace process

The UN Security Council has again called on Burundi rebel groups still
fighting in the country's eight year-long civil war to lay down their arms
immediately and join the peace process. In a statement issued on Thursday
by the Council president, Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar Zinser of Mexico, the
15-member body emphasised that the continuing fighting against the
legitimate administration was "totally unjustifiable and unacceptable",
and threatened the implementation of the country's peace process. The
statement endorsed the legitimacy of the transitional government headed by
President Pierre Buyoya, and paid tribute to the signatories of the peace
agreement signed in August 2000.

The announcement from the Security Council follows an appeal by Buyoya on
5 February to the Council to help end the fighting in his country and to
keep the peace process on track. "We asked the neighbouring countries...
[and] the international community to pressure the rebels, to enter into
negotiations," AP reported him as telling journalists after addressing the
Council. Earlier, on 16 January, the Council also appealed to the Burundi
rebels to cease hostilities. AFP reported diplomatic sources as saying on
Thursday that this latest appeal was "a final warning".

Meanwhile, in a briefing on refugee matters, UN High Commissioner for
Refugees Ruud Lubbers told the Security Council that if a cease-fire could
be effected across Burundi, hundreds of thousands of Burundi refugees
currently in Tanzania and elsewhere would seek to return home, the UN
reported on Friday. More than 200,000 people have been killed in Burundi
since war broke out in October 1993, following the killing of Melchior
Ndadaye, the country's first democratically elected leader, who was a
Hutu. In August 2000 a peace accord was signed in Arusha, but the
country's two main rebel groups - the Conseil national pour la defense de
la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie and the Forces
nationale de liberation - have refused to observe the cease-fire agreed
under the accord.

BURUNDI: Amnesty calls on government to end rights abuses

Despite the recent political changes in Burundi, Amnesty International
(AI) continues to receive reports of torture at an alarming rate, the
organisation said on Monday. "Torture and ill-treatment in security-force
custody continue to devastate the lives of hundreds of ordinary Burundian
people," the agency said. The problem was exacerbated by a culture of
impunity, which was encouraged by decades of government refusal to
meaningfully investigate and prosecute those responsible for gross human
rights violations, AI added.

Soldiers accused of involvement in human rights abuses were rarely
arrested, and even more rarely tried. Paradoxically, the few trials that
had taken place had confirmed the impunity of the security forces, as
illustrated by the levity of the sentences imposed, and this demonstrated
clearly the contempt of the security forces for the lives of civilians, AI
said. It cited the case of a police officer, Deogratias Bakundukize, who
continued to work despite having been found guilty of the deaths in
custody of two detainees on separate occasions.

AI urged the new transitional government of Burundi to take the
opportunity to end the "blight" of torture, to end incommunicado
detention, to introduce a full right of appeal, and to reform the legal
system so that members of the security forces accused of abuses could be
tried in a civilian court, as opposed to the military courts currently
used. [Full report at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20437]

RWANDA: Former premier testifies before ICTR

Former Rwandan prime minister Faustin Twagiramungu testified on Monday at
the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) as the first defence
witness for Elizaphan Ntakirutimana and his son, Gerard, who stand accused
of crimes against humanity and genocide, the tribunal reported.
Twagiramungu gave a detailed analysis of the power struggle in Rwanda
prior to the signing of the Arusha peace accords on 4 August 1993. He said
the infighting between various political factions, including the Rwandan
Patriotic Front, had blocked the establishment of a broad-based
transitional government as provided for in the Arusha accords. He said the
situation in Rwanda prior to the 1994 genocide had been "hopeless, with
rampant killings and assassinations" being carried out in various parts of
the country, and civil war raging in the north. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20407]

Continuing his testimony on Tuesday, Twagiramungu called for an
investigation into the victims of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the
Arusha-based Internews service reported. He told the court that there was
a need to investigate the exact number of those who had died in the
April-June 1994 genocide in Rwanda. As prime minister from July 1994, he
had attended the burial ceremonies of many genocide victims, Internews
quoted him as saying. He noted that there had been a lot of confusion
between the numbers of people alleged to have been at massacre sites,
those killed and the number of the bodies buried after the genocide.

He said that during the burial ceremony of those who had been killed at
Kibuye stadium, western Rwanda, it had been announced that 80,000 people
had sought refuge there. "What I know is that the biggest stadium in
Rwanda is Amahoro stadium, built by the Chinese, and it can only hold
25,000. I know that the numbers we buried were not 80,000," Twagiramungu
said. "I am giving you these figures so that you can understand the
capacity of people for exaggeration. I said earlier that we all bear
responsibility for what happened. We never accounted for these deaths. If
there were 80,000, where are the rest of the bodies? I think the only way
is to hold investigations," he added. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20430]

RWANDA: ICTR dismisses lawyer for "financial dishonesty"

The ICTR on Wednesday dismissed a Scottish defence lawyer, citing
"financial dishonesty" as the reason. The registrar of the ICTR dismissed
Andrew McCartan, lead counsel for genocide suspect Joseph Nzirorera,
having found evidence of inflation of legal bills and other financial
irregularities, the ICTR said in a statement issued on Wednesday. However,
when contacted by the Internews agency, McCartan reportedly described the
allegations as outrageous. "It is not true, it is appalling," Internews
quoted him as saying, adding that he would appeal against the registrar's
decision.

Hirondelle news agency reported that McCartan had agreed to split fees
with Nzirorera in November 2000, under pressure from his client. Six
months later he had written a letter to the head of ICTR Registry's
section in charge of lawyers and detainees, stating the following: "I
agreed to the accused's demand for payment, because I wanted to give
myself time to investigate his statement that this was the 'normal
procedure' for lead counsel. I also wanted to confirm that the rules
prohibited such fee-splitting conduct." McCartan said he was being
sanctioned for having blown the whistle on fee-splitting, Hirondelle
reported. This is the first time a lawyer from the ICTR had been dismissed
for financial impropriety, Moghalu confirmed. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20448]

Meanwhile, also on Wednesday, a former Roman Catholic priest, Athanase
Seromba, was detained at the UN Detention Facility in Arusha, Tanzania, on
Wednesday, following his surrender to the ICTR, the UN body reported. He
is charged with four counts of genocide or, in the alternative, complicity
to commit genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against
humanity for extermination. He is also charged with killing or causing
serious bodily or mental harm to thousands of members of the Tutsi
population in Kivumu Commune, Kibuye Prefecture, who had sought refuge at
the Nyange parish, the tribunal said. These included about 2,000 Tutsis
trapped inside the Nyange church, who were killed when he allegedly
bulldozed the church, causing its roof to collapse. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20447]

Seromba had pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against him, a news
release from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) said on
Friday.

UGANDA: Kikagati resettlement plans delayed

The planned resettlement of a group of Ugandan returnees from Tanzania,
currently camped in Kikagati, Mbarara District, in the southwest, has been
delayed following resistance from local residents in the proposed
resettlement area. The Ugandan government had planned to resettle the
returnees in the nearby district of Kibale, but was forced to alter the
plans following objections from the local community, UN OCHA reported in
its 'Humanitarian Update' for Uganda on 31 January.

Kibale District had more migrants than most other areas of the country,
and the local population was apprehensive of additional outsiders being
resettled in the same area, OCHA reported. "There are ongoing negotiations
led by the prime minister's office to resolve the impasse," OCHA said.

According to OCHA, government representatives said at a meeting on 17
January to discuss the problem that some 15 square miles of
government-owned land in Kagadi, Kabale District, in the far southwest,
had been allocated to the returnees.

The returnees are part of a group of 3,027 Ugandans, mainly ethnic Bakiga
cattle herders, expelled from Tanzania, allegedly for voting against
Tanzania's ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party in elections in October
2000, according to media reports. The expulsions happened after the CCM
lost the elections in the northern Tanzanian area of Karagwe (Kagera
District), where the long-time Ugandan settlers were living, reports
added. However, the returnees said they were precluded from political
participation, and had never voted in Tanzanian elections, the independent
Monitor newspaper reported in Uganda on 27 December 2001. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20402]

KENYA: US military exercises under way

Some 3,000 US marines and navy personnel have arrived on the coast of
Kenya for a series of joint military exercises to be carried out in
collaboration with Kenyan servicemen in the coastal region. About 1,000
marines will deploy ashore for "a series of bilateral training manoeuvres
and to carry out several humanitarian projects at sites near the
exercise", according to a Friday statement from the US embassy in Nairobi.
US military personnel would be joined by some 250 Kenyan soldiers, and
together they would conduct "intensive ground and air manoeuvres" as part
of the exercise, known as "Edged Mallet". The exercise - scheduled to have
begun on Sunday 3 February - was "considerably larger" than recent
bilateral military exercises between the US and Kenya, the statement said.

The exercise would involve an amphibious landing by US marines from ships
positioned off the Kenyan coast, and Kenyan military forces would then
join in with manoeuvres in coastal military exercise grounds, the US
ambassador to Kenya, Johnnie Carson, said in an earlier statement on 18
January. As part of the overall exercise, US marines would also undertake
several humanitarian projects in Kenya, the statement said. "Marines will
construct two classrooms and repair a bridge in one coastal village, while
drilling a public well and restoring a medical clinic at another site. US
medical personnel will offer free medical services to people living near
the exercise areas," the statement said.

In order to eliminate the threat of accidental civilian injuries from
unexploded shells following the exercises, they would be limited to
small-arms fire, and no "explosive ordnance" would be used, the US embassy
statement said. Some 220 members of the Maasai and Samburu ethnic groups
in July 2001 lodged compensation claims against the British army, saying
the UK Ministry of Defence had been negligent in failing to remove
unexploded ordnance from firing ranges in central Kenya. Maasai and
Samburu pastoralists living near the Archer's Post and Dol Dol firing
ranges claim there are four or five accidental deaths per year from
discarded, unexploded ordnance.

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: OAU asks UN to redeploy peacekeepers

The Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the continent's foremost
political body, says it has asked the UN Security Council to redeploy a
peacekeeping force to help consolidate peace in the Central African
Republic (CAR).

The request followed a two-day OAU extraordinary meeting that ended on
Wednesday in Libya. The OAU said the failed coup of May 2001 vindicated
the fears expressed in the previous year, by the chairman of the UN
Permanent Consultative Committee on Security Matters in Central Africa,
about the withdrawal of the UN Mission in the CAR, MINURCA. The UN
Peace-building Office in CAR, BONUCA, replaced the peacekeeping mission in
February 2000. Despite the present calm in the CAR, the OAU added, the
situation remained precarious. Successive crises there had resulted in the
deepening of divisions, the OAU stated. Therefore, it added, an in-depth
dialogue between all the actors was necessary.

The OAU also called on the international community to provide substantial
aid to the government, given its current economic crisis. "It is obvious
that the situation in the CAR cannot be definitively stabilised unless the
economy of the country recovers and the living condition of the people
improves," the OAU added. It was referring to the country's "particularly
difficult" sociopolitical situation, further weighed down by years of
unpaid salaries of public service employees. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=20277]


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


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