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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 155
28 Dcember 2002 - 03 January 2003


CONTENTS:

KENYA: Kibaki sworn in as new president
KENYA-RWANDA: ICTR investigators to meet new Kenyan government
TANZANIA-RWANDA: Voluntary repatriation of Rwandan refugees from Tanzania
  complete
UGANDA: Kony calls for peace talks
DRC: Rival militias sign ceasefire deal
DRC: 130,000 displaced around Beni, Lubero
DRC: Judgment deferred in Kabila assassination trial
ROC: Rebels release two aid workers unharmed
BURUNDI: Implementation of ceasefire agreement delayed
BURUNDI: GTZ begins food distribution to former rebels
CAR: President asks France for troops
CAR: Regional peace force begins patrolling Bangui streets

KENYA: Kibaki sworn in as new president

Kenya's new president, Emilio Mwai Kibaki, was sworn into office on Monday
following his historic electoral victory, and immediately pledged to go to
work to revive the country's ailing economy and fight corruption.

Kibaki, the successor of Daniel arap Moi, Kenya's longest-serving
president, who has ruled the country since 1978, was sworn in during a
colourful ceremony following the 27 December election in which he defeated
Uhuru Kenyatta, the candidate of the ruling Kenya African National Union
(KANU), with a landslide majority.

Kibaki's National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) also won an outstanding 123 of
the 210 seats in parliament, while KANU took 56, and the little-known
Forum for the Restoration of Democracy-People took 13 seats. The
parliamentary results have, however, not yet been finalised as vote
counting has not been completed in some constituencies.

Thousands of Kenyans thronged Uhuru Park in the capital, Nairobi, where
the ceremony took place, to witness the event in which Kibaki was
installed as Kenya's third president since independence in 1963. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31523]

KENYA-RWANDA: ICTR investigators to meet new Kenyan government

The Rwandan businessman who allegedly financed the 1994 genocide in his
country, Felicien Kabuga, is "most likely" in Kenya, according to the
commander of the investigation section at the Kigali office of the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Maxwell Nkole.

He told IRIN on Thursday that the tribunal was "in the process of
establishing contact" with the new Kenyan government, and that the
tribunal staff members were "on their way" to discuss the case with Kenyan
officials. To date, indications were that the new administration would be
"more than willing" to help with investigations, he added.

The US ambassador-at-large for war crimes, Pierre-Richard Prosper, told
reporters on Tuesday that Kabuga had been using "government infrastructure
to maintain his fugitive status in Kenya", the Associated Press reported.
Prosper accused Zakayo Cheruiyot, the Kenyan permanent secretary for
public administration and internal security, of providing Kabuga with
"protection", news agencies said. Cheruiyot has denied the charge. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31557]

TANZANIA-RWANDA: Voluntary repatriation of Rwandan refugees from Tanzania
complete

The voluntary repatriation of Rwandan refugees from camps in northwestern
Tanzania has been completed, with only about 150 remaining in the country,
according to Ivana Unluova, the spokeswoman for the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

She told IRIN on Friday that the total number of refugees repatriated in
2002 had been 23,474, of whom almost 19,000 had gone home in November and
December. Only around 100 refugees remained in the refugee camps in
Tanzania at the beginning of 2003, and another 50 in various prisons in
Kagera Region. [Full story on
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31572] UGANDA: Kony calls for
peace talks

The leader of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, has
reportedly telephoned a radio station in northern Uganda to say he is
ready to enter peace talks with the Ugandan government, according to news
agencies.

"I want genuine peace talks with government. I initiated a ceasefire, but
it is government which seems to work against peace," the BBC quoted Kony
as saying on 28 December in a phone-in to Mega FM, a radio station based
in the northern town of Gulu.

Kony, who has not been seen in public for many years, said he was in
northern Uganda, but did not disclose his exact location, the BBC
reported. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31525]

DRC: Rival militias sign ceasefire deal

The leaders of three rival militia groups fighting along the Isiro-Beni
axis of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have signed a
ceasefire agreement.

The agreement, reached in the northern town of Gbadolite on Monday, became
effective immediately. It was signed by Jean-Pierre Bemba of the Mouvement
pour la liberation du Congo (MLC), Roger Lumbala of the Rassemblement
congolais pour la democratie-National (RCD-N), Mbusa Nyamwisi of the
RCD-Kisangani-Mouvement de liberation (RCD-K-ML), and Lena Sundh, the UN
secretary-general's deputy special representative in the country.

Also present at the ceremony were the ambassadors of Britain, China,
France, Russia and the United States (all permanent members of the UN
Security Council), and of South Africa, as well as Belgium - the former
colonial power in the DRC. Under the agreement, the rival groups agreed to
halt the movement of troops, except for those being pulled back from their
present positions. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31546]

DRC: 130,000 displaced around Beni, Lubero

At least 130,000 people had been displaced around the towns of Beni and
Lubero, northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Nations
Mission in the DRC (known as MONUC) said on Thursday.

It said 23,000 internally displaced people had come from Oicha (30 km
north of Beni), 40,800 from Mangina (30 km northwest of Beni) and the
remainder from Rengeti and other neighbouring locations, MONUC announced
on Radio Okapi.

The Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Kisangani-Mouvement de
liberation (RCD-K-ML) had accused the Mouvement pour la liberation du
Congo (MLC) of attacking its positions in Rengeti on Wednesday, RCD-K-ML
Secretary-General Kolosso Sumahili told IRIN. "According to the report
that we have, it is a humanitarian catastrophe," he added.

Meanwhile, MLC has accused RCD-K-ML of attacking its ally, RCD-National
(RCD-N). Throughout Thursday Beni remained calm. The coordinator with the
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Beni, Alexandre
Gashangi, said on Radio Okapi that a humanitarian intervention would begin
with an explanation over the airwaves of its purpose. "Our explanations
are addressing both the military and civilian populations," he said. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31556]

DRC: Judgment deferred in Kabila assassination trial

Judgment on the people accused of involvement in the assassination of
former President Laurent-Desire Kabila in 2001 has been deferred to 7
January. The president of the Military Order Court, Gen Nawele Mukongo,
announced on 28 December that the judgment, due to have been handed down
that day, had been deferred due to the absence of one of the judges.

Defence attorneys are interpreting the deferral differently. Eley Lofele,
the president of the Association of International Defence Lawyers, said
the deferral had been effected because the pressure brought to bear upon
it by the defence embarrassed the court.

"Many questions remain unanswered. The trial has not proved that Rashidi
Muzele killed Kabila," Eley said, who is also the defence attorney for 10
of the 135 accused.

Muzele was the bodyguard who, the military prosecutor said, had killed
Kabila. Other members of the Kabila entourage subsequently killed Muzele,
shortly after the assassination. Some 50 human rights advocates gathered
outside the defence ministry in the capital, Kinshasa, on 26 December,
chanting hymns and demanding a fair trial for the scores of people facing
death sentences for Kabila's assassination.

ROC: Rebels release two aid workers unharmed

Two employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), who
were kidnapped on 4 December by rebels in the Bouenza region in the
southwest of the Republic of Congo, have been released.

Both men, Frenchman Thierry Baudina, 41, and Congolese Guy Alain Ngoualer,
37, were in good health when they were reunited with their ICRC
colleagues, the ICRC announced on Sunday. They had been abducted near the
village of Doungou while conducting a needs assessment of displaced
populations in the Bouenza region. The day after the kidnapping, the ICRC
spoke of seven unidentified armed men as having been responsible, while
the government openly accused the Ninja rebels.

The ICRC has declined to identify the kidnappers since the abductees were
released. In April 2002, Ninja rebels abducted and killed a French parish
priest of Mayama in the Pool region.

BURUNDI: Implementation of ceasefire agreement delayed

The definitive implementation of a ceasefire agreement between the
transitional government of Burundi and a rebel group, due to have come
into force on Monday, has been delayed.

A statement issued on Monday by Foreign Minister Terence Sinunguruza said
implementation was contingent upon the arrival of an African mission to
monitor the application of the ceasefire accord and set up cantonment
camps, and the establishment of a joint ceasefire commission. He said that
apart from these two issues, there were also "military and political
questions" to be discussed by the government and the main faction of rebel
group, Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la
defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD), led by Pierre Nkurunziza.

"The government is ready to start the debate at any stage," Sinunguruza
said. [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31542]

BURUNDI: GTZ begins food distribution to former rebels

The German aid agency, GTZ, has begun distributing food aid to former
rebels of the CNDD-FDD. "Eleven tonnes of rice, beans, flour, sugar, salt
and cooking oil have been distributed," said a GTZ official, who asked not
to be identified.

The month-long distribution effort, which began on 29 December, is
targeting 14,000 former fighters in Kayange of the Musigati Commune within
the Kibira Forest of northwestern Bubanza Province, the CNDD-FDD's
stronghold.

"Unbelievable but true," Leonce Ngendakumana, a former speaker of the
National Assembly, told IRIN on Monday. "This is a sign that the
government and the rebels are committed to the ceasefire agreement they
signed on 2 December. This is a sign that everything is possible now."
[Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31534]

CAR: President asks France for troops

Central African Republic (CAR) President Ange-Félix Patasse has called on
France to send troops to help a regional African force restore peace in
his country.

"I launch an urgent and formal appeal to France to be militarily present
alongside the CAR army and the CEMAC [Economic and Monetary Community of
Central African States] force to help us recover our territorial integrity
and secure our country as it [France] is currently doing in Cote
d'Ivoire," he said on Tuesday in a nationwide New Year message broadcast
over state-owned Radio Centrafrique.

A French military presence would boost the current presence of some 231
CEMAC soldiers, all of them Gabonese. Patasse said a French presence would
also enable CAR to exploit its oil-rich northern area. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31553]

CAR: Regional peace force begins patrolling Bangui streets

Peacekeeping troops from the CEMAC have begun street patrols in the CAR
capital, Bangui. "While waiting for the right conditions for the
fulfilment of our two other missions, the CEMAC forces began patrols
throughout Bangui today," Gen Rachid Ahmed Ratanga, the commander-in-chief
of the force, told reporters in Bangui on Thursday.

The force has already started to protect President Ange-Felix Patasse. Its
two other missions are to monitor the CAR/Chad border, and to restructure
the CAR army. "We have the necessary means to accomplish our mission,"
Ratanga said. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31520]


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2003


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