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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 156
04 - 10 January 2003


CONTENTS:

DRC: Court condemns 26 to death, acquits 45 in Kabila murder trial
DRC: Bishop accuses militias of cannibalism
DRC: Another 35,000 displaced by ongoing fighting
DRC: Kinshasa inaugurates national diamond certification programme
DRC: Masire to prepare final session of inter-Congolese dialogue
DRC-BURUNDI: Thousands of Congolese flee to Burundi
RWANDA: Up to 40,000 detainees to be granted provisional liberty
RWANDA-TANZANIA: Thousands more "Rwandans" step forward for repatriation
CAR: Annan concerned about situation
CAR: WFP resumes food distribution to May 2001 coup victims
KENYA-UGANDA: 10 killed by Kenyan cattle rustlers

DRC: Court condemns 26 to death, acquits 45 in Kabila murder trial

The Military Order Court in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
capital, Kinshasa, sentenced 26 people to death on Tuesday and acquitted
another 45 accused of involvement in the assassination of President
Laurent-Desire Kabila, who ruled the country from May 1997 to January
2001.

Those condemned included Col Eddy Kapend, Kabila's former aide de camp.
Kapend was identified as the ringleader of the killers. However, the court
acquitted Fono Onokoko, the wife of Rashidi Mizele, Kabila's bodyguard,
who, prosecutors said, had shot Kabila dead on 16 January.

Defence lawyers said they deplored the large number of death sentences
from among the 135 accused, who have been standing trial over the past 10
months, and said they would strive to have the court's ruling overturned.
[Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31609]

DRC: Bishop accuses militias of cannibalism

Monsignor Melchisedec Sikulu Paluku, the bishop of Beni-Butembo in
northeastern DRC, has accused two local militias of cannibalism. The
militias are the Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo (MLC), headed by
Jean-Pierre Bemba, and the Rassemblement congolais pour la
democratie-National (RCD-N), led by Roger Lumbala.

"People who have fled the advance of MLC fighters and their RCD-N allies
in the Beni-Mambasa axis have reported that prisoners and hostages were
being forced to eat their own ears, big toes and other body parts," Sikulu
told IRIN from the northeastern town of Beni, North Kivu Province.

He said that pygmies were particularly affected by "these unimaginable
atrocities". Quoting reports by internally displaced persons (IDPs) who
had fled to areas near Beni, he added: "The invaders - that is the
fighters of Jean-Pierre Bemba and those of Roger Lumbala - eat pygmies."
[Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31607]

The UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, announced on Wednesday it had
opened investigations into reports of cannibalism and human rights
violations by rebels near Beni. "A MONUC team has started the
investigations [in the area] where 80,000 to 120,000 people are
displaced," Patricia Tome, MONUC's chief of public information, told
reporters in the capital, Kinshasa.

Investigators have already interviewed 200 displaced people. Tome said
those interviewed were mostly rape victims, those whose properties were
looted, those whose animals were slaughtered, and witnesses to summary and
extrajudicial executions. However, she said, the investigators had not yet
uncovered "precise information" indicating cannibalism. The outcome of the
investigation would be sent to the UN Security Council. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31648]

DRC: Another 35,000 displaced by ongoing fighting

Some 35,000 people fled heavy artillery fire around Makeke, on the border
between North Kivu and the Ituri District of northeastern DRC, to Beni on
31st December 2002, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

"We see only part of the displaced population," Philippe Hamel, the MSF
head of mission, said. "We fear that in total there might be over 155,000
displaced people in the areas between Butembo, Beni, Mambasa and Komanda
alone."

Ongoing fighting and violence in the region were preventing MSF medical
teams from accessing a large part of the population, the organisation
reported, with tens of thousands of people remaining beyond reach.
Dispensaries set up in early December to cater for 25,000 people were now
stretched to serve 60,000. The health posts that had recently been
reopened were now operating "far beyond full capacity", MSF said, adding
that it was in the process of setting up hospital tents. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31582]

DRC: Kinshasa inaugurates national diamond certification programme

The government of the DRC has officially launched its national diamond
certification programme on Tuesday, as part of its participation in the
Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, which took effect on 1 January.

The DRC was among 52 countries that agreed on 4 November 2002 in
Interlaken, Switzerland, to adopt the international certification scheme
designed to stop the flow of "blood diamonds" into world markets. The
implementation of the Kimberley Process will mean that all rough diamonds
passing through or into a participating country must be transported in a
sealed container and labelled with a certificate of origin.

"From today forward, all diamonds not accompanied by the certificate of
origin will be seized by the customs officials of importing countries,"
Jean Louis Nkulu, the DRC minister of mines, was quoted as saying by La
Tempete des Tropiques Kinshasa-based newspaper. [Full story:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31649]

DRC: Masire to prepare final session of inter-Congolese dialogue

The facilitator for the inter-Congolese dialogue, Ketumile Masire, is due
in Kinshasa on Sunday to begin preparations for the final session of
national peace and reconciliation talks, his office reported on Friday.

Masire's visit follows the agreement signed on 17 December 2002 in
Pretoria, South Africa, by all parties to the dialogue.

During his mission, Masire, who is also a former president of Botswana,
will confer with these parties, including Democratic Republic of the Congo
President Joseph Kabila. The meetings will focus mainly on the date and
the venue for the final plenary session of the dialogue that, under the
Rules of Procedure, will conclude negotiations that began in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, in October 2001.

"With the signing of the latest accord in Pretoria, I think it is
necessary for the Congolese to finish now with the dialogue and embark
seriously on the transition period that will see their country come out of
its current state," Masire said.

DRC-BURUNDI: Thousands of Congolese flee to Burundi

A new wave of at least 8,500 Congolese refugees has arrived in Burundi
following renewed fighting in South Kivu Province in eastern Democratic
Republic of the Congo, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) reported on Tuesday.

The latest conflict erupted on 26 December 2002 between the Mayi-Mayi
traditional militia and the RCD-Goma in rural areas of South Kivu. By 31
December, the fighting had engulfed the strategic town of Uvira on the
shores of Lake Tanganyika, sending thousands of refugees across the
border, the UNHCR reported.

It added that since 26 December, UNHCR in Burundi had registered 7,386
refugees at a transit site in Rugombo in Cibitoke Province, and 1,200 at
another site in Gatumba, Bujumbura Rural. Burundi already shelters at
least 12,000 Congolese refugees who had fled an outbreak of hostilities
between the two rebel groups in October 2002, UNHCR said. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31626]

RWANDA: Up to 40,000 detainees to be granted provisional liberty

The Rwandan government is to grant provisional liberty within a month to
between 30,000 and 40,000 prison detainees, including those involved in
the 1994 genocide, news agencies have reported.

President Paul Kagame had instructed the relevant judicial authorities to
free all detainees who ran the risk of being imprisoned for longer than
provided for under the law, the Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported on
Monday.

The detainees included people who had confessed to crimes of genocide, but
had not been involved in planning or instigating it (classified as
Category 1 suspects), those who were minors when they committed the acts
of genocide, and also people accused of ordinary crimes.

"The release of these detainees is without prejudice to the continuation
of criminal proceedings against them," RNA said, citing a government
communique. The communique also reiterated the government's decision to
release elderly and very sick detainees. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31611]

RWANDA-TANZANIA: Thousands more "Rwandans" step forward for repatriation

Over the last week, about 3,000 Rwandan refugees who previously tried to
avoid forced repatriation operations have stepped forward, seeking help to
return home, according to the spokeswoman for the UNHCR in Tanzania.

The refugees, who either changed their nationality to enable them to live
in Burundian refugee camps or escaped into Tanzanian villages, are now
re-registering as Rwandans and demanding repatriation, in accordance with
the recently completed voluntary repatriation operation, the spokeswoman,
Ivana Unluova, told IRIN on Thursday.

She said UNHCR would begin repatriating these refugees "as soon as
possible" and that the final tally of newly registered Rwandans could
reach 12,000 as more refugees follow suit. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31651]

CAR: Annan concerned about situation

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned that the armed rebellion in the
north of the Central African Republic (CAR) and the deprivations local
populations are suffering are "all destabilising factors" that raise
tensions and hamper efforts to restore peace in the country, according to
UN News.

It quoted him on Tuesday as saying in his new report to the Security
Council on the UN Peace-building Support Office in the CAR (BONUCA), that
the overall security and military situation in the north had
"deteriorated" along with the country's political relations with
neighbouring Chad. He said supporters of former army chief of staff,
Francois Bozize, had compromised the gradual easing of the tensions that
emerged following their attack on the capital, Bangui, on 25 October 2002.

"The incident prompted subsequent claims by authorities in the CAR that
Chadian nationals who supported that faction were involved in the
uprising," UN News reported. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31623]

CAR: WFP resumes food distribution to May 2001 coup victims

The World Food Programme (WFP) in the CAR has resumed food distribution in
the southern suburbs of Bangui to 84,000 victims of a coup attempt in
2001, according to the agency's programme officer.

WFP suspended distributions in the area on 26 December 2002 after its
employees received verbal and physical threats from discontented people
whose names were not on the food distribution lists. With a view to
resolving the situation, the WFP and the Femmes croyantes mediatrices de
la paix, a local Christian women's NGO that distributes WFP food in
southern Bangui, convened a meeting on 3 January with leaders of Bangui's
sixth district.

"We held this meeting to ask them to brief their people about the
objective of the [food distribution] project and on how the census of the
beneficiaries was carried out," Bango-Makoudou said.

In total, 1,700 families - that is about 5,000 people - then received
their one-month rations, composed of maize flour, beans, corn-soya blend
flour, salt and vegetable oil. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31646]

KENYA-UGANDA: 10 killed by Kenyan cattle rustlers

A group of suspected Kenyan cattle rustlers last weekend attacked two
Ugandan villages, killing at least 10 people. They also drove away between
700 and 800 head of cattle.

According to media reports, some 200 armed Pokots crossed from
northwestern Kenya into Uganda and raided over 20 homes in the villages of
Namalu and Takora, in Nakapiripiti, some 500 km northeast of the capital,
Kampala. The minister in charge of the Karamoja region in northeastern
Uganda, Peter Lokeris, confirmed the incident, saying he hoped the new
Kenyan government, which was sworn in on 30 December 2002, would be more
effective in cooperating on peace and security issues along the common
border with Uganda.

Lokeris said this was the second attack in two months in the area, where
previously communities had lived in relative peace for years. "This an
issue that will be dealt with by the two governments," he told IRIN. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31585]


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


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