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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 170
12 - 18 April 2003


CONTENTS:

DRC: National follow-up committee convenes
DRC: Ituri commission adopts interim measures to end hostilities
DRC: UN mission concerned at rebel troop movement in the east
DRC: President announces amnesty for rebels
CAR: Government pays salary arrears
BURUNDI: Thousands flee shelling in Bujumbura Rural
BURUNDI: Fighting hampers food distribution in three provinces
UGANDA: UNHCR says no rift with government
UGANDA-RWANDA-TANZANIA: Rwanda safe for returning refugees, says UNHCR head
UGANDA-KENYA: 30 killed in cattle rustling incident
EAST AFRICA: Plans to boost geothermal power

ALSO SEE:

DRC-TANZANIA: Business as usual for Congolese entrepreneurs in refugee
camps at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=33519

DRC: National follow-up committee convenes

President Joseph Kabila convened on Monday the first meeting of the
national follow-up committee which is charged with solving the remaining
obstacles to the formation of a transitional power-sharing government in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). But one of the principal rebel
groups, the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma), stayed
away because of safety concerns.

An RCD-Goma spokesman, Joseph Mudumbi, told IRIN that the group was still
awaiting a response from Kabila to a letter asking for the security of its
delegates to be assured. "We have to bring our security units to Kinshasa,
with at least 15 bodyguards for each delegate," he said.

Joseph Olenghankoy, a member of the unarmed political opposition who took
part in the meeting, said that the RCD-Goma rebels had used the security
issue as a pretext to stay away from the session. The national follow-up
committee was convened as a result of the 2 April peace accord signed by
all parties to the conflict in the DRC in Sun City, South Africa. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=33484]

DRC: Ituri commission adopts interim measures to end hostilities

The 177 delegates of the Ituri Pacification Commission (IPC) adopted on
Sunday a series of interim measures to end hostilities and provide a
provisional administration in Ituri District, eastern Democratic Republic
of the Congo (DRC), the UN Mission in the DRC, MONUC, reported.

MONUC said in a statement that pending the setting up of a transitional
government in Ituri, the delegates had agreed to the creation of a
32-member provisional assembly. There would be an executive body, with a
commissioner and four assistant commissioners responsible respectively for
administration, infrastructure, finance and the economy. The IPC, which
met in Bunia, the principal town of the district, agreed that the interim
bodies would be under the chairmanship of the special representative of
the UN secretary-general in the DRC, Behrooz Sadry.

The delegates agreed that an 18-member commission of prevention and
verification would examine the causes of the conflict and establish
measures to prevent any escalation; it would look into allegations of
violations, establish appropriate groups to investigate them and submit
its results and recommendations to the assembly. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=33470]

On Wednesday, a UN team charged with investigating the massacre in Ituri
travelled from Kinshasa to Bunia, according to Patricia Tome, the MONUC
reports and information. She said the team, made up of representatives
from MONUC and from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights (OHCHR)http://irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=33529, would visit
the village of Drodro and 14 surrounding localities, some 70 km north of
Bunia, where Lendu people allegedly killed their Hema victims on 3 April.

"The investigation may take a minimum of two weeks," she told IRIN, adding
that OHCHR forensic experts should be in Bunia next week.

A MONUC observer mission that visited Drodro soon after the killings saw
21 mass graves and was given a list by local church leaders and survivors
of 996 people they said had died. [Full story at:
http://irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=33529]

DRC: UN mission concerned at rebel troop movement in the east
 
MONUC, expressed grave concern on Wednesday about the movement of RCD-Goma
troops in violation of the 2 April peace agreement signed in Sun City.

"We are greatly concerned by the movement of troops by RCD-Goma, which has
now positioned six brigades between Bukavu and Uvira," Tome told IRIN.
"According to MONUC military officials this represents some 10,000 men."

Tome said that the 12th RCD-Goma brigade was present throughout Bunyatenge
region as far as Mwenga, in violation of the Sun City accord and of an
earlier agreement that the zone should be under the control of another
rebel group, the RCD-Kisangani-Mouvement de liberation (RCD-K-ML). Tome
said that fighting was taking place between RCD-Goma and RCD-K-ML forces
at Mbingi.

Meanwhile, Tome said a MONUC team visited Burale, 70 km southwest of
Bukavu, on Tuesday to investigate reports of clashes there on 6 April
between RCD-Goma forces and fighters belonging to the Mundundu 40 (M40)
militia.

"Most buildings were looted and burnt, including the health centre and
schools, and the Congolese Red Cross confirmed the death of 16 people
following the clashes between RCD-Goma and Mundundu 40, which lost three
men," Tome said.

She said Burale was now under the control of the 101st RCD-Goma batallion
and that the population had fled to take refugee in the area controlled by
M40. The team was told girls had suffered sexual attacks, she said. M40
formerly had close ties with RCD-Goma, but members had apparently been
angered by the arrest by RCD-Goma of their leader.

DRC: President announces amnesty for rebels

President Joseph Kabila signed on Tuesday an amnesty law pardoning rebels
who took up arms during more than four years of conflict in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC). However, the amnesty does not cover war
crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide commited during the period,
national television reported.

The amnesty pardons rebels who took up arms or committed "political
offenses" from the start of the war on 2 August 1998 to 4 April 2003, the
day on which Kabila promulgated the transitional constitution agreed in
the 2 April peace accord signed in Sun City, South Africa, the television
reported.

"Genocide and crimes against humanity are not covered by this amnesty,"
the television said, quoting the new law.

Various rebel representatives said on television they were satisfied with
the law.

"It conforms to the agreements that we signed ... and it strengthens
national reconciliation,"  Joseph Mudumbi, of the Rwandan-backed
Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-GOMA), said.

Jose Endundo, of the Ugandan-backed Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo
(MLC), also said his group was satisfied. The MLC was accused in January
of committing acts of cannibalism against pygmies in Mambasa, Orientale
Province, and an investigation by the UN Mission to the DRC (MONUC) said
the testimony of survivors confirmed the allegations.  Endundo said the
MLC had carried out its own inquiry and found no evidence to support the
accusations.

The Kinshasa-based human rights group L'Association africaine de defense
des droits de l'homme (ASADHO) welcomed the law but expressed
reservations. "It's a law which will help reconciliation between all
parties and enable them to work without rancour. But we fear it could
sanction impunity," Amigo Gonde, the ASADHO president, said.

CAR: Government pays salary arrears

The new administration in the Central African Republic has begun paying
salary arrears for civil servants, the police and the military, the
government-controlled Radio Centrafrique reported on 13 April. The
government promised that from the beginning of April it would pay salaries
monthly.

"We strongly commit ourselves to paying every month's salaries from now
on," Daniel Nditifei Boyssembe, the junior minister of economy, finance
and budget, said.

The payments, made on 11 April, were civil servants' salary arrears of
April 2001, the June 2001 arrears for the police and those of August 2001
for the military. Boyssembe said the government would pay the remaining 20
to 34 salary arrears when the country's financial situation improved. "It
would be a lie if I said that we could pay three months' salaries next
week," he said. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=33483]

BURUNDI: Thousands flee shelling in Bujumbura Rural
 
Thousands of people fled Kanyosha Commune, southeast of the Burundian
capital, Bujumbura, following heavy fighting on Thursday between
government forces and fighters loyal to rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza,
local officials told IRIN.

The governor of Bujumbura Rural Province, Ignace Ntawembarira, said most
of the commune's 80,000 residents fled when rebels from the Conseil
national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la
democratie (CNDD-FDD) began shelling the commune from the Musumba hills.
Kanyosha is in Bujumbura Rural Province.

Ntawembarira said most of the people fled towards Ruyaga commune and
Buhonga parish, also in Bujumbura Rural. Burundi army spokesman Col
Augustin Nzabampema said at a news conference that the rebels, together
with those of another CNDD-FDD faction led by Agathon Rwasa, used Katyusha
rockets and 82 mm mortars. [Full story at:
http://irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=33554]

BURUNDI: Fighting hampers food distribution in three provinces

Insecurity in three provinces in Burundi hampered the distribution of food
by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) between 7 and 13 April, according to
a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA).

OCHA's weekly situation report said WFP distributed 358.55 mt of food to
43,810 people in Bujumbura Rural, Muramvya and Ruyigi provinces, but
distribution was hampered in Kayanza, parts of Muramvya and Gitega "due to
insecurity". [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=33462]

UGANDA: UNHCR says no rift with government

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
has said the abrupt expulsion of its Uganda representative, Saihou Saidy,
by the Ugandan authorities does not reflect any significant rift between
UNHCR and government. Saidy was expelled following a disagreement over the
relocation of Sudanese refugees.

"We are agreed about the need to relocate these refugees because of
overcrowding," a UNHCR spokeswoman, Bushra Malik, told IRIN. "We just had
a small difference of opinion regarding the choice of placement."

On Monday, Saidy was asked to leave Uganda after disagreeing with a
government decision to move 16,000 Sudanese refugees away from Kiryandongo
camp in Masindi District to the Madiokollo and Ikafi camps in the West
Nile region.

"We have some security concerns about these areas," said Malik. "We have
assurances from the government that they would provide adequate
protection. But we wanted them to assess the situation a bit more than
they did." [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=33515]

UGANDA-RWANDA-TANZANIA: Rwanda safe for returning refugees, says UNHCR
head

Rwanda is safe for refugees in Tanzania and Uganda to return home, UN High
Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers told IRIN on Tuesday. However, he
added that any repatriation must be voluntary.

Lubbers, who visited Uganda and Tanzania as part of a tour of East Africa,
was speaking at a news conference in Nairobi. "In Tanzania, we informed
the refugees that they could return to Rwanda. Some have returned but many
remain," he said.

The position taken by the Tanzanian government to repatriate most Rwandan
refugees by March, he said, had resulted in a number of them entering
Uganda. Such people, he said, were "not refugees any more". However, he
said, "they could register individually as refugees" in Uganda.

On 12 April, an international NGO, the Lawyers Committee, issued a
statement in New York saying at least 6,000 mainly Rwandans and Burundians
who had left Tanzania were living in unofficial camps in southwestern
Uganda without adequate food, housing and medical care. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=33513]

UGANDA-KENYA: 30 killed in cattle rustling incident

Despite several agreements between Uganda and Kenya to disarm
pastoralists, cattle rustling along the border persisted this month,
causing heavy human suffering.

Kenyan police said members of Kenya's Pokot community last weekend
attacked three villages in Kapchorwa District, eastern Uganda, killing
over 30 people and torching some 300 houses. They also stole cattle, and
over 2,000 people were left homeless, local media reports said.

Local leaders in Kapchorwa district have blamed the attack on the Ugandan
government's decision to remove some 400 home guards to join the Ugandan
army, leaving the area vulnerable to attacks. The residents called on the
government to give them guns to protect themselves, The New Vision
government-owned daily said.

However, Resident District Commissioner Tezira Jamwa said the attack was a
response to similar raids by the Sebei from Uganda on the Pokot earlier in
the month, in which they stole over 200 head of cattle, the paper added.
[Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=33469]

EAST AFRICA: Plans to boost geothermal power

East African countries have put in place plans to dramatically increase
electricity generated from "hot rocks" by 2020. The plans to boost the
region's geothermal energy capacity were drawn up at a key meeting of
experts at the headquarters of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in the
Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

During the meeting, government experts, scientists, engineers and private
sector representatives from 10 countries in the region set a "challenging
yet achievable target" to develop 1,000 MW of geothermal power across East
Africa. This is equivalent to the electricity needs of several million
people in the region by 2020, UNEP said in a statement.

The experts, from the Comoros Islands, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya,
Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, stressed that geothermal
energy was environmentally clean and, unlike hydroelectricity, was not
vulnerable to droughts.

"It also is not prone to unpredictable price fluctuations as can be the
case with oil-fired power generation," the statement added. Geothermal
technology, which harnesses steam produced by hot rocks deep in the earth
to generate electricity, is considered to be a promising form of renewable
energy, whose potential - particularly in the Great Rift Valley region -
had until now remained largely untapped, UNEP added.


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


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