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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 171
19 - 25 April 2003


CONTENTS:

BURUNDI: Parliament elects next vice-president
BURUNDI: No more coups, says Buyoya
CAR: President grants amnesty to coup plotters
ROC: Ebola epidemic under control, says government doctor
DRC: Hundreds flee fighting in Uvira
DRC: Kabila nominates first of four vice-presidents
DRC-UGANDA: Withdrawal of Ugandan troops hits snag
UGANDA: Army operations resume in north
RWANDA: Parliament adopts new constitution
RWANDA: Former president still in jail, one year later
RWANDA: Media watchdog criticizes police seizure of newspapers
RWANDA: Amnesty slams government crackdown on political opposition
KENYA: Food security concerns for coming months
KENYA: Malaria report launched as country issues alert

ALSO SEE:

TANZANIA: Maasai rising to the challenge of HIV/AIDS
Full story http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33617

UGANDA: Horrors of LRA child captivity
Full story http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33667

UGANDA: Peace process crumbling in north
Full story http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33613


BURUNDI: Parliament elects next vice-president

The Burundian National Assembly and Senate have confirmed Alphonse Marie
Kadege of the Union pour le progres national political party as the
country's next vice-president, Radio Burundi reported on Friday.

Under the terms of the Arusha accord for peace and reconciliation, the
vice-president during Burundi's second transitional phase, which is due to
begin on 1 May, must be a Tutsi, while the president will be a Hutu.
President Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, is due to hand over power to his deputy,
Domitien Ndayizeye, a Hutu, on 1 May. Kadege will take up his post at the
same time.

The nomination was in accordance with Article 99 of the transitional
constitution, following the failure of the Group of 10 Tutsi parties (G10)
to agree on a candidate. Meetings of the G10 on 13 and 16 April failed to
come up with a candidate for the post of vice-president. The parties could
not agree on any of the three candidates presented: Kadege, Epitace
Bayaganakandi from the MRC Rurenzangemero party and Terence Nsanze, the
leader of the Abasa party.

BURUNDI: No more coups, says Buyoya

President Pierre Buyoya, due to leave office on 1 May, said on Wednesday
he would never try to regain power by force in the future. "I will
continue to remain active in politics, and I will be a candidate once
elections are organised in five to six years," he told reporters. For now,
he said, he would serve as a senator.

Buyoya seized power in two coups: in 1987 when he ousted President
Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, recently released from house arrest, and in 1996
when he ousted Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, a Hutu.

Buyoya said that Ndayizeye and his vice-president designate, Alphonse
Kadege, would have tough tasks ahead of them, such as eradicating poverty
and ending the war. Nevertheless, he expressed optimism for the future. "I
am confident they could return the country to peace, because they are
supported by their respective parties, Frodebu [Front pour la democratie
au Burundi] and Uprona, which are strong parties," he said. Another
advantage for the new leaders, he said, was that Burundians were
determined to achieve peace and that the international community was
willing to help.

CAR: President grants amnesty to coup plotters

Central African Republic (CAR) President Francois Bozize has granted an
amnesty to all those convicted of involvement in the 28 May 2001 coup
attempt led by Andre Kolingba, state-controlled Radio Centrafrique
reported on Wednesday.

In August 2002, a criminal court sentenced around 800 people, 600 of whom
were outside the country, for their roles in the plot to oust then
President Ange-Felix Patasse. Among them, Kolingba, his two sons, and
around 20 others from his Yakoma ethnic group, were sentenced to death in
absentia. Bozize toppled Patasse in a coup on 15 March.

The radio said the amnesty did not mean the beneficiaries would
automatically be reinstated in their former jobs. The minister of justice
and Bozize would examine individual cases. Kolingba, who was president
from 1981 to 1993, announced in March that he was ready to return home
from exile if he were granted an amnesty. Analysts see the amnesty as an
important gesture towards reconciling CAR's ethnic groups. It may
encourage the return home of around 10,000 Yakoma refugees from the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Republic of Congo (ROC).

ROC: Ebola epidemic under control, says government doctor

The Ebola epidemic that broke out in the Cuvette-Ouest District of
northern Republic of Congo in December 2002 has almost been contained, Dr
Joseph Mboussa, the director in the Ministry of Health, told IRIN on
Wednesday.

He said only one death from the virus had been recorded since 14 April. So
far, a total of 142 cases have been reported, he said, but the numbers of
fresh cases were becoming fewer.

Hundreds of residents in villages in the Kelle area, who had fled to the
forests when the epidemic broke out, have started to return home,
Congolese Red Cross officials told IRIN. Fears that these people may have
eaten infected primate meat in the forest and started off a new wave of
the epidemic on their return to their villages had not been realised, the
Red Cross officials said.

Ebola is one of the most virulent viruses known to humankind. It causes a
haemorrhagic fever that is fatal in 50 percent to 90 percent of cases. The
Congolese authorities were first alerted to the Ebola outbreak when troops
of gorillas started dying.

DRC: Hundreds flee fighting in Uvira

Close to 1,000 people fled Uvira, eastern DRC, on Friday after fighting
broke out between rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Goma
(RCD-Goma) forces who control the town, and Mayi Mayi militia, local
sources told IRIN.

"Six shells fell in the town, but no one has been able to see what damage
they've caused because the shooting only stopped around 10 a.m.," the
source said. Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for the UN Mission to the DRC,
known as MONUC, confirmed the fighting. "There has been sporadic shooting
since 0500 local time," he said.

Uvira, in DRC's South Kivu province, lies on the shore of Lake Tanganyika
on the border with Burundi. Radio Bonesha, reporting from the Burundian
capital, Bujumbura, said that a man and two children had been killed by a
shell which landed on their home. RCD-Goma spokesman Jean-Pierre Lola
Kisanga said that fighting was particularly heavy around the port of
Kalungu.

DRC: Kabila nominates first of four vice presidents

President Joseph Kabila has nominated Aboulaye Yerodia Ndombasi as one of
the four vice-presidents of the transitional government of the DRC.

However, the man responsible for foreign relations within the RCD-Goma,
Joseph Mudumbi, told IRIN that Ndombasi's nomination was "an obstacle" to
the transitional government, because he was facing criminal charges in a
Belgian court for inciting hatred against Rwandan Tutsis.

When war broke out in 1998, Ndombasi called on the public "to crush"
Rwandan Tutsis whom he described as "vermin". The Rwandans entered the DRC
in support of the RCD rebels. Ndombasi, a former foreign minister, was a
colleague of the late Laurent-Desire Kabila, the DRC president
assassinated on 16 January 2001.

DRC-UGANDA: Withdrawal of Ugandan troops hits snag
 
The long-awaited withdrawal of Ugandan troops from the DRC suffered a
setback on Thursday when one of three aircraft due to fly back the troops
made an emergency landing at Bunia's tiny airport.

The Ugandan state-owned daily, The New Vision, reported that the 19-seater
United Airlines plane carrying military personnel and equipment had taken
off with a punctured tyre from an airstrip at Mongbwalu, some 50 km
northwest of Bunia. None of the passengers was injured.

Two other Ugandan aircraft, realising that something was wrong, flew
overhead for a few minutes and returned to Entebbe. The newspaper reported
that the incident delayed the departure of the troops but that the Ugandan
army commander, Maj-Gen James Kazini, ordered the commander of Ugandan
forces in Ituri District, Brig Kale Kayihura, to make good the withdrawal.
The New Vision reported that some 1,500 troops were to have left the DRC
by Thursday. It reported that some soldiers started walking back to Uganda
on Tuesday from the DRC towns of Irumu and Kpandroma.

In a parallel development, only 130 UN troops have landed in Bunia so far,
instead of the 200 planned, following technical problems with the plane,
the head of MONUC in eastern DRC, Vadim Periliev, said. "We wanted to have
more deployed by yesterday, but unfortunately the plane could not land,"
he said. Meanwhile, the commander of the UN forces in the DRC, Gen
Mountaga Diallo, told IRIN in Kinshasa that he planned the initial
deployment of 2,500 troops to Ituri after the Ugandan withdrawal.

UGANDA: Army operations resume in north

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has officially torn up a limited
ceasefire agreement offered to the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) insurgents
at the beginning of March.

After an emergency meeting in the northern town of Gulu with senior army
commanders and Presidential Peace Team members on Friday, he ordered a
full-scale resumption of Ugandan army operations against rebels in Lapul
sub-county, Pader District, where the ceasefire was originally called.

"Following the obstinate refusal of the LRA to positively respond to UPDF
[Uganda People's Defence Forces] limited cessation of operations in Lapul
sub-county, Pader District to allow them to make contact with the
government peace team, President Yoweri Museveni has directed the army to
resume operations in the area," a government statement said. It added that
the move was aimed at "stopping the LRA from using the area as a safe
haven, while continuing to murder and terrorise innocent people in
northern Uganda". [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33605]

RWANDA: Parliament adopts new constitution

The Rwandan parliament adopted a draft constitution on Wednesday expected
to come into force in July, state-owned Radio Rwanda reported. All 68
Members of Parliament (MPs) present voted for the adoption.

However, the draft proposition is subject to approval by a national
referendum scheduled for 26 May. It provides for basic human rights and
state organs such as the executive and legislative arms of government. The
legislature would be made up of the National Assembly with 80 members and
a 26-member Senate.

In addition, MPs would serve five-year terms and the nation’s president
would be eligible for election for two seven-year terms. The transitional
period in Rwanda, nine years after the 1994 genocide, is expected to end
with presidential and parliamentary elections set for later in 2003.

News agencies reported that under the new constitution, Rwanda would, for
the first time since the genocide, have a legislature whose members are
elected by universal suffrage. The current MPs were appointed. Rwanda is
governed by a "basic law" drawn from several texts, including the 1991
constitution and peace accords signed in 1993 in Arusha, Tanzania, by the
then Hutu government and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), now in
power under President Paul Kagame.

RWANDA: Former president still in jail, one year later

Former Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu, who was arrested on 23 April
2002 in Kigali for allegedly engaging in illegal political activity, is
still in prison awaiting trial, news organisations reported on Wednesday.

Bizimungu and the former minister for public works, Charles Ntakirutinka,
were arrested and accused of possessing documents that called for civil
disobedience, dividing Rwandans and threatening state security. Their
attempts to be released on bail pending trial have been turned down, most
recently in February by the Kigali Court of Appeal. Bizimungu faces up to
10 years in prison and a fine of US $227 if convicted.

Bizimungu, a Hutu, was named president of Rwanda's government of national
unity formed in July 1994, after the genocide in which some 800,000 Tutsis
and politically moderate Hutus were killed. Before that, he held a series
of senior posts in the RPF. He resigned as president in April 2000, citing
differences with the RPF, and was replaced by the then vice-president,
Kagame.

RWANDA: Media watchdog criticizes police seizure of newspapers

The Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) protested on Wednesday the
seizure of the first issue of a weekly newspaper by Rwandan police. In a
statement, RSF described the action as "censorship" saying that it was an
indication that press freedom was not guaranteed in Rwanda.

RSF said it had written to the Rwandan interior minister, Jean de Dieu
Ntiruhungwa, asking him to return the copies of Indorerwama (Kinyarwanda
language for "The Mirror") to the publisher, journalist Ismael Mbonigaba.

RSF Secretary-General Robert Menard said police seized all the copies of
the new publication on the border with Uganda. The newspaper was published
in Kampala, Uganda. Mbonigaba told RSF that police gave no reason for the
seizure. He has had previous run-ins with authorities over articles he has
written. He was arrested on 22 January and imprisoned for five weeks for
writing in another publication, "Umuseso", that former Prime Minister
Faustin Twagiramungu would run against Kagame in the next presidential
election, scheduled for August 2003.

"Rwanda's press law requires no permission to start up a new publication,
just a simple written declaration and Indorerwamo has provided this,"
Menard said.

RWANDA: Amnesty slams government crackdown on political opposition

The London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International (AI)
criticised the Rwandan government on Tuesday for what it said appeared to
be a "government-orchestrated crackdown on the political opposition",
ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections due to be held later in
2003. The Rwandan government has rejected the allegation.

The criticism by AI follows a 15 April vote by the Rwandan parliament to
dissolve the Movement democratique republicain (MDR) after it was accused
in a parliamentary commission report of propagating a "divisive" ideology.
The report named 47 individuals, including two government ministers and
five MPs in the transitional national assembly. The MDR party is one of
eight parties in Rwanda's government of national unity.

"The recent purge of MDR party members and alleged supporters prior to a
scheduled May constitutional referendum along with the August presidential
and October parliamentary elections, is a blatant infringement of these
individuals' human rights," AI said. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33639]

KENYA: Food security concerns for coming months

After a prolonged delay, Kenya's much awaited long-rains season has
started, but its erratic pattern has raised food security concerns for the
coming months. The rains, which have caused flooding in some areas, have
been unusually low in most arable districts of Eastern, Central and Coast
provinces, raising fears of drought.

The Kenya meteorological department earlier this month indicated that this
year's long rains were likely to be below normal in many parts of the
country. Such an outcome would aggravate the already high levels of food
insecurity among pastoralist communities in the traditionally arid areas
of northwestern Kenya - namely Marakwet, West Pokot, Turkana, and Keiyo
districts.

In a joint report on the country's food vulnerability situation, the
Kenyan government, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the US government's
Famine Early Warning System Network, indicated that the supply of maize -
the country's staple - would not meet national consumption needs,
particularly between July and September. Maize prices had increased
throughout the country, the report noted.

"Subsequently, maize imports may become necessary," it said. "The
magnitude of such imports will only be ascertained towards the beginning
of May when the outcome of the long rain season becomes clear," the report
said.

KENYA: Malaria report launched as country issues alert
 
Malaria is killing more than 3,000 African children every day and
continues to be a major impediment to development on the continent, a new
report launched in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, revealed on Friday.

The report entitled "Malaria in Africa-2003", jointly produced by the UN
Children’s Fund and the World Health Organisation, said the malaria death
toll in Africa was "outrageously high". It stressed the need for access to
new effective anti-malarial drugs for those at risk and an increased use
of highly effective insecticide treated nets.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Friday presided over the report's launch,
part of the global "Roll Back Malaria" initiative launched in 1998. The
report comes just days after the Kenyan government issued a malaria high
alert throughout the country. Health Minister Charity Ngilu noted that
malaria affected up to 70 percent of the country's population and killed
72 children daily.


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