U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
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 164
01 - 07 March 2003


CONTENTS:

DRC: Belligerents agree on constitution, unified national army
DRC: Food aid reaches Ankoro
DRC: 30,000 displaced by attacks in Lomami river valley, Kasai Oriental
ROC: Ebola toll reaches 110 cases, 89 deaths
CAR: Dialogue coordination team meets rebel leaders
CAR: Calm returns to southwest after MLC, army standoff
BURUNDI: Government, rebels in talks again
BURUNDI: Opposition leader in prison despite court's release order
RWANDA: Kagame briefs Bush on situation in Great Lakes region
RWANDA: Trio arrested, charged with killing American tourists
RWANDA: Former army lieutenant pleads not guilty to genocide
RWANDA-TANZANIA: Fewer than 1,000 Rwandan refugees remain
UGANDA: Museveni dismisses LRA ceasefire announcement
UGANDA: Three soldiers executed after unfair trial, says AI

ALSO SEE:

CAR: Interview with Lamine Cisse, UN secretary-general's representative
at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32617

DRC: Belligerents agree on constitution, unified national army

Parties to the inter-Congolese dialogue (ICD) agreed on Thursday to a
programme for the drafting of a constitution and for a future unified army
for a period of a national transitional government eventually leading to
national democratic elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(DRC), following 11 days of discussions held in Pretoria, South Africa.

Delegates representing the Kinshasa government, the Ugandan-backed
Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC), the Rassemblement congolais pour
la democratie-Kisangani/Mouvement de liberation (RCD-K/ML), Mayi-Mayi
militias, the unarmed political opposition, and civil society signed the
two documents in the presence of Moustapha Niasse, UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan's special envoy for the DRC peace process.

The two documents were signed later in the night by the Rwandan-backed
RCD-Goma rebel group, which had earlier walked out of the talks in protest
against the capture on Thursday of Bunia in northeastern DRC by the Uganda
People's Defence Forces, driving the Union des patriotes congolais, with
whom RCD-Goma is allied, out of the city. RCD-Goma alleged that this was a
manoeuvre on the part of Kinshasa in attempt to prevent them from signing
the two accords. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32704]

DRC: Food aid reaches Ankoro

A 13-ship convoy carrying 626.4 mt of food aid has arrived in Ankoro,
Katanga Province, in southeastern DRC, the UN World Food Programme (WFP)
told IRIN on Friday.

World Vision International (WVI) will organise the delivery of the food to
recipients. In a statement issued on Wednesday, WVI said the assistance
comprised maize, oil and salt rations, which would be distributed to
people in Ankoro, who had been "in urgent need" of food aid since December
2002. Of the 67,000 needy, 44,000 were internally displaced persons (IDPs)
who had fled fighting in other parts of the country, it said.

WVI described the effort as "the largest delivery of food aid ever to be
shipped" in the DRC. The food aid left Lubumbashi, about 600 km from
Ankoro, by train on Saturday. It was later loaded onto the 13 ships for
the voyage down the River Congo to Ankoro. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32705]

DRC: 30,000 displaced by attacks in Lomami river valley, Kasai Oriental

Slightly over 30,000 people have been displaced since late 2002 by attacks
and counterattacks by Mayi-Mayi militias and the RCD-Goma along the
western bank of the River Lomami, between Katako Kombe and Lubefu, in
Kasai Oriental Province, central DRC, according to Catholic Relief
Services (CRS), the official relief and development agency of the US
Catholic community.

"The displaced report that their villages were repeatedly looted and
burned, that crops were destroyed, and that there were cases of torture,
execution and rape. Most of the displaced are staying with host families,
while others sleep in the open. It is reported that some additional
victims of the attacks have yet to emerge from the forest for fear of
being mistaken for Mayi-Mayi by the RCD-Goma forces," CRS stated.

The affected area of the river valley has been under the control of
RCD-Goma since early 1998. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32604]

ROC: Ebola toll reaches 110 cases, 89 deaths

By Wednesday, 110 cases of the deadly Ebola virus had been confirmed in
the Cuvette-Ouest Region of the Republic of Congo (ROC), resulting in 89
deaths so far, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported. Seventy-nine
of the deaths occurred in the district of Kelle, while another 10 occurred
in Mbomo District.

WHO further reported that another 86 individuals who had been in contact
with people suffering from the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever were
being monitored.

Meanwhile, scientists meeting in the capital, Brazzaville, at a conference
to discuss the current outbreak and means of fighting the disease in the
future, said they had not yet identified the reservoir of the Ebola virus
- a critical element needed in planning more effective strategies to
combat the disease. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32679]

Meanwhile, bush-meat vendors in Ouesso, the largest town in Sangha Region,
have reported a sharp drop in sales due to consumers having been
frightened by the Ebola virus, a market administrator told IRIN. This has
resulted in new consumer patterns with people switching to fish, beef or
chicken, Odi-Aya, a teacher in Ouesso, told IRIN on Tuesday. Outbreaks of
Ebola have been associated with people eating primates infected with the
virus. [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32680]

CAR: Dialogue coordination team meets rebel leaders

The leader of the national dialogue coordination team of the Central
African Republic (CAR), Bishop Paulin Pomodimo, held talks with leaders of
the Coordination des patriotes centrafricains (CPC, an opposition alliance
based in Paris) during a recent trip to Europe and the United States,
according to Radio France International (RFI).

"I realised there were many converging points of view between what the
rebels were saying and what we wish for [in] holding the national
dialogue," Pomodimo told the government-owned Radio Centrafrique on return
to the capital, Bangui, on Sunday.

RFI reported on Sunday that Pomodimo and his deputy, Henri Maidou, had met
Karim Meckassoua, the CPC secretary-general. The CPC groups together all
opposition leaders in exile, including the former CAR army chief of staff,
Francois Bozize, whose troops have been fighting the government since
October 2002. Although Pomodimo and Maidou did not meet Bozize, they held
talks with his envoys in Paris. Bozize, who was chief of staff until
August 2001, has been living in exile in France since October 2002 when he
was expelled from neighbouring Chad. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32650]

CAR: Calm returns to southwest after MLC, army standoff

Calm returned on Thursday to the southern CAR town of Mongoumba and nearby
villages, after a five-day standoff between government troops and their
MLC allies from the DRC.

Witnesses said the standoff began on 2 March when government troops in
Mongoumba, 189 km south of the capital, Bangui, stopped two river boats
carrying MLC militiamen withdrawing from the CAR with goods they had
looted. The troops seized the boats, then disarmed and arrested the
passengers.

After subsequently being released, the militiamen crossed the River
Oubangui for the DRC, only to return on Wednesday with reinforcements.
They then looted the homes of the town's 10,000 residents and its Roman
Catholic mission. "Ten thousand people have run away into the bush and to
Betou," Alphonse Kossi, a priest and the national executive
secretary-general of Catholic relief agency, Caritas, told IRIN on Friday.

Betou is south of the ROC's border with the CAR, on the right bank of the
Oubangui. The MLC and government troops exchanged fire during the episode,
and UN-sponsored Radio Ndeke Luka quoted "clerical sources" as saying
there was a heavy mortar bombardment of the town from the DRC side of the
river. Kossi said the MLC fighters had finally left Mongoumba on Thursday,
and Caritas was considering how best to help the displaced people of
Mongouba. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32696]

BURUNDI: Government, rebels in talks again

Burundi's transitional government and the country's main rebel movement,
Pierre Nkurunziza's faction of the Conseil national pour la defense de la
democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD), recommitted
themselves on Sunday to implementing past agreements to end nearly 10
years of civil war.

The commitment was made in a joint communiqué they signed at the end of a
two-day regional summit on Burundi in the Tanzanian commercial capital,
Dar es Salaam. Presidents Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Benjamin Mkapa of
Tanzania, Pierre Buyoya of Burundi, and South African Deputy President
Jacob Zuma, who is the facilitator of the Burundi ceasefire agreement
signed by warring factions, attended the summit. CNDD-FDD
Secretary-General Hussein Radjabu represented Nkurunziza, who had been
invited to the meeting, AFP reported. They met in an effort to break the
stalemate over full implementation of the ceasefire. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32600]

BURUNDI: Opposition leader in prison despite court's release order

A leading Burundi opposition politician, Charles Mukasi, is still in
prison after a Bujumbura court ordered him to be freed, because defence
lawyers have been unable to find the deputy public prosecutor to sign the
release warrant, according to Net Press, a privately owned agency.

The agency had reported earlier this week that Mukasi's lawyers had also
sought the Bujumbura city prosecutor who also refused to sign the warrant
until it was endorsed by the deputy public prosecutor.

Mukasi, who is president of the Union pour le progres national, has been
in Mpimba Prison since 21 January. He was arrested after calling for the
restoration of the rule of law in Burundi. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32642]

RWANDA: Kagame briefs Bush on situation in Great Lakes region

During a visit to the White House on Tuesday, Rwandan President Paul
Kagame briefed US President George W. Bush and US National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice on the political and security situation in
Africa's Great Lakes region.

According to a statement issued on Wednesday by his office, Kagame said
the presence of ex-FAR [Rwandan former army] and Interahamwe [Hutu
extremist militias] - largely responsible for the 1994 slaughter of about
800,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus - in neighbouring DRC
"continued to pose a threat to Rwanda's security".

He urged the US government to bring pressure to bear on the DRC government
"to fulfil its commitments under the Lusaka and Pretoria agreements",
adding that the formation of a national unity government in Kinshasa
"would stabilise the region and improve the prospects for peace".

For his part, Bush "congratulated Rwanda on the decision to withdraw all
its troops from the DRC", and expressed Washington's support for efforts
to achieve peace, security and democracy in the region. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32658]

RWANDA: Trio arrested, charged with killing American tourists

The FBI, with help of the Rwandan government, arrested three suspected
rebels in Rwanda and transferred them to Puerto Rico where they were
charged with the 1999 killings of two American tourists in Uganda, the
Associated Press (AP) reported from Washington DC on Monday.

The Americans, together with four British and two New Zealand tourists,
were hacked and bludgeoned to death during a trip to see rare mountain
gorillas in the Bwindi National Park in Uganda.

AP quoted the US authorities as saying that Rob Haubner and his wife,
Susan Miller, had been among the English-speaking tourists targeted by
Rwandan Hutu rebels "in a bid to weaken US and British support for the new
Rwandan government".

"This was a vicious, cold-blooded, brutal attack that was intended to make
a political point," AP quoted US Attorney Roscoe Howard of the District of
Columbia, where a federal grand jury indicted the three on 25 February, as
saying.

The news agency said those charged with murder, conspiracy and other
counts were identified as Rwandan nationals Leonidas Bimenyiamana, 34,
Francois Karake, 38, and Gregoire Nyaminami, 32. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32625]

RWANDA: Former army lieutenant pleads not guilty to genocide

A Rwandan army former lieutenant, Ildephonse Hategekimana, who was
arrested in Brazzaville, pleaded not guilty to five counts of genocide,
incitement to commit genocide, and crimes against humanity (rape and other
inhuman acts) when he appeared on 28 February before a judge at the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

In a statement issued that day, the tribunal said Hategekimana, who was
commander of the Ngoma camp in Butare Province, southern Rwanda, had
denied the charges before Judge Pavel Dolenc of Slovenia.

The tribunal said that in his position as camp commander, Hategekimana had
allegedly ordered, transported, and led soldiers and militiamen to attack
Tutsi civilians, "including street-by-street killings in the Muslim
quarters of Ngoma, and attacks at a convent and at the Groupe Scolaire
where orphans were gathered".

Hategekimana had also watched an attack at a dispensary while preventing
his soldiers from intervening to stop it, the tribunal reported. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32599]

RWANDA-TANZANIA: Fewer than 1,000 Rwandan refugees remain

Fewer than 1,000 Rwandan refugees remain in Tanzania - roughly 700 in
Ngara and 300 in Kibondo - with returns continuing, according to Ivana
Unluova, the spokeswoman for the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

She told IRIN on Monday that of these remaining refugees, almost 40 had
been identified for possible resettlement in third countries and, under
the UNHCR's agreement with the government of Tanzania, they should be
allowed to stay in the country until the resettlement procedure was
finalised.

A 2 March deadline had been set for the repatriation of all remaining
Rwandan refugees. However, UNHCR said that collaboration with Tanzanian
authorities was good, and the additional time necessary was not presenting
any problems. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32624]

UGANDA: Museveni dismisses LRA ceasefire announcement

President Museveni has dismissed the ceasefire announced on 1 March by the
leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group, Joseph Kony.

"There is no ceasefire. [The] Ugandan People's Defence Forces (UPDF)
cannot respect Kony's unilateral ceasefire. It is a ploy for him and his
terrorists to survive through the dry season. Ceasefires must be
bilateral, not like Kony's," the newspaper quoted Museveni as saying on
Thursday.

Meanwhile, the UPDF is continuing to pursue the LRA. "A ceasefire is not
just words, it is words and action," the army spokesman, Shaban Bantariza,
told IRIN on Thursday. "Therefore, if they [the LRA] can claim they have
declared a ceasefire and in just within two days they make nine
violations, then we have no option but to pursue them." The LRA reportedly
violated its ceasefire declaration over the weekend. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32671]

The LRA had earlier broken the ceasefire by killing 10 people and
abducting 50 others, Paddy Ankunda, a UPDF army commander told IRIN on
Wednesday. The 10 were killed in Dure and Mucwini in Pader and Kitgum
districts of northern Uganda, while most of the 50 abductees were taken
from a primary school in Omoro county in Gulu, he said. Of the 50
abductees, over 20 had subsequently been "rescued" by the army, he added.
[Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32655]

UGANDA: Three soldiers executed after unfair trial, says AI

The rights group, Amnesty International (AI), has condemned the execution
on Monday of three members of the UPDF convicted by a military court of
murdering civilians.

"These men seem to have been made scapegoats to give the impression that
the army deals swiftly with those who have committed crimes," said AI.

The organisation added that the manner in which they were tried, and the
speed with which the executions were carried out without any possibility
of an appeal, constituted a denial of their right to a fair and
independent trial. Two of the accused, Kambacho Ssenyonjo and Alfred
Okech, who were found guilty of the killing of three men last January, had
reportedly been denied access to legal representation, AI said. The
executions were reportedly carried out only one hour after the sentences
were passed. The other UPDF soldier, Richard Wigiri, was convicted of
murdering a woman last December. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=32675]


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


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