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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 203
29 November - 05 December 2003


CONTENTS:

GREAT LAKES: "Friends of the Great Lakes" meet
BURUNDI: Former rebels arrive to take up ministerial posts
BURUNDI: 6,000 ex-rebels ready for cantonment
BURUNDI: Zuma appeals to UN to take over peacekeeping
RWANDA: UN tribunal convicts media leaders of genocide
CAR: Transitional calendar revised
ROC: Ebola deaths increase
DRC: Relief operations launched following ferry tragedy
DRC: MONUC helping to break "vicious circle of fear" about HIV/AIDS
DRC: MONUC repatriates Rwandan Hutu ex-combatants
DRC-UGANDA: Museveni's brother resigns amid corruption, looting charges
UGANDA: New deadline for free anti-retrovirals
KENYA: MPs under pressure to "pay back" constituents, says report

ALSO SEE:

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GREAT LAKES: "Friends of the Great Lakes" meet

The UN secretary-general's special representative to the Great Lakes
region, Ibrahima Fall, met delegates from 24 countries at the inaugural
meeting of the Group of Friends of the Great Lakes Region on Thursday to
discuss preparations for a 2004 international conference on the region's
peace and security, UN News reported.

Convened by Canada and co-chaired by The Netherlands, the meeting was held
to coordinate ways of providing political, diplomatic, financial and
technical support for the conference, Fall said. The conference is due to
be held in Tanzania in June 2004.

According to UN News, the Group of Friends includes the five veto-holding
permanent members of the Security Council: the United Kingdom, the
People's Republic of China, France, Russia and the United States.

A statement issued on Wednesday by Fall's office in the Kenyan capital,
Nairobi, said the Group of Friends would discuss their contribution to the
planned activities of the office of the special representative for the
Great Lakes region to prepare for the holding of the conference on peace,
security, democracy and development in the region.

Other countries represented in the Group of Friends include Angola,
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy,
Japan, Kuwait, Nigeria, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.


BURUNDI: Former rebels arrive to take up ministerial posts

Two members of Burundi's largest former rebel movement, the Conseil
national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la
democratie (CNDD-FDD), who were recently appointed ministers, arrived on
30 November in the capital, Bujumbura, after several years in exile.

The CNDD-FDD officials, Simon Nyandwi and Onesime Nduwimana, were
appointed on 23 November. Nyandwi holds the Ministry of the Interior and
Nduwimana that of communications. He Nduwimana is also the government
spokesman.

Nyandwi arrived from Tanzania and Nduwimana from Germany. Both men had
spent the last eight years in exile.

"It's time to put together our efforts for the return of peace and give up
division among Burundians," Nyandwi said. "Burundians killed each other
because of ethnic and regional divisions: this is the past, we have to
look forward to the reconstruction of our nation."


BURUNDI: 6,000 ex-rebels ready for cantonment

So far, 6,000 CNDD-FDD fighters are assembled at Kibongo Commune in the
southern province of Makamba, ready for cantonment, CNDD-FDD spokesman Maj
Gelase Ndabirabe said on Thursday.

"They are in what we call assembly zones," he told IRIN in Bujumbura.
"Once the cantonment sites are ready, they will go there for
demobilisation and disarmament." He said the movement was also identifying
other sites for cantonment of its additional fighters.

Ndabirabe and six other senior officers of the movement arrived in
Bujumbura on Wednesday to take their seats on the Joint Ceasefire
Commission comprising the government and various rebel groups.

He said the fighters were receiving food from the African Union, the
continent's foremost political body. He said 2,600 kg of cassava flour,
1,550 kg of beans, 360 kg of palm oil, 250 kg of small fish known locally
as ndagala, 150 kg of rice, 150 kg of sugar and 50 kg of salt were
distributed Tuesday to 1,500 fighters at Makamba. However, he said more
food would be needed as even a greater number of fighters were expected.


BURUNDI: Zuma appeals to UN to take over peacekeeping

South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who is also the facilitator of
the Burundi peace process, appealed on Thursday to the UN Security Council
to take over peacekeeping operations in the country, saying the level of
violence in the country had fallen sharply this year, UN News reported.

At a meeting of the council in New York, Zuma also called for greater
financial support from the international community for the Burundi peace
process.

A peacekeeping force of the African Union (AU), comprising troops from
Ethiopia, Mozambique and South Africa, is in Burundi to monitor the
transition to democracy and provide protection for politicians returning
to the country from exile.


RWANDA: UN tribunal convicts media leaders of genocide

The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda convicted on Wednesday
three Rwandan media personalities of genocide. In a statement, the
tribunal said a bench of three judges had sentenced Ferdinand Nahimana, a
founder and ideologist of the Radio Télévision des Mille Collines (RTLM)
and Hassan Ngeze, editor in chief of Kangura newspaper, to life in prison
for their involvement in the 1994 genocide that claimed at least 800,000
lives.

The third defendant, Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, a board member of the Comité
d'initiative of the RTLM and founding member of the Coalition for the
Defence of the Republic political party, was sentenced to 35 years in
prison.

They were found guilty of genocide, incitement to genocide, conspiracy and
crimes against humanity - extermination and persecution.


On Tuesday, a Gacaca court found 18 people guilty of genocide crimes
committed in 1994, and sentenced them. They were convicted of
participating in the killing about 20,000 civilians at the Nyarubuye Roman
Catholic Church in the province of Kibungo, 140 km east of the capital,
Kigali. A leader of the group responsible for the killings, Gitera
Rwamuhizi, was sentenced to 25 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to
having killed 10 people. The rest were sentenced to terms ranging from
seven to 16 years.


CAR: Transitional calendar revised

A committee set up by the government of the Central African Republic (CAR)
to oversee implementation of recommendations made at the end of a national
reconciliation forum in mid-October has revised the country's transition
calendar.

A communique read on 30 November on state-owned Radio Centrafrique by the
committee's chairwoman, Catherine Samba-Panza, said the constitutional
referendum would now be held in September 2004 instead of mid-2004 as
announced by the CAR leader, Francois Bozize, soon after he seized power
on 15 March from President Ange-Felix Patasse.

General elections, earlier set for the third and fourth quarters of 2004,
would now be held between November 2004 and April 2005, the committee
announced. Samba-Panza said electoral lists and the revision of the
country's electoral code would be completed by January 2004, and an
electoral census held between December 2003 and April 2004.

According to Bozize's initial calendar, a new president would have been
sworn in during January 2005. He had stated that he would not contest the
presidential election. The September-October reconciliation forum
recommended a reversal of the elections order, starting with municipal and
legislative elections and ending with the presidential election. The
communique did not indicate when the transitional period would end.


ROC: Ebola deaths increase

Deaths resulting from Ebola haemorrhagic fever have increased to 28 among
47 cases reported in northwestern Republic of Congo (ROC) by Tuesday, the
UN World Health Organisation (WHO) reported.

In an update on Wednesday, WHO said the latest cases were reported in
Mbomo District, Cuvette Ouest Department. It said 97 others who have come
into contact with infected people were being followed up.

A team of WHO experts from Geneva and the Global Outbreak Alert and
Response Network had joined an emergency team already in the field, and
would contribute to epidemiological surveillance, social mobilisation and
public health education, WHO reported.


On 28 November, the ROC government and the African Development Bank signed
two grant agreements worth US $1.22 million towards helping the government
fight Ebola and for a management capacity building project, the bank
announced on Monday. The bank said the first grant of US $500,000 would be
used to reinforce surveillance and epidemiological control of Ebola in the
Couvette Ouest Department.


DRC: Relief operations launched following ferry tragedy

The distribution of humanitarian aid to survivors and families of victims
of the 25 November ferry collision on Lake Mai-Ndombe in western
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) began last weekend.

The accident, which occurred some 50 km from the town of Inongo, in
Bandundu Province, is believed to have resulted from a collision between
the ferryboat and a small fishing boat during a storm. On 29 November,
efforts to retrieve bodies trapped among the wreckage began, but were
hampered by bad weather and nightfall.

"This Monday morning we counted 116 bodies," Dr Didier Bampanguo of the
international relief NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) announced in
Inongo.

Some 70 victims remained missing. Following repeated dives, local
fishermen said they had seen bodies trapped among the wreckage. MSF said
it had brought fishing nets and large-calibre cables from its base in
Mbandaka, in neighbouring Equateur Province, to help with recovery of the
bodies.

UN humanitarian agencies involved in the relief efforts, including the
World Food Programme, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs and the UN Children's Fund, provided medicine, clothing and food.
The UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, MONUC, made one of its helicopters
available to help locate bodies continuing to rise to the surface of the
lake.


DRC: MONUC helping to break "vicious circle of fear" about HIV/AIDS

MONUC is using all of its public information mediums to broadcast HIV/AIDS
awareness and "help break the vicious circle of fear, prejudice and
ignorance associated with the spread of the disease", the mission's head
and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in the DRC, William
Swing, said on Monday.

He made the remarks to MONUC staff in the DRC, according to a MONUC
statement issued to coincide with events marking World AIDS Day.

MONUC quoted Swing as saying he regretted that adequate resources had not
been made available to counter the "awesome challenge" posed by HIV/AIDS.
In the DRC, Swing was quoted as saying, it might be several years until
the full impact of HIV/AIDS was revealed. "A telltale sign of the
impending crisis, however, is that patients suffering from AIDS-related
diseases occupy up to 50 percent of hospital beds in the country," he
said.

He added that MONUC was using the UN Radio Okapi as well as regular
newsletters and magazines to broadcast HIV/AIDS awareness.


DRC: MONUC repatriates Rwandan Hutu ex-combatants

MONUC on Tuesday repatriated 65 Rwandan Hutu former combatants under its
demobilisation, demilitarisation, reinsertion and reinstallation
programme, the mission's spokesman, Hamadoun Toure, said.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday in the capital, Kinshasa, he said the
repatriated group had been cantoned near Bukavu in South Kivu Province,
eastern DRC.

The latest repatriation brings to 3,100 the numbers of former Rwandan
combatants helped by MONUC to return home.


DRC-UGANDA: Museveni's brother resigns amid corruption, looting charges

President Yoweri Museveni's younger brother - Reserve Force commander and
army representative in parliament, Lt-Gen Salim Saleh - has resigned amid
persistent allegations that he spearheaded his country's plunder of
natural resources in neighbouring DRC during nearly five years of Ugandan
occupation.

Saleh stands accused of facilitating international companies in eastern
DRC to exploit the country's abundant natural wealth illicitly while he
was commanding Ugandan forces there.

In May, Uganda's judiciary published the results of an inquiry into
allegations by a UN panel accusing Uganda and Rwanda of prolonging war in
the DRC in order to rob its resources. The UN report had implicated Saleh,
Museveni and his son, Maj Muhoozi Kainerugaba. The inquiry exonerated
Museveni and his son, but found Saleh guilty of setting up ghost companies
as a cover for illicit trafficking in timber and minerals.

Saleh's resignation on 27 November follows a cabinet decision two weeks
ago to prosecute him for a multi-million dollar corruption scandal in the
Ministry of Defence in which he was found to have taken a $800,000 bribe
to buy two second-hand attack helicopters from the former Soviet Union,
which were not airworthy. The helicopters and the resultant lengthy
dispute is estimated to have cost Uganda around US $13 million.


UGANDA: New deadline for free anti-retrovirals

The Ministry of Health committed itself on Monday to offering free
anti-retrovirals (ARVs) to HIV/AIDS sufferers who urgently need but cannot
afford them.

The announcement was made at the World AIDS Day commemoration in Kampala,
attended by President Yoweri Museveni and Health Minister Jim Muhwezi.

In the government's firmest commitment so far to provide access to the
drugs, Muhwezi said that from January 2004, Uganda would be the second
country in Africa after Botswana to supply its people living with HIV/AIDS
with free ARVs.

However, he said that priorities would have to be drawn up. "We are
initially giving these drugs to orphans and pregnant mothers to prevent
mother-to-child transmission," Muhwezi said. "Much still depends on how
low the prices of the drugs go. Not long ago, treatments for one month
were US $500 - now they are US $27.50."


On Thursday, the ministry, in partnership with the US Agency for
International Development, launched a three-year programme to build
infrastructure for local organisations to provide ARV therapy countrywide.
Muhwezi signed the $6.2 million deal with Connie Newman, USAID's Assistant
Administrator for Africa, and Dr Peter Mugenyi, the head of Uganda's Joint
Clinical Research Centre.

Some 200,000 of the 1.1 million people living with HIV in Uganda need
life-extending ARV therapy, yet only a handful of sites are currently able
to provide comprehensive ARV services. The new initiative aims to make
treatment readily available to 60,000 people in the lifespan of the
programme.


KENYA: MPs under pressure to "pay back" constituents, says report

The growing culture of "hand-outs" which politicians give to their
constituents in return for their political survival was this week blamed
for promoting corruption and dependency among communities in Kenya.

In a new publication outlining the expenditure patterns of some members of
parliament in Kenya, it emerged that many politicians in the country find
themselves under pressure to issue money to meet the basic needs of their
constituents - such as paying school fees and medical bills - without
which they may not be re-elected.

The study, entitled "Paying the Public or Caring for Constituents" and
launched in Nairobi on Thursday, was co-sponsored by the Kenyan chapter of
Transparency International, and the German NGO, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.
It said MPs were under considerable pressure by their constituents to "pay
back" the favour of being elected.


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