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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 206
20 - 26 December 2003


CONTENTS:

BURUNDI: War crimes "may go unpunished", says Human Rights Watch
BURUNDI: Former rebel FNL faction becomes political party
CAR: Law body authorises ratification of regional peace treaties
CAR: Bozize orders removal of undisciplined soldiers
CAR: China hands 100 low-cost flats to government
ROC: Police to crack down on "trouble-makers"
DRC: Ministerial delegation pushes for national unity in Kisangani
DRC: People of Isiro in urgent need of aid, says OCHA
DRC-UGANDA: MONUC hails return of Ugandan rebels as a "breakthrough"
KENYA: WFP hails gov't contribution to school feeding programme
TANZANIA: Health officials concerned about water shortages in Dar es Salaam

ALSO SEE:

DRC: IRIN interview with outgoing MONUC Force Commander, Maj-Gen Mountaga
Diallo, at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38607

DRC: Interview with Carol Bellamy, executive director of UNICEF, at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38525

BURUNDI: Peace process reaches crucial phase with launch of DDR process
at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38524

BURUNDI: War crimes "may go unpunished", says Human Rights Watch
 
The Burundian military and armed opposition forces have committed "serious
war crimes, including civilian killings and rapes", the New York-based
group Human Rights Watch (HRW), alleged in a report released on Monday. It
said the 16 November political agreement between major parties to end the
10-year civil war should not have granted immunity from prosecution for
such "blatant and widespread crimes".

The 63-page report, "Everyday Victims: Civilians in the Burundian War",
documents cases of massacres and rapes of civilians and attacks on
civilian property between April and November, when the transitional
government and the main former rebel group, Conseil national pour la
defense de la democratie/Front de defense de la democratie, led by Pierre
Nkurunziza, signed a peace accord in Tanzania guaranteeing all sides
provisional immunity from prosecution for war crimes.

"Agreements based on immunity from prosecution rarely work," Alison Des
Forges, senior adviser to HRW's Africa Division, said. "The kinds of
abuses described in this report should not go unpunished." [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38548]

BURUNDI: Former rebel FNL faction becomes political party

The former rebel faction Forces nationales de liberation (FNL), led by
Alain Mugabarabona, said on 20 December that it had transformed itself
into a political party and would soon apply for registration from the
Ministry of Interior. "We held our first congress, which targeted the
transformation of the FNL movement into a political party known as 'Front
national de liberation Icanzo, FNL Icanzo'," Mugabarabona said.

Mugabarabona, who was elected leader of the party with 70 percent of
votes, said the transformation was in line with a peace agreement of
August 2000 designed to end Burundi's 10-year civil war, and a ceasefire
agreement signed in Dar es Salaam on 7 October 2002, both of which, he
said, authorised former rebel movements to become political parties once
they had begun to canton their fighters. The first group of Mugabarabona's
FNL fighters were cantoned on 26 June.

Another faction of FNL, led by Agathon Rwasa, is the only rebel group to
continue to refuse negotiations with the transitional government. Fighting
between the army and this FNL faction has continued around the capital,
Bujumbura. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38538]

CAR: Law body authorises ratification of regional peace treaties

The National Transitional Council (NTC), the law-advisory body in the
Central African Republic (CAR), on 20 December approved a bill authorising
the CAR leader, Francois Bozize, to ratify two treaties aimed at
preventing and managing conflict in central Africa, state-owned Radio
Centrafrique reported. A date for the ratification has yet to be
announced.

"The ratification of the two treaties will put an end to the intervention
of non-conventional forces in our country," Beatrice Epaye, a member of
the NTC foreign affairs commission, told IRIN after the vote. She said the
treaties authorised the armies of the 11 members of La Communaute
Economique des Etats d'Afrique Centrale (CEEAC) to intervene to prevent,
manage and settle internal conflicts, or conflicts opposing states.

On 24 February 2000, heads of states or representatives from Angola,
Burundi, Cameroon, the CAR, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(DRC), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of Congo (ROC), Rwanda and
Sao Tome and Principe signed in Yaounde, Cameroon, a protocol creating the
Conseil de Paix et de Securite de l'Afrique Central, known as COPAX. They
also signed a treaty creating the Pact d'Assistance Mutuelle des Etats
Membres de la CEEAC. The two treaties were to be implemented after
ratification by member states. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38540]

CAR: Bozize orders removal of undisciplined soldiers

On Tuesday, Bozize signed an order dismissing a number of soldiers from
the army because of indiscipline, according to state-owned Radio
Centrafrique. It said the soldiers named in the order had been removed
from army lists and sent home. They included one dismissed for
indiscipline, trafficking, causing a fatal accident and the use of an army
vehicle for personal gains, and another for highway racketeering and
inciting truckers to strike.

There have been numerous calls from human rights groups in CAR for Bozize
to exercise more control over his security forces and the foreign fighters
who helped him seize power, following allegations of serious human rights
abuses.

On 19 December, Catholic Archbishop Paulin Pomodimo told a congregation,
including Bozize, that the people of CAR refused "the cult of the knife" -
a comment taken to refer to the former combatants and the Chadians who
fought for Bozize from October 2002 to March 2003, when he took power in a
coup.

CAR: China hands 100 low-cost flats to government

The government of the People's Republic of China on Tuesday handed over
100 low-cost flats to Bozize, in So, a village located 15 km from the
capital, Bangui, according to Radio Centrafrique. It said the flats, which
had taken more than six years to build, were the result of a US $6.19
million agreement signed by the two countries in November 1998. The aim
was to give civil servants better access to good housing and the
possibility to buy the flats in the long run at low prices. Construction
was repeatedly interrupted by the crises CAR underwent between 2001 and
2003.

Speaking during the ceremony, Bozize said this was the beginning of a
programme that would cover provincial towns. The ceremony took place one
week after Bozize officially launched the construction by China of a
20,000-seat football stadium in Bangui. Work is due to last until 2006.

China is among the first states to have resumed cooperation with the CAR
after the 15 March coup that brought Bozize to power after overthrowing
Ange-Felix Patasse.

ROC: Police to crack down on "trouble-makers"

The ROC chief of police, Gilbert Mokoki, on 20 December announced a
three-month crackdown on "trouble-makers", following two nights of unrest
and violence in suburbs in the south of the capital, Brazzaville. The
operation, codenamed "Espoir" (Hope), would "track down all those
illegally carrying weapons, those carrying out theft, pillaging, violent
robbery, and drug-users," Mokoki said on launching the campaign. He said
the operation, which would be undertaken by units of the police and army,
should not cause any bother or concern for the general public.

Panic broke out during the nights of 15-16 and 17-18 December in the
suburbs of Bacongo and Makelekele due to what Mokoki said were
"out-of-control elements of the security forces" (including the army and
police) battling former militia fighters. He said some members of the
security forces implicated in the trouble had been identified, while
others were still on the run, adding that when caught, they would be
"severely punished".

Former militia fighters, known as 'Cobras' and 'Ninjas', although
demobilised, have not yet handed all their weapons over to the military,
the ROC government said. Up until March, the Pool region of Congo was
wracked by violence between government forces and 'Ninja' fighters loyal
to rebel leader Pasteur Frederic Bitsangou, alias Ntoumi. Despite a peace
agreement signed on 17 March 2003, however, the area remains unstable.

DRC: Ministerial delegation pushes for national unity in Kisangani
 
A ministerial delegation of the political, defence and security commission
of the government of the DRC arrived on Monday in Kisangani, northeastern
DRC, "carrying a message of hope and reconciliation across the country and
gauging the state of national reunification at the provincial level",
Azarias Ruberwa, one of the transitional government's four
vice-presidents, told reporters.

In addition to holding a meeting with provincial authorities on ways to
improve security in the region, the delegation met with the federation of
local merchants as well as with city judges, who have been participating
in a nation-wide strike for over a month. It also held meetings with
religious leaders, NGOs and military officers.

Finally, the delegation paid its respects to victims of a lightning storm
that struck the city on 12 December, leaving five people dead and seven
people hospitalised, DRC Human Rights Minister Madeleine Kalala told IRIN
by telephone from Kisangani. The government has provided each of the
survivors with US $250 to help cover medical costs. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38558]

DRC: People of Isiro in urgent need of aid, says OCHA

The lives of civilians in Isiro, the main town of Haut-Uele District in
northeastern DRC, are being held together by only a "desperate thread",
and the town bears the traces of one of the most "ferocious rebellions" of
the civil war, according to a recent humanitarian mission to the area.

The mission said the local population complained of continued harrassment
by the army and police, the levying of irregular taxes by the
administration (the former rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la
democratie-National), and continued military recruitment, especially of
children. The population suffered from a lack of clean water, most
households lacked access to a balanced, protein-rich diet, and more than
100,000 workers were without jobs due to a drastic decline in the area's
agriculture, which used to comprise cotton, coffee and palm oil, the
report said.

The joint mission, which visited Isiro from 26-28 November, included UN
Deputy Special Representative to the DRC Lena Sundh, the German
ambassador, Loretta Loschelder, and representatives from the UN Food and
Agriculture Organisation and the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38572]

DRC-UGANDA: MONUC hails return of Ugandan rebels as a "breakthrough"
 
UN officials have hailed the recent repatriation of former Ugandan rebels
operating in neighbouring DRC as a "breakthrough in the normalisation of
relations between Uganda and Congo", adding that it would be useful in
convincing other Ugandan rebels still at large in eastern DRC to return.

Speaking to IRIN on 19 December at the UN peacekeeping mission in the
DRC's (MONUC) headquarters in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, MONUC
political affairs officer, Philippe de Bard, said: "This brings the two
countries closer to having a normal diplomatic relationship."

On 14 December, MONUC began repatriating 250 ex-combatants from rebel
movements opposed to the Ugandan government, along with 147 dependents. No
weapons were collected, MONUC sources told IRIN, as the former fighters
had already been disarmed by the DRC government. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38537]

KENYA: WFP hails gov't contribution to school feeding programme

The World Food Programme (WFP) on Tuesday said it welcomed the Kenyan
government's contribution, worth US $2.9 million, towards its school
feeding programme in the country. In a statement, WFP said the government
had committed 13,500 mt of maize to provide free school lunches to 1
million vulnerable Kenyan children in the country's arid and semiarid
areas.

"This contribution again demonstrates the government of Kenya's strong
commitment to school feeding," WFP Country Director for Kenya Tesema
Negash said in the statement. "It enables the Ministry of Education and
WFP to cover the programme's maize needs for the first term of 2004."  
The agency, however, warned that the programme was "still desperately
short of funding" for much of 2004. So far, it said, only the Kenyan
government contribution had been received, out of US $15 million needed in
order to maintain the programme at its current level.

Last month, WFP warned that its school feeding programme was facing
funding difficulties, which could force it to scale down the operation in
the country, with devastating consequences for the 1.1 million
schoolchildren currently benefiting from the programme. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38567]

TANZANIA: Health officials concerned about water shortages in Dar es
Salaam
 
Tanzanian health officials on Monday expressed growing concern about the
impact water shortages were having on people's health in the commercial
capital, Dar es Salaam.

"Cholera is on the increase because of the lack of availability of water
and we are being affected as the health facilities are not able to perform
as well as usual," Miriam Mwaffissi, the permanent secretary of the health
ministry, said.

The ministry noted that cholera outbreaks were common, but manageable, in
Dar es Salaam. However, with the added burden of water shortages, there
was growing concern that the outbreaks could become more difficult to
control. Last week, Muhimbili National Hospital, the country's main
referral hospital, was forced to scale down operations to deal with water
shortages. Only emergency operations were carried out, as the hospital
relied on emergency supplies from the fire-fighting department. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38553]


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


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