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

Tel: +254 2 622147
Fax: +254 2 622129
e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org


CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 226
8 - 14 May 2004


CONTENTS:

DRC: UN Mission probes sex abuse claims
DRC: UN Mission decries poor conditions of detention
RWANDA: Kagame dismisses district leaders over genocide-related deaths
BURUNDI: Ex-rebel group continues boycott despite appointments
BURUNDI: Sharp drop in number of displaced persons
UGANDA: Government rejects accusations over northern war
UGANDA: Northern crisis stretching WFP resources to "breaking point"
KENYA: Government, aid agencies distribute food in drought-hit districts


ALSO SEE:

RWANDA-DRC: Interview with Rwanda's Great Lakes Special Envoy - Ambassador
Richard Sezibera at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41026

DRC: UN Mission probes sex abuse claims

The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) has
launched "a comprehensive investigation" into reported instances of sexual
exploitation and sexual abuse of civilians, including minors, by its
personnel in the northeastern town of Bunia, Ituri District, UN News
reported on 7 May.

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York that MONUC was determined to
enforce Secretary-General Kofi Annan's policy of zero tolerance of any
sexual misconduct. MONUC "is committed to completing a full and thorough
investigation as a matter of urgency, and to applying all available
sanctions against any of its personnel found responsible", Eckhard said.

Meanwhile, MONUC troops killed 10 and wounded several militiamen of the
Front nationaliste integrationniste on 7 May, following an ambush on one
of its patrols of the Ituri Brigade deployed to keep peace in the
district. MONUC reported that militiamen attacked a contingent of
Bangladeshi troops close to the village of Kombokabo, 25 km southwest of
Bunia, along the Bunia-Marabo axis. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=40962 ]


DRC: UN Mission decries poor conditions of detention

Conditions of detention in the DRC are such that a prison term of one to
five years is tantamount to a death sentence, according to.

In a 44-page report entitled "Rapport sur la detention en RDC avril 2004",
made available to IRIN on Thursday, MONUC's human rights section denounced
as unacceptable the conditions of detention. It said torture and other
forms of degrading treatment were frequent in jails and that the situation
could be worse "in some inaccessible locations outside official control".
There were also underground jails with inhumane conditions, it added.

Acute lack of food, poor health care and unhygienic conditions had, it
said, turned detention facilities into morgues. Moreover, it said, the
fundamental rights of detainees were abused. Among these are the right to
be released if charges are not brought within 48 hours of arrest, the
right for detainees to be informed within 24 hours the reason for their
arrest, and the right to a fair trial within the legal time limits.

As a result of these violations, it said, there existed "prolonged
periods" of preventive detention. Given these situations, the rights
section recommended that prison authorities and the judiciary create a
prison monitoring body; formulate measures to stamp out illegal detention;
reduce the number of people held in preventive detention and limit its
duration; improve the penal system and condition of detention; give
protection to minors and women in jail; and rehabilitate prisons. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41036 ]


RWANDA: Kagame dismisses district leaders over genocide-related deaths

President Paul Kagame has dissolved a district executive committee in the
southwestern province of Gikongoro, where several killings of genocide
survivors have occurred, the Rwandan News Agency reported on Thursday.

Kagame's action followed his two-day visit to Gikongoro that ended on
Tuesday, the agency reported. Cabinet approved his decision on Wednesday,
at a meeting during which replacements for the dismissed officials were
named.

Killings of genocide survivors in Kaduha District occurred in 2003. Four
genocide survivors were reportedly killed in Gikongoro in late 2003 by a
group of genocide suspects in order to prevent them from testifying in the
Gacaca courts, introduced in the country in 2001. Similar killings were
also reported in the central province of Gitarama.

In early March, nine people were sentenced to death and another one to
life imprisonment over the killing of a genocide survivor who was due to
testify under the Gacaca justice system. These convictions brought to 14
the number of people sentenced to death and three to life imprisonment for
killing genocide survivors. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41048 ]


BURUNDI: Ex-rebel group continues boycott despite appointments
 
A former main rebel group in Burundi announced on Monday that it would
continue boycotting participation in the transitional government and in
the National Assembly despite the appointment of its members to political
posts last weekend.

"We will not go back to government or the National Assembly unless they
[the government] fulfil what we agreed upon," Ramadhan Karenga, the
spokesman of Minister of State Pierre Nkurunziza, told IRIN on Monday.

Nkurunziza is the leader of the Conseil national pour la defense de la
démocratie-Forces pour la defense de la démocratie (CNDD-FDD), which
announced on 3 April that it would suspend its participation in the
government over what it termed the government's delay in the
implementation of a power-sharing accord it signed on 16 November 2003.
The government responded to the announcement by appointing two
ambassadors, several governors and advisers to governors from the
CNDD-FDD.

Karenga said the CNDD-FDD was pegging its resumption of participation in
government and in the National Assembly to the appointment of its members
to other political posts owed to it under the power-sharing accord. These
include 20 percent of the posts in the public administration and 35
percent in the intelligence services. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=40970 ]


BURUNDI: Sharp drop in number of displaced persons
 
The number of people in Burundi's camps for the displaced dropped by half
between 2002 and 2004, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA) said in a preliminary report completed on Monday.

The results of the survey, conducted between 10 March and 7 April, from
which OCHA's report was produced, show that the number of the displaced
dropped from 281,000 in 2002 to 140,000 today.

The survey was conducted with the Ministry for the Rehabilitation and
Reintegration of Displaced and Repatriated Persons, as well as the
National Commission for the Rehabilitation of Disaster-affected People.

"The aim of the survey was to give the humanitarian community some data on
the IDP [internally displaced person] situation, its demographic profile
and the intent of people to return," as well as "to produce a
comprehensive analysis on the needs of IDPs, within the framework of
either settling them at their present sites or returning them to their
homes". [full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41010 ]


UGANDA: Government rejects accusations over northern war
 
The government has rejected a report by an international organisation
accusing it of failure to fulfil its responsibilities to defend people in
war-ravished northern Uganda, saying the report was "completely unfair".

The report, by Christian Aid, condemned what it described as a shirking by
the government's of its responsibilities to protect the people of the
north "borne out of a lack of will".

"Government ordered the population into camps in 1996. This imposes a duty
on government to defend the camps so that the interned civilians can
speedily resume a normal life. The government has failed to fulfil these
international responsibilities," the report said.

The report cited Camp Labuje near the town of Kitgum. Christian Aid
officials said they visited the camp one night and did not see any Ugandan
troops.

Speaking to IRIN in a telephone interview, the spokesman for the Ministry
of Defence, Maj Shaban Bantariza, said: "There have been virtually no
abductions near Kitgum for a while. How do you think this is possible
without army protection? [Vincent] Otti [LRA deputy commander] is under
orders to abduct as many children as possible. If a camp is not protected,
he would do this." [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=40984 ]


UGANDA: Northern crisis stretching WFP resources to "breaking point"
 
The ongoing crisis in northern Uganda has stretched the UN World Food
Programme (WFP) to the limit, and unless significant donations are
received in the next few weeks, it will soon be unable to feed the 1.6
million IDPs in the region. The WFP requires US $56 million before the end
of the year.

"But unless significant donations are received in the coming weeks, stocks
of cereals will be exhausted by July. Shortfalls of beans and other food
aid items will follow shortly afterwards," WFP reported on Thursday. "WFP
needs $21 million now to continue to supply food until August, when the
harvest is due."

The agency said the number of needy people had doubled in the past year,
and that the sheer scale of the crisis was stretching its resources in
Uganda to breaking point. "New donations are urgently required to prevent
the crisis worsening dramatically," WFP said.

The WFP country director for Uganda, Ken Davies, told IRIN in Kampala, "We
were always going to hit the wall in July. Now I have this huge shortfall
coming up and I have to start screaming about it." [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41033 ]


KENYA: Government, aid agencies distribute food in drought-hit districts

The government, the WFP and several NGOs have started distributing food to
communities facing severe food shortages as a result of prolonged drought
in the northern district of Marsabit and Turkana District in the
northwest, a famine alert network reported.

The two districts had been hit by successive droughts that caused the
deaths of a large number of livestock, the mainstay of people's
livelihoods in those areas, a food security update prepared in April by
the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS-Net) said on
Thursday.

A total of 7,800 mt of food would be distributed to 230,678 people in the
two districts between April and July, FEWS-Net added.

According to the report, the government was also finalising an agreement
with World Vision International to distribute food to 10 areas in the
central and southern parts of Turkana District from May to July. WFP would
also initiate another programme in selected central and southern divisions
from May. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41006 ]


[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to
change your keywords, contact e-mail: Irin@ocha.unon.org or Web:  
http://www.irinnews.org . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this
item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial
sites requires written IRIN permission.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Appropriate Donations for International Disaster/Humanitarian Needs
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International                  web: www.cidi.org
    Disaster Information             listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
                                   guidelines: www.cidi.org/donate.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Central/East Africa             www.cidi.org/humanitarian/irin/ceafrica