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 229
29 May - 4 June 2004


CONTENTS:

DRC: Ceasefire agreement signed and broken in Bukavu
DRC-RWANDA: Bukavu crisis task force set up, anti-MONUC demo in Kinshasa
RWANDA: Second FM radio launched
BURUNDI: UN mission takes over from AU force
BURUNDI: UN refugee agency begins operations through new crossing point
UGANDA: Carol Bellamy meets war-affected people in the north
UGANDA: At least 270 people, mainly children, freed from captivity in May
KENYA: UN agencies to spend $150 million on projects


ALSO SEE:

UGANDA: Interview with UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41346

DRC: Ceasefire agreement signed and broken in Bukavu

Dissident government troops of the Democratic Republic of Congo led by Gen
Laurent Nkunda and Col Jules Mutebusi seized the eastern city of Bukavu on
Wednesday, shredding a ceasefire deal signed with loyal forces and
brokered by the UN Mission in the country, known as MONUC.

MONUC chief of staff Col Clive Mantel said the dissident forces Mutebusi
broke the ceasefire on Wednesday 15 km north of Bukavu and marched toward
the town under government control. Government troops fled as the
dissidents entered the town and there was looting, Lucia Alberghini, the
representative of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA) in Bukavu, said on Wednesday.

The ceasefire accord had been signed by Gen Mbuza Mabe, the loyalist
commander of the 10th Military Region of the DRC army, who is responsible
for Bukavu, as well as by Nkunda and Mutebusi, who were members of a
faction of the former rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la
democratie-Goma. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41386 ]


DRC-RWANDA: Bukavu crisis task force set up, anti-MONUC demo in Kinshasa

UN Relief/Humanitarian Coordinator in the DRC Herbert M'Cleod, has set up
an inter-agency Crisis Task Force for Bukavu, according to OCHA.

"The task force will interface with the ICRC [International Committee of
the Red Cross] and will undertake an evaluation of the humanitarian needs
in Bukavu as soon as security permits safe and unhindered access," OCHA
said in a report of the current situation in the town.

The task force comprises OCHA, Office of the UN security coordinator,
MONUC and one representative of NGOs.

Thousands of civilians displaced in the fighting have fled into the
Rwandan province of Cyangugu, on the border with the DRC, with many saying
they fear to return to their homes. Some of the refugees, mainly the
Tutsi-speaking Banyamulenge Congolese, told IRIN the situation in Bukavu
remained tense and that the fighting was likely to continue. [Full report
at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41347 ]

DRC Foreign Minister Antoine Ghonda arrived in Bukavu on Tuesday, shortly
before fighting resumed between rival army factions. "We have come to
support the city's residents and restore government authority," he told
IRIN from the town.

He said the absence of central government authority had created a
political vacuum in the city, in South Kivu Province, and this had brought
about the breakdown on law and order. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41363 ]

On Wednesday, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
said it had increased its presence in Cyangugu Province, following an
influx of refugees from Bukavu. It reported that about 2,000 refugees had
entered Cyangugu since the fighting broke out in Bukavu. It added that
more than 1,900 of the refugees had registered for UNHCR assistance. Many
of the refugees had found shelter with friends and relatives in Rwanda,
the agency said, but an additional 950 were at the UNHCR Nyagatare transit
centre in Cyangugu. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41398 ]

On Thursday, thousands of angry Congolese demonstrated at the MONUC
headquarters in the capital, Kinshasa, against what they perceived as its
failure to prevent army dissidents from seizing part of Bukavu. The
demonstrators thronged the streets, shutting down schools and businesses,
and erected barricades. Large crowds of students stoned the MONUC
headquarters in the city.

MONUC troops and Congolese police fired tear gas and bullets into the air
to disperse the protestors. The unrest spread to the towns of Lubumbashi,
Kisi, Bukavu and Goma before being put down by MONUC. The MONUC spokesman,
Hamadoun Toure, said in Kinshasa that two people had died and several
others were wounded.

On the situation in Bukavu, media reports on Friday were that the
dissidents were withdrawing from the town. UN troops are now patrolling
Bukavu's streets. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41406 ]


RWANDA: Second FM radio launched

A second privately-owned radio station has been launched in Rwanda, the
Rwanda News Agency, RNA, reported on Tuesday.

Radio Communautaire of Cyangugu (FM 92.9) will initially cover the entire
western province of Cyangugu as well as the town of Bukavu in the DRC, RNA
said. The radio also plans to provide coverage to Kibuye Province, western
Rwanda. Prime Minister Bernard Makuza presided over the launch. He said
the radio would allow Cyangugu Province to monitor good governance and
ensure freedom of the press.

Radio Communautaire becomes the second, after Radio 10 - launched on 25
March - to begin broadcasts since the banning of privately owned radio
stations after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, during which the media was
allegedly used to fan ethnic hatred.

In March, RNA reported that six private broadcast licences had been issued
since the government decided to liberalise its airwaves. The government
has been cautious to liberalise the airwaves after Radio Television Libre
des Mille Collines was accused of inciting ethnic hatred during the
genocide, in which, according to the government, at least 937,000 died.


BURUNDI: UN mission takes over from AU force

UN troops took over on Tuesday from the African Union (AU) force deployed
in Burundi in 2003 to monitor the country's transition to democracy, after
a decade-long civil war.

Some 2,700 troops who had served under the African Mission in Burundi
(AMIB) donned UN blue helmets at the handover ceremony in the capital,
Bujumbura, marking the change of mandate to the new mission, known as the
UN Operation in Burundi, or ONUB.

When fully deployed, the UN troops, under the command of Maj-Gen Derrick
Mgweti from South Africa, will number 5,650. Currently, the mission
comprises troops from Ethiopia, Mozambique and South Africa. They are due
to be joined by contingents from Angola, Nepal and Pakistan.

AMIB was deployed following the establishment of a three-year transitional
period, in accordance with a Peace and Reconciliation Accord signed in
Arusha, Tanzania, in August 2000. The AU deployment was done to give the
UN time to prepare a peacekeeping mission to the country. AMIB was
mandated to monitor the peace process as well as to protect politicians
returning from exile to take part in the transition. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41376 ]


BURUNDI: UN refugee agency begins operations through new crossing point

UNHCR has begun twice-weekly convoys through its first border crossing
between Tanzania and southern Burundi in efforts to expand the
repatriation of Burundian refugees, the agency reported on Wednesday.

It said the first convoy of three trucks left the Mtabila camp in Tanzania
on Tuesday, with 146 refugees, who crossed the border at Mugina for a
transit centre in Mabanda in the southern Burundian province of Makamba. A
Tanzanian Home Affairs representative, Cochola Epihanie, and the UNHCR
protection officer in Kasulu, Tanzania, Virgile Houdegbe, accompanied the
returnees.

UNHCR said the returnees were registered upon arrival and given temporary
identity cards. They also received return packages with three months'
supply of food and items such as plastic sheeting and kitchen utensils.
[Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41395 ]


UGANDA: Carol Bellamy meets war-affected people in the north

The executive director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), Carol Bellamy,
ended on Thursday a two-day visit to northern Uganda, where she visited
internally displaced persons (IDPs). She also met children recovering from
war trauma; some of them born to mothers who had themselves been children
when the Lord'Òs Resistance Army (LRA) rebels abducted them.

Religious leaders in the region told Bellamy of the need for international
intervention in the 18-year conflict in which thousands of people have
lost their lives. She was briefed by Anglican Bishop Baker Ochola, the
vice-chairman of the Acholi Religious Leaders' Peace Initiative, on his
group's efforts to broker a peaceful settlement of the conflict, which he
described as "a disaster".

"Our appeal during the meeting with the UNICEF executive director was that
this war must end immediately and that we want international intervention
in this war, which has produced a whole generation of children without
education," Ochola told IRIN by telephone from the northern town of Gulu.
[Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41329 ]


UGANDA: At least 270 people, mainly children, freed from captivity in May

At least 270 abductees, mainly children, were rescued from rebel captivity
by the Ugandan army in May, while 211 people were killed in various
battles between the army and the rebels in northern Uganda over the same
month, an army spokesman said.

"[In May] 279 captives were rescued, 70 percent of whom were children,
[while] 147 rebels were killed. Fifty five civilians were also killed, and
we lost nine soldiers in various battles with the rebels," Lt Paddy
Ankunda told IRIN from Gulu.

Religious leaders in the region have said that many of those killed as LRA
rebels were children abducted and forced either to fight, or were killed
during crossfire as the army attacked rebel positions.

"When we talk of rebels, it is something we need to critically examine,"
Bishop Ochola told IRIN from Gulu. "'Rebels' is not the right terminology,
because these are children abducted, ill-trained and then forced to fight
the army, and when they are killed, the army says we have killed rebels."
[Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41381 ]

KENYA: UN agencies to spend $150 million on projects

Four UN agencies and the Kenyan government launched on 28 May new funding
programmes for Kenya under which the agencies will spend US $150 million
to support various projects during the next five years.

The UN Development Programme, UNICEF, the UN Population Fund and the UN
World Food Programme are to disburse $21.2 million, $24.6 million, $9.5
million and $ 94.1 million of core resources respectively to implement the
programmes.

It is expected that more resources will be made available through
resource-mobilisation efforts. "We are very grateful for this assistance
and acknowledge that additional resources will need to be mobilised to
cover the gap between the earmarked resources and the total resources
likely to be available," David Mwiraria, the finance minister, said at the
launch.

The programmes are expected to reinforce Kenya's priorities and
commitments as outlined in its poverty reduction strategy paper, the more
recent economic recovery strategy and the various sectoral and thematic
policy and planning frameworks. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41334 ]


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