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 210
17 - 23 January 2004


CONTENTS:

DRC-SOUTH AFRICA: Pretoria, Kinshasa sign US $10 billion accord
DRC: Positions in military command filled
DRC-RWANDA: Hutu militants holding 3,000 hostages
RWANDA: Former UN general in Rwanda testifies at tribunal
RWANDA: Tribunal sentences ex-minister to two life imprisonment terms
RWANDA: Prioritise poverty reduction programmes, Kagame urges officials
RWANDA-UGANDA: Rwandan refugees start going home
UGANDA: Army claims successes over LRA
UGANDA: Rafters to help organisations reach out to communities on the Nile
KENYA: Germany gives $61.7m for development projects
KENYA: Relief agencies to assess food situation next week
BURUNDI: UN agency prepares for possible mass return of refugees
BURUNDI: Little progress made as Ndayizeye-FNL talks end
BURUNDI: Vatican appoints new nuncio
CAR: Electoral calendar released

ALSO SEE:

RWANDA: Focus on helping former child soldiers at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39061

TANZANIA: Focus on drug abuse at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39029

KENYA: Interview with new WFP envoy Paul Tergat at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39059


DRC-SOUTH AFRICA: Pretoria, Kinshasa sign US $10 billion accord

South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) signed a
bilateral agreement worth US $10 billion on Wednesday, covering the areas
of defence and security, the economy and finance, agriculture and
infrastructural development.

Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Joseph Kabila signed the deal
in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, at the end of Mbeki's first state visit to
the DRC. A joint commission of the two governments has been tasked with
implementing the agreement.

"The commission's first meeting has already been set for February in South
Africa over which my colleague Kabila will preside," Mbeki told reporters
in Kinshasa.

One of the aspects of the bilateral accord requires the South African
Chamber of Commerce to rehabilitate the DRC's giant Gecamines mining
concern, the 39th concession of the Kilomoto Gold Mines, and for the
management of Kinshasa's Grand Hotel as well as Hotel Karavia in
Lubumbashi, the minister responsible for state-owned firms, Joseph
Mudumbi, said. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38969]


DRC: Positions in military command filled

The DRC filled on Monday the remaining three positions in its unified
military high command with the appointment of officers formerly loyal to
the rebel movement, the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Democratie-Goma
(RCD-Goma).

Gen Obed Ruhibasira and colonels Jules Mutemuti and Ciro Nsimba were,
respectively, handed command of the Goma, Bukavu and Bandundu military
regions. They replace Gen Laurent Nkunda and colonels Elie Gichondo and
Eric Ruhorimbere, who all refused to take an oath of allegiance to Kabila
in July 2003, along with other appointees.

Nkunda has been accused of responsibility for the mass killing of
Kinsangani residents, Orientale Province, in May 2002, after a mutiny by
some RCD-Goma troops. The chief of staff of ground forces, Maj-Gen Sylvain
Mbuki, also of the RCD-Goma, was present at the command handover, along
with one of the four vice-presidents of the republic, Azarias Ruberwa, the
leader of of RCD-Goma.


DRC-RWANDA: Hutu militants holding 3,000 hostages

Hutu militants opposed to the voluntary repatriation of their countrymen
are holding at least 3,000 Rwandan civilians and former combatants hostage
in a forest in North Kivu, DRC, Hamadoun Ture, the spokesman for the UN
Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, said on Tuesday.

"Some hardliners do not want to return to Rwanda, and have obstructed
former fighters intent on returning home from leaving the forest," he
said.

"They have set up a checkpoint at the exit of the forest. Then they
threaten the refugees and tell them that they would find no security in
Rwanda, thereby discouraging them from leaving," he added.

Toure's comments confirm those of Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles
Muligande on Monday in Kigali, the Rwandan capital. Muligande said he
learnt of the situation through William Swing, the head of MONUC. Swing
was in Kigali to brief President Paul Kagame on the latest peace building
initiatives in the DRC and progress, so far, in repatriating the Rwandans.
[Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39027]


RWANDA: Former UN general in Rwanda testifies at tribunal

The commander of UN troops who were in Rwanda in the period leading up to
and during the 1994 genocide, Gen Romeo Dallaire, testified on Monday
before the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha,
Tanzania, about the Rwandan military's role in the killings, which lasted
100 days and left at least 800,000 people dead.

In his testimony for the prosecution in the case against Theoneste
Bagasora, the former director of cabinet in the Defence Ministry, and
three other military leaders, Dallaire spoke of Bagasora's control over
the ministry and the army and, after the start of the killings, his
apparent satisfaction at a plan falling into place.

At the beginning of the court's proceedings, Dallaire was asked to stand
up and point out Bagasora, a man who during their last meeting at the end
of the genocide in Rwanda, he said, had threatened to kill him if they
were ever to meet again.  "Bagasora was the person exercising authority -
even when he was not the senior military commander, Bagasora chaired the
meetings," Dallaire told the court on Monday. "No one in those meetings
went against what he said." [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39016]

On Tuesday, Dallaire testified that the former Rwandan army provided
Interahamwe militias with weapons and training in the months leading up to
the genocide. He said an informant told him that the weapons were from the
army's reserve stocks, adding that some of the training was conducted in
military establishments, notably the para-commando training camp.  "When
implemented, this [the training] provided them [the Interahamwe] with the
capability of killing 1,000 people every 20 minutes," Dallaire said.

He gave details about the informant, known as Jean-Pierre, whose
disclosure led to attempts by Dallaire to get permission for a pre-emptive
raid on arms caches being prepared countrywide. The failure of the
international community to act on this information, which was made
available in January 1994, has often been linked to the genocide. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39042]

Subsequently, on Wenesday, defence attorneys for the former military
leaders brought into question Dallaire's impartiality. At the beginning of
their cross-examination, they also attempted to test his memory regarding
events that took place in Rwanda before the genocide. They picked through
hid testimony, looking for inconsistencies in a bid to weaken the
prosecution's case.

The defence team then produced Bagasora's passport, which showed that he
was in Gabon at the end of August 1993, and Dallaire conceded that
Bagasora had not attended a meeting that Dallaire had held with former
Rwandan President Juvenal Habyirimana at the time.

"You have cast a seed of doubt in my mind so I cannot give you any other
answer," Dallaire said. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39067]


RWANDA: Tribunal sentences ex-minister to two life imprisonment terms

The ICTR sent down two life sentences on Thursday on a former minister for
culture and higher education in Rwanda, Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda, for the
crimes of genocide and extermination. Kamuhanda committed the crimes
during the genocide. On eight other counts of complicity in genocide,
crimes against humanity for murder, rape and other inhuman acts and
serious violations of the Geneva Conventions, Kamuhanda was either found
not guilty or the counts were dismissed.

Kamuhanda was initially accused alongside seven other people, all members
of the interim government or leaders of the Mouvement revolutionnaire
national pour le developpement but his defence argued that he be tried
alone, because he only became a minister in the interim government on 25
May 1994.

Delivering the sentence, Judge William Sekule (presiding) said that before
the genocide, Kamuhanda had been "influential" and was widely considered
to be a "good man" but instead of appreciating the value of "life and
tolerance", he blamed people who were living peacefully for not taking
part in the violence. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39075]


RWANDA: Prioritise poverty reduction programmes, Kagame urges officials

President Paul Kagame urged government officials on Monday to prioritise
their programmes aimed at easing high levels of poverty in the country.

"We must seek to implement core programmes that are both short- and
long-term, in order to reduce poverty," he said.

Poverty was a matter of "grave concern" needing urgent attention and
commitment by all government officials.

At least half of Rwanda's 8.2 million people are affected by poverty.
Government statistics indicate that nearly 60 percent of them live on less
than a US $1 day.

Kagame's comments, contained in a statement, came at the end of a six-day
retreat for his cabinet, heads of provincial administrations and other
senior government officials at the Akagera National Park that ended on 17
January. They reviewed the nation's economic and political progress made
since the 1994 genocide and set out government goals for the next seven
years. [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39025]


RWANDA-UGANDA: Rwandan refugees start going home

The first 242 of some 25,000 Rwandan refugees living in Uganda returned
home on Monday under an agreement signed by the governments of the two
countries and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
an official told IRIN.

"We'll drop them off in Kigali and then the trucks go back to Mbarara
[western Uganda] almost immediately, ready to collect the next convoy the
following day," Dennis Duncan, the Uganda UNHCR spokesman, said.

He added that the convoys would leave for Kigali daily until all the
refugees who had registered for repatriation had gone home. Some 1,650
refugees had registered for repatriation by 12 January.

In Kigali, UNHCR official Volker Schimel told IRIN that preparations had
been finalised to receive the first batch of refugees. They will stay for
about a week at the Rukomo Transit Camp in Byumba Province before leaving
for their original homes, he said. Volker said their stay at the transit
camp would facilitate the processing of documents to enable the refugees
travel to their homes. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38997]

Another 258 Rwandan refugees, who had been living in Uganda for nearly 10
years, went home on Wednesday, an official in Kigali, told IRIN. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39072]


UGANDA: Army claims successes over LRA

Speaking during a news conference at army headquarters in Bombo Barracks
north of the capital, Kampala, on Monday, Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi
said that during 2003 the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) had
weakened the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) to a point of near
collapse, particularly in the last two months, with numbers of LRA
fighters reported to have been forced out of recently besieged Lira
District into Sudan.

During the year, the UPDF had rescued 7,299 abductees, killed 928 LRA
fighters and captured a further 791, and recovered several tonnes of
weaponry, including 420 bombs, hundreds of guns and 37,058 rounds of
ammunition. "The LRA is left with months to survive," Mbabazi told the
press conference.

But local leaders in Lira have warned that the war is far from over,
saying the LRA still has a presence in Lira and other parts of the north.

"Things have calmed a little, certainly, but there are still LRA remnants
causing trouble in the villages," Lira District's council chairman, Franco
Ojur, told IRIN.

He added that he hoped Lira’s local militia – the Rhino Group – would be
able to help track those remnants down. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38996]

On Wednesday, the UPDF spokesman, Maj Shaban Bantariza, told IRIN that the
UPDF had succeeded in killing the LRA's overall army commander, Yadin
Tolbert Nyeko, in "one of the most significant victories against the LRA
since the launch of Operation Iron Fist" in 2001.

"This guy was army commander, so this is a big defeat for them. There are
now only two above him – Vincent Otti and [Joseph] Kony himself. It
weakens their morale. That's why they fought so hard to get his body back
from us, but we repelled them," he said. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39060]


UGANDA: Rafters to help organisations reach out to communities on the Nile

An expedition to navigate the whole length of the White Nile was launched
on 18 January, as the seven-strong team of rafters, sponsored by the
humanitarian organisation CARE International, set off from the Nile’s
source at Lake Victoria, Uganda.

"We're hoping this will bring publicity to communities living along the
banks of the Nile and to some of the challenges they face, particularly in
northern Uganda and southern Sudan," Phil Vernon, CARE Uganda's country
director, told IRIN.

The trip is the first such attempt for over 30 years and, if successful,
will be the first time ever that anyone has completed the 6,690-km journey
down the world’s longest river to the Mediterranean. The crew planed to
"meet the people who live along the river and depend on it. The explorers
will learn of the communities’ challenges and what they are doing to
improve their quality of life", CARE reported.

Vernon told IRIN that CARE already had outposts along the river and that
much of its work involved improving the communities' access to health
care, with the provision of essentials like mosquito nets and basic
medicines. The outposts would now serve to help support the Nile
expedition with food and fuel supplies. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39002]


KENYA: Germany gives $61.7m for development projects

Kenya is to receive €50 million (US $61.7 million) to promote agriculture,
water and the health sector from the German government following an
agreement signed on Tuesday by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and President
Mwai Kibaki in the capital, Nairobi. The funds will be disbursed in the
form of technical cooperation grants and low-interest loans over the next
two years.

Schroeder, who was on an official visit to Kenya, told reporters in
Nairobi that his government was keen to intensify cooperation with Kenya
following the country's peaceful political transition in December 2002.
Schroeder hailed Kenya's political and economic reform efforts, and
pledged his government's support to the country's ongoing economic
reconstruction.

"We welcome the important step taken by the Kenyan government in the field
of primary education and the fight against corruption," he said.

He also recognised recent efforts by the government to promote regional
peace, notably in Somalia and Sudan as well as fighting international
terrorism.

"Germany will make available its knowledge and means to help the regional
fight against terrorism and organised crime," Schroeder said. [Full story
at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39023]


KENYA: Relief agencies to assess food situation next week

The government is to lead relief agencies around the country next week to
assess the impact of poor rains in 2003 and reports of widespread food
shortages in several districts, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on
Tuesday.

The WFP spokeswoman, Anja du Toit, told IRIN that the UN agency would
determine the exact number of people in need of food assistance in the
country once the assessment mission had completed its work.

"There will be pockets of people that will be assisted through the
food-for-assets programme," she added.

The food-assets programme involves those being assisted in
development-related activities. Another assessment team, led by the UN
Children's Fund, would go out in February to assess malnutrition levels in
the country, she said.

The latest Kenya vulnerability update, published by the Famine Early
Warning Systems Network on 16 January, attributed the deteriorating food
security in the country to successive poor rainy seasons and the poor
2002-2003 short rains season. It said the January 2004 rains had come "too
late", providing only a "measured" relief to agricultural households in
the key agricultural regions of the eastern and central Kenya provinces.
[Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39032]


BURUNDI: UN agency prepares for possible mass return of refugees

The UNHCR has sent an emergency team from Switzerland to Burundi to
explore the possibilities of opening up more field offices in preparation
for the possible return of hundreds of thousands of refugees now in
Tanzania, the agency reported on Tuesday.

It would travel to areas bordering Tanzania "to assess the situation,
review the needs on the ground and prepare for the possible deployment of
additional staff".

The UNHCR plans to open offices in several of Burundi's eastern and
southern provinces bordering Tanzania to facilitate the return of the
refugees to previously inaccessible areas in the country.

The plan follows improved security in parts of the country after the
signing in November 2003 of a power-sharing agreement between the
transitional government and the former main rebel group in the country,
the Conseil national de defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de
la democratie led by Pierre Nkurunziza. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39057]


BURUNDI: Little progress made as Ndayizeye-FNL talks end

Talks between President Domitien Ndayizeye and a delegation of the Forces
nationales de liberation (FNL) rebel faction led by Agathon Rwasa ended on
Tuesday in the Netherlands without a compromise being reached, an FNL
official said.

"Our delegation rejected Ndayizeye's proposal for the FNL to join the
government," Pasteur Habimana, the FNL spokesman, told IRIN on Wednesday
in the capital, Bujumbura.

The talks, which began on 18 Jamuary in Oisterwijk, Netherlands, marked
the first direct meeting between Ndayizeye and Rwasa's FNL. The faction
remains the only rebel movement that has not signed a ceasefire agreement
with the transitional government of Burundi. The talks were aimed at
convincing Rwasa's FNL to join the country's peace process.

During the talks, Habimana said, the FNL maintained that it wanted to hold
talks with representatives of the minority Tutsi community in Burundi. The
Tutsis have led Burundi most of the time since its independence from
Belgium in 1962.

"We repeated several times that the FNL does not recognise the government
set up by the Arusha process," Habimana said. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39064]


BURUNDI: Vatican appoints new nuncio

Pope John Paul II has appointed Monsignor Paul Richard Gallagher as a new
apostolic nuncio in Burundi, Monsignor Pierre Christophe, the ad interim
nuncio in Burundi, announced on Thursday.

Christophe, who is nuncio in Uganda, was sent to Burundi on 30 December
2003, a day after the assassination of Monsignor Michael Courtney.
Christophe is to return to Uganda on 30 January.

"In waiting for the arrival of the new representative of the Holy See in
Burundi. It is Monsignor Luigi Travaglino who will occupy the ad interim
post, and he is expected in Bujumbura on 28 January," Christophe said.

Monsignor Gallagher was born on 23 January 23 1954 in Liverpool, UK. From
1984 to 2000, he worked as a close collaborator of Vatican representatives
in Tanzania, Uruguay and Philippines. Since 2000, he had been a permanent
observer and special envoy of the Holy See at the European Council in
Strasbourg.


CAR: Electoral calendar released

A constitutional referendum will be held in November in the Central
African Republic, followed by municipal, parliamentary and presidential
elections from December 2004 to January 2005, The minister in charge of
the government's secretariat, Zarambaud Assingambi, said on Wednesday when
he released a final electoral calendar.

He said the electoral process would be divided into eight segments and
that ministers coordinating each of them had been designated.

>From January to May, he said, committees coordinated by Interior Minister
>Marcel Malonga and Justice Minister Hyacinth Wodobode would revise the
>country's constitution and the electoral code, and draft laws governing
>the constitutional court, political parties and local administrative
>structures.

Malonga and Junior Planning Minister Daniel Boysembe would oversee an
electoral census due to take place from April to June. In
September-October, Malonga would also supervise the establishment of a
body to oversee and monitor the elections. Together with this body,
Malonga would organise a constitutional referendum in November. This would
be followed by the establishment of a constitutional court before the end
of the year, under the supervision of Wodobode. The court would be
mandated to examine all poll irregularities and to proclaim the election
results. [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39068]


[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


distributed by
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International                  web: www.cidi.org
    Disaster Information             listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Central/East Africa             www.cidi.org/humanitarian/irin/ceafrica