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 252
6 - 12 November 2004


CONTENTS:

UGANDA: LRA leaders want talks with government outside Uganda
RWANDA-UGANDA: Kampala, Kigali in joint border security operations
DRC-RWANDA: Government, UN troops deploy to sensitise foreign fighters in
   Walungu
DRC: Security forces step up night patrols in eastern town
DRC: Uranium mine poses on going risk, UN reports
DRC: Paris Club donors meet on US $7 billion financing
BURUNDI: President sacks his deputy
CAR: Referendum postponed to 5 December
GREAT LAKES: Batwa youth want more access to land, education and health
GREAT LAKES: Peace continues to elude region as humanitarians seek
   $102.32 million for 2005


UGANDA: LRA leaders want talks with government outside Uganda

The rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has proposed that talks to end 18
years of civil war in northern Uganda be held outside the country and has
asked to be provided with passports for eventual travel to such
negotiations, a member of a government contact team told IRIN on Tuesday.

Ayela Odongo, who was part of a government team which has been in contact
with the rebels, said on Tuesday in Kampala that there had been support
for the idea from President Yoweri Museveni's office.

"We have contacted a number of western countries to play host to the
talks, including Canada, Sweden and the Netherlands," Odongo said.

The LRA has waged a war in the region, displacing an estimated 1.6 million
people and abducting about 20,000 children. The children are either
forcibly conscripted into the fighting ranks or given to rebel commanders
as "wives".

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44072 ]


RWANDA-UGANDA: Kampala, Kigali in joint border security operations

Rwanda and Uganda agreed on Thursday to conduct joint security operations
along their common border in a bid to curb cross-border crime, a move that
would also foster relations between the two countries.

At a meeting in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, officials of both countries
said drug trafficking, fraud and cross-border robbery were on the rise.
Cases of robbery of vehicles, mainly from Rwanda to the Ugandan capital,
Kampala, have increased lately. Similarly, vehicles and other valuable
items stolen from Uganda have been taken into Rwanda with some articles
ending up in parts of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The Kigali meeting was part of the Rwanda-Uganda Joint Commission - an
initiative that has been instrumental in reviving relations strained
during their intervention in the DRC. Rwanda and Uganda have clashed on
several occasions in the past on Congolese territory between 1998 and 2002
in the course of the DRC's conflict.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44117 ]


DRC-RWANDA: Government, UN troops deploy to sensitise foreign fighters in
Walungu

Some 3,260 Congolese and an undisclosed number of UN troops began
deploying on Monday to Walungu Territory, in South Kivu Province of the
DRC. Their mission: to sensitise foreign-armed groups to abide by a
disarmament process and return home, military officials said.

"The objective of this operation is to force the Interahamwe to leave
Walungu," Lt. Kasanda wa Kasanda, spokesman for the 10th Military Region
based in South Kivu, said. "We surrounded them this morning and have given
them two months to accept voluntary repatriation under the DDRRR programme
or we will make them leave."

Congolese Defence Minister Jean-Pierre Ondekane said the army had been
ordered to disarm and repatriate all foreign groups by force, in line with
an agreement reached by the DRC and neighbouring Rwanda. The most
notorious of the foreign-armed groups now in eastern Congo is the Forces
democratiques de liberation du Rwanda. Its core is made up of members of
the old Rwandan army, know as the ex-FAR, and the Interahamwe. They are
accused of having been behind the Rwandan genocide of 1994, in which the
current government estimates 937,000 people died. The ex-FAR and
Interahamwe fled to eastern DRC as Rwandan Patriotic Forces, under the
overall command of the current president, Paul Kagame, seized the capital,
Kigali.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44050 ]


DRC: Security forces step up night patrols in eastern town

Congolese security forces and UN troops have stepped up their patrols in
Goma, a town in the DRC's eastern province of North Kivu, following a
recent spate of night-time killings by unidentified armed men in uniform.

Goma Mayor Xavier Nzabara told IRIN on Tuesday that city residents would
be involved in the joint patrols by UN and government troops, as well as
by the police, which began two months ago. He said residents would also be
issued whistles with which to raise the alarm when aware of an attack.

The killings and general climate of insecurity that has gripped Goma and
nearby localities sparked protests in the town on Monday. Some 1,000
demonstrators burned the Kayembe administrative offices in Goma and
demanded the resignation of Gen Obed Rwibasira, commander of the 8th
Military Region, based in the town. The demonstrators are blaming him for
failing to protect the population sufficiently.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44058 ]

[On the Net: Help for Congolese cops:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44089 ]


DRC: Uranium mine poses on going risk, UN reports

The Shinkolobwe uranium mine in Katanga Province, in southwestern DRC,
must remain closed, according to a statement issued on Tuesday following
an assessment of the site by a joint UN team.

"Risks of mine collapse and potential chronic exposure to ionising
radiation" were the two reasons for the recommendation, according to the
team of experts from the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), the Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the UN Mission in the
DRC.

The team carried out its assessment from 25 October to 4 November.

"We found levels of radiation that exceed international safety standards,"
Rene Nijenhuis, an official with the joint UNEP-OCHA Emergency Services
Branch, told IRIN on Wednesday from Geneva. "People in the area
potentially risk chronic exposure."

Officially, the mine has been closed for half a century, but some 15,000
people in and around Shinkolobwe were living off low-tech mining
activities until the mine collapsed in July, killing eight people.


DRC: Paris Club donors meet on US $7 billion financing

A consultative group of financial partners of the DRC, known as the Paris
Club, began a meeting on Thursday in the capital, Kinshasa, to evaluate
the government's achievements with a view to providing another US $7
billion that the Congolese authorities have requested.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund lead the Paris Club
meeting. It is an informal group of official creditors whose role is to
find coordinated and sustainable solutions to the payment difficulties
experienced by debtor nations.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44118 ]


BURUNDI: President sacks his deputy

Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye dismissed Vice-President Alphonse
Marie Kadege on Wednesday for failing in his main mission of assisting the
head of state.

In a decree, Ndayizeye accused Kadege of failing to support the country's
constitution by boycotting all meetings the president had called in
September to discuss the draft constitution. He said Kadege also declined
to sign a decree convening an extraordinary session of Congress on 14
September. Kadege is also accused of rejecting an accord signed on 6
August in Pretoria, South Africa, on power sharing in a post-transition
Burundi, thereby threatening the country's peace process.

The dismissal follows a news conference on Monday, during which, Kadege
declared the referendum on the post-transition constitution - scheduled on
26 November - could be delayed.

[Full story on: [Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44115 ]


CAR: Referendum postponed to 5 December

A referendum on the Central African Republic's (CAR's) constitution will
now be held on 5 December and not 28 November, as initially planned, an
official told IRIN on Thursday.

The postponement would give the Mixed Electoral Commission, known as CEMI,
time to prepare for the vote, its chairman, Jean Wilibiro-Sacko, said.

The minister in charge of the government's secretariat general, Zarambaud
Assingambi, told IRIN the postponement followed a request by his Interior
Ministry counterpart to a cabinet meeting on Friday.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44096 ]


GREAT LAKES: Batwa youth want more access to land, education and health

Youth representatives of the Batwa, a group of indigenous people found
across central Africa, have asked the governments of Burundi, the DRC and
Rwanda to ensure they get equal access to land, education and health as
other ethnic groups in these countries.

The representatives, who have been meeting in the Burundian capital,
Bujumbura, since Monday, said they planned to empower Batwa youth to
protect themselves.

"We want now to offer an opportunity to the youths to learn all the
international legal instruments that would allow them to pressure their
respective governments," Vital Bambanze, the secretary-general of the
Unissons Nous pour la Promotion des Batwa, the Burundian association for
the Batwa, told IRIN on Tuesday.

He said the Batwa in Africa's Great Lakes region lacked access to basic
rights because sates and other ethnic communities had marginalised them.


GREAT LAKES: Peace continues to elude region as humanitarians seek US
$102.32 million for 2005

Despite progress made in the peace processes of several of Africa's Great
Lakes countries, calm continues to elude the region and humanitarian
actors are now seeking US $102.32 million to fund their activities in
2005.

Launching the region's Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) for 2005 on
Thursday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) said the appeal focuses on the funding of activities that provide a
cross-border dynamic and support country-level initiatives in recognition
of the regional and complex nature of crises in the Great Lakes.

The CAP is an inter-organisational mechanism for UN agencies, the Red
Cross movement and NGOs with a regional presence to identify issues of
humanitarian concern and to develop a harmonised response.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44095 ]

[On the Net: Appeals for 2005: http://www.reliefweb.int/appeals/index.html]



[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