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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 254
20 - 26 November 2004


CONTENTS:

GREAT LAKES: Speed up election programme, Security Council says
GREAT LAKES: Leaders commit to peace
DRC: More UN troops deployed
DRC: UN sex abuse probe teams arrives
DRC: Kabila suspends 6 ministers, 10 company executives
RWANDA-DRC: Security Council calls on Rwanda to refrain from attack
ROC: NGO condemns French court's decision on "Beach case"
ROC: 150 people return home to Pool region
UGANDA: Ceasefire period expires, but army says it is still holding
BURUNDI: Ex-rebels complain of poor living conditions in cantonment camp


ALSO SEE:

GREAT LAKES: Fresh threat challenges new regional declaration:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44369 ]


GREAT LAKES: Security Council ends Great Lakes tour

A visiting UN Security Council delegation, which ended its tour of
Africa's Great Lakes region on Thursday, has asked the government of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to speed up its electoral timetable
so that polls could be held on time in June 2005.

"A lot has been done, but it is important to accelerate," Jean-Marc de la
Sabliere, France's UN ambassador and the head of the visiting UN
delegation, told reporters on Monday in the capital, Kinshasa, at the
start of the visit.

The preliminary reforms meant to pave the way for elections have not been
approved, except for that which concerns the reunification of the armed
forces from previously belligerent groups.

The 15-member delegation also urged the DRC and Rwanda to expedite the
creation of a joint border verification commission. During the UN General
Assembly meeting in September both countries agreed to the creation of
this commission.

The delegation also encouraged the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC) and the
Congolese army to continue with the repatriation of foreign fighters who
crossed over into the DRC at the height of the war.

At least 7,000 ex-Rwanda soldiers have been sent home but up to 10,000
others could still be roaming the country. MONUC and the Congolese army
have begun a two-month information campaign to encourage those who are
still resisting to return to Rwanda. After such a time, they could be
repatriated by force, according to the Congolese army.

The delegation met Congolese President Joseph Kabila on Monday on the need
to hold elections as scheduled. The delegation also travelled to troubled
eastern Congolese town of Bukavu, then on to Rwanda where President Paul
Kagame called on Sunday for stronger action to disarm and repatriate
thousands of Hutu rebels in eastern DRC.

Speaking to reporters after meeting the Council members, Kagame told
reporters that efforts at voluntarily disarmament of the rebels had
failed.

"You can't voluntarily disarm these combatants, many of whom are
extremists, and I think asking them to voluntarily leave what they have
been doing for the last 10 years is unattainable," he said in Kigali.

The Council delegates arrived in Burundi on Tuesday and immediately asked
the government in Bujumbura to speed up the country's peace process and
complete the political transitional period by 2005.

A referendum on the country's post-transition constitution is due to be
held on 22 December and elections in 2005.

[On the Net: RWANDA: Voluntary repatriation of Hutu rebels has failed,
Kagame says: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44252]


GREAT LAKES: Leaders commit to peace

A declaration of commitment to end conflict in Africa's Great Lakes region
was signed on 20 November in Dar es Salaam by 11 heads of state, but the
protocols for implementing the declaration are yet to be worked out.

The meeting, known as the International Conference on Peace, Security,
Democracy and Development in the Great Lakes region, marked the first time
that all heads of state around the region had officially met on these
issues.

Leading up to the summit, national delegations produced a 14-page
declaration that purportedly represents "a common vision" in the causes of
conflict throughout the region, as well as on how to end it.

>From here, the 11 core countries are to begin a series of
inter-ministerial meetings starting early in 2005 to agree on protocols
and programmes of action to implement the declaration. The process is to
culminate in a second summit of heads of state in Nairobi planned for
2005.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44248]


DRC: More UN troops deployed

Fresh batches of UN peacekeepers have started arriving in the DRC as part
of the 5,900 international soldiers on a mission to strengthen the world
body's military presence in the war-affected country, UN and national
military officials announced on Tuesday.

The MONUC spokesman, Mamadou Bah, told IRIN that of the total, 5,559 were
soldiers and 341 police officers. The troop reinforcement comes after a UN
Security Council resolution was passed to increase the number of soldiers
in the country. It also comes amid a regional tour by the 15 members of
the Council.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44303]


DRC: UN sex abuse probe teams arrives

The UN has sent two teams to investigate 150 allegations of sexual
exploitation and abuse by civilian and military personnel serving in the
DRC, a senior UN official in New York City told reporters on Monday.

The official, Jane Holl Lute, said the allegations included criminal
activity, paedophilia, rape and solicitation of prostitution.

Lute, who is an assistant secretary-general in the Department of
Peacekeeping Operations, also said the division would deploy a special
investigative team to table various strategies to deal with such cases at
peacekeeping missions.

She said a number of allegations of sexual abuse were specific to Bunia,
the largest town in the troubled northeastern district of Ituri. [Full UN
news story on Lute's briefing on:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=12623&Cr=democratic&Cr1=congo]


DRC: Kabila suspends 6 ministers, 10 company executives

President Kabila suspended six government ministers and 10 senior managers
of state-owned companies on Thursday following a report by the National
Assembly, the lower house of parliament, accusing them of corruption.

A presidential decree suspending the ministers for energy, transport and
communication, mines, higher education, public works and foreign trade, as
well senior managers of 10 of the country's state-owned companies
affiliated with these ministers accused the officials of illegal payments
and other unlawful acts.

A parliamentary inquiry was launched after the national audit office
published a report in September citing embezzlement by the companies'
managers. The September report said a handful of managers earned monthly
salaries ranging between US $8,000 and $32,000, and paid themselves other
benefits. The average public servant in the DRC earns $10 per month. [Full
story on: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44354 ]


RWANDA-DRC: Security Council calls on Rwanda to refrain from attack

The UN Security Council warned Rwanda on Wednesday to refrain from
carrying out its threat to strike at rebel bases in the DRC, saying MONUC
had the mandate to prevent the derailment of the fragile peace process, UN
News reported.

The Council's caution came on the heels of a Rwandan warning on Wednesday
and again on Thursday that it might invade Congo to disarm Rwandan Hutu
rebels who were moving forces to attack Rwanda.

The MONUC director of information, Patricia Tome, said in Kinshasa a
Rwandan official told the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative in
the DRC, William Swing, that a Rwandan army attack against the Forces
democratiques de liberation du Rwanda (FDLR) was imminent.

The FDLR is made up partly of militant Rwandan Hutus, some of who were
responsible for execution of the 1994 genocide in their country. Present
Rwandan government figures put the number of Tutsis and politically
moderate Hutus killed in the genocide at 937,000.


ROC: NGO condemns French court's decision on "Beach case"

An appellate court in Paris ruled on Monday that it could not try the case
in which Republic of Congo (ROC) President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, Security
Minister Pierre Oba and Police Director-General Jean-Francois Ndenguet and
other government officials are accused of crimes against humanity.

While waiting to learn the reason for the court's decision, a leading ROC
human rights association described it as a "politico-judicial masquerade".

"It is scandalous," Roger Bouka-Owoko, the director-general of the
Congolese Observatory for Human Rights, said in the ROC capital,
Brazzaville.

He said the rights body would appeal the decision. The litigation, called
the "Beach affair", concerned the disappearance of 350 Congolese refugees
who had returned home in 1999 from neighbouring DRC. They had fled their
country's war and became refugees in neighbouring DRC.They had returned
home as a result of a tripartite agreement between the Office of the UN
High Commissioner for Refugees and the governments of the two Congos.

The defendants filed the case in France in 2002 because Dabira owns a home
there. The Congolese government had always maintained that no French court
had jurisdiction to hear the case.


ROC: 150 people return home to Pool region

Displaced residents of the troubled Pool region in the ROC are gradually
returning home under a government-facilitated programme that saw 150
people make it back to their village of Fiya on 20 November. They had fled
the Pool in 2002 when the civil war erupted in the area between government
troops and the so-called Ninja rebel forces loyal to the Rev Frederic
Bitsangou, alias Pasteur Ntoumi.


UGANDA: Ceasefire period expires, but army says it is still holding fire

Northern Uganda had high hopes for progress on peace talks to end 18 years
of war in the region, but a seven-day ceasefire announced by the
government a week ago had expired on Monday, with the army saying that the
rebels had done little to show a willingness to talk.

Army spokesman Maj Shaban Bantariza told IRIN that the military was
instead studying the meaning of a recent directive by the rebel Lord's
Resistance Army leader, Joseph Kony, to his commanders to leave northern
Uganda and join him in southern Sudan.

"Kony has been saying through his radio communication to his commanders
that he wants 100 days to be able to take part in peace talks, but nothing
shows that there is anything he has done to fully utilise the seven days
given to him," Bantariza said.

"We still do not understand why he [Kony] has ordered all his commanders
to cross into Sudan and why he is headed deep into Sudan, towards Torit,"
Bantariza added, saying that the army was still hopeful.


BURUNDI: Ex-rebels complain of poor living conditions in cantonment camp

Ex-fighters from five former rebel groups in Burundi, cantoned at a site
in the northwestern province of Bubanza, have complained of inadequate
food, congestion in their living quarters and an increase in cases of
malaria due to lack of mosquito nets.

The commander of the Buramata cantonment site, Col Alexis Nduwimana, said
at least four ex-combatants share a hut of less than two square metres. He
said the huts were often damaged during inclement weather. Nduwimana also
told IRIN on 19 November that the quantity of food was insufficient for
the large number of the cantoned fighters.

The cantoned men are drawn form former rebel groups Forces pour la defense
de la democracie (FDD) led by Leonard Nyangoma; the Parti pour la
liberation du people (PALIPE-AGAKIZA) led by Etienne Karatasi; the Front
pour la liberation nationales (FNL-ICANZO) led by Alain Mugabarabona;
KAZE-FDD led by Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye; and the Front de liberation
nationale (FROLINA) led by Joseph Karumba.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44345]


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


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