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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 255
27 November - 03 December 2004


CONTENTS:

DRC-RWANDA: Kabila to send troops to counter Rwandan threat
DRC: Thousands reportedly begin to flee troubled east
DRC-UGANDA: Kampala deploys troops along border with Congo
UGANDA: US awards grant for AIDS and TB research
KENYA: HIV/AIDS prevalence down to 7 percent, government says
GREAT LAKES: Region's peace process on track but obstacles remain, envoy
   says
BURUNDI: Demobilisation of former fighters begins
BURUNDI: Complaints of irregularities as voter registration ends
TANZANIA: Violence mars voter registration in Zanzibar
TANZANIA: International criminal prosecutors form joint task force


ALSO SEE:

GREAT LAKES: Threat of regionalisation hangs over Congolese conflict
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44507

DRC-RWANDA: Kabila to send troops to counter Rwandan threat

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila announced on
Monday he would, within two weeks, send some 10,000 more troops to the
eastern province of North Kivu, to protect the civilian population and
head off any possible incursion by Rwandan troops.

Kabila told members of the International Committee to Accompany the
Transition (or CIAT) of the intented deployment, his spokesman, Kudura
Kasongo, said on Monday. CIAT is made up of ambassadors accredited to
Kinshasa from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council as
well as Belgium, South Africa and others.

Kabila's government has asked the UN Security Council to hold an emergency
meeting to discuss the situation in the east where, he said, "The Rwanda
authorities and the presence of the Rwandan army pose a threat." [Fulls
tory on: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44466 ]

Kabila's announcement came a week after Rwandan President Paul Kagame
warned he would strike at Rwandan Hutu militants in the DRC, poised to
attack their homeland.

There have been several reportes of Rwandan troops or suspected Rwandan
troops in the east.

The UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, announced on Wednesday that it
had sighted about 100 people suspected to be Rwandan troops. MONUC
Director of Information Patricia Tome said on Wednesday a UN patrol
spotted the suspects in Rutshuru and that MONUC was "trying to confirm the
identity of these soldiers". Meanwhile, on Thursday, Rwanda denied having
yet sent its soldiers into Congo.


DRC: Thousands reportedly begin to flee troubled east

As the spectre of renewed conflict between the DRC and Rwanda grows daily,
thousands of civilians have begun fleeing some eastern areas of the Congo,
humanitarian and religious officials in the area have said.

"Population movements, difficult to monitor, have been noted in the north
part of North Kivu Province," Bernard LeFlaive, a humanitarian affairs
officer for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA), said on Monday.

Based on information collected from local authorities and civilians,
Leflaive estimates that tens of thousands of people could now be on the
move. He said OCHA would send a mission to the troubled area, where
massive displacements were possible, especially in parts of the Lubero,
Masisi and Walikale territories.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44441]


DRC-UGANDA: Kampala deploys troops along border with Congo

The Ugandan army announced on Wednesday it had deployed troops along the
border with the DRC following reports of renewed activity by Ugandan
insurgent groups based in eastern Congo.

"We have made [a] precautionary deployment," Maj Shaban Bantariza, the
army spokesman, told IRIN on Wednesday. "Especially in areas we think are
possible crossing points for some negative elements."

The Ugandan government says a new rebel group, the People's Redemption
Army, along with the moribund Allied Democratic Forces, until now an armed
Islamic militant group in western Uganda, were reorganising in the DRC for
a possible attack.

Last week, the Ugandan army paraded captives it said were operatives of
the PRA, who were arrested in northwestern Uganda carrying guns. [Full
story on: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44455 ]


UGANDA: US awards grant for AIDS and TB research

Uganda is one of four countries to benefit from a $12-million grant from
the United States to carry out further HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB)
research and training, the US embassy in the capital, Kampala, said on
Wednesday, World AIDS day.

In a statement, the embassy said the project would broaden Uganda's
capacity to meet the public health and scientific challenges of the
evolving HIV and TB epidemic in the country.

The embassy added that infrastructure would be developed in Uganda to
translate basic and clinical research findings into public health policy
and interventions and to evaluate their effectiveness.

Ugandan researcher Peter Mugyenyi, of the Joint Clinical Research Centre
in Kampala, will work with colleagues from Case Western Reserve University
in the United States on the research. Other countries benefiting from the
research grant include China, Haiti and Russia.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44437


KENYA: HIV/AIDS prevalence down to 7 percent, government says

The national HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in Kenya has dropped from 14 percent
four years ago to about 7 percent today; and the level of public awareness
of the disease has risen to an estimated 90 percent, the Ministry of
Health announced on Wednesday to mark World AIDS Day.

It said about 10 percent of reported HIV/AIDS cases occurred in children
five years of age or under, mostly due to mother-child transmission of
HIV. It said some 200,000 infants and children were living with the virus.

As part of national efforts to contain the epidemic, Kenya has set up
national institutions and local committees in communities, and is working
on a new strategic plan for 2006-2010 to continue the fight against the
disease, especially among women and girls.


GREAT LAKES: Region's peace process on track but obstacles remain, envoy
says

In an assessment of the situation in Africa's Great Lakes region, the UN
Security Council said on Tuesday it was encouraged by the determination of
officials in Burundi and the DRC to move on to elections.

In a statement issued from New York City, the Council said the assessment
came at the end of a visit to the region by the ambassadors of the
15-member Council from 20 to 25 November.

Briefing the Council on the visit, the head of the delegation, Jean-Marc
de La Sabliere, who is the French ambassador to the Council, said the
members returned from the mission "encouraged".

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44436]


BURUNDI: Demobilisation of former fighters begins

A total of 216 former fighters, five of them women, were demobilised on
Thursday in Burundi's Muramyva Province, marking the beginning of the
programme to return 55,000 combatants back into civilian life.

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and head of the UN
Mission in Burundi, Carolyn McAskie, and Burundian President Domitien
Ndayizeye burned 100 guns at the demobilisation centre to symbolise the
beginning of the disarmament and demobilisation programme that is expected
to end more than a decade of civil war.

The executive secretary of the National Commission for Demobilisation,
Reinsertion and Reintegration, Liberat Ntunzwenimana, said demobilisation
started with volunteers. He said some 1,680 government soldiers and 2,561
former combatants had already volunteered to be demobilised.

Full story:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=4448&SelectRegion=Great_Lakes&SelectCountry=BURUNDI


BURUNDI: Complaints of irregularities as voter registration ends

Voter registration in Burundi ended on Tuesday amid complaints by
political parties and civic society representatives that the effort was
marred by irregularities.

Thousands of women, especially those in rural areas, were excluded from
the process because they lacked identity cards, the chairman of Burundi's
Association for the Defence of Women's Rights (Association pour la Defense
des Droits de la Femmes), Mireille Niyonzima, said on Wednesday.

The association, as well as several political parties, called for a new
voter registration after a referendum on the country's post-transition
constitution, scheduled for 22 December. The association said this measure
would ensure greater coverage of potential voters to participate in
general elections due to take place in April 2005.

The National Independent Electoral Commission has not released the outcome
of the registration, which began on 13 November. By Thursday, officials
were still feeding voters' data into the computers of the electoral
commission.

Until late Tuesday, people in several neighbourhoods of the capital,
Bujumbura, including Buyenzi, Cibitoke and Ngagara, were still queuing at
registration centres even though the centres had closed.

Full story:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=4448SelectRegion=Great_Lakes&SelectCountry=BURUNDI


TANZANIA: Violence mars voter registration in Zanzibar

Police shot dead a primary school student on Wednesday at a voter
registration centre in Pemba, the second largest island of Zanzibar. Two
other people were seriously wounded. One was flown to Tanzania's
commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, for treatment while the others remain
hospitalised in Zanzibar.

"Local police had to act because a crowd was continually hurling stones at
the centre in Ng'ombe," Abubakar Kyanga, the commander of the national
police for the district of South Pemba, told IRIN on Thursday.

The stone throwers were allegedly militants from Zanzibar's main
opposition party, Civic United Front (CUF), who had accused electoral
officials of allowing people to register even though they had not lived on
the island for the mandatory minimum of three-years.

CUF Deputy Secretary-General Juma Duni had told reporters on Tuesday that
his party would block the registration of anyone who failed to qualify.

Full story:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=44491SelectRegion=Great_Lakes&SelectCountry=TANZANIA


TANZANIA: International criminal prosecutors form joint task force

Prosecutors of international criminal courts agreed to form a joint task
force to exchange information and develop strategies to investigate and
prosecute crimes that fall within their respective jurisdictions, an
official said.

"The task force will help to improve and make efficient the work of the
prosecutors," Hassan Jallow, the prosecutor for the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda, said.

He was speaking at a news conference in Arusha, northern Tanzania, at the
end of a three-day colloquium. The prosecutors of the International
Criminal Court for former Yugoslavia, the Special Court for Sierra Leone
and International Criminal Court also attended.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=44388]


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


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