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

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e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org


CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 241
21 - 27 August 2004


CONTENTS:

DRC: Radicals in ex-rebel group may be gaining control
DRC: Volcanic activity in the east causing serious health problems
BURUNDI: Polls possible by October deadline, Nkurunziza says
CAR: US $25 million to treat HIV/AIDS
KENYA: Churches appeal for aid for Turkana pastoralists
UGANDA: ICC team arrives to prepare LRA probe


DRC: Radicals in ex-rebel group may be gaining control

A battle is looming in the Democratic Republic of the Congo over who will 
control a key rebel group-turned-political party. How the battle plays out 
could determine whether the peace process remains on track.

The leader of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma), 
Azarias Ruberwa, who has been one of the four vice-presidents, left the 
capital, Kinshasa, last week for Goma, his stronghold in the east, and 
then this week announced that he was suspending his participation in the 
country's one-year old transitional government of national unity. But 
party members are divided over the decision and Ruberwa, himself, seems 
deeply ambivalent about the action he has taken.

The current crisis was precipitated by a massacre on 13 August of 160 
Congolese Tutsis, known as Banyamulenge, who in June had fled across the 
border into neighbouring Burundi. Ruberwa, who is also a Banyamulenge, 
described the massacre as "a genocide" and said the transitional process 
needed to be paused and re-assessed.

Full story


DRC: Volcanic activity in the east causing serious health problems

Two years of emissions of gas, ash and cinders from Nyiragongo and 
Nyamulagira volcanoes in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo are 
causing health problems for an estimated 60,000 people in the mountains' 
immediate vicinity. The emissions also place the health of a further 1.2 
million in surrounding areas at risk.

"About 30,000 square kilometres of land west of the volcanoes has been 
destroyed by the fallout", Kasereka Mahinda, the head of the Department of 
Geophysics at the Volcanic Observatory of the Centre de Recherche en 
Sciences Naturelles in Goma, said.

Full story


BURUNDI: Polls possible by October deadline, Nkurunziza says

Organising general elections in Burundi by 31 October, the deadline for 
the conclusion of a three-year transitional period, is feasible, says 
Pierre Nkurunziza, the head of the former largest rebel movement in the 
country, the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour 
la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD). The CNDD-FDD recently transformed 
itself into a political party.

Registering voters and preparing voting centres could take place in just 
two weeks, Nkurunziza told IRIN during an interview in Dar es Salaam, 
Tanzania. He was also optimistic that Burundi's peace process would go 
forward despite the fact that one rebel movement has continued to commit 
atrocities, the latest being the massacre of some 160 Congolese Tutsi 
refugees on 13 August at a camp in Burundi.

IRIN interview 
with Pierre Nkurunziza

Full story


CAR: US $25 million to treat HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS patients in the Central African Republic are to receive 
anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment at affordable prices for the next five 
years thanks to a US $25 million grant from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, 
Malaria and Tuberculosis.

The majority of poor HIV/AIDS patients will receive ARVs free-of-charge; 
low income earners would pay $4 a month, the health minister, 
Nestor-Mamadou Nali, said during the programme's launch on Monday in the 
CAR capital, Bangui.

The Global Fund approved the five-year programme for the CAR in April.

Full story


KENYA: Churches appeal for aid for Turkana pastoralists

Livestock have been dying by the thousands as a result of drought in parts 
of northwestern Kenya, greatly reducing the ability of about 100,000 
people to feed themselves, a group of religious organisations reported 
this week as it launched an appeal for just under US $1.13 million to 
assist the affected populations.

Action by Churches Together (ACT) said a rapid assessment team had 
estimated that over 10,000 head of cattle, and more than 15,000 smaller 
livestock had either died or been abandoned by their owners in parts of 
remote Turkana District, which borders on Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia. ACT 
said more than 70 percent of the people in two of the district~Rs 
divisions had been affected, especially people who were exclusively 
pastoralists.

Full story


UGANDA: ICC team arrives to prepare LRA probe

An advance team from the International Criminal Court (ICC) has arrived in 
Uganda to prepare the investigation of crimes committed in the war between 
government troops and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in the north, 
UN officials said.

"An ICC team of nine people has been to Gulu where they have been trying 
to get interpreters for the local Luo and Swahili languages," Andrew 
Timpson, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian 
Affairs in Gulu, 360 km north of the capital, Kampala, told IRIN on 
Wednesday.

"They have also met human rights groups and non-governmental 
organisations, but the real investigation has not started yet," Timpson 
said.

Full story


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