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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 276
23 - 29 April 2005


CONTENTS:

BURUNDI: Stop fighting us, rebel leader tells government
BURUNDI: Former rebel group suspends participation in cabinet
BURUNDI: Thousands disarmed since December, UN official says
BURUNDI: Elections calendar issued
BURUNDI-RWANDA: Refugee status denied for fleeing Rwandans
RWANDA: UN tribunal sentences ex-civic leader to life in prison
DRC: Army preparing 10 brigades ahead of general elections
CONGO-DRC: UN agency begins repatriation of thousands
TANZANIA: Destruction from Zanzibar deluge worse than thought
KENYA: Two million in need of food aid, WFP says
KENYA: Health centre to treat HIV/AIDS patients inaugurated
UGANDA: Ex-rebels begin farming; first step to rehabilitation


BURUNDI: Stop fighting us, rebel leader tells government

Burundi's remaining rebel group, the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL),
will end the war only when government troops stop attacking its forces, rebel
leader Agathon Rwasa said on Wednesday.

"We are committed to lasting peace in Burundi," he said at a news conference in
Tanzania's leading commercial city of Dar es Salaam, "but the government must
also respect our position. If we are attacked we are going to hit back."

A Tanzanian government official, who requested anonymity, said Rwasa had met
Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa and assured him of his personal commitment
to seek peace. However, the official declined to say when the FNL-Burundi
government peace talks would take place.

[Full story on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46827]


BURUNDI: Former rebel group suspends participation in cabinet

A former major rebel group in Burundi announced on Monday it was freezing
relations with President Domitien Ndayizeye and that its ministers would no
longer attend cabinet meetings.

The spokesman for the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces
pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD), Ramadhan Karenga, said the reason
for the decision was that Ndayizeye was "unreliable".

Karenga said the main issue was that Ndayizeye had refused to endorse
CNDD-FDD's candidate for the Ministry of the Interior following the death, in
March, of the minister, Simon Nyandwi, who was a CNDD-FDD member.

[Full story on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46815]


BURUNDI: Thousands disarmed since December, UN official says

Burundi has disarmed and demobilised 7,282 former combatants since December
2004 under an ongoing programme that includes their reintegration into society,
a military spokesman for the UN Mission in Burundi (ONUB) said on Saturday.

The spokesman, Maj Adama Diop, told IRIN that of this figure, 6,315 were men,
328 women and 639 children. He said by 21 April at least two disarmament
centres, in the west-central province of Bubanza and another in the central
province of Gitega, had been emptied of ex-combatants.

The DDR plan is scheduled to run for four years, Diop said, with the formation
of an initial 45,000-member National Defence Force, which would later be
reduced to 30,000 and finally to 25,000 troops. [Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46817 ]


BURUNDI: Elections calendar issued

Independent Electoral Commission Chairman Paul Ngarambe has announced the
country's elections timetable, which is scheduled to end on 19 August with
presidential polls.

The country's new president would be sworn in on 26 August; Ngarambe said in
the capital, Bujumbura, upon his return from Uganda - where on 22 April a
daylong emergency summit of Africa's Great Lakes leaders extended the country's
transition until August.

He said parliamentary elections would be held on 4 July and those for the
Senate - the upper chamber of parliament - on 29 July. However, he said,
communal elections would be held on 23 September, as they were "difficult to
organise because they require a lot of things and much attention".

[Full story on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46787]

[On the Net: BURUNDI: Transition extended by four months, polls due by 19
August: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46785]


BURUNDI-RWANDA: Refugee status denied for fleeing Rwandans

Senior Burundian and Rwandan officials decided at a meeting on Wednesday that
Rwandans who have been fleeing to northern Burundi since the beginning of April
would not be accorded refugee status.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has said some 7,200 Rwandans had so far fled to
Burundi's northern provinces of Kirundo and Ngozi and that more were expected.
By last week, some 1,800 had been transferred to the Songore and Mishiha sites
in the eastern province of Cankuzo.

Some of the newly arrived Rwandans said they were escaping prosecution from
Rwanda's special justice system known as gacaca. The government introduced
gacaca, a traditional justice system, to bring to trial thousands of people
suspected of having taken part in the 1994 genocide in which 937,000 died,
according to the government's latest figures.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46856]


RWANDA: UN tribunal sentences ex-civic leader to life in prison

The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda sentenced on Thursday a
former Rwandan civic leader, Mika Muhimana, to life imprisonment for his role
in the genocide.

"His crimes rank among the gravest and deserve a heavy sentence," Khalida Khan,
the presiding judge, said as she read out the court's decision.

Muhimana, 44, was found guilty of direct involvement in the murder and rape of
Tutsi women. "Muhimana raped several women, some several times, in his home, in
churches and in hospitals," Khan said.

Muhimana was a councillor in 1994 for Gishyita Commune in the western province
of Kibuye.

[Full story on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46852]


DRC: Army preparing 10 brigades ahead of general elections

At least 10 brigades of the new Congolese army are being prepared to help with
the country's reunification process, especially during elections planned for
later in 2005, the army chief of general staff, Lt-Gen Kisempia Kisungilanga,
told IRIN on Monday.

"Those being trained will participate in peacekeeping operations during the
electoral process," he said.

The brigades are being trained by Belgian, French and South African
instructors. Kisempia's communication adviser, Jean-Willy Mutombo, a civilian,
said the brigades would be trained in human rights and other methods of
securing locations during the elections.

[Full story on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46818]


CONGO-DRC: UN agency begins repatriation of thousands to Equateur

The first 109 of some 58,000 DRC refugees who had been living in the Republic
of Congo (ROC) in the past six years arrived in Equateur Province on Thursday,
in a repatriation effort being undertaken by UNHCR.

"The UNHCR has assured us that they will support us throughout our reinsertion
[into our communities]," one returnee, interviewed by UN-supported Radio Okapi,
said.

Some 8,000 refugees have already registered for repatriation. The UNHCR
spokeswomen in Geneva, Jennifer Pagonis, she there on Tuesday that the agency
hoped to repatriate 24,000 DRC refugees in ROC by the end of 2006. The
repatriation of all the refugees from Betou in ROC to Equateur is expected to
last through 2007.

She said the operation would be "one of the most logistically challenging major
refugee voluntary repatriation programmes" the agency had undertaken anywhere
in the world.

"The rugged return journey includes crossing dense rain forest, numerous
waterways and extremely rough roads," she said at the news conference.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46825]


TANZANIA: Destruction from Zanzibar deluge worse than thought

The heaviest rains in 40 years destroyed more homes and infrastructure in and
around Stone Town, capital of the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar, than earlier
reported, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies.

In a bulletin issued on 22 April, the Federation said 800 homes were affected
by flooding from 17 to 18 April. Many of their homes were submerged or
destroyed by the deluge.

"All household items were lost," the Federation said.

However, it added that so far only 150 families had registered as being
homeless.

[Full story on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46788]


KENYA: Two million in need of food aid, WFP says

Up to two million people in arid and semi-arid regions of Kenya will need food
aid until August despite a general improvement in weather conditions, the UN
World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday.

"The debilitating impact of a prolonged dry spell, compounded by chronic
poverty, means that in many regions thousands of families are too poor to have
enough to eat," Tesema Negash, the WFP country director for Kenya, said.

In others parts of the country - such as the east - the rains had failed once
again, worsening food shortages, he added. WFP said it was short of 52,000 mt
of food, worth US $28 million. The shortfall represents almost 63 percent of
the food required, WFP said.

The current food crisis is particularly acute in Kajiado District, south of the
nation's capital, Nairobi.

[Full story on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46812]


KENYA: Health centre to treat HIV/AIDS patients inaugurated

Kenya's Ministry of Health and the international medical charity Medecins Sans
Frontieres (MSF) inaugurated on Thursday a new facility in Nairobi's Mbagathi
District Hospital to provide comprehensive care to people living with HIV/AIDS.

The Comprehensive Care Centre, run jointly by the ministry and MSF-Belgium,
will provide counselling, testing and treatment with antiretroviral (ARV) drugs
to those living with HIV. The centre will also train the staff in diagnosis and
care of HIV/AIDS patients.

Some 1.24 million Kenyans are living with HIV and 200,000 of them require ARV
treatment.

[Full story on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46857]


UGANDA: Ex-rebels begin farming; first step to rehabilitation

Thousands of former fighters of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army have started
farming in war-torn northern Uganda in an effort to adjust to civilian life,
the minister for northern rehabilitation, Grace Akello, told IRIN on Tuesday.

"The government has provided them with the land in Gulu, and they have since
ploughed over 500 acres and planted their own food," she said. "The land is
free to all former rebels and we have over 20,000 who have returned."

She said the government's measure was designed to change the public perception
of the former rebels being rehabilitated.

[Full story on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46819]


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2005


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