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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 265
5 - 11 February 2005


CONTENTS:

CENTRAL AFRICA: Leaders sign new treaty to protect rainforest
DRC: Relief operation begins for thousands of displaced civilians
DRC: Torrential rains devastate Uvira town
DRC: No sex with locals for peacekeepers
DRC-UGANDA: Renewed fighting drives more Congolese refugees across the
   border
UGANDA: Mediator says peace process back on course
RWANDA: Genocide suspects have until March to confess
BURUNDI: Tension as cattle destroy crops in Cibitoke
KENYA: Western donors urge action on reports of corruption and bad
   governance


CENTRAL AFRICA: Leaders sign new treaty to protect rainforest

Leaders of the 10 countries that make up the Congo Basin concluded on 5
February a treaty aimed at protecting the world's second largest
rainforest.

The treaty, signed at the end of a two-day summit in Brazzaville,
capital of the Republic of Congo (ROC), provides for the creation of a
new forestry commission and a subregional fund to finance the protection
of the rainforest, as well as the harmonisation of national laws on
logging.

Environmentalists hailed the treaty because, they said, forests were
being destroyed by illegal logging and poaching. According to the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an average of 13,700 ha of
forest in the Congo basin was lost each year from 1990 to 2000. The
Congo Basin is an area of about 520 million ha. The rate of
deforestation has continued since then, the FAO said, but at a slower
rate.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45421 ]


DRC: Relief operation begins for thousands of displaced civilians

A new relief operation has begun in Ituri District, northeastern
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), to help tens of thousands of people
displaced by fighting in January, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF)
reported on Monday.

"Most of the villages have been looted and burned down by the armed
factions, civilians were reportedly killed and women and girls
abducted," UNICEF said. "The villages are now completely deserted and
the population has been displaced throughout the Djugu Territory."

The worst affected area is Djugu, north of Bunia, the main town in
Ituri. The district has been the scene of intermittent fighting between
two armed factions, the Union des patriotes congolais led by Thomas
Lubanga and the Front nationaliste integrationiste. UPC comprises
members from the Hema ethnic group while FNI is mainly Lendu.

UNICEF said at least 42,000 displaced people were at four sites for
internally displaced persons (IDPs). Three of the sites are protected by
troops of the UN Mission in the DRC, MONUC. The agency said it had not
yet been able to reach many other displaced people.

UNICEF is undertaking the latest relief operation alongside other UN
agencies and NGOs including Oxfam, German Agro Action and Medecines Sans
Frontieres.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45437 ]


DRC: Torrential rains devastate Uvira town

A deluge late Monday left eight people dead and many more missing in and
around the town Uvira in eastern DRC, provincial authorities told IRIN.

"We are still searching in the rubble for survivors," Didas Kaningini
Kyoto, the deputy governor of the province of South Kivu, said.

He said the water level rose to 80cm in Kasenda, a suburb of Uvira. At
least 300 homes were destroyed. He said the damage was caused by sand
and rocks sliding off the Mitumba Mountains that surround Uvira.


DRC: No sex with locals for peacekeepers

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced on Wednesday that he has
banned peacekeepers of the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC), known as MONUC, from fraternising with locals, UN News
reported.

He was reacting to claims of widespread sexual abuse of women and girls.

In a letter to the Security Council, Annan also asked for another 100
military police and qualified French-speaking investigators to conduct
self-monitoring programmes and "root out" the abuse.

UN News reported that in January, a report by the UN watchdog, the
Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), found that MONUC personnel
engaged in sexual exploitation of Congolese women and girls as young as
13. The UN has investigated 150 allegations, including gang rape, made
against some 50 soldiers based in DRC's northeastern town of Bunia.

[On the Net: GREAT LAKES: Focus on sexual misconduct by UN personnel:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=42343 ] DRC: Focus on rampant
rape, despite end of war:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39912 ]


DRC-UGANDA: Renewed fighting drives more Congolese refugees across the
border

Renewed fighting among various groups in eastern DRC, close to the
border with Uganda, has triggered new arrivals of refugees in western
Uganda, an official of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Thursday.

"There has been an upsurge in arrivals in the past four days. We have
recorded at least 200 every day who, reportedly, are fleeing fighting in
DRC, close to Kyoma and Kasenyi villages," Roberta Russo, the UNHCR
spokeswoman in Kampala, said.

However, she added, "We do not know who is fighting who".

She said the Congolese refugees, who were previously reluctant to leave
the transit site of Nkondo on the southern tip of Lake Albert, on the
border with the DRC, had started moving to the Kaseeta reception centre.

The influx of 15,000 Congolese refugees into western Uganda,
precipitated by fighting in January in the DRC's eastern province of
North Kivu, had reduced, with close to 10,000 of them reported to have
returned to their country. The fighting in North Kivu was between former
rebels-turned-government soldiers and former Mayi-Mayi militias, who
have also been integrated into the Congolese national army.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45484 ]


UGANDA: Mediator says peace process back on course

The announcement by the Ugandan government of a new limited ceasefire
has put the protracted peace process in northern Uganda back on course,
chief mediator Betty Bigombe and a key government minister said on
Monday.

The government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) could sign a
truce soon, Bigombe and Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda said.

The 18-year war in northern Uganda has claimed thousands of lives and
forcing at least 1.6 million people to flee their homes. Negotiations
that had been expected to end the conflict aborted in late December
2004. However, on 3 February the government said it would halt military
operations against the LRA for 18 days on condition that they confined
themselves to a designated area as efforts to revive the peace talks
continued.

The truce took effect on 4 February within a 45 sq.km zone in the
neighbouring districts of Gulu and Kitgum.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45419 ]


RWANDA: Genocide suspects have until March to confess

Genocide suspects detained in Rwanda's prisons have until March to
confess their roles in the 1994 killings and receive reduced sentences
in the traditional "Gacaca" courts, Justice Minister Edda Mukabagwiza
said on Wednesday.

Rwanda launched Gacaca, a revamped version of a traditional form of
justice, in 2002 on an exploratory basis to speed up the trial of people
suspected of taking part in the killing in 1994 of 937,000 Tutsis and
politically moderate Hutus, according to official estimates.

Under the Gacaca system, suspects who confess and plead guilty have
their sentences reduced. The courts are meant to help reduce the huge
backlog of some 80,000 suspects awaiting trail in conventional courts.

Mukabagwiza has been touring all the prisons in the country, urging the
suspects to confess their crimes.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45465 ]


BURUNDI: Tension as cattle destroy crops in Cibitoke

Tension is mounting in Burundi's northwestern province of Cibitoke where
cattle belonging to herders from the DRC and Rwanda have destroyed the
crops of Burundian farmers, a local administrator said on Tuesday.

At least 4,000 cows have been trampling through farms in Rugombo, a
commune in Cibitoke, destroying the livelihood of communities there, the
administrative head of the commune, Onesphore Nduwumwami, told IRIN.

Explaining the herders' position, Anatole Manirakiza, another
administrative official in Cibitoke, told IRIN on Wednesday, "It's a
matter of survival for the herders, as well as the cows."

The herders are mostly from the Tutsi ethnic group. Those from eastern
DRC fled with their livestock during fighting there in 2002 and 2004.
The Rwandan Tustsi herders drove their animals across the border into
Burundi because of a shortage of grazing land in their country. The
Rwandan government only allows zero grazing.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45477 ]


KENYA: Western donors urge action on reports of corruption and bad
governance

Western donors urged the Kenyan government on Thursday to act on reports
of corruption and bad governance. They said graft was hurting Kenya and
affecting efforts to put the East African country back on the road to
development.

"We share the deep concern felt by the Kenyan people about lack of good
governance and the damage it causes to the nation's welfare and the
effective operation of its institutions," the European Union said in a
statement signed by representatives of its member states and the
European Commission's delegation in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

The statement followed a scathing attack on official corruption on 2
February by the British high commissioner to Kenya, Edward Clay. He told
reporters, "Corruption is the single biggest impediment to good
governance in Kenya [...] Many stones remain unturned - many, many
stones."

Clay said he had given President Mwai Kibaki a dossier of 20 new
corruption cases expected to cost Kenyans millions of US dollars. [Full
story on: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45465 ]


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


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