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 263
22 - 28 January 2005


CONTENTS:

BURUNDI: Last rebel group agrees to negotiate
BURUNDI: Another date set for constitutional referendum
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Election postponed, but most banned candidates
   can now run
DRC: Militiamen burn down Ituri village
DRC: At least 34 die in new cholera outbreak, health officials report
UGANDA: Prolonged drought affecting hydroelectric power production

ALSO SEE:
SOMALIA: Relocation plans going ahead despite killing of police chief in
Mogadishu

Full report


CONGO: Goma Tse Tse town a symbol of slow recovery from war in the Po
Full report


BURUNDI: Last rebel group agrees to negotiate

Burundi's only rebel group still fighting the three-year transitional
government, the Front national de liberation-Palipehutu (FNL) led by
Agaton Rwasa, announced on Tuesday that it was now willing to start peace
negotiations and end years of civil war.

The announcement was made on Tuesday on national radio. On Wednesday, the
group's spokesman, Pasteur Habimana, said, "We are already in talks."

He said the group's negotiator had spoken with President Domitien
Ndayizeye when he was in the Netherlands. The president's office could
not be reached for comment but its spokesman, Pancrace Cimpaye, responded
to the announcement on state radio on Tuesday saying, "We received it with
elation."

An FNL attack occurred 20 km outside Bujumbura city, on the day of the
group's peace announcement. Three days earlier, the governor of the
eastern Bubanza Province was killed in an ambush that army spokesman Maj
Adolphe Manirakiza said was carried out by the FNL.

Gunmen shot Governor Isaie Bigirimana on Sunday at Gihanga, about 20 km
north of the capital, Bujumbura. He was travelling by car from Bubanza to
Bujumbura with a police officer and another aide when they were ambushed.
Burundi army spokesman Maj Adolphe Manirakiza told IRIN on Monday that the
police officer was also killed. The aide, who escaped, said the attackers
ordered them out of the car and then shot the other two dead.

The governor's vehicle was ambushed at Tranversal 7, a road leading to
Bubanza near the Rukoko Forest Reserve, the FNL stronghold.

Full report


BURUNDI: Another date set for constitutional referendum

Burundi's National Independent Electoral Commission announced a new date
on Tuesday for the constitutional referendum, a key step in the country's
transition to democracy.

The referendum is to be held on 28 February, Commission Chairman Paul
Ngarambe announced in Bujumbura in separate meetings with civic society
and political parties.

The plebiscite was initially set for October 2004, and then postponed to
26 November and then again to 22 December. In December, it was delayed yet
again, but with no new date being set until now.

Ngarambe said one of the reasons the commission had to delay the ballot
was that voter lists had not been completed. In the last two weeks the
lists were put on public display, although many voters complained. Some
names were omitted from the lists. Others on lists in one province
appeared on the lists in another province. Ngarambe said the commission
would seek to make all necessary corrections.

Full report

Meanwhile, political leaders in Burundi seeking to amend the draft
constitution before it goes to a referendum in February were dealt a blow
on Wednesday when the main international mediators to the country's peace
process said they opposed any changes.

"If there are clauses they do not want in that constitution, the people
have the right to give the answer 'no' in the referendum," Jacob Zuma, the
South African deputy president, said at a news conference in Bujumbura,
the Burundi capital.

Zuma is the chief mediator in the Burundi peace process. He said he also
spoke for Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who chairs a regional peace
initiative for Burundi, along with other regional leaders.

BURUNDI:
Regional negotiators reject efforts to amend constitution


CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Election postponed, but most banned candidates
can now run

Candidates banned in December 2004 from running in upcoming presidential
elections in the Central African Republic (CAR) can now all participate
except one: the former president, Ange-Felix Patasse.

State radio announced the news on Sunday and said that presidential, as
well as legislative, elections would be postponed from 13 February to 13
March. A total of 11 candidates can now run.

The announcement followed talks on Saturday in Gabon's capital,
Libreville, between CAR leader Francois Bozize and representatives of
political parties and civil society groups. The talks, mediated by
Gabonese President Omar Bongo, sought to alleviate a political crisis that
followed a decision on 30 December 2004 by CAR's transitional
constitutional court to allow only five candidates to contest the
presidency.

Bozize is one of the candidates allowed to run. The banned candidates
claimed the decision by the court was illegal and demanded that the court
be dissolved.

Full report


DRC: Militiamen burn down Ituri village

Armed militiamen have burnt down a village in the district of Ituri, in
northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, forcing at least 1,500
residents to flee to nearby localities, Rudi Sterz, the interim
coordinator of German Agro Action in the area told IRIN on Friday. The
affected village, She, is 60 km northeast of Bunia, the main town in
Ituri.

A UN brigade deployed to Ituri confirmed the attack on She. However, the
UN peacekeeping mission in the country, known as MONUC, under which the
troops serve, has not yet verified reports of a massacre perpetrated by
armed groups fighting each other in the region. Both these groups, l'Union
des patriotes congolais (UPC-L) headed by Thomas Lubanga and the Front des
nationalistes integrationnistes (FNI), have accused each other of
attacking She.

Earlier this week UN troops in Ituri dismantled four militia camps in the
district; seized an assortment of materials, and captured seven
militiamen, MONUC information officer in Ituri, Christophe Boulierac, said
on Wednesday. He said the troops dismantled the camps at Soba, Lelo,
Bembei and Mandro on Tuesday.

The upsurge in militia activity has destabalised the nine-month
disarmament process in the troubled district, MONUC reported. Its chief of
military operations, Lt-Col Cheikh Gueye, told reporters in Kinshasa on
Wednesday that the FNI and UPC-L were the most active.

"These two armed groups loot, steal, rape and kill; clearly showing
contempt for the population and for the path of peace which the majority
of Iturians have chosen," Momadou Bah, the MONUC spokesman, said.

Full report


DRC: At least 34 die in new cholera outbreak, health officials report

At least 34 people have died from cholera in areas along Lake Kivu in the
east of the country, a senior health official in the affected province
said on Thursday. Another 2,152 people have been infected in the cholera
outbreak, which began in early January, Dr Guyslain Bisimwa, medical
inspector for South Kivu Province, told IRIN.

"The epidemic continues to advance although we are still waiting for
statistics," he said.

He added that the Fizi area was the worst affected, with 19 deaths so far.

South Kivu's deputy governor, Didas Kaningini Kyoto, who described the
outbreak as "serious and spreading", said the affected areas included the
localities of Mwenga - where 12 deaths had been reported - Uvira, Kabare,
Nyangezi, Katudu, Kamituga and the provincial capital, Bukavu.

Full report


UGANDA: Prolonged drought affecting hydroelectric power production

Prolonged drought has significantly affected the water levels on Lake
Victoria, reducing Uganda's hydroelectric power generation capacity and
increasing power shortages nationwide, Energy Minister Syda Bumba said on
Tuesday.

"The prolonged drought in both Rwanda and Tanzania, where many of the
tributaries start from, has had an effect on the amount of water flowing
downstream on [the] River Nile," he told IRIN.

Global warming, the minister added, had also increased the rate of
evaporation on the lake reducing the amount of water used at the country's
two power stations, Kiira and Nalubaale. The stations are near the source
of the River Nile, east of the capital, Kampala.

Bumba said Uganda had turned to neighbouring Kenya for relief.

Full report


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