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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 301
15 - 21 October 2005


CONTENTS:

DRC-UGANDA: Kinshasa rejects Kampala's proposal to redeploy troops
DRC: CONGO: Ex-Mobutu guards barred from entering Kinshasa
CONGO: Army expels rebels, calm returns to Brazzaville
CONGO: Ebola crisis over, government says
CONGO: Brazzaville bans poultry imports over bird flu
BURUNDI: New demobilisation team picked, list of ex-combatants being reviewed
BURUNDI-RWANDA: Officials agree to repatriate "asylum seekers"
CAR: Bozize pardons ex-presidential guards' chief


DRC-UGANDA: Kinshasa rejects Kampala's proposal to redeploy troops

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has rejected a
Ugandan request to redeploy its troops to eastern Congo to hunt Lord's
Resistance Army (LRA) rebels and other Ugandan rebels groups there,
Congolese government spokesman and Minister for Information Henri Mova
Sakanyi said on Friday.

Saying Uganda should forget the proposal, he said: "The best way to
fight the LRA rebels is by decimating them when they are in Uganda where
they have been based for more than 20 years."

Mova's announcement follows a meeting on Wednesday in the Ugandan
capital, Kampala, between DRC, Burundian, Rwandan and Ugandan officials
over security in Africa's Great Lakes region. Delegates to the meeting
agreed on the setting up of a joint verification team to determine the
location of the LRA in eastern Congo.

Uganda made the redeployment proposal on Thursday at the security
conference in Kampala. It first deployed its troops to eastern Congo in
the 1990s during the country's civil war.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49679]

[On the Net: DRC-UGANDA: Kampala seeks approval to redeploy troops to
Congo: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49664]


DRC: Ex-Mobutu guards barred from entering Kinshasa

Some 189 former guardsmen of late Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko,
who have been living in the Republic of Congo, were stopped on Tuesday
from disembarking at a port in the DRC because authorities in both
countries had not been informed of their intension, a port agent said.

"A boat carrying the passengers from Brazzaville was forced back to the
other side of the River Congo," Richard Liye, the agent in Brazzaville,
said.

River traffic between Brazzaville and Kinshasa, the respective capitals
of the ROC and the DRC, was suspended on Tuesday afternoon, to prevent
the soldiers, who served in Mobutu's Presidential Guards Division, from
entering Kinshasa.

The chairman of a Kinshasa-based NGO, Voice of the Voiceless (Voix des
sans Voix), Floribert Chebeya, said the NGO supported the return of the
ex-guardsmen because it was aimed at "strengthening the efforts of
national reconciliation". He said the former soldiers should be
reintegrated into the DRC's new National Defence Forces.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49631]


CONGO: Army expels rebels, calm returns to Brazzaville

Brazzaville returned to calm on Thursday, a day after government troops
expelled rebels, known as Ninjas, from the city.

"We received an order to evict the Ninjas. That is what we did. We
chased them and they are all out of Brazzaville," an army captain, who
declined to be identified, said.

The government had ordered the army to support the police who, on 13
October, failed to evict the Ninjas from the Bacongo District of
Brazzaville. The security forces dislodged the so-called Ninjas, loyal
to the Rev Frederic Bitsangou, alias Pasteur Ntoumi, who illegally
occupied homes in Bacongo. The district is a Bitsangou "stronghold"
where in 2003 the government built him a home, in an effort to get him
to end his armed rebellion.

Wednesday's fighting coincided with the return on 14 October of exiled
Prime Minister Bernard Kolelas, who founded the Ninja militia in the
1990s.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49682]


CONGO: Ebola crisis over, government says

The Ebola haemorrhagic fever, which hit the Republic of Congo's
Cuvette-Ouest Department between April and July and killed around 10
people, is now over, an official of the Ministry of Health and
Population said on Sunday.

However, the official, a technical adviser at the ministry, Dr Jean
Vivien Mombouli, said the Ebola virus remained a threat because its
natural habitat was unknown and researchers had not discovered any
vaccine against the virus. Ebola kills 50 percent to 90 percent of all
cases.

Primates, especially gorillas and chimpanzees, as well as bats, are
suspected to be "carriers of the virus". In ROC, sites close to Odzala
National Park seem to be the epicentre of the circulation of the virus.
Consequently, the cities of Mbomo, Itoumbi and Kelle, close to the park,
are considered high-risk areas.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49595]


CONGO: Brazzaville bans poultry imports over bird flu

The government has banned the importation of poultry in efforts to
prevent avian influenza, an official of the Ministry of Commerce said on
Monday.

"Orders for poultry imports from countries currently hit by the epidemic
and reported by the World Health Organization [WHO] are banned until
further notice," Alphonse Okoye, the director-general of consumption and
supply in the ministry, said in Brazzaville.

According to WHO, avian influenza, or "bird flu", is a contagious
disease caused by viruses that normally infect only birds and, less
commonly, pigs. Avian influenza viruses are highly species-specific but
have, on rare occasions, crossed the species barrier to infect humans.

The country imports poultry from Asian, European and South American
countries. It imports bovine meat from the neighbouring Chad. [Full
story on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49622 ]


BURUNDI: New demobilisation team picked, list of ex-combatants being
reviewed

Following several protests by former combatants in Burundi over their
demobilisation pay, the government has appointed new officials to the
National Commission for Demobilisation, Reintegration and Reinsertion
and announced that a new list of paramilitary youths to be demobilised
would be released this week.

The new commission members were appointed last week by presidential
decree. The old team was dismissed over controversy that surrounded the
compilation of the paramilitary youth, known as Guardians of Peace, and
another group of civilians who acted as porters for the police and army
during the country's 12-year civil-war. The youth have been seeking US
$600 each, as demobilisation pay.

The appointment of the new commission members followed demonstrations by
the ex-combatants who, when they turned up to collect their payments at
commission, found that many of their names were not on the list of those
to be demobilised.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49663]


BURUNDI-RWANDA: Officials agree to repatriate "asylum seekers"

Burundian and Rwandan government officials agreed on Monday to the
eventual repatriation of some 3,225 Rwandans who have sought refuge in
northern Burundi.

Governors of the northern provinces of Kirundo and Ngozi, where the
Rwandans are, are due to meet on Monday to determine ways of
implementing the conclusions of another meeting on 17 October between
delegations led by Burundi's minister of interior and public security,
Salvator Ntacobamaze, and Rwandan Minister of Interior Protais Musoni.

However, the status of the Rwandans remains unclear, with the Burundian
and Rwandan officials terming them refugees while the UN refugee agency,
UNHCR, considers them to be asylum seekers.

Up to 4,000 of the Rwandans first fled to Burundi between April and June
but they were all repatriated after a meeting of officials from both
countries. However, they have since returned to northern Burundi. [Full
story on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49629 ]


CAR: Bozize pardons ex-presidential guards' chief

The president of the Central African Republic, Francois Bozize, pardoned
on Wednesday a former head of presidential security, Gen Ferdinand Bomba
Yeke, who had been in detention for two years.

Bomba Yeke, who was imprisoned on 12 November 2003, headed the
president's security detail during the administration of Ange-Felix
Patasse, whom Bozize overthrew on 15 March 2003.

Speaking on Friday from his home in the capital, Bangui, Bomba Yeke said
he was in good health and had been treated well during his detention.

Bomba Yeke, an air force pilot, played a key role in protecting Patasse
during a six-month rebellion led by Bozize that ended with the coup. He
was accused of using jet fighters to crush the rebellion.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49681]


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


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