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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 305
12 - 18 November 2005


CONTENTS:

DRC: Thousands displaced as army attacks militias in northeast
DRC: Hundreds displaced return home after nine years
DRC: 150,199 cases of electoral registration fraud uncovered
BURUNDI: Commission starts work of identifying political prisoners
BURUNDI: UN agencies warn of looming food crisis
BURUNDI: Army probes source of "UN military uniforms" in rebel hands
UGANDA: Key opposition leader arrested
RWANDA: Former mayor pleads guilty to charges of genocide
KENYA: Controversy shrouds countdown to constitutional referendum
   CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Civil servants resume strike


ALSO SEE:

CONGO-DRC: Resumption of river traffic a great relief to the public
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50121

CONGO-DRC: Resumption of river traffic a great relief to the public
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50121


DRC: Thousands displaced as army attacks militias in northeast

Thousands of civilians are fleeing fighting that has been raging since
Monday between the UN-backed Congolese army and local militias around
the Semliki River in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)'s
northeastern district of Ituri, an aid official said.

"The displaced people need food aid, shelter and medicine, particular
those who did not have time to collect their belongings," said Modibo
Traore, the head of UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs in Bunia, capital of Ituri District.

He said 1,400 families had arrived at the town of Komanda, 75 km
southwest of Bunia. Most are from the village of Mandibe, south of the
Semliki River that separates Congo and Uganda.
    [On the Net: DRC: 43 dead in latest drive against rebels:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50146 ]


DRC: Hundreds displaced return home after nine years

Some 1,000 people who had fled their homes to live in the nation's
capital, Kinshasa, for six to nine years have returned to their villages
in the provinces of Equateur in the northwest of the country and
Orientale in the northeast, humanitarian aid workers said on Thursday.

The returnees, travelling in two convoys, left Kinshasa in October,
according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP), which supports the
Congolese government's repatriation programme for war-displaced people.

"Some 200 of them arrived on Wednesday in Basankusu, some 300 others
arrived four days earlier in Mbandaka [capital of Equateur], while
others groups are still on their way to different directions, to Lisala
and Bumba farther north in Equateur Province, and to Kisangani in
Orientale Province," Joseph Desire Kasiwa, an assistant in UNDP's
post-conflict programme, told IRIN Thursday.

He said another 100 people were still travelling on the River Congo and
were scheduled to arrive in Lisala and Bumba in two weeks. Another group
of 250 went farther northwest towards villages along the Ubangi River.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50172]


DRC: 150,199 cases of electoral registration fraud uncovered

The Independent Electoral Commission announced on Monday that 150,199
people had been caught registering to vote twice.

Commission Chairman Apollinaire Malumalu said 300,398 of the names on
the voter list had been registered twice with the same fingerprints. So
far, cases of fraud have been only discovered in Kinshasa where
registration ended in July.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50100]


BURUNDI: Commission starts work of identifying political prisoners

Twenty-one members of a new commission began its work on Tuesday to
identify all Burundi political prisoners being held throughout the
country.

The commission will "determine who are political prisoners and provide a
complete list", the nation's first vice-president, Martin Nduwimana,
said during the commission's launch.

The commissioners, who are mostly magistrates and lawyers, are to work
in four subcommissions to cover the four provinces of Bujumbura, Ngozi,
Bururi and Gitega regions, which each host the nation's main prisons.

The main commission has three months to complete its work

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50122]


BURUNDI: UN agencies warn of looming food crisis

A serious food crisis is looming in the northern and eastern provinces
of Burundi, a consultant to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) said on Thursday.

"The lean season will be longer than normal," Methode Niyongendako, the
consultant, said in Bujumbura, the nation's capital.

The lean season usually runs from September to December but this year it
started in August and is not expected to end until late January or in
February, according to the November issue of the FAO bulletin Systeme
d'Alerte Precoce, Surveillance de la Securite Alimentaire.

Rural populations are already facing food shortages because the previous
harvest in June was also poor and food started running out in August, a
month earlier than usual.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50151]


BURUNDI: Army probes source of "UN military uniforms" in rebel hands

The Burundian army is investigating circumstances under which uniforms
belonging to UN peacekeepers were found with fighters of the Forces
nationales de liberation, the country's remaining active rebel group,
Defence Minister Maj-Gen Germain Niyoyankiana said on Thursday.

He said at a news conference in the capital, Bujumbura, that although he
could not accuse the UN Mission in Burundi, Known as ONUB, of
collaboration with the FNL, the seizure of the uniforms, from captured
FNL rebels, was a sign of "negligence on the part of ONUB troops". [Full
story on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50169 ]


UGANDA: Key opposition leader arrested

Ugandan police arrested on Monday a leading opposition leader, Kizza
Besigye, nearly three weeks after he returned from a four-year
self-imposed exile in South Africa, the police said.

The arrest sparked clashes between police and hundreds of Besigye's
supporters who gathered outside the Central Police Station in Kampala on
hearing that he had been seized. The crowded pelted the police with
stones when the security forces fired tear gas to disperse them.

Besigye, a runner-up in the 2001 presidential elections, was arrested as
he arrived in the capital, Kampala, after spending the weekend in
southwestern Uganda addressing political rallies.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50085]


RWANDA: Former mayor pleads guilty to charges of genocide

The former mayor of Gikoro Commune in Rural Kigali, Paul Bisengimana,
stood before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on Thursday
and pleaded guilty to charges of murder and extermination during the
1994 genocide.

"This is an unequivocal plea of guilt," Bisengimana told Judge Arlette
Ramarason.

He said no one had pressured him or offered awards to him for making the
plea.

Bisengimana admitted he was present at Musha Church in Gikoro Commune
when thousands of Tutsis were killed. He also admitted to having planned
and participated in the killing of several thousand of people who had
sought refuge in Gikoro Commune.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50153]


The country's acting interior minister during the genocide, Callixte
Kalimanzira, pleaded not guilty before the same tribunal on Monday to
three counts of genocide and crimes against humanity.

"The allegations are only lies," Kalimanzira, 52, said.

Some 937,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus died during the
genocide, according to government figures.

Kalimanzira surrendered voluntarily to the authorities on 8 November.
According to the indictment prepared against him by the prosecution,
Kalimanzira visited Butare Prefecture in southern Rwanda on several
occasions to incite the killings of Tutsis. This, according to the
indictment, resulted in the killings of thousands of Tutsis.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50079]

[On the Net: RWANDA: Belgian priest still in prison:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50083]


KENYA: Controversy shrouds countdown to constitutional referendum

Controversy, invective and violence have marred the run-up to the first
referendum in Kenya, which will either reject or ratify a proposed new
constitution on Monday.

More than half of the 11-million registered voters are expected to turn
out at polling stations across the country.

The referendum debate has bitterly divided this East African nation.
Since the start of the campaign nearly three months ago, political
rallies across the country have been the scene of violent clashes
between rival camps and police. Thus far, eight people have died and
scores were injured in rallies in Mombasa, Kisumu, Kakamega and Garissa.

The two sides of the referendum question have traded blows, insults,
lies and propaganda, prompting church leaders to hold prayer services
for a peaceful outcome. Some Nairobi-based diplomats also fear that the
country might plunge into chaos after the vote.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50170]


CAR: Civil servants resume strike

Civil servants in the Central Africa Republic went on strike again on
Wednesday, four days after an agreement seemed to have been reached for
them to return to work from an earlier industrial action that lasted
over one month. Most schools in the capital were closed on Wednesday.

An agreement had been reached on Saturday between the trade unions and
government but at a rally on Tuesday civil servants rejected a
government proposal to pay two of the 45 months they are owed in salary
arrears, particularly as it would not be paid until the end of the
November.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50127]

[On the Net: CAR: Civil servants reach agreement to end strike:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50087]


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


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