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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 289
23 - 29 July 2005


CONTENTS:

GREAT LAKES: Rwanda, Uganda refute report on arms to DRC
BURUNDI: Former rebel group wins Senate
BURUNDI: Angry displaced families demand land
DRC: Voter registration starts in provinces outside capital
DRC: Thousands flee latest attack in South Kivu
DRC-UGANDA: No sanctuary for new Congolese rebels, Uganda says
KENYA: Indicators in northeast "unacceptable", UNICEF'head says
RWANDA: Release of tens of thousands of prisoners begins


GREAT LAKES: Rwanda, Uganda refute report on arms to DRC

Uganda and Rwanda denied statements contained in a report issued on
Wednesday by the UN Security Council that the two countries had delayed
to give information to officials monitoring arms sanctions in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

"We have not delayed anything," Sam Kuteesa, Uganda's foreign minister,
told IRIN on Thursday. "What we have done is to give them information
whenever they ask for it."

The main concern of the report by the UN's five-member group of experts
on the DRC is that "weak border controls allow for lucrative alliances
between leaders of armed groups and unscrupulous businessmen".

[Full report on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48344]


BURUNDI: Former rebel group wins Senate

Burundi's recently-elected local councillors met on Friday in 17
provincial towns to elect members of the country's Senate.

As the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la
defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD), a former rebel movement, won an
overwhelming majority in communal elections held on 3 June, it is now
expected to sweep the Senate.

In preliminary results on Friday CNDD-FDD candidates won the seats in
the provinces of Cibitoke, Cankuzo, Gitega, Mwaro, Muyinga, Bubanza,
Karuzi, Kayanza, Ngozi, Ruyigi, and Kirundo.

Each councillor gets to cast two ballots to choose two senators, one
from the Hutu community and another from the Tutsi.

Some 119 candidates are contesting the 34 senatorial seats.

The elected senators, along with the recently elected assemblymen, are
to elect the country's president on 19 August. However, last week, the
electoral commission, known as the CENI, announced that the only
presidential candidate was CNDD-FDD leader Pierre Nkurunziza.


BURUNDI: Angry displaced families demand land

Hundreds of internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been camping out in
front of a government building in Bujumbura since Monday to demand land
they claim the government confiscated from them.

"We won't leave unless our problem has been settled," a middle-aged man
told IRIN on Wednesday.

He, like the other IDPs in front of the government building, said they
represented 609 families who had been displaced since the civil war
started in 1993. They claim to have been given land in Bujumbura's
Kinama neighbourhood by the former head of state, Pierre Buyoya.

[Full report on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48325 ]


DRC: Voter registration starts in provinces outside capital

Registration of voters started on Monday in two provinces outside
Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, as preparations continued for general
elections scheduled for 2006, officials said.

The two provinces are Oriental in the northeast and Bas Congo in the
west.

"So far 10 out of 21 registration centres [in Bunia] are operational,
and we are planning to open more," Apollinaire Malu Malu, president of
the Independent Electoral Commission, saidon Tuesday from Bunia.

[Full report on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48301 ]


DRC: Thousands flee latest attack in South Kivu

Most of the people living in the village of Kigalama, in the DRC's South
Kivu Province, have fled after Rwandan rebels launched an attack there
last week, the provincial governor said on Monday.

"Thirteen villagers and seven Rwandan rebels were killed," Didace
Kaningini Kyoto, the governor, said.

He said almost 5,000 people normally lived in Kigalama, about 130km
southwest of the provincial capital, Bukavu. Most of them have now fled.

[Full report on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48284 ]


DRC-UGANDA: No sanctuary for new Congolese rebels, Uganda says

Uganda said on Monday it would not allow the newly-created rebel
Congolese Revolutionary Movement or any other armed group to launch
attacks from its territory on the DRC.

"Anybody who attacks Kinshasa, we will be with Kinshasa. They are the
ones we share information with, along with MONUC," Lt Col Shaban
Bantariza told IRIN in Kampala.

He acknowledged that six leaders of armed groups from northeastern DRC
that make up the new alliance were recently in Kampala. Uganda's
government may be violating international law by allowing the rebels on
its territory, according to statements made by the DRC government and
the UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC.

[Full report on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48275 ]


KENYA: Indicators in northeast "unacceptable", UNICEF's head says

The executive director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), Anne Veneman,
has called for more effort to improve health and education in Kenya's
remote northeastern region, where four out of five girls are never
enrolled in school.

Veneman, who visited the northeastern district of Wajir on Sunday, said
indicators in the region were unacceptable, with poor access to health
services contributing to low immunisation rates, high incidence of
malaria and high maternal mortality.

"If we work together to ensure children are properly fed and cared for,
protected by immunisation, have access to clean water and sanitation,
sleep under treated bednets, know how to avoid HIV/AIDS and have access
to decent health services, we will go a long way to achieving [the UN
Millennium Development] goals," she said.

[Full report on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48337 ]


RWANDA: Release of tens of thousands of prisoners begins

Rwandan prison authorities began releasing on Ftriday what could amount
to 36,000 detainees, many of whom have confessed to taking part in the
country's 1994 genocide.

"I am extremely delighted to be leaving this prison," said Jean Baptiste
Hakizimana a newly-released detainee who had confessed to killing his
neighbor in 1994.

"I hope never to return," he added.

Some of those released appeared to be sick, others elderly. Many were
children when they were first imprisoned.


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


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