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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 332
26 May 2006


CONTENTS:

GREAT LAKES: US envoy in talks about "negative forces"
BURUNDI: Floods displace 5,000 in south
BURUNDI: Government, UN form cooperation committee
DRC: Fighting displaces 10,000 in Ituri
DRC: 32 "mercenaries" arrested in Kinshasa
KENYA: Cattle rustlers kill four in Marsabit
TANZANIA: Walk to raise US $100,000 to fight child hunger
UGANDA: LRA rebels ready to talk peace, Kony says
UGANDA: Militiaman shoots 10 dead in rampage


ALSO SEE

DRC: Interview with Ross Mountain, deputy special representative
[http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53459]


BURUNDI - DRC Refugees determined to remain in Bujumbura, despite
hardships [http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53549]


GREAT LAKES: American Envoy in talks about "negative forces"

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Don
Yamamoto, began talks on Friday with senior officials from Africa's
great Lakes region on plans to arrest and extradite leaders of "negative
forces" in the troubled region.

"This process is an affirmation of the efforts and commitment by these
countries to work together in resolving issues that affect all of you -
that is the rebels," Yamamoto said n the Rwandan capital, Kigali, during
a meeting with senior officials from Burundi, the DRC, Rwanda and
Uganda.

"We will be discussing "how we can more effectively impose sanctions on
the militias," Richard Sezibera, Rwanda's special presidential envoy for
the great Lakes region and head of the Rwandan delegation, said during
the opening of the talks.

Yamamoto's visit to Rwanda is part of his four - nation tour of the
continent that will also take him to Chad and Ethiopia. He started his
trip in Kenya.

[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53559]


BURUNDI: Floods displace 5,000 in south

Rain-induced floods in Burundi's southern province of Bururi have
rendered at least 5,000 people homeless, swept away 206 homes, and
destroyed crops in farms, Governor Veronique Nizigama said Monday.

The rains which started causing damage in mid-April, have resulted in
landslides in many provinces with 20 deaths being reported throughout
the country by the provincial governors. In the central province of
Muramvya, 1,800 hectares of crops were damaged and at least 200 homes
destroyed in April.

The heavy rains risk compromising the chances of a good harvest
following a drought-induced food crisis in the north, east and southeast
provinces in late 2005.

[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53506]

[On the Net: Rains displace thousands, destroy crops and cemetery
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53397]


BURUNDI: Government, UN form cooperation committee

The Burundian government and the UN have set up a joint committee to
spearhead efforts to strengthen mutual cooperation to consolidate peace
and security and undertake post-conflict reconstruction, a UN official
said Thursday.

"Both delegates will hold technical discussions within the coming two or
three weeks to make concrete proposals for the UN to assist Burundi,"
Gilbert Fossoun Hungbo, the UN under secretary-general and assistant
administrator of the UN Development Programme said in the capital,
Bujumbura, at the end of a four-day visit to the country.

Karenga said the government and the UN would, before 31 December, agree
on major areas of cooperation on which to focus.

[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53533]

[On the Net: Bujumbura seeks UN help in reconstruction efforts
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53486]


DRC: Fighting displaces 10,000 in Ituri

At least 10,000 people have now been displaced as the Congolese army
intensifies its offensive to disarm rebels in the northeastern district
of Ituri, a humanitarian official said Thursday.

"The displaced are scattered in several small groups, which we could
easily identify by helicopter, between five and ten kilometres west of
Tcheyi," Modibo Traore, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs in Ituri, said.

For years, various militia groups have fought for control of the
mineral-rich Ituri, causing the deaths of at least 50,000 people since
the late 1990s and the displacement of hundreds of thousands others.
Full government authority has been lacking in the district since the
establishment of a transitional government in 2003, mostly due to
continued militia activity.

[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53521]

[On the Net: 32 rebels, five soldiers killed in northeast, army says
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53464]

[Army captures militia commander
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53406]


DRC: 32 "mercenaries" arrested in Kinshasa

Security agents in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC), arrested 32 foreigners on Tuesday for plotting a coup against the
government of Joseph Kabila, Interior Minister Theophilus Mbemba said.

"They came from Iraq, where they had worked as soldiers," Mbemba said.
The 12 South Africans, 10 Nigerians and three Americans - all of whom
the government described as mercenaries - were working in Kinshasa for a
private security company called Omega. Mbemba said the men were caught
with military equipment but would not specify the nature or number of
the equipment that was seized because the case is still under
investigation.

The mercenary charge coincides with another call by the DRC's leading
opposition party, the l'Union pour la Democratie et le progres social
(the Union for the Democracy and the social progress) of Etienne
Tshisekedi, for a demonstration on Wednesday.

[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53501]

[On the Net: DRC: South African institute discounts "coup plot" theory
following arrests http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53556]


KENYA: Cattle rustlers kill four in Marsabit

At least four Kenyan civilians were killed and 1,200 head of cattle
stolen on Monday when armed raiders attacked the border villages of
Dukana, Garwolle and Forole in the violence-prone northern district of
Marsabit, the national Red Cross reported.

"The raiders are suspected to be Ethiopian militia," Gideon Kibunjah,
THE police spokesman, said.

He added that the assailants had fled across the border while being
pursued by Kenyan police.

The semi-arid Kenyan territory near the Ethiopian border has a history
of banditry and cattle rustling among the region's pastoral communities,
which often clash over pasture and water resources.

[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53482]


TANZANIA: Walk to raise US $100,000 to fight child hunger

The UN World Food Programme organised a charity walk along the slopes of
Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, on Sunday, hoping to raise
US $100,000 towards its school feeding programme in Tanzania.

This was part of the charity walks organized worldwide by the UN World
Food Programme (WFP) on Sunday. Similar walks - dubbed "Fight Hunger:
Walk the World" - were held in Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es
Salaam; the political capital, Dodoma, and the town of Kigoma. The WFP
hopes to raise $2.5 million globally from the walks this year, compared
with over $1 million raised in 2005.

More than 700,000 people in over 100 countries across 24 time zones were
expected to walk five kilometres to highlight the battle against child
hunger. Some 100,000 children were expected to walk in sub-Sahara Africa
alone - most of them beneficiaries of WFP's school feeding programme.

[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53462]


UGANDA: LRA rebels ready to talk peace, Kony says

The insurgent Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is ready for peace talks with
the Ugandan government to end two decades of fighting that has killed
thousands and displaced close to two million people in the country's
north, rebel leader Joseph Kony said in a 2 May video recording.

"The LRA is ready to talk peace and end the war in a good way, not by
force. We are fighting for peace and I am not a terrorist," Kony said in
the rare video footage showing him addressing a delegation of the Sudan
People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) headed by south Sudan's vice
president, Riek Machar.

Kony said he had "no problem" with President Yoweri Museveni. Kony also
said he accepted an offer of mediation extended by Machar in South Sudan
- from where the LRA operates - is now run by the SPLM/A, which signed a
peace deal with the Khartoum-based Sudanese government in January 2005.

[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53518]

[On the Net: Museveni gives rebels ultimatum over northern war
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53402]


UGANDA: Militiaman shoots 10 dead in rampage

At least 10 people were killed and 14 wounded when a local militiaman
opened fire at Ogwete, a camp for internally displaced people in
northern Uganda, an army spokesman said on Tuesday.

"These people were drinking beer before they developed a quarrel, and
this man, a member of a civilian-protection militia known as Amuka, ran
amok before shooting whoever was in his sight, killing 10 people
instantly," said the spokesman, Lt Chris Magezi.

The Amuka militia was established by the government to guard villages in
northern Ugandan against attacks by rebels of the LRA, a brutal
insurgency that has killed thousands and led to the displacement of
almost 2 million people during the past two decades.

[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53485]


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