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

Tel: +254 2 622147
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e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org


CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 347
2 - 8 September 2006


CONTENTS:

BURUNDI: Last rebel group signs ceasefire with government
BURUNDI: Vice-president resigns, attacking ruling party chairman
UGANDA: Rebel leader warns war crimes indictments could derail peace
   process
DRC: Parliamentary polls results out, no party gains majority
DRC: "We want to go home," Katanga's displaced tell Egeland
DRC: New cases of rape and abuse by police in Equateur
GREAT LAKES: Officials adopt legislation on land, property ownership


ALSO SEE:

"Hear our Voices" - God knows who will be president - Congolese in 
Nairobi [http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55422]

UGANDA: Balancing forgiveness with justice
[http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55425]

UGANDA: Schools desperate for funding
[http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55468]


BURUNDI: Last rebel group signs ceasefire with government

The government of Burundi signed a ceasefire with the country's last 
remaining rebel group on Thursday, marking a milestone in the tiny 
nation's emergence from a 13 year civil war.

President Pierre Nkurunziza and leader of the National Liberation Force 
Forces (FNL) rebels, Agathon Rwasa, signed the ceasefire deal in the 
Tanzanian commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.

The FNL was the only rebel group not to have signed peace deals that 
made way for elections in August 2005 which established Nkurunziza, 
himself a former rebel leader, as president.

Full Story on: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55452]

[On the Net: Regional body to decide date of ceasefire agreement 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54964]


BURUNDI: Vice-president resigns, attacking ruling party chairman

Burundi's second vice-president, Alice Nzomukunda, resigned on Tuesday 
in protest at interference by the chairman of the ruling party.

"The government's hands are tied by [the chairman] Hussein Radjabu," 
Nzomukunda said in the capital, Bujumbura.

Nzomukunda's accusations come when several organisations are accusing 
the government of human-rights abuses. She was Burundi's second highest 
ranking official in the ruling party.

[Full Story: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55415]


UGANDA: Rebel leader warns war crimes indictments could derail peace 
process

A senior commander of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) said on Tuesday 
peace talks with the Ugandan government could derail if the 
International Criminal Court failed to lift indictments against five 
rebel leaders wanted for crimes against humanity.

"The ICC must revoke the indictment," Vincent Otti, the LRA's second in 
command, said.

Otti, together with the group's leader, Joseph Kony, and three other 
commanders, are wanted by the court.

The government has offered amnesty to the rebels and promised to ask the 
court to drop the indictments in favour of a traditional justice and 
reconciliation system.

[Full story on: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55424]

[On the Net: Key points in the ceasefire agreement between the gov't 
and the LRA http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55310]


DRC: "We want to go home," Katanga's displaced tell Egeland

A representative of thousands of people displaced by fighting in the 
southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo's Katanga Province on 
Wednesday told Jan Egeland, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General 
for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, they wanted 
to return home.

"We have suffered so much for more than a year that we are now willing 
to return home even if not all the Mai-Mai fighters there have disarmed 
and the situation is still dangerous," Jean-Venance Mwamba, the head of 
Kolomani displaced camp, said.

Mwamba represented 1,362 displaced people who had fled to Kolomani Camp 
in the village of Kankonona in Pweto Territory. He said they came from 
the village of Mwenga, 75 km farther north, after it had been pillaged 
and burned by Mai-Mai militiamen and government troops, who have been 
trying to disarm all illegal combatants in the province.

[Full Story on: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55439]


DRC: New cases of rape and abuse by police in Equateur

The Human-Rights division of the United Nations Mission in the DRC 
(MONUC) has reported new cases of mass rape and abuse of civilians in 
Equateur Province.

"A group of policemen may have raped 60 women, including two minors, and 
systematically tortured and plundered civilians who were forced to seek 
refuge in a nearby forest," Jean-Tobbie Okala, MONUC deputy spokesman, 
said on Wednesday in Kinshasa, the nation's capital.

In April, a military court in the provincial capital, Mbandaka, 
sentenced seven soldiers to life in prison for crimes against humanity 
committed in Equateur, including the mass rape of at least 119 women. It 
was the first time military personnel in the country had been found 
guilty of crimes against humanity. However, the military garrison court 
in Songo Mboyo, 600 km northeast of Mbandaka, acquitted five other 
soldiers of similar charges.

[Full Story on: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55446]


GREAT LAKES: Officials adopt legislation on land, property ownership

An end to disputes over land and property ownership in countries 
emerging from conflict in the Great Lakes is in sight if draft 
legislation drawn up on Thursday at a regional conference in the Kenyan 
capital, Nairobi, is implemented.

The legislation, the first of its kind in the region, is mainly aimed at 
guaranteeing the property rights of returnees and internally displaced 
persons (IDPs) in countries such as Burundi, the DRC, the Central 
African Republic, Rwanda and Uganda.

Delegates representing 10 countries - Angola, Burundi, Central African 
Republic, the DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia - 
attended the conference, organised by a joint secretariat of the African 
Union and the United Nations.

The legislation seeks to protect IDPs' and refugees' property from 
pillage, violence, military use, reprisal, destruction and takeover. It 
would serve as a reference for implementation by individual countries in 
the region.

[On the Net: GREAT LAKES: Humanitarian issues key to restoring peace, 
UN official says: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55406]


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