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 380
28 April - 4 May 2007


CONTENTS:

CONGO: Former rebel chief named for humanitarian post
CONGO: Ex-rebel group must disarm - president
DRC: Dozens killed in army operation against Rwandan rebels
UGANDA: Women petition court to outlaw FGM
UGANDA: LRA denies killings as peace talks resume
UGANDA: Government, LRA agree to address root causes of conflict

See also
KENYA: Land dispute spawns violence, displacement
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71884


CONGO: Former rebel chief named for humanitarian post

The Congolese government and representatives of the former rebel
movement, le Comite national pour le resistance (CNR) of Frederic
Bintsangou, alias Pastor Ntoumi, on 27 April signed an agreement that
puts the former rebel leader in charge of humanitarian affairs.

"This agreement is the result of negotiations that have been ongoing
between the government and CNR since 2005. Pastor Ntoumi will gladly
accept his nomination as it is one of the clauses of the agreement," the
CNR's national secretary of information, Franck Euloge Mpassi, told
IRIN.

This is the first time the CNR and the government have signed a 'direct
agreement' since 17 March 2003, when both parties reaffirmed the peace
agreement. This facilitated an end to the hostilities between the
'Ninja' fighters of the CNR and the regular army in the Pool region
between 1998 and 2002.


CONGO: Ex-rebel group must disarm - president

A former Congolese rebel group that has transformed itself into a
political party must disarm its militia and hand in its weapons for
destruction before it can be considered a genuine political
organisation, President Denis Sassou Nguesso said on Monday.

"[Pastor] Ntoumi's movement must surrender its arms and abandon any form
of violence in order to be considered a political party," Nguesso said
during a meeting with administrative officials and traditional chiefs of
the Bouenza district in the southwest of the country.

Le Comite national pour le resistance (CNR) of former rebel leader
Frederic Bintsangou, alias Pastor Ntoumi, announced in January that the
movement would become a political party and take part in legislative
elections scheduled for June and July 2007. The party is known as the
Conseil national des republicains.

Legislative elections in 2002 were held in only eight of Pool's 14
constituencies because of widespread insecurity as the army fought the
rebels.


DRC: Dozens killed in army operation against Rwandan rebels

Dozens of Rwandan rebels have been killed in heavy fighting with
government troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) eastern
North Kivu province since 2 May, a senior military officer said.

"We have taken over two positions that were occupied by the rebels and
we have also recovered some weapons," Colonel Delphin Kahindi, the
commander of the DRC army in the region, told IRIN on Thursday.

He put the death toll among fighters of the Forces democratiques de la
liberation du Rwanda (FDLR) at 48, while the Forces armees de la
Republique Democratique du Congo (FARDC) lost five men. The fighting is
reported to have displaced thousands of civilians since the operation
against the FDLR and their Mai Mai militia allies began in January.


UGANDA: Women petition court to outlaw FGM

Women's rights activists in Uganda have petitioned the Constitutional
Court demanding that female genital mutilation (FGM), practised by
several communities in the east of the country, be declared illegal.

"We are seeking a court declaration that the practice is
unconstitutional; it is cruel, inhuman and degrading," said Dora
Byamukama, a member of the East Africa Legislative Assembly and one of
the campaigners against FGM in Uganda.

The activists, who have formed a group known as Law and Advocacy for
Women in Uganda, earlier in April succeeded in having the Constitutional
Court abrogate the country's law on adultery on the grounds that it made
marital infidelity an offence only when committed by women while
seemingly condoning it when men were involved.

FGM involves the cutting and/or removal of the clitoris and other
vaginal tissue, often under unsanitary conditions. It is practised in at
least 28 countries globally. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates
that up to 140 million girls and women around the world have undergone
some form of FGM.


UGANDA: LRA denies killings as peace talks resume

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) denied claims by the Ugandan military
that it was responsible for killing seven people in an ambush in the
north of the country on Monday evening.

The Ugandan army on Wednesday also charged that the insurgency was in
violation of a truce agreement signed in 2006 to pave the way for peace
talks under way in southern Sudan.

The LRA, however, denied responsibility for Monday's attack on the
passengers travelling in three lorries from southern Sudan to Uganda.

The talks resumed on 27 April after four months of uncertainty that
followed an LRA demand that Sudanese mediators be replaced and the venue
of the talks moved. The United Nations special envoy to the talks,
Joaquim Chissano, managed to convince the LRA to abandon its demands and
go back to the negotiating table. The cessation of hostilities agreement
initially signed in August 2006 has been extended until the end of June
and the rebels have six weeks to assemble at Ri-Kwangba in southern
Sudan during the talks.


UGANDA: Government, LRA agree to address root causes of conflict

The Ugandan government and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have signed
an agreement that binds them to finding lasting solutions to the
underlying causes of the conflict in northern Uganda, officials said on
Thursday.

The 'Agreement on Comprehensive Solutions', signed by delegates on
Wednesday in Juba, the capital of Southern Sudan, and witnessed by
mediators in the peace talks between the Ugandan government and the LRA,
will form part of a final settlement at the end of the negotiations.

The agreement commits both parties to such principles as the need for
broad-based government, affirmative action for marginalised groups and
equitable land distribution.

Two decades of conflict in northern Uganda resulted in the displacement
of nearly two million people, who were required by the government to
move into crowded camps where authorities believed they would have
better protection from marauding gangs of LRA fighters.


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