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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN Weekly Round-up 9
28 October - 3 November 2000



CONTENTS:

SUDAN: Government again accused of bombing civilians
SUDAN: Ummah Party to boycott elections
HORN OF AFRICA: Eritrea says "little progress" in Algiers
HORN OF AFRICA: Fears mount over Gulf livestock ban
HORN OF AFRICA: UN mission commander appointed
ETHIOPIA: Annual food needs assessment set to begin
SOMALIA: UN calls for support for transition
SOMALIA: Faction leaders call for a federal state
SOMALIA: Parliament holds inaugural session in Mogadishu

SUDAN: Government again accused of bombing civilians

The government bombing of civilian targets in Eastern Equatoria in
southern Sudan was having "devastating effects on traumatised local
people", the Roman Catholic Church stated on Wednesday. Those worst
affected were children, who now fled at the sight or sound of any
aircraft, according to a statement issued by the Nairobi-based Sudan
Catholic Information Office (SCIO). Fr Maurice Loguti, stationed in the
Catholic Diocese of Torit - the site of regular bombings - said the way
the air raids were now conducted would leave even the most daring soldier
terrified, and said that on 25 October an Antonov bomber dropped 12 bombs
- two by two over two hours - on Ikotos, near the Ugandan border. The
government has frequently been accused of deliberately bombing civilian
targets ever since the civil war broke out in 1983. 

SUDAN: Ummah Party to boycott elections

The opposition Ummah Party (UP) on Wednesday said it would be boycotting
the Sudanese presidential and parliamentary elections in December,
becoming the second major opposition party to do so, Associated Press (AP)
reported.  The party of former Prime Minister Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi - whose
government was overthrown by Umar al-Bashir, the current president, in
1989 - would not consider the elections legitimate, AP quoted the party's
spokeswoman, Sarah Nuqdallah, as saying. UP was asking that the elections
be postponed until a comprehensive political solution to the Sudanese
civil war was reached, and that the money earmarked for the elections be
used to treat medical patients and develop services, she added. 
Nuqdallah's statement came a day after Mahdi said he would return to Sudan
on 24 November after four years in exile, reportedly to use the limited
political freedom available to work for peace and democracy, AP added. 

The former Speaker of parliament, Hasan al-Turabi, said last month that
his part, the Popular National Congress (PNC), would not take part in
elections until Bashir stood down. Turabi formed the PNC earlier this year
after his former close partner, Bashir, sidelined him for allegedly trying
to oust him. 

HORN OF AFRICA: Eritrea says "little progress" in Algiers

The Eritrean foreign ministry said on 28 October that little progress had
been made in the latest Ethiopian-Eritrean peace talks in Algeria, and
expressed doubt over Ethiopia's readiness for peace, given its continued
fortification of positions and movement of artillery towards the front
line between the two countries. Eritrean Foreign Minister Ali Sa'id
Abdella told journalists in the capital, Asmara, that the late arrival and
hurried departure of Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin meant the
Algiers meeting ended "without having reached any substantial agreements",
the Eritrean Visafric news agency reported on Sunday. The summit had also
failed to set the exact date and place for a proposed follow-up meeting,
Ali Sa'id stated. The Eritrean delegate said his country's two major
priorities in Algiers had been demarcation of the border and compensation
for Eritreans deported and displaced by Ethiopia. He also claimed that
while Eritrea had begun demining areas in accordance with the OAU peace
agreement, Ethiopia was "busy planting new mines" in complete disregard of
it, the report said. 


HORN OF AFRICA: Fears mount over Gulf livestock ban

The negative effects of the recently imposed ban by the Gulf states on
livestock imports from Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Djibouti and Kenya, along
with those of Uganda and Tanzania, were expected to be much worse than in
1988-1999, "due to the lack of alternative markets, general poor condition
of livestock and the fact that the ban came into effect before the peak
period for Ramadan livestock sales", WFP stated in its latest emergency
report on 27 October. The livestock ban is related to suspicion among the
Gulf states that a recent outbreak of Rift Valley fever - which has
claimed 80 lives in Yemen and at least 85 in Saudi Arabia - is linked to
livestock imports from the greater Horn of Africa. [for full report, go
to:  http://www.reliefweb.int/]

HORN OF AFRICA: UN mission commander appointed

Maj-Gen Patrick Cammaert of the Netherlands has been appointed Force
Commander of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE). The
appointment, by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, took effect on Wednesday,
and Cammaert was scheduled to take up his command when he arrived in the
mission area on Saturday, 4 November, a UN press release stated. Denmark
and the Netherlands are to form the first contingent of the UN's new
Standby Forces High-Readiness Brigade, which will provide 2,000 of the
4,200 troops authorised by the UN Security Council in October to oversee
the cessation of hostilities agreement signed by Ethiopia and Eritrea. 
While Canada has agreed to contribute troops to the Brigade, it has now
officially announced its decision to join up with UNMEE, the 'Montreal
Gazette' newspaper reported on Wednesday. On Thursday, an UNMEE press
release said UNMEE's phase two deployment was now complete with some 100
UN military observers in the mission area. During the next few weeks,
specialist military personnel wearing UN patches and blue berets would be
arriving in the mission area to help pave the way for the phase three
deployment. Their task would be to conduct detailed reconnaissance in
those areas where their national contingents were likely to be deployed.
The reconnaissance teams would be drawn from the military forces of The
Netherlands, Canada, Jordan, Kenya, Denmark and Italy. 


ETHIOPIA: Annual food needs assessment set to begin

Preparations for the emergency food needs assessment for Ethiopia for 2001
were proceeding, and the exercise was scheduled to begin in Tigray State
on 4 November, WFP's emergency report stated on 27 October. Twenty-two
teams were expected to take part, with assessments in Somali State
starting on 11 November, Afar State (11 November), Oromiya State (19
November), Derashe and Konso Special Woredas of the Southern Nations,
Nationalities and Peoples State (SNNPR), starting on 19 November, and
Amhara State (25 November).  Three years of poor rains and their failure
again in April this year has generated food assistance needs among some
13.4 million people in the greater Horn of Africa, of whom about 10
million are in Ethiopia, according to UN sources. 

SOMALIA: UN calls for support for transition

The United Nations operating in Somalia on Tuesday launched 'First Steps: 
An Operational Plan to Support Governance and Peace-building in Somalia',
outlining how they could help the emerging Transitional National
Government, as well as the peaceful autonomous areas of 'Somaliland' and
'Puntland' in the north of the country. The UN was calling for almost US
$20 million in donor support to fund phase one of the plan, through to the
end of this year, a UN press release stated. "Now is the time for
Somalia's international friends to supports Somalis' struggle for peace in
real and tangible ways," said UN resident Representative and Humanitarian
Coordinator Randolph Kent. [see also IRIN separate of 2 November headlined
"UN unveils plan to support peaceful transition" or, for full details of
the plan:  www.unsomalia.org]


SOMALIA: Faction leaders call for a federal state

Three Somali factions, who met in Garowe, capital of the northeastern
autonomous territory of Puntland, on 27 October, have described the
establishment of the government of President Abdiqasim Salad Hasan as "a
hostile action", and called for four regional states to join in a new
Federal Republic of Somalia. Puntland leader Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad, the
commander of the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA), Hasan Muhammad Nur
'Shatigudud', and Adan Abdullahi Nur 'Gabyow' of the Somali Patriotic
Movement (SPM) suggested that the four federal states should be the
self-styled independent republic of Somaliland in the northwest, Puntland
in the northeast, a third state in central Somalia, and a fourth in the
southwest, Agence France Presse (AFP)  reported. The outcome of the Garowe
meeting was endorsed by the chairman of the Southern Somali National
Movement (SSNM), Abdullahi Shaykh Isma'il, who asked the international
community "to show political and diplomatic restraint, and not to extend
financial assistance [to Abdiqasim's government], which could provoke
further violence in Somalia", AFP added. 

Meanwhile, business interests supporting President Abdiqasim Salad Hassan
on 28th October flew a large shipment of Somali shillings into the capital
Mogadishu to help finance the formation of a new government, Reuters news
agency reported on Sunday. The notes, printed in Canada, were expected to
be used to pay for a militia put together by Abdiqasim's allies to provide
security for the president, his cabinet and the new 245-member parliament. 
The businessmen who organised the shipment said it contained about 30
billion new Somali shillings, representing almost US $3 million, but
sources said it was three times that amount. 

Subsequently, on Wednesday, security men guarding the Lafweyn Hotel, where
a group of MPs from the interim Somali parliament are based, fired on
demonstrators protesting against the government, and the rampant inflation
that has attended the importation of the new currency. The head of
security at the hotel, Colonel Abdulle Muhammad Hasan (alias Abdulle
Dere), said the demonstrators started firing at his men and not the other
way round, Radio Banaadir reported. The cabinet of the interim government
met in emergency session at Hotel Ramadan in Mogadishu on Thursday to
discuss the currency shipment, inflation and a proposal for the government
to print new banknotes, Somali reports added. Government spokesman Idris
Hasan Diriye was quoted as saying that the government was fully aware of
the economic problems the money was causing, and that the administration
would establish agencies to print legal banknotes and prohibit anyone from
shipping in new illegal banknotes. 

SOMALIA: Parliament holds inaugural session in Mogadishu

Somalia's new parliament has held an inaugural session in Mogadishu, AFP
reported on Thursday, thereby marking the first such assembly in the
capital for almost a decade. At least 175 members of the 245-seat
parliament attended the session, which discussed the new government
appointed by Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galayr. Some MPs, who had earlier
met in a Mogadishu hotel, criticised President Abdiqasim Salad Hasan "for
swearing in the ministers and their assistants at his residence without
parliamentary approval". The session appointed a committee "to vet the
ministerial appointments and report back to parliament again on Saturday",
AFP quoted parliamentary sources as saying. 


[IRIN-CEA: Tel: +254 2 622147 Fax: +254 2 622129 e-mail:
irin-cea@ocha.unon.org ]


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2000



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