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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN Weekly Round-up 15
9 - 15 December 2000



CONTENTS:

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Peace agreement signed
ETHIOPIA: World Bank approves another $60 million
SUDAN: Mosque shooting incident leaves 20 dead
SUDAN: 'Soft target' bombings reportedly doubled
SUDAN: Army claims victory in southern Kordofan
SOMALIA: RRA imposes landing fees on aid flights
DJIBOUTI: Coup attempt leader appears in court


ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Peace agreement signed

Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi signed a comprehensive peace agreement in Algiers on Tuesday. 
Algerian television monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC) reported that, by signing the peace deal, the two leaders had ended
their two-year border war. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, OAU
Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo,
Togolese President and OAU chairman Gnassingbe Eyadema, US Secretary of
State Madeline Albright and US President Clinton's envoy, Anthony Lake,
attended the signing, according to agency reports. Annan, Salim, Algerian
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and an EU representative, Rino Serri, also
signed the agreement, as witnesses, the Algerian television report said. 

The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) described the peace agreement as "a
positive step towards bringing peace and stability to the region",
according to an OLF statement on the subject, received by IRIN on
Thursday. "We feel this is a good step, but we would like the Ethiopian
government to also look at the internal situation," OLF spokesman Lencho
Bati told IRIN. The war could have been averted had the Tigray People's
Liberation Front/Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front
(TPLF/EPRDF) persevered with the political process it embarked on in 1991,
according to the rebel group's statement.  Bati said that after the
overthrow of Ethiopia's former leader, Mengistu Haile Mariam, there had
been an opportunity for "a new vision in the Horn of Africa", but it was
lost because the TPLF/EPRDF had failed to address basic political
problems. 

ETHIOPIA: World Bank approves another $60 million

The World Bank has approved a US $60 million dollar loan to Ethiopia, it
was announced in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday morning. 
Ethiopian radio monitored by the BBC, reported that the announcement had
been made by the World Bank representative in Addis Ababa, Nigel Robert.
The money would come from the International Development Association (IDA),
the Bank's lending arm, and was part of a multi-country AIDS programme for
Africa, the report said. 

SUDAN: 'Soft target' bombings reportedly doubled

The bombing of civilian and humanitarian targets by the Sudanese
government aircraft has doubled this year as compared to last, according
to a statement released by the US Committee for Refugees (USCR) in
Washington DC on Wednesday. Sudanese air force planes had attacked
civilian and humanitarian 132 times this year as compared to 65 times last
year, the statement said. Over the past four years Sudanese aircraft had
bombed non-military targets 259 times, the report added. The latest
attack, on Friday 8 December, the fifth on southern Sudan this month,
targeted the southern village of Yomciir, killing two people, one of them
an aid worker, according to the statement.

The statement accused the international community of "failing to take a
forceful action" against the government of Sudan. The statement quoted
Roger Winter, the executive director of the USCR, as urging the UN to
"suspend the government of Sudan for its continuing egregious violations
of international law and of the UN Charter". 

SUDAN: Elections get under way

Sudan's 10-day long elections began on Wednesday with polling stations
opening their doors at 9:00 a.m. (local). The Sudan News Agency, SUNA,
reported that the elections had begun "all over Sudan [on] Wednesday,
except for the three southern states, for electing a new president for
Sudan and 270 members in the new National Assembly out of a total [number
of] seats of 360. Some 90 delegates are elected via constituencies for
women, workers, farmers and businessmen." The report said that "some 12
million Sudanese voters went to the polls to elect a new president for
Sudan from five candidates", whom it named as Lt-Gen Umar al-Bashir, the
incumbent president, Field Marshal Ja'far Muhammad Numayri, Sudan's
president from 1969 to 1985, Dr Malik Husayn, Dr Samaw'il Uthman Mansur
and Mahmud Muhammad Juha.

SUNA quoted the chairman of Khartoum State's electoral committee, Bushra
Ahmad al-Shaykh, as saying that during a tour of the state's polling
stations on Wednesday "he saw hundreds of citizens rushing to vote in the
elections". 

SUDAN: Apparent apathy to polls

Agencies have told a very different story. The elections are taking place
with all the main opposition parties boycotting it. Turnout was very low
in Khartoum, with some polling stations remaining empty, according to the
Associated Press (AP). People in Khartoum seemed indifferent to the whole
process, because they were certain Bashir would win, according to AP. The
agency said there was "little doubt" that Bashir and his ruling National
Congress party would win.

Voting was not taking place in the three southern states because they are
under the control of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army. SPLM/A's
Nairobi spokesman, Samson Kwaje, told IRIN on Tuesday that this area
"constitutes 45 percent of the country's total territory". It also
included the east of the country, and although the SPLM/A was not
controlling Kassala, the town was now "deserted". Kwaje told IRIN that the
opposition eight parties brought together by the umbrella National
Democratic Alliance, together with the Ummah Party of Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi
(who was the prime minister of the government Bashir overthrew in 1989)
and the Democratic Unionist Party of Muhammad Uthman al-Mirghani,
"represent 90 per cent of the electorate in Sudan". The fact that the
elections involved only the remaining 10 percent rendered them
"meaningless", according to Kwaje. 

SUDAN: Army claims victory in southern Kordofan

The government army on Wednesday "liberated" the Kololo, Daloka and Saq
al-Damam areas, all in the western mountains of southern Kordofan in
central Sudan, from rebel forces. The claim was made by the official
spokesman of the armed forces, Lt-Gen Muhammad Uthman Yasin, as quoted by
Sudanese television on Thursday. "He said the outlaws incurred massive
losses... Their troops fled. Our forces captured heavy weapons, artillery
and machine guns from the rebel movement [Sudan People's Liberation
Movement/Army, SPLM/A]," according to the report. The army had also freed
"9,000 citizens who had been captured by the rebel movement", who "were
being used for domestic purposes and had been forced to serve the rebels,"
Yasin was quoted as saying. There has been no independent confirmation of
this report. 

SUDAN: Mosque shooting incident leaves 20 dead

On the evening of 8 December, a group of worshippers praying at a mosque
in Al-Jarrafah village in Kariri Province, north of Omdurman, were
subjected to automatic fire, which killed 20 of them and wounded about 40
others, according to Sudanese television, reporting the incident the same
evening.  The report quoted two eyewitnesses, one of the congregation and
a policemen, as saying there had been several attackers. The policeman,
Amin Idris Umar, described them as "wearing black caftans and waistcoats". 
However, a statement confirming the incident from the official police
spokesman, Police Maj-Gen Uthman Ya'qub, quoted by state television on
Saturday, said there had been only one attacker. Naming him as Abbas
al-Baqir Abbas, the statement said that after the firing commenced,
"police surrounded the area, and the culprit exchanged fire with the
police, injuring one policeman. The police fired back at the culprit, who
had refused to surrender, killing him." 

A report carried by the Panafrican News Agency, PANA, also on Saturday,
gave the casualty figures as 21 killed and 55 wounded. It quoted Uthman
Ya'qub as saying that Abbas, as a member of the Takfir wa'l-Hijrah sect,
had been hostile towards the worshippers at the mosque, who belong to the
Ansar al-Sunnah ['Upholders of Orthodoxy'] sect. According to Ya'qub, the
Ansar al-Sunnah "preaches the purging of infidel innovations", while the
Takfir wa'l-Hijrah "considers contemporary Muslim society infidel" and
that it "should be brought back to true Islam by force". PANA reported
that the incident was the third of its kind involving members of the two
sects since 1996. 

SOMALIA: RRA imposes landing fees on aid flights

The Rahanwein Resistance Army (RRA), which controls the Bay and Bakool
regions in southwestern Somalia, has imposed landing fees on all aid
flights operating in its territory. 'Qaran" a Mogadishu daily, monitored
by the BBC, reported that the RRA had issued a directive on Tuesday to all
international agencies demanding a US $100 fee for every aid agency
flight. Most flights to the two regions are operated by the UN, according
to the report. On Wednesday, three successive UN flights were stopped from
taking off at gunpoint by RRA militia demanding a $100 landing fee. The
aircraft were held at Baidoa airstrip for a couple of hours until a UN
staff member paid the fees, a UN source told IRIN. No UN flights had
landed in Baidoa since Wednesday, the source said. 

The UN is not prepared to pay landing fees in Baidoa. The reason was that
inasmuch as international airports charge landing fees to pay for airport
maintenance, cargo handling, weather reports, navigational services and
the provision of security, none of these services were available at
Baidoa, a UN official told IRIN on Friday. "The UN with the International
Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) can provide training in international
aviation standards. Only then will the UN be prepared to pay landing fees
to support these services," The official said. 

DJIBOUTI: Coup attempt leader appears in court

Djibouti, 15 December (IRIN) - The former chief of police, General Yacin
Yabeh Galab, was formally charged with conspiracy and breach of state
security on Wednesday, six days after the police-led foiled coup attempt
which shook Djibouti on 7 December. Twelve policemen, including eight
senior police officers, were also indicted on the same charge by the
examining magistrate in charge of carrying out the investigation. The
other major accusation made against the police general and his
co-defendants was calling on Djiboutians to take up arms illegally,
carrying and using weapons of war and damaging public property. 

General Yacin Yabeh and the other accused policemen were brought before
the examining magistrate on Wednesday morning after having been detained
at the Gendarmerie Nationale (paramilitary force) headquarters and the
criminal section of the police for questioning. Their indictment took
place under tight security, with units of the gendarmerie and the police
sealing off all access to the courthouse. Galab had earlier been handed
over to the Djibouti government by the French military after he had taken
refuge at the French military base, a local journalist told IRIN on
Monday.  [For further details see separate IRIN story of 15 December
headlined "DJIBOUTI: Coup attempt leader charged"]

Nairobi, 15 December 2000


[IRIN HOA Weekly: Tel: +254 2 622147 Fax: 254 2 66129 ]


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