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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 164
25 - 31 October 2003


CONTENTS:

SUDAN: Gov't ratifies mine ban treaty
SUDAN: Southern militia reunites with SPLM/A
SUDAN: Monitoring team resuming work
SUDAN: UN urges donors to pledge funds for reconstruction
SUDAN: HIV/AIDS funding rejected for south
ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Border demarcation again postponed
ETHIOPIA-SOMALIA: Camp for Somali refugees to be closed
SOMALIA: TNG accuses peace mediators of vested interests

ALSO SEE:

DJIBOUTI: Interview with President Ismail Omar Guelleh at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=37528]

ETHIOPIA: Interview with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=37524]

SUDAN: Gov't ratifies mine ban treaty
 
The government of Sudan has completed its ratification of the Mine Ban
Treaty six years after signing it, thereby committing itself to destroying
all stockpiled antipersonnel mines within four years and clearing all
mined areas in the country within 10 years. The ban will come into force
on 1 April 2004, and will commit Sudan to destroying its stocks by 1 April
2008, to demining all affected areas by 1 April 2014 and to reporting to
the UN Secretary-General on measures taken to implement the treaty in a
year's time.

The move follows the footsteps of the Sudan People's Liberation
Movement/Army (SPLM/A), which signed a parallel Deed of Commitment to ban
landmines in 2001, committing itself to a "total ban" on landmines,
including a "complete prohibition" on the use, production, stockpiling, or
transfer of mines, as well as an undertaking to destroy any in its
possession.

Welcoming the decision, Rae McGrath, the country representative of Land
Mine Action, told IRIN it was time for the international community to
assist Sudan, now that the political will was there to change the status
quo. [Full story: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=37507]

SUDAN: Southern militia reunites with SPLM/A

A southern militia group operating in Upper Nile, the Sudan People's
Liberation Movement/Army-United (SPLM/A-U), officially rejoined the larger
SPLM/A on Friday. A declaration signed by Dr Lam Akol, the chairman of the
SPLM/A-U, and Salva Kiir, the chief of general staff of the SPLM/A, agreed
to an immediate merger of the two forces under the SPLM/A name, stating
that "a united stand is the only sure way to bring the war to a just and
speedy end".

It said the reunited forces recognised the peace process "as the only
viable and most credible forum for the resolution of the conflict in
Sudan", and were committed to the continuation of the south-south dialogue
to bring reconciliation to southerners.

After the signing of the agreement in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Lam
Akol said it was an "historic day" and that time had healed the
differences between the two groups. "We want to look forward, not to be
captured by the past," he said. "We are determined to forgive each other
and to go forward in great strides of unity." [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=37570]

SUDAN: Monitoring team resuming work

A team mandated to monitor the cessation of hostilities accord between the
Sudanese government and the SPLM/A) is resuming work, having been
"grounded" since August.

Two Eritrean members of the Verification and Monitoring Team (VMT) were
denied visas by the government of Sudan, which cited "security problems"
along the Eritrean-Sudanese border, after which the Council of Ministers
of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development - which is facilitating
the peace process - had refused to authorise any missions, VMT staff told
IRIN.

The VMT, which was mandated in February, has been dogged by problems ever
since its inception due to a lack of funding and manpower, burdensome
bureaucratic and diplomatic processes, and four changes of leadership.

Its chief of staff, Stuart McGhie, told IRIN the team had "to all intents
and purposes" only started work last month. "This mission is characterised
by diplomacy rather than any mission operation, so just like the peace
process, everything takes a long time to happen," he said. [Full story:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=37523]

SUDAN: UN urges donors to pledge funds for reconstruction

The UN will do its utmost to support the rebuilding of Sudan once a peace
deal has been signed, said Mohamed Sahnoun, the special adviser to the UN
Secretary-General, on 24 October.

"The United Nations will do everything possible to garner maximum
international support for the implementation of a future peace accord and
the reconstruction of the country," Sahnoun told delegates at 10th
regional summit of the Inter-Government Authority on Development (IGAD)
being held in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

Sahnoun said that during meetings held in Oslo in January and in The Hague
in April, donors had shown a "commendable readiness to meet the future
Sudanese peace agreement with critically needed resources". [Full story:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=37453]

SUDAN: HIV/AIDS funding rejected for south

Northern Sudan is to receive over US $20.7 million for HIV/AIDS related
activities from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria,
while a funding proposal for the south has been rejected for the second
time. The latest proposal for the south was submitted in May 2003 by the
southern sector of the Country Coordinating Mechanism, a consortium of
agencies working in the region.

A previous HIV/AIDS proposal was rejected in 2002, while over $18 million
was approved by the Global Fund last January - but not yet disbursed - for
activities related to tuberculosis and malaria in southern Sudan. The US
$20.781 million for northern Sudan is to be disbursed over five years, on
top of US $14.2 million for malaria.

A spokesman for the Global Fund, Tim Clark, told IRIN that reasons for the
rejection would not be made public, but the applicants themselves would be
informed in detail. "We do all we can to encourage reapplication and hope
that it will be successful," he said. He added that the fund did not have
the capacity or the staff to give technical advice to applicants.[Full
story: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=37445]

ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Border demarcation again postponed

Demarcation of the contested 1,000-km frontier between Ethiopia and
Eritrea will not take place as planned this month, the UN acknowledged on
24 October.

After being hampered by two earlier delays, the independent border
commission charged with the task had planned to begin physically marking
out the border this month. The commission, based in The Hague and
established under a deal to end the 1998-2000 Ethiopia-Eritrea war, has
yet to announce a new date for the exercise. "As the special
representative Legwaila [Joseph Legwaila, head of the UN Mission in
Ethiopia and Eritrea, UNMEE] said, obviously it will not happen in
October," the UNMEE spokesman, George Somerwill, told IRIN.

Ethiopia has rejected parts of the ruling under which the border
commission awarded symbolic territories like Badme town - where the war
first flared up - to Eritrea. Sources close to the peace process told IRIN
that the international community was now considering the possibility of
appointing a special envoy to help resolve the current impasse. One
diplomatic source said that a number of names had been put forward in this
context. [Full story: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=37429]

ETHIOPIA-SOMALIA: Camp for Somali refugees to be closed

An Ethiopian camp for Somali refugees - once the largest of its kind in
the world - will close by the end of the year, according to the Office of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It said in a
statement on 24 October that the closure of Hartishek camp, located in a
semiarid area near the border with Somalia - would bring to an end "one of
world's most tragic refugee cases".

Some 600,000 Somalis poured into the camp from 1988 onwards, continuing
after the collapse of the Muhammad Siyad Barre government in Somalia in
1991 and the inter-clan wars which then ensued. "Many died of exhaustion,
hunger and lack of water," UNHCR said. "Relief workers at that time said
the Somalis were dying like flies upon reaching Ethiopia."

In recent years, UNHCR has been repatriating Somalis from Hartishek,
particularly to the self-declared Republic of Somaliland in northwestern
Somalia, where relative calm prevails. It has also organised the
repatriation to Somalia of hundreds of thousands of refugees from other
camps in Ethiopia. Many Somali refugees had also returned home on their
own, UNHCR said. [Full story:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=37452]

SOMALIA: TNG accuses peace mediators of vested interests

The president of the Transitional National Government (TNG), Dr Abdiqassim
Salat Hassan, on Oct 24 accused Kenya and Ethiopia of derailing the Somali
peace process. "The Transitional National Government of Somalia would like
to share with your excellencies the disappointing news that the Somali
reconciliation conference going on for the past one year in Kenya has
totally collapsed," Abdiqassim told delegates at the 10th summit of the
Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Kampala.

He accused Kenya of failing to honour its commitment to prepare an
"all-inclusive" meeting that would "bring on board those factions who
chose not to attend previous talks".

Somalia has been without a functioning government since the fall of
Muhammad Siyad Barre's regime in 1991. The TNG was supposed to be
inclusive of all Somalia's various clans, but is opposed by a number of
warlords, some of whom are allegedly supported by Ethiopia. Somalia and
Ethiopia have been involved in hostilities relating to a border dispute
that has existed since 1964. [Full story:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=37466]


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2003


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