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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-Up 211
11 - 17 September 2004


CONTENTS:

ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Security Council extends UNMEE mandate by six months
ERITREA: Government denies violating freedom of worship
ETHIOPIA: Top official rejects criticism of land policy
ETHIOPIA: President calls for increased economic development
SOMALIA: New parliamentary speaker, violence erupts near Kismayo
SOMALIA: MPs want more women in new parliament
SUDAN: Thousands of IDPs dying every month - WHO
SUDAN: Tens of thousands of new IDPs in South Darfur
SUDAN: AU calls on US to provide more support for Darfur



See also:

ETHIOPIA: Focus: Forced marriages ruining lives of rural girls in Arsi at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43160

SUDAN: Focus: Starting a new life in Krinding Two at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43137


ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Security Council extends UNMEE mandate by six months The
UN Security Council has approved the extension of the United Nations
Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) for another six months, but
expressed concern over the lack of progress in efforts to resolve the
dispute on the demarcation of the border between the two countries. The
Council, which met to discuss UNMEE on Tuesday, also approved
Secretary-General Kofi Annan's recommendation that the mission be scaled
down. The peacekeeping force is currently made up of 3,800 civilian and
military staff, and costs US $16.8 million a month to maintain.

In a report to the Council, Annan had recommended a gradual two-phased
approach that would see headquarters staff scaled down by almost a third.
On the military side, Kenyan troops who patrol the eastern sector of the
border would be pulled out, with more helicopter patrols being introduced
to monitor the ceasefire. The three border sectors would be consolidated
into two, covering the 1,000-km long frontier. A commercial demining team
has already replaced a Slovak military group, resulting in a $6 million
cut in costs. A further $20 million could be saved by troop reductions.
[Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43182 ]

ERITREA: Government denies violating freedom of worship

The Eritrean government has rejected a claim by the US State Department
that it violates religious rights and severely restricts freedom of
worship for all but four government-sanctioned religions: Orthodox
Christians, Muslims, Catholics, and the Evangelical Church of Eritrea. The
accusations were made in a statement issued by the US State Department.

"The statement by the State Department does not come as a surprise to
Eritrea as it has been no secret that the CIA and its operatives have been
long engaged in fabricating defamatory statements in a bid to embark on
other agendas and at the same time conceal its unwarranted intervention,"
the Eritrean Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. "It is only astonishing
to see the US, which lacks moral and legal high grounds on human rights
and the respect for religions, make an attempt to become the
self-appointed adjudicator," the ministry added in a statement. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43203 ]

ETHIOPIA: Top official rejects criticism of land policy

Ethiopia's top economic advisor rejected criticism on Wednesday that the
government's state-owned land policy created insecurity among farmers.
Newai Gebre-Ab, chief economic advisor to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi,
said farmers continued to invest in their land despite government
ownership. Ethiopia has been criticised both at home and abroad for
failing to privatise land. The US Agency for International Development
(USAID) has pressed the government to end its hold on land, arguing
private ownership by farmers would boost food production.

Newai told journalists: "Today farmers are digging water tanks - they
spend money and effort digging water tanks in the thousands. "It is not
because the government has pressed them saying 'you dig water tanks
otherwise we will not give you food aid'. So if they feel insecure about
the land that they hold they will not dig water tanks." His comments came
at the launch of a new Ethiopia Strategy Support Programme (ESSP) - an
initiative to improve and strengthen the country's rural-development
strategy through research improving knowledge and data collection. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43209 ]

ETHIOPIA: President calls for increased economic development

The President of Ethiopia, Girma Wolde Giorgis, has called for mass
mobilisation of the public to ensure greater economic development in the
country. In a keynote address marking the Ethiopian New Year, he urged
better protection of the country's dwindling natural resources and its
depleted forests. Girma also praised government policies in areas like
education, civil service reform and growth in the agricultural sector -
which he said had leapt 18 percent after failed rains in 2002. A
government statement that said this year marked a watershed where the
country must make the transition from poverty to development, echoed his
New Year address.

"Exerting maximum effort to score better economic growth than ever before
is expected of us all," the statement said. "It is imperative for us to
outmanoeuvre the speed of poverty and backwardness by an accelerated pace
in democratisation and development." The new Ethiopian year - 1997 under
the Julian calendar that is used in the country and celebrated on 11
September - marks a critical time, the government said. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43142 ]

ETHIOPIA: School teachers in dispute with government over pay

Ethiopia's teachers said on Tuesday they were embroiled in a dispute over
recently introduced performance-related pay. The Ethiopian Teachers
Association (ETA), which represents 150,000 teachers, said it would hold a
rally next month, claiming a pay rise teachers were entitled to had been
scrapped. A newly qualified teacher in Ethiopia earns a basic salary of
around US $90 a month. Ethiopia has one of the poorest levels of education
in the world - only around half of the 12 million school-age population
receives any kind of teaching.

Under the United Nations anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium
Development Goals, all children must receive primary education by 2015.
"Teachers need a salary increase," Anteye Kebede, head of ETA, told IRIN.
"The last time teachers received a pay increase was three years ago. We
deserve better treatment." Anteye, who has been in charge of ETA for two
years, said that other civil servants were better paid and enjoyed better
conditions than the teachers. "Teachers in state-owned schools are
entitled to a pay rise every two years like any other civil servant," he
said. [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43181 ]

SOMALIA: New parliamentary speaker, violence erupts near Kismayo

Members of Somalia's newly formed transitional federal parliament have
elected businessman Shariff Hassan Sheikh Adan as the assembly's speaker.
Adan won 161 votes from the 267 MPs who met in the Kenyan capital,
Nairobi, on Wednesday to elect their speaker. His closest rival, Sheikh
Adan Mohamed Nur "Madoobe", received 105 votes and immediately alleged
foul play had marred the vote. In all, 11 candidates ran for the post. But
even as the MPs voted to elect the speaker, fresh factional violence was
reported near the southern port city of Kismayo (400 km south of the
capital, Mogadishu), casting a shadow over Somalia's tortuous peace
process.

The fighting, which broke out on Wednesday afternoon, pitted forces of the
Juba Valley Alliance (JVA), the faction controlling the city, against
those of warlord General Muhammad Sa'id Hirsi "Morgan", according to
sources in the city. "The two sides clashed near the village of Halima
Adey, [110 km southwest of Kismayo]," one source in Kismayo told IRIN on
Thursday. According to the source, Morgan's forces captured a pick-up
truck with a mounted machine gun and a top militia commander, Col Abdi
Igal, from the JVA. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43208 ]

SOMALIA: MPs want more women in new parliament

Women members of Somalia's newly created transitional federal parliament
plan to move a motion seeking a constitutional amendment to increase the
number of seats reserved for women in the assembly, one of the MPs said on
Monday. The women have complained that delegates attending the Somali
national reconciliation conference in the Kenya capital, Nairobi, flouted
the National Charter when they failed to adhere to the provision that at
least 12 percent of the members be women.

Delegates, the majority of them men, appointed only 23 women members to
the 275-member parliament even though the charter stipulates that at least
33 MPs be women. "We are planning to come up with a motion to amend
article 29 of the charter to raise the women's quota in parliament," Asha
Haji Elmi, one of the MPs told IRIN. She said that women members would
form a "strategic alliance" with men MPs sympathetic to their cause to
ensure that the motion is passed. "We [women] are part and parcel of the
national solution," she added. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43143 ]

SUDAN: Thousands of IDPs dying every month - WHO

Between 6,000 to 10,000 of an estimated 1.2 million internally displaced
persons (IDPs) in the troubled western Sudanese region of Darfur are dying
every month, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. Many of
those who die are children aged five and under, it added. A survey done by
the WHO and the Sudanese government showed that mortality rates had
surpassed the mark that aid agencies use to define a humanitarian crisis -
which is one death per 10,000 people per day. The survey found that the
IDPs were dying at a rate of 1.5 per 10,000 people each day in North
Darfur, and 2.9 per 10,000 in West Darfur, WHO said in a statement.

"This survey confirms what the humanitarian community has suspected for
some weeks," LEE Jong-wook, Director-General of WHO, said. "The results,
along with the other information gathered by our staff, tell us that the
people in Darfur need more assistance." "Thousands, including thousands of
children under five, are dying every month from diseases which can be
easily prevented and treated. Increased and better focused action is now
vital," he added. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43163 ]

SUDAN: Tens of thousands of new IDPs in South Darfur

Tens of thousands of newly displaced people (IDPs) fleeing renewed
violence in the Sudanese state of South Darfur have arrived at the Gereida
camp, 100 km south of the town of Nyala, the international aid agency
Oxfam Canada said. "The camp population increased from 10,000 to 40,000
within seven days," Gemma Swart, Oxfam Canada communications officer in
Sudan, told IRIN on Monday. "There was increased violence in the rural
areas around Gereida which led to people fleeing their homes and coming
into the camp."

"They left quickly - some by donkey, others walking. Two children drowned
trying to cross a "wadi" [small river] at night," she said. "Those who
arrived at the camp had nothing. I saw people trying to build shelters
using sticks they had collected from their neighbours," Swart added. The
relief agency warned that the camp had been overwhelmed by the fresh
arrivals. Its population increased from 10,000 IDPs on 26 August to over
40,000 by 7 September. "People are still arriving every day," Oxfam said
in a statement on Friday. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43150 ]

SUDAN: AU calls on US to provide more support for Darfur

The African Union (AU) urged the United States to provide greater support
in Sudan after US Secretary of State Colin Powell described the ongoing
violence in the western region of Darfur as "genocide". Sam Ibok, director
of the AU's Peace and Security Council, also urged the US to detail the
evidence it had to make such claims. "The US has been helping but that
support is not commensurate with the requirements," Ibok told IRIN on
Monday in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. "His [Colin Powell's]
comments should be backed up. If it is not, the Sudanese government will
not take anybody seriously."

Ibok said AU observer teams had found graves containing around eight
bodies each, but added that this did not necessarily constitute genocide.
"Those kind of grave violations could at the end of the day be termed as
genocide. If we find evidence we shall not shy away from calling it
genocide," he told IRIN. "But we cannot call it genocide at this point in
time because we have not fully investigated it. For now we are preoccupied
with saving lives," he added. The Sudanese government has rejected the
description by the US of the Darfur conflict as genocide, and has accused
Washington of exploiting a humanitarian crisis for political gain. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43135]


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