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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-Up 296
24 - 30 September 2005


CONTENTS:

ETHIOPIA: Main opposition coalition merges to form party
ETHIOPIA: Opposition members arrested ahead of planned demo
SOMALIA: Somaliland voters go to the polls
SOMALIA: Journalist detained over report on graft in local prison
SOMALIA: Mogadishu-based leaders meet near Jowhar
SUDAN: Southerners get new assembly
SUDAN: Violence hindering aid effort in Darfur - Egeland
SUDAN: Disarm Janjawid militia, UN official urges


SEE ALSO:

SUDAN: Focus: Abandoned and broken hearted, orphans find a home in 
Mygoma at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49264

SUDAN: Interview with Dennis McNamara, head of UN's Internal 
Displacement Division at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49301


ETHIOPIA: Main opposition coalition merges to form party

The four parties that make up Ethiopia's largest opposition alliance, 
the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) have merged to form one 
party, an official of the coalition said on Thursday.

The All Ethiopia Unity Party, the Union of Ethiopia Democracy Party, 
Rainbow Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Democratic League announced their 
unification on Saturday. Members of the new party elected Hailu Shawel 
to continue as chairman of the new party and Birtukan Mideksa to serve 
as vice-chair.

"This merger means a strengthening of the opposition, added force to the 
opposition," Hailu Araya, CUD spokesman, told IRIN.

"Our vision is eventually to unite all the opposition parties in 
Ethiopia, but in the immediate future we are focused on consolidating 
the CUD alliance," he added.

Hailu said the opposition demonstration to protest against the results 
of the 15 May national elections - planned for 2 October - was still "on 
schedule" but was dependent on the administration of the capital, Addis 
Ababa.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49284]


ETHIOPIA: Opposition members arrested ahead of planned demo

An unknown number of opposition party supporters have been arrested in 
Ethiopia ahead of a planned demonstration scheduled for Sunday in the 
capital, Addis Ababa, to protest against the results of the 15 May 
general election.

"I can't give you a precise figure, but the number of those arrested in 
several regions runs into hundreds," Merera Gudina, first vice-chairman 
of the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF), said. "Several 
opposition offices have also been closed."

Information Minister Bereket Simon said the police had arrested 43 
people in the Amhara region on the grounds that opposition parties - 
notably the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) and the UEDF - were 
preparing to "continue the violence they started earlier on in the 
year". However, Gudina said the government was detaining the opposition 
supporters on trumped up charges.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49267]


SOMALIA: Somaliland voters go to the polls

Voters in the self-declared republic of Somaliland, northwestern 
Somalia, went to the polls on Thursday to elect 82 members of 
parliament.

Candidates from the opposition Kulmiye (Solidarity) and the Welfare and 
Justice parties are challenging those from the ruling party, the Union 
of Democrats. Some 246 candidates are vying for the parliamentary seats. 
Some 800,000 of Somaliland's estimated 3.5 million people are eligible 
to vote.

The polls are Somaliland's third since it declared unilateral 
independence from the rest of Somalia in May 1991, following the 
collapse of the administration of former President Muhammad Siyad Barre. 
Somaliland conducted municipal elections in December 2002, which were 
followed by the presidential poll in April 2003 in which the incumbent, 
Dahir Riyale Kahin, retained his post. On Thursday, voters started 
lining up at the territory's 985 polling stations well before they 
opened officially at 0600 (0300 GMT).

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49290]


SOMALIA: Journalist detained over report on graft in local prison

Security officials in Somalia's self-declared autonomous region of 
Puntland arrested a radio editor on Monday over a story on corruption in 
a local prison, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists 
(CPJ) said.

Awale Jama Salad's detention without charge is the second time in recent 
months, CPJ said on Tuesday, quoting the Somali Journalists Union 
(NUSOM).

He was arrested in Bossaso, the commercial capital of Puntland in 
northeastern Somalia, over the story that highlighted conditions in the 
local prison. The arrest follows Jama's reports in July on his previous 
imprisonment, according to NUSOM. The reports, broadcast on STN radio 
and reproduced up by some local newspapers, alleged that officials at 
Bossaso prison were taking bribes to free prisoners, and that conditions 
in the jail were so bad they were causing the spread of diseases. [Full 
story at; http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49262]


SOMALIA: Mogadishu-based leaders meet near Jowhar

A group of powerful faction leaders, who are members of Somalia's 
divided Transitional Federal Institutions [TFIs], held a meeting in the 
town of Bal'ad, 60 km south of Jowhar, on Sunday, drawing accusations 
from their rivals that they were engaging in provocative activities.

Sources at the meeting said the gathering by the Mogadishu-based group 
was intended to demonstrate to the TFI wing led by President Abdullahi 
Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Muhmmad Gedi, who are based in Jowhar, that 
they were a force to be reckoned with.

"They were simply showing Yusuf and Gedi that they could meet at their 
door step," one source said.

A spokesman for the Jowhar-based TFG, Abdirahman Dinari, denounced the 
meeting as provocative, saying it came at a time when efforts were being 
made to end the rift within the TFIs.

"Such meetings and provocative statements that came out of them do not 
help the ongoing reconciliation efforts," Dinari said.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49227]


SUDAN: Southerners get new assembly

The Interim Legislative Council of Southern Sudan, which brings together 
many former military and political adversaries, was officially 
inaugurated on Thursday in Juba, the southern Sudanese capital.

The establishment of the new parliament constitutes a milestone in the 
implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed on 9 
January by the Sudanese government and the former southern rebels of the 
Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).

It also represents an important step in fulfilling the southerners' 
aspirations for greater political autonomy and the decentralisation of 
power, for which the SPLM/A fought during a 21-year war that claimed two 
million lives.

"This is clearly a significant and historic moment. This is what people 
have been waiting for since the signing of the CPA, and probably for the 
past 20 years," David Gressly, the UN deputy resident and humanitarian 
coordinator for southern Sudan, told IRIN at the ceremony.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49299]


SUDAN: Violence hindering aid effort in Darfur, Egeland says

Continuing violence in the western Sudanese region of Darfur is 
hindering humanitarian efforts and creating a chaotic situation there, 
the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency 
Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland, said on Wednesday.

"As we speak, we have had to suspend action in many areas. Tens of 
thousands of people will not get any assistance today because it is too 
dangerous, and it could grow," Egeland told a news conference in Geneva, 
Switzerland.

Noting that Darfur was a continuing crisis in spite of very effective 
humanitarian work, Egeland said the level of violence had escalated 
sharply in September. If the violence continued to escalate and it 
continued to be so dangerous to unarmed humanitarian workers, the UN 
might not be able to sustain its operations for 2.5 million people 
requiring life-saving assistance there, he added.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49280]


SUDAN: Disarm Janjawid militia, UN official urges

The Janjawid, a militia group allegedly allied to the Sudanese 
government, must be disarmed if peace is to return to the country's 
western region of Darfur, a senior UN official said on Monday.

"The disarmament of the Janjawid would help the government reach a 
peaceful solution," Juan Mendez, the UN Secretary-General's Special 
Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, said in the Sudanese capital, 
Khartoum.

"Without disarmament of the Janjawid, there is no possibility of 
reaching a positive solution to the Darfur crisis," he added.

Since the start of the conflict in February 2003, the Janjawid 
militiamen have been accused of the massacre of the region's non-Arab 
inhabitants. Despite the US stating in September 2004 that genocide had 
occurred in Darfur, a UN-appointed commission of inquiry concluded in 
January that violence in the region did not amount to genocide. Instead, 
it said, mass killings of civilians had occurred.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49248]


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 
2005


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