U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Southern Africa

Tel: +27 11 880 4633
Fax: +27 11 880 1421
e-mail: irin-sa@irin.org.za


SOUTHERN AFRICA
IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 67
13 - 19 April 2002


CONTENTS:

MADAGASCAR: African diplomats secure peace pact
ANGOLA: Assessments in former 'no-go' zones
SOUTHERN AFRICA: Possible El Nino may worsen food crisis
COMOROS: Election results delayed
MALAWI: Almost 1,000 cholera deaths reported
NAMIBIA: Agreement to repatriate refugees from Botswana
ZIMBABWE: Journalists' arrest 'pure harassment' - MISA
AFRICA: Partnerships avert 15,000 neonatal deaths

MADAGASCAR: African diplomats secure peace pact

Locked in a stalemate and under immense regional pressure, veteran
President Didier Ratsiraka and opposition candidate Marc Ravalomanana
signed an agreement on Thursday to resolve their increasingly violent
dispute at the polls.

The men, whose dispute has split civil society and the army since
Ravalomanana declared himself president on 22 February, signed the accord
in Dakar, Senegal.

IRIN reported on Thursday 18 April that the men agreed to a recount of
votes cast on 16 December and to a power-sharing government for six months
at most, until a referendum is held to decide the presidency. What
remained on Friday 19 April was to see how the two parties planned on
implementing the accord.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27349

The OAU-brokered accord came not a moment too soon. The reported number of
deaths related to the conflict rose to at least 35 and the Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs arrived in Antananarivo on an
information gathering mission on Wednesday 17 April, saying it wanted to
plan for a possible deterioration in humanitarian conditions on the
island.

"The OCHA mission is expected to provide the [UN] country team with
alternative strategies should the humanitarian situation begin to
overwhelm the humanitarian community in Madagascar," UN Development
Programme officer, Michel Mattera, told IRIN on Monday 15 April.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27271

ANGOLA: Assessments in former 'no-go' zones

The Angolan government and relief agencies will soon know more about the
humanitarian needs in vast areas that have not been accessible for years.
It is estimated that 500,000 people are in need of assistance in the
regions previously cut off from aid because of the war.

Julie Thomson, information officer for the Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told IRIN on Tuesday 16 April that 36 joint
assessments had been planned for 13 different provinces. However, she
said: "It is difficult to know how many [people] will need assistance. We
suspect that some of the humanitarian conditions could be quite serious."

At the same time, the joint committee in charge of implementing a
ceasefire signed at the beginning of the month, announced on Wednesday 17
April that the quartering and demobilisation of UNITA troops was going
well. It said, however, that medicines and food were in short supply. On
the same day the Angolan government approved a plan to ensure the
provision of food and other essential supplies to about 55,000 UNITA
troops and their families.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27308

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Possible El Nino may worsen food crisis

Already facing widespread food shortages, Southern Africa may still have
to deal with the effects of a possible El Nino event.

The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), which consists of UN aid
organisations and standing invitees such as the International Committee of
the Red Cross and the World Bank, warned in a press release on Friday 19
April that the region could experience further humanitarian crises.

"The IASC stresses the importance of monitoring early warning information
related to a possible El Nino event. If another weather phenomenon were to
occur, erratic rainfall and other climatic shocks could further undermine
crop production and food security within Southern Africa," the committee
said.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27368

Earlier in the week, on Monday 15 April, IRIN reported that the region
eagerly awaited the April/May harvests, which will determine whether up to
three million people starve.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27280

On a more positive note, IRIN reported on Thursday 18 April that a growing
community-based tourism sector was offering jobs and hope for sustainable
development in African villages.

"Community-based tourism shows that Africa is not about scenery and
animals only, but people and culture," Margaret Taylor, of the Regional
Tourism Authority of Southern Africa (RETOSA), told IRIN. RETOSA is made
up of the 14 national tourism authorities in the Southern African
Development Community (SADC).

Richard Motsa, a tour guide at Hlane Royal Game Park in Swaziland, said
tourists wanted to experience the real Africa. "African tourism began with
the safari - the Big White Hunter leading a retinue of native porters as
he guns down lions - then progressed to the luxury game parks and
Landrover nature reserve tours most visitors take. Now more visitors want
to get involved. They don't want to just be tourists, they want to be
participants."

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27357

On Tuesday 16 April IRIN reported that drug trafficking in Southern Africa
was on the rise and South Africa was increasingly being used as a base for
the illicit trade.

The UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP) told IRIN that
since 1998 it has supported the creation of specialised port anti-drug
teams in East and Southern Africa. This investment was now paying
dividends, said drugs programme manager Gary Lewis.

"Almost all of the teams we have helped to establish in Mombassa,
Djibouti, Dar-es-Salaam, Maputo and Durban have made significant drug
seizures. Our biggest success to date has come in South Africa, where in
October of 2000 the unit seized hashish worth over US $150 million," said
Lewis.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27307

IRIN also reported that aid to Sub-Saharan Africa had shrunk as donors
used stricter criteria to decide which countries qualified for assistance.
The World Bank's African Development Indicators 2002 report revealed that
official development aid to countries in the region had fallen to US $12.3
billion at the end of 1999 from US $17.2 billion in 1990.

"While aid flows have declined most sharply to African countries at war,
assistance to governments recognised as having sound policies also has
dwindled. Mozambique, one of Africa's poorest countries, yet also regarded
as a strong policy performer, saw aid fall to US $804 million from US
$1.04 billion over the same period," the bank said.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27282

COMOROS: Election results delayed

The Comoros election commission had decided not to rule on the outcome of
last Sunday's presidential poll, opting instead to refer the matter to a
follow-up committee, United Nations Development Programme regional
representative Andre Carvalho, said on Friday 19 April.

"They decided not to decide and sent the ball back to the committee," he
said. "The commission and the committee, made up of bodies overseeing the
transition to a new political system, would meet on Friday afternoon [19
April] to decide how to proceed. We should know by the end of the day."

Assoumani, the only candidate for the rotating presidency of the
archipelago of islands, won Sunday's poll after the two other candidates,
Mahamoud Mradadi and Said Ali Kemal, boycotted the vote. They alleged
irregularities with the voters' roll.

The announcement of Mradadi and Kemal's boycott sparked violence and
reports that some polling stations were closed or attacked.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27334

Without competition, Assoumani secured more than 75 percent of the vote,
but the poll was reportedly as low as 44.4 percent of registered voters on
Grande Comore, 33.4 percent on Anjouan and 35 percent in Moheli.

A team of international observers stopped short of calling the election
free and fair, but said it had been carried out correctly. The national
elections monitoring body said they couldn't be considered free and fair
due to incidents of violence and the small number of votes cast, the BBC
reported.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27358

Under a new constitution, each island should have its own president and a
federal president shall have overall authority. The islands of Anjouan and
Moheli have already elected their presidents, but Grande Comore, which
will have the rotating presidency first, has not.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27358

MALAWI: Almost 1,000 cholera deaths reported

Almost 1,000 people have died from cholera in Malawi since November and
about 33,000 infections have been reported up to mid-April, the national
health department told IRIN on Friday.

Most cases were in the central region, which saw 592 people die and 16,318
people infected, Dr Habib Somanje, director of preventive health services,
said. In the southern region, 364 people died and 16,257 were infected,
while the north was least affected, with 30 deaths and 362 reported cases.
"This is the worst outbreak in the past 10 years," he said, adding that
the outbreak affected men, women and children equally.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27371

NAMIBIA: Agreement to repatriate refugees from Botswana

About 2,400 refugees in Botswana could soon return to their homes in
Namibia's Caprivi region under an agreement between the UN High Commission
for Refugees (UNHCR), Namibia and Botswana.

Many of the refugees had been at the Dukwe refugee camp, northeast of
Gaborone, since 1998, when they fled Namibia after instability caused by
secessionist violence.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27286

In another development, Namibia, Angola and South Africa agreed to a US
$38.7 million initiative to develop a plan to manage the ecosystems that
swirl along the three countries' coastlines, the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) announced on Wednesday.

The agreement is to focus on the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem
(BCLME) which runs parallel to the coastline of Namibia, from the Cape of
Good Hope in South Africa up to northern Angola.

The three countries will work towards establishing the Benguela Regional
Commission, harmonising policy and joint management plans, and researching
the causes and impacts of environmental variability.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27333

ZIMBABWE: Journalists' arrest 'pure harassment' - MISA

One of the issues which dominated headlines in Zimbabwe this week was the
arrest of two prominent journalists and other reports of media harassment.

Geoff Nyarota, editor of Zimbabwe's Daily News, was arrested on Monday
over an article questioning the difference between the final election
results given on national television and subsequent published figures
which allegedly contained 700,000 more voters. He was charged with abuse
of journalistic privilege and falsifying information in terms of the
Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act passed in March.

Dumisani Muleya of the Zimbabwe Independent was arrested over a story
relating to a labour dispute in which the brother of the first lady, Grace
Mugabe, was reportedly asked to intervene. He was charged with criminal
defamation after his arrest on Monday. Both men have been released.

Zoe Titus of the Media Institute of Southern Africa said: "It is pure and
simple harassment. Unfortunately the laws have been put in place to allow
for this to take place."

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27309

On Thursday 18 April the International Crisis Group (ICG) warned that
regional and international pressure to end Zimbabwe's bitter political
conflict may result in a hasty deal that could undermine democratic
principles.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27355

AFRICA: Partnerships avert 15,000 neonatal deaths

Malawi, Namibia and Zimbabwe would soon join the list of countries to have
eliminated neonatal tetanus, which is responsible for at least 200,000
infant deaths in the developing world each year, IRIN reported on
Wednesday 17 April.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said international
intervention and partnerships had saved at least 15,000 newborn babies
from tetanus deaths in 2001.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27318


IRIN-SA
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Email: IRIN-SA@irin.org.za

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