U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Co-ordination 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 34 covering the period 21-27 August 1999
ANGOLA: Security Council debates Angola
The UN Security Council this week demanded that UNITA, the Angolan rebel movement of Jonas Savimbi, comply immediately and unconditionally with obligations under the 1994 UN-brokered Lusaka Protocol peace accords to demilitarise and allow the extension of the government's administration to areas under their control.
In a statement released by its president, Martin Andjaba, the Security Council said: "The Council expressed deep concern at the deteriorating political, military and humanitarian situation in Angola. It also expressed concern at the critical condition of internally displaced persons suffering from lack of food, medicines, shelter, arable land and other necessities. It further expressed grave concern at the number of malnourished children and at the outbreak of diseases such as polio and meningitis."
The Security Council's resolution follows impassioned pleas by Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator to the Council to step up international support for humanitarian operations in the war-torn country and to devise fresh initiatives to help end nearly three decades of civil war which has left hundreds of thousands trapped behind battle lines.
Vieira de Mello, Catherine Bertini, the Executive Director of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Carol Bellamy, all cited growing malnutrition, a high risk of epidemic diseases in overcrowded provincial capitals, a lack of sanitation due to a lack of safe drinking water and the generally weakened state of the population.
Noting the insufficient level of contributions to the UN's 1999 Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal for Angola, the council also called on the international donor community to contribute generously, financially and in kind to the humanitarian appeal to enable the agencies to effectively address the plight of internally displaced persons.
The council's statement continued: "The Security Council expresses its concern that the continuing conflict and lack of access jeopardise the ability of the agencies to continue to deliver assistance to those in need. The Council urges the government of Angola and particularly UNITA to provide access to all internally displaced persons in Angola, and to facilitate the mechanisms necessary for the delivery of humanitarian assistance to all populations in need throughout the country.
Government turns down UN on aid corridors
The Angolan government responded to some of the Security Council's resolutions by turning down a request to open humanitarian aid corridors, saying there was no need for such measures as Luanda could ensure emergency relief deliveries, media reports quoted Foreign Minister Joao Miranda as saying.
Eight civilians killed in ambushes
In incidents reported this week, eight civilians were killed in two separate ambushes in eastern Angola, 'Radio Ecclesia' said.
The independent radio station said that six people were killed while heading to Kota, about 400 km east of the capital city, Luanda, while two other people were killed and three wounded in the same area a week earlier.
Pope says Angolan conflict threatens entire region
Pope John Paul II, meanwhile, voiced his concern at the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Angola saying the conflict is one of the worst humanitarian crises in Africa and warned that it threatened to engulf the entire region.
"Ever more worrying news reaches us from Angola where, because of the civil war, one of the most serious humanitarian crises is developing in silence and with no respect for human dignity," the pope said.
Police detain three journalists
The Angolan government has detained three journalist from Kuito, about 350km southeast of the capital Luanda.
According to news reports, the three were detained on suspicion of "releasing military information which endangers regional stability." Their detention follows a media report last week, which was broadcast on the 'Voice of America' and 'Radio Ecclesia', about a recent UNITA attack on Kuito.
Savimbi offers to talk
Jonas Savimbi, the leader of UNITA, Angola's rebel movement, has said he is ready to talk peace with the government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, the BBC reported last week.
"We are ready to talk at any time when President Dos Santos wants to talk," Savimbi reportedly said, adding that it was not possible to resolve the country's civil war militarily.
NAMIBIA: Caprivi state of emergency lifted
The state of emergency in the Caprivi Strip, declared on 2 August by Namibia's President Sam Nujoma following an armed attack by separatists of the Caprivi Liberation Army in the northeast regional capital, Katima Mulilo, was lifed this week.
"The situation in the Caprivi has stabilised," an army spokesman told IRIN. He said, however, that the Namibian Defence Force (NDF) will not scale down its presence in the Caprivi. "The security forces will continue to monitor the situation in the region," the spokesman said. The Namibian government, having declared the emergency, also temporarily closed its borders with Zambia, Botswana and Angola in an operation meant to track down the attackers.
Announcing the lifting of the emergency, Nujoma was quoted as saying the security forces presence in the Strip would be beefed up, confirming fears by the Namibian Society for Human Rights (NSHR) that the NDF's presence in the Caprivi will actually be increased.
Zen Mnakapa of the NSHR told IRIN: "The situation in the Caprivi will change a bit with the lifting of the emergency. The security forces will now have to produce warrants when they search people's houses."
Mnakapa added, however, that there is no reason to hope that the human rights situation will improve. "We are adopting a wait-and-see attitude, but we suspect that the beatings and arrests of Caprivians will continue."
The attack on Katima Mulilo was the first of its kind in the country since Namibia gained independence from South Africa in 1990. The separatists, reportedly led by exiled politician Mishake Muyongo, are demanding an independent homeland for the Caprivi Strip that juts out of northeast Namibia and shares borders with Botswana, Zambia, Angola and Zimbabwe.
At least 14 people were killed in the attack, among them at least six members of the Namibian security forces. The NSHR claims that over 300 Caprivians were arrested during the state of emergency and many of those arrested were reportedly assaulted, and others tortured.
Government spokesmen initially denied the claims, but later government ministers, including the defence minister, admitted to what they called mistakes committed by security forces in the course of implementing the state of emergency.
Detainees appear in court
About 100 Caprivi detainees appeared in court in Grootfontein, about 450km southwest of Caprivi Strip, last week on charges of treason and public disturbance as a sequel to the 2 August attack, an NSHR spokesman told IRIN.
"The detainees were remanded in custody and their cases postponed to 24 January next year," Moses Nasilele said. "Both the media and the detainees' relatives were not allowed into the court, raising doubts about the physical well-being of the accused," Nasilele added.
Nasilele also said as far as the NSHR was aware, none of the detainees had legal representation. "We have applied on behalf of 18 detainees to be visited by lawyers, but the Caprivi authorities ruled that such a decision should be taken by central government," Nasilele said.
News reports last week said approximately 200 of the arrested Caprivians have been released, although a Namibian Defence Force spokesman said "any or all of those released could be re-arrested if necessary".
ICRC delegation visits Caprivi detainees
A delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) this week visited Caprivi detainees.
Juan Martinez, press officer for Africa at ICRC headquarters in Geneva, told IRIN that the delegation had started their visit on 19 August. "The delegation has been given the assurance that they will be able to visit all the detainees who were involved in the Caprivi incident," he said. The delegation also planned to visit detainees held in Grootfontein.
ZAMBIA: Angolan-bound plane impounded
A cargo plane that landed in Lusaka from Uganda en route to rebel-held territory in Angola has been impounded by Zambian authorities and its crew of nine Ukrainians and a South African held for questioning, a Zambian government official told IRIN this week.
News reports said the Ukrainian plane was supposed to load oil for tankers for the UNITA rebel movement. "The plane was empty when it was impounded and we are investigating the crew's mission and their suppliers," said the official who declined further comment.
News reports said the oil was to have been flown from South Africa because UNITA's alleged Zambian sources had been unable to supply any oil since the country's sole Indeni oil refinery in the Copperbelt was gutted by fire in May. The reports added that some Zambian businessmen had been exporting oil to UNITA through northwestern and western Zambia from the refinery.
Relations between Zambia and its neighbour Angola have been strained in recent months following charges by the embattled Angolan government that Lusaka officials have been involved in gun-running to UNITA.
Chiluba will not stand for third term
Zambian President Frederick Chiluba has reiterated that he will not stand for a third term of office, his press aide, Richard Sakala, announced.
Sakala said Chiluba made it clear he would retire when his term expires in 2001 "in order to pursue a private life and to make way for fresh political faces and ideas." Under the Zambian constitution Chiluba is barred from standing for a third term.
ZIMBABWE: Harare forces to stay put in Congo
Senior military sources in Zimbabwe told IRIN this week that the Harare government would wait until Rwanda and Uganda withdraw from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), before scaling down its own intervention force.
An estimated 10,000 Zimbabwean troops have been fighting for embattled President Laurent-Desire Kabila of the DRC in the eastern parts of the country against Rwandan and Ugandan backed rebel forces. According to the source, the Zimbabwean intervention had successfully blocked the rebel advance, but there had been a 10 to 15 percent casualty rate mainly through disease.
"Our air superiority was vital in getting the upper hand," one Zimbabwean military officer who recently returned from Lubumbashi in eastern DRC told IRIN. He added: "We have stabilised the situation. Congolese [government] forces can now hold down the rebels, if Uganda and Rwanda stop supporting them."
However, other SADC military experts in Harare said that the high economic costs were a much greater reason for Zimbabwe to pull out of the DRC. "Their DRC intervention has been an economic disaster for Zimbabwe," one analyst told IRIN. "The government cannot sustain the level of involvement when ordinary Zimbabweans think troops have been sent to defend government investments and not national or regional interests."
MALAWI: UNHCR protests to Malawi over deportations
The Lusaka-based regional representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Oluseyi Bajulaiye, has lodged a "strong protest" over the recent deportation of 24 Eritrean nationals from Malawi to Ethiopia aboard an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Addis Ababa.
During a scuffle with security forces when they were taken aboard the flight on 21 August, one of the Eritreans was reportedly killed. In a statement sent to IRIN on Friday, Bajulaiye said: "We have registered a strong protest with the Malawian authorities over this incident which has resulted in the unnecessary loss of life."
According to UNHCR, the group came from Addis Ababa on 14 August, and had attempted to enter the country on what the Malawi authorities claimed were fake visas, prompting their arrest upon arrival in the Malawian capital, Lilongwe.
UNHCR said that during the group's detention, UNHCR staff in Lilongwe and Lusaka, met with the relevant authorities so that the Eritreans could present their case. However, despite UNHCR's efforts, it was advised by the Malawian authorities that the incident was being treated strictly as an immigration issue, on account of the fact that they had allegedly entered with fake visas.
Alerted of their imminent deportation, the Eritreans reportedly staged a protest when it came to boarding the flight.
International obligations
"Assessing an asylum seeker's case on merit, irrespective of how the individual entered the country, is an obligation under international refugee conventions, to which Malawi is a signatory," Bajulaiye said.
He said he was "extremely concerned" at the reception the deportees may have experienced in Ethiopia, given the high level of tension between Ethiopia and Eritrea following recent border clashes: "Records from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as well as statements from relatives in Ethiopia, confirm that the individuals had previously been detained in Dedesa prison, some 400 km outside the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa," Bajulaiye said.
He expressed the hope that the incident would not signal the introduction of "restrictive asylum policies by the Malawi authorities." He added that the UNHCR office in Malawi had received assurances from the Malawian immigration authorities that it would in future allow for the "assessment of claims" by asylum seekers and "not resort to actions such as happened in this case."
MOZAMBIQUE: Government appeals for flood aid
The Mozambican government this week appealed for seed and grains for distribution to victims of flooding that ravaged crops in southern and central Mozambique earlier this year.
The National Agriculture Directorate said it needed 416 mt of maize seeds, 210 mt of rice, 85 mt of beans and 72 mt of nuts. Earlier this year, Mozambique experienced its worst flooding in 40 years, with the coastal towns of Vilankulos and Inhassoro among the most severely affected. In March, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that an estimated 70,000 people had been affected by the floods, with up to 6,000 people displaced.
SOUTH AFRICA: Pretoria apprehensive ahead of DRC peacekeeping mission
South African defence officials told IRIN this week that they were increasingly concerned at "unrealistic" expectations among other countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) of the scale of a South African peacekeeping deployment to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). South African President Thabo Mbeki agreed to contribute troops to a future international peacekeeping mission to war-torn DRC earlier this year. However, this commitment has been over-optimistically interpreted by some SADC countries as a guarantee to underwrite the entire mission, officials complained. "It is simply not going to happen," one military officer commented. "The DRC is vast, the infrastructure is poor or non-existent and South Africa just cannot pick up the pieces of a country from over a dozen competing or allied military groups," he said. Another official capped any future deployment of South African troops at just one battalion of some 800 men. But Zimbabwean military sources had earlier insisted to IRIN that South Africa would be able to make a significant contribution. "They are have all the equipment, numbers and training. When they come the rebels will really be running," one source suggested. South African officials disagreed. "We are not thinking what can we deploy? We are thinking what can we sustain for a long period of time," he explained. "We could deploy a large force, but six months later, we would just not be able to support them in the DRC. There is no intention of South Africa holding any line for other SADC countries." Regional analysts in Harare believe tension with Zimbabwe, which has as many as 10,000 troops fighting alongside embattled President Laurent Desire Kabila in the DRC, is likely to make South Africa even more cautious about deploying troops in the region. "South Africa is certain to insist on a United Nations mandate and a much better peace than we have at the moment before it sends in any troops," one commentator said. South African defence officials were more specific. "I think there is a growing consensus that any DRC mission should not be just a SADC affair. We want other Western countries to join in. We know if it is just SADC then South Africa will be left to underwrite the whole deployment. We do not want the DRC buck to stop here," one official explained.
Public servants strike
An estimated 600,000 South African public servants, including professionals and manual labourers, this week embarked on a protest action in support of their demand for a 7.3 percent annual wage increase following a deadlock in bitter negotiations started seven months ago.
About 100,000 workers gathered at the Union Buildings, which houses the office of South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, where leaders of the 12 unions handed memorandums to government officials demanding that the government reverses its decision to unilaterally implement its wage offer of up to seven percent.
The protest action was the first of its kind in post-apartheid South Africa that united government employees organised in 12 unions who complain that their pay rises have not kept up with the pace of inflation, estimated at 8.2 percent. The action affected the functioning of hospitals, schools, and to a lesser extent the prisons and police services.
SOUTHERN AFRICA: Former Angolan minister nominated as new SADC executive secretary
Angola's former oil minister, Joao Landoide, was nominated this as the new SADC executive secretary.
Kaire Mbuende of Namibia, who held the post since 1997, stepped down at the organisation's recent summit in the Mozambican capital Maputo, after repeated criticism, especially from South Africa, Botswana and Zambia, over the running of the organisation.
Aid workers and military staff work to settle differences Regional experts at a SADC workshop held this week in Harare to debate future peacekeeping operations told IRIN that a dangerous gap still existed between military and humanitarian perceptions of how conflict can be resolved. According to senior academics facilitating the workshop, the military and aid agencies had made substantial progress in understanding the nature of their differences. However, "substantial work" still has to be done to prevent the kind of breakdown in cooperation that characterised the failed UN intervention in Somalia in 1993. Dr Martin Rupiya of Zimbabwe University's Centre for Defence Studies told IRIN it was important to move beyond the realisation that aid agencies and the military are frequently culturally opposed. They had to identify areas of mutual interest. "The two communities work together reasonably well at the higher policy level, but when it comes to actual operations, then points of view diverge," he said. "This is dangerous, because rebel groups and African governments involved in conflicts are becoming increasingly skilled in how to divide and conquer the international community. Significant splits between the aid workers and peacekeepers are manipulated to the advantage of the protagonists, not peace." According to a representative from UN-OCHA's Southern Africa office, however, many SADC military officers still apparently struggled to see the diversity of humanitarian agencies involved in an emergency operation as a positive asset, not a coordination problem. A senior Kenyan officer at the workshop with peacekeeping experience in Bosnia, however, said humanitarian agencies still did not trust the military: "Information sharing is a real problem, aid agencies sometimes just do not want to talk to us." He said the military was not necessarily trying to encroach on the work of humanitarian agencies, but was often in a useful position to help. "Sometimes we are in a village where the aid agencies have not been. People ask us for help and we can coordinate with the humanitarians to see it is delivered. But who do you even ask?" Nevertheless, academics, aid workers and military staff interviewed by IRIN were optimistic that the debate was finally moving forward.
Johannesburg, 27 August 1999, 12:00 GMT
Contact IRIN-SA (Tel: +27 11 880 4633, e-mail irin-sa@ocha.unon.org) for more information or free subscriptions.
[This item is delivered in the "irin-english" service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information or free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or fax: +254 2 622129 or Web: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer.]
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999
distributed by - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Volunteers in Technical Assistance Disaster Information Center lists: www.vita.org/listsub.htm sitreps nat-dsr web: www.vita.org appeal fireline - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Southern Africa - http://www.vita.org/humanitarian/safrica