IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 229 for 29 January- 4 February 2005
CONTENTS:
ERITREA: $4.38 m sought for drought-affected people
ETHIOPIA: Many still need food aid despite bumper harvest
ETHIOPIA: Punish those responsible for Gambella violence, US urges
SOMALIA: First batch of MPs leave for Mogadishu
SOMALIA: IGAD leaders agree to deploy peace mission
SOMALIA: Government denies split over peacekeepers
SUDAN: National parliament ratifies southern peace agreement
SUDAN: Gunmen shoot at AU monitors in West Darfur
SUDAN: Darfur atrocities do not amount to genocide, UN team says
SUDAN-UGANDA: Refugees reluctant to repatriate to southern Sudan, UN agency says
ERITREA: $4.38 m sought for drought-affected people
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has appealed for US $4.38 million to provide food and clean water to some 55,000 Eritrean villagers affected by four consecutive years of drought. The money would be used to help affected people in 17 villages in Hagaz subdistrict for eight months, truck water to 10,000 people and build or rehabilitate water-points, boreholes and wells, the Federation said in a statement dated 28 January.
Seeds and farming tools would also be distributed to 10,000 households while a project to encourage more water-efficient farming methods would be launched in coordination with the Eritrean government's Relief and Refugee Commission. "The situation is quite serious - the drought was so severe that [food] stocks were depleted," Andrei Neacsu, the Federation's regional information delegate in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, told IRIN. "It is an emergency." The Secretary General of the Eritrean Red Cross, Sr Alganesh Kidane, said assessments had confirmed that all food reserves had been exhausted after four years of drought.
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ETHIOPIA: Many still need food aid despite bumper harvest
A bumper harvest is anticipated in Ethiopia in 2005, but many Ethiopians will still need humanitarian aid, UN officials said this week. Ethiopia's food production rose this year by 24 percent from 14.27 million mt in 2004, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) said in a joint report released on Wednesday. The increase was due mainly to better rains, increased use of fertilizer and improved seeds, especially wheat and maize, the UN agencies said. However, more than two million Ethiopians will need emergency assistance in 2005, Paul Herbert, head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Ethiopia, told IRIN on Thursday.
"There are large numbers of people who did not benefit from a bumper harvest and we need to ensure their needs are met either through the safety nets system or emergency programmes," Hebert said. Five million people suffering from chronic hunger will also require cash and food transfers under the government-led safety net programme – a scheme whereby people work for their food or are paid in cash, he added. Georgia Shaver, WFP Country Director for Ethiopia, said that “for the first time in the history of food aid assistance in Ethiopia, there is a different response to the needs of acutely undernourished people as opposed to the chronically hungry."
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ETHIOPIA: Punish those responsible for Gambella violence, US urges
The US on Tuesday called on Ethiopia to punish those responsible for violence in its western Gambella region that claimed hundreds of lives last year. However, Ethiopian government spokesman Zemedkun Teckle told IRIN Ethiopia was committed to bringing those involved in the killings to justice. "The government is bringing people to court," he said. "It has taken great steps to bring people to justice, even if they are in the government, police or military, wherever they are." US Ambassador Aurelia Brazeal said in a statement that if the perpetrators of the killings were not tried, that would only incite new violence in the region.
"As promised by the Ethiopian government, it is important that all those involved in the outbreak of ethnic strife in the region in December 2003 and early 2004 should be brought to justice, including those in the government, police, or military," she said. "Doing so would discourage renewed violence and restore confidence." Hundreds of people where killed and thousands displaced from their homes after clashes in the region, some 800 km west of the capital, Addis Ababa, between December 2003 and early 2004.
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SOMALIA: First batch of MPs leave for Mogadishu
The first group of members of parliament of the Kenyan-based Somali government left Nairobi on Tuesday for Mogadishu in a move that marked the beginning of the new administration's relocation back home. "Thirty MPs left last night for Mogadishu - it is an inclusive group from all Somali clans," Hussein Jabiri, the director of communications in the interim Somali Prime Minister's office told IRIN on Wednesday.
Once in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, he said, the MPs would "lay the groundwork for the return of the whole government". The delegation included Muse Sudi Yalahow, a powerful former Mogadishu-based faction leader and a member of the cabinet, and the second deputy speaker of parliament, Usman Ilmi Boqore. The MPs were also expected to report back on the political and security situation in Mogadishu, Jabiri said. The Somali transitional government had formed, in January, three teams composed of cabinet ministers to begin arrangements for relocation.
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SOMALIA: IGAD leaders agree to deploy peace mission
The governments of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda have expressed their commitment to supporting a peace mission for Somalia by providing troops or equipment to the envisaged force, a statement said. The leaders of the six countries met in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on Monday, as members of the Intergovernmetal Authority on Development (IGAD) on the sidelines of the African Union summit. "There is an urgent need to provide security support to the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia to ensure its relocation to Somalia and guarantee sustenance of the IGAD peace process," they said in a joint communiqué.
IGAD, which groups Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda as well as Somalia, sponsored peace talks between Somalia's various clans and factions that culminated in the establishment of the Somali transitional federal government in 2004. The newly created government, however, remains in Nairobi, where it was set up, because security concerns and lack of resources have prevented members of the administration from moving to Mogadishu, the Somali capital. The IGAD heads of state, who met under the chairmanship of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, instructed the IGAD secretariat, in collaboration with the African Union, to establish a fund to cover expenses for the deployment of the peace support mission.
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SOMALIA: Government denies split over peacekeepers
A member of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, currently based in Nairobi, Kenya, has denied reports of a split within the government over the deployment of foreign peacekeeping troops and relocation to the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
"I am not aware of any such split," Aden Ibbi Abdirahman, the state minister for parliamentary relations, told IRIN on Monday. He was reacting to reports in local Somali media. "I think it is a figment of someone's imagination," added Ibbi, who is a member of the relocation committee.
According to Somali political sources, a section of the cabinet agrees with President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed that peacekeepers should be deployed in Mogadishu before the government relocates there. "He has the support of many cabinet members," one source said. A supporter of Yusuf's position told IRIN peacekeepers were "essential and necessary" before the government went to Mogadishu. Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi, on the other hand, wants part of the cabinet to relocate to Mogadishu and "assess the situation on whether peacekeepers are needed or not" rather than condition the relocation on the deployment of foreign troops, a source who supports Gedi's position told IRIN.
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SUDAN: National parliament ratifies southern peace agreement
Sudan's national assembly on Tuesday unanimously ratified the comprehensive peace agreement which was signed by the government and the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) in Nairobi, Kenya, on 9 January.
The Nairobi agreement formally ended the 21-year civil war in the south between government forces and the SPLM/A.
Ismail Al-Haj Musa, chairman of the assembly's law and justice committee, presented the committee's findings on the comprehensive peace agreement to the parliament, describing the agreement as "paving the way for a just partnership in resources and power and giving solution for the issue of the relation between religion and state".
The committee noted that peace was a strategic goal of the state intended to bring about comprehensive development and progress all over Sudan, and stressed that the "implementation of peace is a common responsibility of the government, the SPLM/A, and all the national and political forces." It said the agreement had paved the way for the realisation of democratic transformation and the expansion of the scope of participation, facilitating the return of a large number of opposition leaders to the Sudanese capital.
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SUDAN: Gunmen shoot at AU monitors in West Darfur
Gunmen in the western Sudanese state of Darfur on Monday opened fire on two African Union (AU) teams investigating reported cease-fire violations, AU officials said. Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe, the Special Representative of the Chairperson of the AU Commission in Sudan, condemned the shooting in a statement on Tuesday. The first incident occurred in the town of Jayjay, south of the capital, Nyala, where AU monitors were investigating an alleged attack on a village. The second occurred near Shangil Tobai, where another team was looking into reports that aerial bombings had taken place.
No casualties resulting from either incident were reported. Kingibe said that "the military observers were undertaking their legitimate duty" of investigating allegations of violations of the N'Djamena Ceasefire Agreement when they came under fire. "The AU does not wish to be drawn into a situation where its monitors and protectors will be obliged to defend themselves by the use of force," he added. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned attacks on the monitors in a separate statement on Tuesday, saying this "could jeopardise the fulfilment of the AU mission in Darfur."
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SUDAN: Darfur atrocities do not amount to genocide, UN team says
A UN-appointed commission of inquiry concluded on Monday that violence in Sudan's western region of Darfur did not amount to genocide, but that mass killings of civilians had occurred in the strife-torn area. "The crucial element of genocidal intent appears to be missing, at least as far as the central government authorities are concerned," the five-member commission said. "There may have been genocidal acts in Darfur and some individuals may be found guilty of genocidal intent."
It said, "The conclusion that no genocidal policy has been pursued and implemented in Darfur by the government authorities, directly or through the militias under their control, should not be taken in any way as detracting from the gravity of the crimes perpetrated in the region." In its 176-page report, sent to the president of the UN Security Council in New York on Monday, the commission said the central government of Sudan did not have the intent of carrying out genocide in Darfur. Intent to carry out extermination of a group of people is considered a key factor in establishing a case of genocide. The 1948 convention on genocide, to which Sudan is a party, obliges signatories to stop and punish the perpetrators of genocide.
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SUDAN-UGANDA: Refugees reluctant to repatriate to southern Sudan, UN agency says
Thousands of Sudanese refugees living in camps in northern Uganda are reluctant to consider repatriation for a variety of reasons, including the lack of facilities in southern Sudan, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, told IRIN on Tuesday. The agency reported that the refugees felt the landmark peace agreement signed in December 2004 in Nairobi, Kenya, was not inclusive of all Sudanese groups.
"When the agreement was signed, the initial reaction was that of joy among the refugees. But eventually they started raising some concerns that they were not catered for in the agreement," Roberta Russo, the UNHCR spokeswoman in Kampala, said. "They are eager to go back, but they are considering their political situation and position in southern Sudan."
UNHCR was trying to establish the refugees' view on the agreement between the Khartoum government and the southern rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). "We wanted to find out what their intentions were after the signing of the agreement," Russo said.
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