IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 270 for 12-18 March 2005
CONTENTS:
DRC: UN agency to act on Ituri human rights violations
DRC: UN envoy gives militiamen ultimatum to disarm
BURUNDI: Two million people face food shortage, UN agency says
BURUNDI: Electoral commission's proposal to postpone elections is rejected
RWANDA: UN tribunal sentences ex-civic leader to six years in jail
RWANDA: Sweden finally gives an extra US $7 million to fight poverty
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Vote-counting under way after elections
UGANDA: 160 rescued from rebels since January - army
UGANDA: 600,000 drought-affected people to get food aid in northeast
KENYA: Raiders kill 22 in inter-clan violence
ALSO SEE:
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Pre-election interview with Lamine Cisse, UN special representative
Full report
DRC: UN agency to act on Ituri human rights violations
The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), MONUC, has pledged to "bring before the courts" perpetrators of crimes committed in the embattled northeastern district of Ituri.
"Those responsible [for the] crimes will be prosecuted," Gen Patrick Cammaert, the acting MONUC commander and chief of the mission's East Division, told reporters on Wednesday at a news conference in the capital, Kinshasa.
Inter-militia fighting in the area has left hundreds of civilians dead, and hundreds of thousands displaced in recent months.
MONUC convened the news conference to present a report it had compiled regarding those responsible for crimes in Ituri.
At the same time, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland, told a news briefing in Geneva that the DRC had overtaken Sudan's Darfur region to become "the biggest, most neglected humanitarian emergency in the world today", and that "sexual abuse in recent years had become probably worse there than anywhere else in the world".
Egeland made the remarks at the beginning of a two-day regional meeting of humanitarian officials. He said some three million Congolese were in acute need of relief aid "in a complex emergency where many parties were involved, including, at one point, about 20 different armed actors".
Full report
[SOUTH AFRICA: SANDF will not tolerate rights abuses]
DRC: UN envoy gives militiamen ultimatum to disarm
The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to the DRC and head of MONUC, William Swing, gave a two-week ultimatum on Sunday to militiamen in Congo's embattled northeastern district of Ituri to disarm and be integrated into the country's national army.
"I have come to give a clear message - it's finished - now it is time for peace and they [the militiamen] have to understand," Swing told reporters during a visit to Bunia, the main town in Ituri.
He said his ultimatum was in line with a programme of disarmament, demobilisation and community reinsertion of the armed groups under the aegis of the UN, which is due to end in April. Many militiamen have already undergone the process of community reinsertion and demobilisation since the second half of 2004.
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BURUNDI: Two million people face food shortage, UN agency says
Two million Burundians would need emergency food aid this year, 40 percent more than in 2004, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) reported on Wednesday.
In a statement, the agency said a crop and food supply assessment report, jointly produced by WFP, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Burundian government, concluded that the country would face a food deficit of 310,000 mt in 2005, compared with 259,000 mt in 2004, "primarily because of unfavourable weather conditions since 2003, affecting maize and bean yields".
To overcome the food crisis and tackle the specific needs of the most affected people, WFP said it would, together with FAO and other agencies, distribute 140,000 mt of food, 7.38 mt of seeds and 150,000 hoes to 369,000 families - the equivalent of two million people.
Full report
BURUNDI: Electoral commission's proposal to postpone elections is rejected
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma rejected on Tuesday a proposal from Burundi's electoral commission to postpone the country's final round of elections by two months, a senior Ugandan government official told IRIN.
Museveni, who is chairman of the regional initiative on Burundi, and Zuma, facilitator of the Burundi peace process, met the head of the Burundian Independent Election Commission (IEC) Paul Ngarambe, in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. Ngarambe briefed them on progress made so far, including the recent referendum on a new constitution, as well as on preparations being made for forthcoming elections.
The deadline for the next poll had been 22 April 2005. A senior official in the Ugandan government, who asked to remain anonymous, said that IEC officials had wanted the next poll to be delayed because they felt that laws required to organise voting more efficiently were not yet in place.
Full report
[BURUNDI: National assembly adopts new electoral code]
RWANDA: UN tribunal sentences ex-civic leader to six years in jail
The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda sentenced a former Rwandan civic leader on Monday to six years in prison after he pleaded guilty to involvement in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Vincent Rutaganira, 60, is the fourth man to have pleaded guilty to genocide before the tribunal, set up by the UN Security Council in November 1994 following the April-July genocide that year in which 937,000 people were killed, according to Rwandan government estimates.
Rutaganira's conviction brings the number of suspects already sentenced to 24, including three acquittals. Former Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda was the first to plead guilty before the tribunal. He is serving a life sentence in Mali.
Full report
RWANDA: Sweden finally gives an extra US $7 million to fight poverty
The Swedish government gave Rwanda a $7-million grant on Thursday, to help finance the country's budget deficit and its poverty-reduction strategies.
The Swedish ambassador to Rwanda, Bo Goransson, also signed a two-year memorandum of understanding with the foreign affairs minister, Charles Murigande, whereby Sweden pledged continued support for Rwanda's poverty-reduction, education and good-governance programmes.
Full report
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Vote-counting under way after elections
Votes were being counted on Monday in the Central African Republic (CAR), the day after presidential and parliamentary elections marked by delays in many polling stations.
Eleven candidates stood for the presidency on Sunday, while 900 candidates vied for 105 parliamentary seats.
The electoral commission, or CEMI, had 15 days, from voting day, to proclaim the results of this first ballot; no date has been announced for a second ballot should one be required. The results will bring to an end the two-year transitional government installed by Bozize after he seized power from President Ange-Felix Patasse on 15 March 2003.
Full report
UGANDA: 160 rescued from rebels since January - army
The Ugandan army has rescued 160 captives, most of them children, from the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) since the beginning of the year, army spokesman Maj Shaban Bantariza told IRIN on Tuesday.
He said between 1 January and 7 March the army rescued 147 abductees and killed 185 rebels over the same period, while 54 of them were captured and 93 others surrendered.
Over 100 guns and 13,000 rounds of ammunition were recovered during the period, he added. Another 13 children were rescued and two rebel fighters killed in skirmishes with the LRA on Monday and Tuesday in the northern districts of Gulu and Apac.
The rebel group is notorious for its brutality, particularly to children, with relief agencies estimating that the LRA has abducted over 20,000 children since it started fighting in northern Uganda in 1986.
Full report
Also on Tuesday, leaders from the north arrived in The Hague, Netherlands, to appeal to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to refrain from issuing arrest warrants against the LRA leaders.
"The meeting follows [the prosecutor's] invitation and is in order to hear the views of the Acholi leaders about issues concerning their communities, local justice traditions and efforts to end the violence," Yves Sorokobi, spokesman for the Office of the Prosecutor, said on Wednesday.
A source close to the delegation told IRIN: "The purpose of the visit is to meet the chief prosecutor [Luis Moreno-Ocampo] - letting him know that [the] ICC's intervention in northern Uganda will seriously jeopardise efforts to end the conflict in Uganda through peaceful means.
Full report
UGANDA: 600,000 drought-affected people to get food aid in northeast
WFP has launched an effort to provide food aid to nearly 600,000 drought-affected people in Uganda's northeastern Karamoja region during the next six months, the agency said on Wednesday.
"Karamoja already suffers from the highest levels of malnutrition in Uganda, and given the poor 2004 harvest we are greatly concerned about the fate of the hundreds of thousands of people there who risk running out of food before the next harvest in September," Ken Noah Davies, WFP's country director for Uganda, said.
He told IRIN that four sub-counties had been severely hit by the drought: Kalapata and Nyakwae in Kotido District, and Rupa and Nadunget in Moroto District.
WFP had started distributing food in those areas "in an effort to avert hunger and malnutrition, especially among children under five, school children, the elderly, and pregnant and lactating women."
Full report
KENYA: Raiders kill 22 in inter-clan violence
Armed attackers shot and killed 22 people when they raided a village in the northeastern Kenyan district of Mandera at dawn on Tuesday, a police spokesman said. Three other people were wounded.
Police later pursued the group of about 40 raiders and shot dead eight, the spokesman, Jaspher Ombati, told IRIN on Tuesday. He said the assailants were believed to be members of the Murule clan, while the victims were thought to be from the Garre.
The attack happened at El Golicha village, near El Wak town, which is close to Kenya's border with Somalia. The village where the attacks occurred is about 600 km from the capital, Nairobi.
It was not immediately clear what triggered the latest violence, but the two groups, both Kenyan Somalis, have a history of feuding over pasture and water points.
Full report
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