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Sunday 11 September 2005


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IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 272 for 26 March to 1 April 2005

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

CONTENTS:

DRC: Uncooperative fighters will be hunted down, MONUC says
DRC-RWANDA: Rebel group ready to disarm
RWANDA: Hundreds of thousands face food insecurity
BURUNDI: UN agency to repatriate up to 150,000 refugees
BURUNDI: Government resumes military cooperation with Belgium
BURUNDI: Annan recommends dual inquiries on genocide
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Two to face off in second round of presidential poll
UGANDA: Protestors opposed to 3rd presidential term arrested
CONGO: Team announced to reduce growing number of street children

ALSO SEE:
DRC: Q & A with Gen Jean-Francois Collot D'Escury, head of the UN mission in Kinshasa
Full report

DRC: Uncooperative fighters will be hunted down, MONUC says

Militiamen in Congo’s Ituri District who failed to comply with a UN ultimatum to disarm will be hunted down, Gen Jean-Francois Collot d'Escury, chief of staff of the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), said on Wednesday.

"If you do not surrender your arms by 1 April you will be treated like armed bandits and war criminals and we will chase you," he said.

The warning, issued during a news conference, was aimed at thousands of militiamen still roaming in Ituri District in the northeastern province of Orientale. Should the militias resist disarmament, UN troops would seek and destroy militia camps, the MONUC spokeswoman for Bunia, Rachel Eklou, told IRIN.

Full report

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DRC-RWANDA: Rebel group ready to disarm

Leaders of a Rwandan armed group operating from eastern DRC announced on Thursday their intention to end attacks against their homeland, according to MONUC.

Moreover, the leaders of the Forces démocratique de libération de Rwanda (FDLR) indicated a willingness to enter a UN programme of disarmament, demobilisation, repatriation, reinstallation and rehabilitation.

"In the light of this declaration by the FDLR, MONUC is ready to work out a timetable and details for undertaking the repatriation," MONUC said in a statement.

In response to the FDLR's announcement, William Swing, the head of MONUC, said in the statement that the decision created new prospects for a rapid and final resolution to the presence of armed Rwandans in the DRC.

Full report

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RWANDA: Hundreds of thousands face food insecurity

Some 768,478 Rwandans are experiencing "significant food stress" due to poor rains, according to FEWS NET, a USAID-funded famine early warning system, and the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

A vulnerability assessment mission found the most chronically food insecure areas of the country to be Butare, Gikongoro, Kibuye, Gisenyi and Ruhengeri provinces, as well as the Bugesera ecozone, FEWS NET and WFP said in a food security update on 24 March.

The joint mission comprised food security partners from the WFP, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, FEWS NET as well as NGOs World Vision and Caritas.

The food insecure areas have experienced poor harvests since 2003 due to erratic and poorly distributed rainfall.

Full report

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BURUNDI: UN agency to repatriate up to 150,000 refugees

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees expects to repatriate up to 150,000 Burundian refugees by the end of 2005, the agency's public relations officer, Catherine Lune Grayson, said on Thursday.

She told a news conference in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, that out of 8,524 refugees who have returned home so far this year, the agency had assisted 7,776 of them.

She said the rate of refugee returns would depend on economic, social and political conditions in the country.

The agency assists the returnees by providing transport, coordinating their provision of food and non-food relief, constructing and rehabilitating classrooms and health centres, as well as homes, for the returnees.

Full report

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BURUNDI: Government resumes military cooperation with Belgium

Belgian Minister of Defence André Flahaut and his Burundian counterpart, Vincent Niyungeko, signed a letter of intent on Tuesday to resume military cooperation, which was suspended in 1972.

"We have the same partnership with DRCongo and Rwanda - Burundi had been left out," Flahaut said during the signing in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura.

He was on a one-day visit to the country. Flahaut told reporters that military cooperation, which he described as a partnership, would contribute to the restoration of peace and stability in the region. Belgium suspended military cooperation with Burundi following its ethnic massacres in 1972. The Burundian army, then dominated by a Tutsi minority, was accused of perpetrating the massacres.

Full report

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BURUNDI: Annan recommends dual inquiries on genocide

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has recommended the establishment of two panels - a non-judicial "truth commission" and a special chamber within Burundi's court system - to bring to justice those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in the country since its independence from Belgium in 1962.

In a letter to the UN Security Council, dated 11 March but made available to the media on Monday, Annan said his proposal would avoid having two identical commissions, but would include "a mixed composition of both national and international components".

His letter accompanied a report compiled by an assessment mission that visited Burundi in May 2004. Annan said the mission's report also took into account facts and events that post-dated its visit, "to the extent of their relevancy to its final recommendations".

Full report

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CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Two to face off in second round of presidential poll

Central African Republic leader Francois Bozize will face former Prime Minister Martin Ziguélé in a run-off election, an official of the country's electoral commission told IRIN on Friday after announcing the results of the first round of elections.

The chairman of the Mixed Independent Electoral Commission, or CEMI, Jean Willybiro-Sacko, said Bozize, who took 42.9 percent of the votes cast, and Ziguélé, with 23.5 percent, qualified for the second round of elections after they emerged first and second in a race that had attracted 11 candidates.

Bozize garnered 382,241 votes, while Ziguélé took 209,357 of the votes cast during the poll on 13 March.

Full report
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Vote-counting under way after elections

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UGANDA: Protestors opposed to 3rd presidential term arrested

Seventeen demonstrators, protesting proposals that would allow Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to seek a third term, were arrested in the capital, Kamapala, on Thursday.

The protest was against proposed changes to the constitution, currently before parliament, which would lift the current two-term presidential limit and replace it with no restrictions on standing for re-election. Such a move would make it possible for Museveni to stand for a third five-year term when his current one expires in 2006.

A newly formed pressure group, Force for Change, organised the demonstration. The group is jointly headed by a former mayor of Kampala, Nasser Sebaggala, and a former head of Uganda’s external intelligence agency, David Pulkol, among others.

Full report

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CONGO: Team announced to reduce growing number of street children

The Republic of Congo's Ministry of Social Affairs announced on Saturday that it would set up a committee to coordinate activities aimed at rehabilitating street children, whose numbers have increased dramatically over the last 10 years.

"The situation has become worrying in Congo, and the solution to the problem will involve educating and re-evaluating the family," participants agreed at a meeting held in the capital, Brazzaville.

Government officials and NGO representatives, including officers from the UN Children's Fund and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, discussed ways of getting children off the streets during Saturday’s meeting.

Participants said the number of street children in the country went up from 152 in 1992 to about 1,000 in 2002. More than 2,000 were recorded in urban areas in 2004.

Full report

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[ENDS]

Theme(s)	Other

Other recent CENTRAL & EASTERN AFRICA reports:

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 295 for 3-9 Sept 2005, 9/Sep/05

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 294 for 27 August to 2 September 2005, 2/Sep/05

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 293 for 20-26 August 2005, 26/Aug/05

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 292 for 13-19 August 2005, 19/Aug/05

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 291 for 6-12 August 2005, 12/Aug/05

Other recent reports:

SYRIA: ICT center for the blind launched in Salameya, 11/Sep/05

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap, 9/Sep/05

HORN OF AFRICA: IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 293 for 3-9 September 2005, 9/Sep/05

MOZAMBIQUE: Aid urgently needed, says WFP, 9/Sep/05

SOUTHERN AFRICA: IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 247 for 3-9 September 2005, 9/Sep/05

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