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Saturday 20 August 2005


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IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 276 for 23-29 April 2005

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

CONTENTS:

BURUNDI: Stop fighting us, rebel leader tells government
BURUNDI: Former rebel group suspends participation in cabinet
BURUNDI: Thousands disarmed since December, UN official says
BURUNDI: Elections calendar issued
BURUNDI-RWANDA: Refugee status denied for fleeing Rwandans
RWANDA: UN tribunal sentences ex-civic leader to life in prison
DRC: Army preparing 10 brigades ahead of general elections
CONGO-DRC: UN agency begins repatriation of thousands
TANZANIA: Destruction from Zanzibar deluge worse than thought
KENYA: Two million in need of food aid, WFP says
KENYA: Health centre to treat HIV/AIDS patients inaugurated
UGANDA: Ex-rebels begin farming; first step to rehabilitation

BURUNDI: Stop fighting us, rebel leader tells government

Burundi's remaining rebel group, the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL), will end the war only when government troops stop attacking its forces, rebel leader Agathon Rwasa said on Wednesday.

"We are committed to lasting peace in Burundi," he said at a news conference in Tanzania's leading commercial city of Dar es Salaam, "but the government must also respect our position. If we are attacked we are going to hit back."

A Tanzanian government official, who requested anonymity, said Rwasa had met Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa and assured him of his personal commitment to seek peace. However, the official declined to say when the FNL-Burundi government peace talks would take place.

Full report

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BURUNDI: Former rebel group suspends participation in cabinet

A former major rebel group in Burundi announced on Monday it was freezing relations with President Domitien Ndayizeye and that its ministers would no longer attend cabinet meetings.

The spokesman for the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD), Ramadhan Karenga, said the reason for the decision was that Ndayizeye was "unreliable".

Karenga said the main issue was that Ndayizeye had refused to endorse CNDD-FDD's candidate for the Ministry of the Interior following the death, in March, of the minister, Simon Nyandwi, who was a CNDD-FDD member.

Full report

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BURUNDI: Thousands disarmed since December, UN official says

Burundi has disarmed and demobilised 7,282 former combatants since December 2004 under an ongoing programme that includes their reintegration into society, a military spokesman for the UN Mission in Burundi (ONUB) said on Saturday.

The spokesman, Maj Adama Diop, told IRIN that of this figure, 6,315 were men, 328 women and 639 children. He said by 21 April at least two disarmament centres, in the west-central province of Bubanza and another in the central province of Gitega, had been emptied of ex-combatants.

The DDR plan is scheduled to run for four years, Diop said, with the formation of an initial 45,000-member National Defence Force, which would later be reduced to 30,000 and finally to 25,000 troops.

Full report

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BURUNDI: Elections calendar issued

Independent Electoral Commission Chairman Paul Ngarambe has announced the country's elections timetable, which is scheduled to end on 19 August with presidential polls.

The country's new president would be sworn in on 26 August; Ngarambe said in the capital, Bujumbura, upon his return from Uganda - where on 22 April a daylong emergency summit of Africa's Great Lakes leaders extended the country's transition until August.

He said parliamentary elections would be held on 4 July and those for the Senate - the upper chamber of parliament - on 29 July. However, he said, communal elections would be held on 23 September, as they were "difficult to organise because they require a lot of things and much attention".

Full report
[BURUNDI: Transition extended by four months, polls due by 19 August]

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BURUNDI-RWANDA: Refugee status denied for fleeing Rwandans

Senior Burundian and Rwandan officials decided at a meeting on Wednesday that Rwandans who have been fleeing to northern Burundi since the beginning of April would not be accorded refugee status.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has said some 7,200 Rwandans had so far fled to Burundi's northern provinces of Kirundo and Ngozi and that more were expected. By last week, some 1,800 had been transferred to the Songore and Mishiha sites in the eastern province of Cankuzo.

Some of the newly arrived Rwandans said they were escaping prosecution from Rwanda's special justice system known as gacaca. The government introduced gacaca, a traditional justice system, to bring to trial thousands of people suspected of having taken part in the 1994 genocide in which 937,000 died, according to the government's latest figures.

Full report

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RWANDA: UN tribunal sentences ex-civic leader to life in prison

The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda sentenced on Thursday a former Rwandan civic leader, Mika Muhimana, to life imprisonment for his role in the genocide.

"His crimes rank among the gravest and deserve a heavy sentence," Khalida Khan, the presiding judge, said as she read out the court's decision.

Muhimana, 44, was found guilty of direct involvement in the murder and rape of Tutsi women. "Muhimana raped several women, some several times, in his home, in churches and in hospitals," Khan said.

Muhimana was a councillor in 1994 for Gishyita Commune in the western province of Kibuye.

Full report

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DRC: Army preparing 10 brigades ahead of general elections

At least 10 brigades of the new Congolese army are being prepared to help with the country's reunification process, especially during elections planned for later in 2005, the army chief of general staff, Lt-Gen Kisempia Kisungilanga, told IRIN on Monday.

"Those being trained will participate in peacekeeping operations during the electoral process," he said.

The brigades are being trained by Belgian, French and South African instructors. Kisempia's communication adviser, Jean-Willy Mutombo, a civilian, said the brigades would be trained in human rights and other methods of securing locations during the elections.

Full report

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CONGO-DRC: UN agency begins repatriation of thousands to Equateur

The first 109 of some 58,000 DRC refugees who had been living in the Republic of Congo (ROC) in the past six years arrived in Equateur Province on Thursday, in a repatriation effort being undertaken by UNHCR.

"The UNHCR has assured us that they will support us throughout our reinsertion [into our communities]," one returnee, interviewed by UN-supported Radio Okapi, said.

Some 8,000 refugees have already registered for repatriation. The UNHCR spokeswomen in Geneva, Jennifer Pagonis, she there on Tuesday that the agency hoped to repatriate 24,000 DRC refugees in ROC by the end of 2006. The repatriation of all the refugees from Betou in ROC to Equateur is expected to last through 2007.

She said the operation would be "one of the most logistically challenging major refugee voluntary repatriation programmes" the agency had undertaken anywhere in the world.

"The rugged return journey includes crossing dense rain forest, numerous waterways and extremely rough roads," she said at the news conference.

Full report

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TANZANIA: Destruction from Zanzibar deluge worse than thought

The heaviest rains in 40 years destroyed more homes and infrastructure in and around Stone Town, capital of the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar, than earlier reported, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

In a bulletin issued on 22 April, the Federation said 800 homes were affected by flooding from 17 to 18 April. Many of their homes were submerged or destroyed by the deluge.

"All household items were lost," the Federation said.

However, it added that so far only 150 families had registered as being homeless.

Full report

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KENYA: Two million in need of food aid, WFP says

Up to two million people in arid and semi-arid regions of Kenya will need food aid until August despite a general improvement in weather conditions, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday.

"The debilitating impact of a prolonged dry spell, compounded by chronic poverty, means that in many regions thousands of families are too poor to have enough to eat," Tesema Negash, the WFP country director for Kenya, said.

In others parts of the country – such as the east – the rains had failed once again, worsening food shortages, he added. WFP said it was short of 52,000 mt of food, worth US $28 million. The shortfall represents almost 63 percent of the food required, WFP said.

The current food crisis is particularly acute in Kajiado District, south of the nation's capital, Nairobi.

Full report

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KENYA: Health centre to treat HIV/AIDS patients inaugurated

Kenya's Ministry of Health and the international medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) inaugurated on Thursday a new facility in Nairobi's Mbagathi District Hospital to provide comprehensive care to people living with HIV/AIDS.

The Comprehensive Care Centre, run jointly by the ministry and MSF-Belgium, will provide counselling, testing and treatment with antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to those living with HIV. The centre will also train the staff in diagnosis and care of HIV/AIDS patients.

Some 1.24 million Kenyans are living with HIV and 200,000 of them require ARV treatment.

Full report

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UGANDA: Ex-rebels begin farming; first step to rehabilitation

Thousands of former fighters of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army have started farming in war-torn northern Uganda in an effort to adjust to civilian life, the minister for northern rehabilitation, Grace Akello, told IRIN on Tuesday.

"The government has provided them with the land in Gulu, and they have since ploughed over 500 acres and planted their own food," she said. "The land is free to all former rebels and we have over 20,000 who have returned."

She said the government's measure was designed to change the public perception of the former rebels being rehabilitated.

Full report

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[ENDS]

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Other recent CENTRAL & EASTERN AFRICA reports:

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

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 290 for 30 July to 5 August 2005, 5/Aug/05

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 289 for 23-29 July 2005, 30/Jul/05

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 288 for 16-22 July 2005, 22/Jul/05

Other recent reports:

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap, 19/Aug/05

WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly 290 Covering 13 August - 19 August 2005, 19/Aug/05

ZIMBABWE: Regional bodies lack clout to end crisis, say analysts, 19/Aug/05

SOUTHERN AFRICA: IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 244 for 13 - 19 August 2005, 19/Aug/05

HORN OF AFRICA: IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 290 for 13-19 August 2005, 19/Aug/05

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