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Sunday 25 December 2005


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IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 282 for 11-17 June 2005

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

CONTENTS:

ERITREA: Inadequate aid disrupting humanitarian programmes
ETHIOPIA: Britain freezes aid over civil unrest
ETHIOPIA: Government crackdown countrywide, rights group says
ETHIOPIA: US condemns use of force as MP is killed
SOMALIA: Government unwelcome in Jowhar, faction leader says
SOMALIA: Interim government starts relocation
SUDAN: Back to the table: Darfur talks resume after initial delays
SUDAN: National court to try suspects of Darfur crimes

ERITREA: Inadequate aid disrupting humanitarian programmes

Poor donor response to the UN humanitarian appeal for Eritrea has forced some UN agencies to slow down their activities and others to stop aid programmes, a senior official of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday.

"Some activities that would have been implemented are still at an early stage or have been stopped," Damien Gugliermina, the humanitarian affairs officer for OCHA, said in Asmara, the Eritrean capital. He said as of June, US $42 million dollars, representing about 27 percent of total requirements, had been received.

This has affected the operations of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in Eritrea. Its representative, Charlotte Gardiner, said her agency had been unable to carry out planned activities to strengthen women's access to emergency obstetric care in the shortest possible time. "Since we did not get extra funding, we cannot make the extra effort to assist Eritrea," she said. In November 2004, the UN launched its humanitarian appeal 2005 for Eritrea asking donors for $157 million, of which $114 million was intended for food aid.

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ETHIOPIA: Britain freezes aid over civil unrest

Britain has frozen £20 million (US $36 million) in aid to Ethiopia due to last week's civil unrest that left some 36 people dead, a senior UK government official said on Wednesday. "I am putting on hold the planned increase in direct budget support that we were looking at, which was 20 million [pounds]," Hilary Benn, Britain's development minister, told reporters in the capital, Addis Ababa. "In my view, it is sensible to hold on to that to see how the situation develops," he added.

Benn, who was on a one-day visit Ethiopia, announced the decision hours after a meeting with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi during which they discussed the recent violence triggered by demonstrations in Addis Ababa against alleged fraud in the country's parliamentary elections on 15 May. Benn, who also met with opposition leaders to appeal for calm, said Meles had promised a public investigation into the unrest during which 36 people died when police and troops allegedly opened fire on stone-throwing protesters.

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ETHIOPIA: Government crackdown countrywide, rights group says

Thousands of people have been arrested across Ethiopia following the recent violence triggered by demonstrations against alleged fraud in parliamentary elections, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday. "The security forces have killed dozens of protesters and arbitrarily detained thousands of people across the country," Georgette Gagnon, the HRW deputy director for Africa, said in statement.

HRW said the security forces had responded to incidents of rock-throwing and looting "by opening fire indiscriminately on large crowds of people, killing at least 36 and wounding more than 100".
The New-York-based lobby group said student activists and opposition supporters had been rounded up in towns and cities in a crackdown after last week's fighting.

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ETHIOPIA: US condemns use of force as MP is killed

The US on Monday condemned what it called "unnecessary use of excessive force" in Ethiopia, amid opposition claims that police shot and killed one of its newly elected Members of Parliament.

"We urge the government to respect the rule of law, international principles of human rights, and due process with regard to those arrested or detained," Sean McCormack, a US State Department spokesman, said in a statement. The criticism of the government's handling of last week's election-related civil unrest, which claimed the lives of 36 people, came as Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi extended a ban on demonstrations in the capital, Addis Ababa, by one month.

The medical director of Addis' Menelik Hospital, Yerdaw Ashgari, confirmed the death toll from the protests, which followed claims that parliamentary elections held on 15 May had been rigged in favour of the ruling party, the Ethiopia People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).

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SOMALIA: Government unwelcome in Jowhar, faction leader says

The faction leader who controls the town Jowhar in south-central Somalia said on Tuesday that interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed's Transitional Federal Government was no longer welcome in the town. The announcement came after the faction leader, Muhammad Omar Habeb, spent the better part of Monday at the airstrip in Jowhar, waiting for Yusuf's arrival. However, Yusuf's plane did not land in Jowhar as it was diverted to the neighbouring country of Djibouti.

Habeb, popularly known as Muhammad-dhere, was apparently angry because Yusuf went to Djibouti after leaving the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, instead of Jowhar, as planned, a local source said. Muhammad-dhere, who had mobilised "the entire town" to welcome Yusuf, and his entourage "was at the airstrip for over eight hours waiting for them," Abdikarim Omar, a local journalist working for Radio Jowhar, said on Wednesday.

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SOMALIA: Interim government starts relocation

Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, which has been based in Nairobi since formed eight months ago, began relocating to the country on Monday. Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said the relocation from Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, would be completed in a few days. "This morning [Monday] the president, the prime minister, ministers and members of parliament will attend a farewell ceremony being held for them by [Kenyan] President [Mwai] Kibaki at State House," Dinari said.

Interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was scheduled to depart for Somalia following the ceremony, accompanied by cabinet ministers, Members of Parliament and other officials," he said, adding that Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi and the rest of the Somali government "will follow within the next few days".

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SUDAN: Back to the table: Darfur talks resume after initial delays

The Sudanese government resumed face-to-face peace talks with the two main rebel movements in its western Darfur region on Monday after three days of bickering over whether representatives from Chad and Eritrea should be allowed to attend, officials involved in the negotiations said. The latest round of peace talks mediated by the African Union officially began in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on Friday following a six-month break.

However, Boubou Niang, the official spokesman of the AU mediation team, said the negotiations failed to get off the ground over the weekend due to the dispute over foreign representatives. Sudan objected to the proposed presence of observers from Eritrea, which is widely seen as sympathetic to the rebel cause. One of the two rebel groups said it did not want to see officials from Chad sitting at the negotiating table. It accused the government in N'Djamena of taking Khartoum's side in the two-year-old conflict, which has forced nearly two million people to flee their homes.

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SUDAN: National court to try suspects of Darfur crimes

A court set up by the Sudanese government this week to bring to trial suspects of crimes related to the conflict in the western region of Darfur was due to begin its work on Wednesday, Sudan's official news agency reported. Justice Minister Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin formed the court on Monday by issuing a national decree. A prosecution council will hear the cases of 160 people accused of committing crimes in the states of North, West and South Darfur, the Sudan News Agency reported on Tuesday.

By Wednesday, members of the court had arrived in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, and were preparing to begin hearing cases, a relief worker told IRIN. The court will sit in El Fasher, capital of North Darfur. The mandate for a federal court to try crimes committed in Darfur was handed down a week after the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, opened his investigation into the situation in Darfur. The UN Security Council, in a resolution on 31 March, referred the crisis in Darfur to the ICC prosecutor. The decision required Sudan and all other parties to the conflict to cooperate with the court.

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[ENDS]

Theme(s)	Other

Other recent HORN OF AFRICA reports:

Polio vaccination campaign targets 34 million kids, 14/Sep/05

Serious funding shortfall to feed refugees in east, south - WFP, 29/Aug/05

Centre established to combat illicit arms proliferation, 24/Jun/05

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 273 for 2-8 April 2005, 8/Apr/05

Tsunami capped year of mixed fortunes //Yearender//, 19/Jan/05

Other recent reports:

RWANDA: Body found in Brussels canal confirmed that of ex-minister's, 23/Dec/05

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap, 23/Dec/05

WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 309 covering 17 - 23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

CENTRAL ASIA: IRIN-Asia Weekly Round-up 51 covering the period 17 - 23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

SOUTHERN AFRICA: IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 262 for 17-23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

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