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Tuesday 21 February 2006


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IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 297 for 17-23 Sept 2005

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

CONTENTS:

RWANDA: Genocide convicts begin community service
RWANDA: Genocide suspect transferred to tribunal
UGANDA: 15 die in inter-clan violence in Karamoja region
UGANDA: Human rights group urges conditional military aid
GREAT LAKES: Ugandan LRA rebels flee Sudan for Congo
GREAT LAKES: MPs vow to speed up regional peace
BURUNDI: Free schooling starts with huge logistical problems
TANZANIA: Zanzibar electoral body says voter lists are faulty
DRC: No plan to arrest dissident ex-general, UN official says

RWANDA: Genocide convicts begin community service

Hundreds of genocide convicts in Rwanda, released under a presidential decree, began community work on Friday as part of the punishment for their role in the 1994 killings, an official told IRIN.

"Instead of keeping them in prison, it is more productive to have them do communal work," Emmanuel Twagirumukiza, the official in charge of the work, said on Thursday.

Rwandan authorities refer to the community service as "work of general interest". It involves the building of homes for genocide survivors whose houses were destroyed or burnt down during the genocide.

The first lot scheduled to undertake the community service are at least 1,000 convicts in the central province of Gitarama. They were released after they confessed to genocide.

Full report

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RWANDA: Genocide suspect transferred to tribunal

Genocide suspect Joseph Serugendo, who was arrested last week in Libreville, Gabon, was transferred on Friday to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, an official of the tribunal said.

Tribunal Prosecutor Hassan Jallow said Serugendo would shortly make an initial appearance before the court. Serugendo, 52, faces five counts of conspiracy to commit genocide and persecution, as crimes against humanity.

Serugendo was the technical director and board member of Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines, a station that broadcast hate messages before and during the genocide. Jallow said Serugendo was also a member of the National Committee of the Interahamwe militia, that carried out many of the killings.

Full report

Meanwhile, Jallow welcomed Monday’s decision by the tribunal's Appeals Chamber to uphold a lower court life sentence on the former Rwandan minister of higher education and scientific research, Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda, for his role in the genocide.

"The decision clearly indicates the hard work put up by the prosecution team to prove the case beyond any doubt," Jallow said. "It also confirms the credibility of our witnesses."

Presiding Judge Theodor Meron, of the United States, dismissed Kamuhanda’s appeal, saying it lacked sufficient grounds to overturn the 22 January 2004 ruling of the tribunal's Trial Chamber, the lower court.

The judgment was live broadcast from The Hague, the seat of the UN Court of Appeal.

Full report

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UGANDA: 15 die in inter-clan violence in Karamoja region

At least 15 people, mainly women and children, were shot dead while 10 others were wounded this week when inter-clan fighting erupted in Uganda's northeastern region of Karamoja, officials said on Thursday.

"The attack on Kodike village left 13 people dead, mainly children and women, while five others were injured," Richard Nambafu, the resident district commissioner for Moroto, one of Karamoja's district's, told IRIN.

He said the wounded were being treated at a local hospital.

Nambafu said warriors from the Pian clan attacked their Bokora rivals on Monday in revenge for a cattle-rustling raid the previous day that had left seven Pians wounded.

Full report

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UGANDA: Human rights group urges conditional military aid

Military aid to Uganda should be tied to human rights performance in order to stem numerous rights violations by the military and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a rights watchdog said on Tuesday.

"It will be good for governments that give Uganda military aid of any kind, especially the United States, to tie such aid to human rights performance," Jemera Rone of the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), told reporters in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

She made the comments during the launch of a report entitled "Uprooted and Forgotten: Impunity and Human Rights Abuses in Northern Uganda", which catalogues acts of abuse by both the military and the rebels.

Full report

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GREAT LAKES: Ugandan LRA rebels flee Sudan for Congo

Sixty fighters of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have left their areas of operation in northern Uganda and southern Sudan and crossed into northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ugandan army spokesman Lt-Col Shaban Bantariza said on Monday.

"The area they have entered is a national park in the DRC and I think here they will be able to access water and animals for food," he said in Kampala, the Ugandan capital.

He said the development posed a new "inconvenience" for Uganda. The group, he said, was being led by the movement's second in command, Vincent Otti.

Uganda and Sudan's defence chiefs have begun discussing joint operations against the LRA, Uganda’s State House, the official home of the president, announced on Sunday. It said Sudanese President Umar el-Bashir had made the proposal to Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni in New York, through Sudan's foreign minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail.

Full report

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GREAT LAKES: MPs vow to speed up regional peace

In efforts to foster peace, legislators from three Great Lakes countries resolved on Friday to follow up and get involved in the implementation of peace treaties agreed upon by governments in the region.

"We have agreed to identify and collect all the agreements that have already been signed by the respective governments in terms of security and conflict resolution," the Members of Parliament said in a communiqué issued at the end of a two-day meeting in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

The MPs, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, had met under an umbrella organisation of the Great Lakes parliamentary forum on peace, known as AMANI forum, to work out ways of accelerating peace in the region.

The 600-member AMANI forum groups together parliamentarians from Burundi, DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Full report

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BURUNDI: Free schooling starts with huge logistical problems

Teachers and administrators of Burundi's primary schools faced logistical problems on Monday as hundreds of thousands of primary school pupils lined up to enroll for the first time for the 2005-2006 school year which the president promised will now be free.

"We will not be able to cope with the increases," Donat Hatungimana, a primary school teacher in the capital, Bujumbura, said.

On Thursday, the new minister for education and culture, Saidi Kibeya, said 500,000 new school children might enroll in the first year of free primary education. The ministry projects that some 2,400 extra teachers and 2,400 new class rooms will be needed.

Full report

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TANZANIA: Zanzibar electoral body says voter lists are faulty

At least 700 people have registered more than once to vote in Tanzania's semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, the head of the local electoral body said on Tuesday.

"More names are likely to be discovered," Masauni Yussuf, the chairman of the Zanzibar Electoral Commission, said in the statement. "We are still going on with the verification exercise."

Authorities recently revoked a contract with the South African firm Waymark Infotech, to audit the vote independently. Supporters of the main opposition party on the island have accused authorities of rigging previous elections and of also planning to rig the polls due 30 October.

Full report

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DRC: No plan to arrest dissident ex-general, UN official says

The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) does not plan to capture a dissident former general of the Congolese army against whom an international arrest warrant was issued recently, an official told IRIN on Thursday.

"Mr Laurent Nkunda does not present a threat to the local population, thus we cannot justify any action against him," Gen Narena Satiya, the commander of MONUC's Indian brigade based in North Kivu Province, said from the provincial capital, Goma.

UN and local authorities went on Thursday to Nkunda's alleged stronghold in eastern Congo to try to meet him as well as government troops who deserted their posts a few days earlier.

Full report

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[ENDS]

Theme(s)	Other

Other recent CENTRAL & EASTERN AFRICA reports:

Regional ministerial meeting opens, 20/Feb/06

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 318 11-17 February 2006, 17/Feb/06

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 317 4-10 February 2006, 10/Feb/06

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 316 28 January - 3 February 2006, 3/Feb/06

Regional summit to be held after DRC polls, UN envoy says, 1/Feb/06

Other recent reports:

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Donors pledge support for humanitarian crisis, 21/Feb/06

ANGOLA: Ready to play larger security role in Africa, 21/Feb/06

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap, 17/Feb/06

SOUTHERN AFRICA: IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 270 for 11-17 February 2006, 17/Feb/06

WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 317 covering 11-17 February 2006, 17/Feb/06

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