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Integrated Regional Information Network
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Central and Eastern Africa: IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up
47 covering the period
20-26 November 1999
CONTENTS:
DRC: "Organised battles" reported in Equateur
DRC: Possible hitch in rebel meeting
DRC: Mayi-Mayi attack Butembo airport
DRC: Mayi-Mayi "not controlled" by Kabila
DRC: Kabila accused of rearming
DRC: Resolution would "equip" 500 UN observers
BURUNDI: Three dead in grenade attack on Bujumbura market
BURUNDI: Rebel attack repulsed in Bujumbura Rural
BURUNDI: Choice of new mediator critical, report warns
BURUNDI: Main parties push for Mandela mediation
RWANDA: Request for Barayagwiza review welcomed
RWANDA: IMF approves loan
UGANDA: Army hunting Ikondere killers
ROC: Systematic rape of girls in "forgotten war"
SUDAN: WFP warns of "looming crisis" in the
south
DJIBOUTI: Guelleh seeks IGAD endorsement for Somali
peace plan
ERITREA: Boycott of Djibouti-hosted IGAD summit
ETHIOPIA: Government denies mistreating Eritreans, seizing
property
SOMALIA: MSF suspends activities in Kismayo
CAR: RDC members killed in Kembe
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: "Organised battles"
reported in Equateur
Both sides in the DRC conflict have reported serious
fighting in Equateur
Province on Wednesday and Thursday, with each blaming
the other for
violating the ceasefire agreement signed in Lusaka.
Regional analysts told
IRIN there seemed to be a committed government offensive
underway in the
northwest, "in line with its pledge to liberate
the country by the
millennium", but its allies were less involved
and didn't want to be too
involved in a major breach of the Lusaka ceasefire.
All the indications
were that "organised battles, not just skirmishes"
were underway in the
province, the analysts said.
Meanwhile, an official of the UN Observer Mission to
the DRC (MONUC)
observed that "if all the reports are correct -
and we do not have the
witnesses to be sure - but if it's the case of a major
offensive, then the
Lusaka agreement is in danger of becoming part of history."
DRC: Possible hitch in rebel meeting
A planned meeting next week between the three rebel
groups in the DRC
faces a possible hitch after the leader of the Rassemblement
congolais
pour la democratie-Mouvement de liberation (RCD-ML)
Ernest Wamba dia Wamba
said he would not attend. Wamba told IRIN on Wednesday
he was not involved
at the consultation level and was "not aware"
of the meeting. "You cannot
call a consultation meeting without first discussing
it with those
concerned," he said. The Ugandan daily 'The Monitor'
on Wednesday quoted
the rival RCD-Goma faction leader, Emile Ilunga, as
saying the three rebel
groups would meet next week in an effort to resolve
their differences.
Leader of the Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC),
Jean-Pierre Bemba,
meanwhile confirmed to IRIN he would attend the meeting.
"We are trying to
come together and forge a united front," he said.
DRC: Mayi-Mayi attack Butembo airport
Mayi-Mayi fighters early on Tuesday attacked Butembo
in northeastern DRC
and briefly occupied the airport, RCD-ML leader Ernest
Wamba dia Wamba
told IRIN on Wednesday. He said about 30 assailants
were killed and a
number wounded, while a further 20 escaped following
the attack which
lasted 10 minutes. According to Wamba, the DRC government
promised the
assailants US $10,000 each if they captured the airport,
after which
President Kabila would send reinforcements. "But
how can people control an
airport with machetes?" Wamba said. "These
people are so hungry they can
fall for any lie and go ahead and lose their lives for
no reason.
DRC: Mayi-Mayi "not controlled" by Kabila
The Mayi-Mayi militia forces have denied they are under
the control of
President Laurent-Desire Kabila, saying they have "never
belonged to an
individual or a group". In a statement, received
on Monday by IRIN, the
Conseil politico-militaire des forces Mayi-Mayi, said
they simply shared
the desire to "render harmless the invaders".
The statement announced the
Mayi-Mayi's "new strategy" of "urban
ungovernability", in which they
sought to attack military targets in "occupied"
towns. One example of this
was the attack against Ugandan troops in Beni earlier
this month, the
statement said. It claimed Ugandan commander Colonel
Reuben Ikondere was
"captured, tried and sentenced to death".
He was then "executed" along
with two of his bodyguards. Their bodies were returned
to Beni, so they
could be repatriated to Uganda, the statement said.
DRC: Kabila accused of rearming
Rwandan Vice-President Paul Kagame on Wednesday accused
DRC President
Laurent-Desire Kabila of taking advantage of delays
in the implementation
of the Lusaka ceasefire by rearming his forces. "Kabila
is rearming. He
has been purchasing a lot of military equipment, he
has been reorganising
his forces," Reuters reported Kagame as saying.
Ugandan security sources
and Congolese rebels have claimed that Kabila received
two shiploads of
arms and equipment from China, India and an unknown
Arab country, as well
as buying six modified Mig-21 fighter jets, the semi-official
Ugandan 'New
Vision' newspaper reported on Wednesday.
DRC: Resolution would "equip" 500 UN observers
A draft resolution to "equip" 500 military
observers for the DRC was
circulated by some members of the UN Security Council
at an informal
meeting on Wednesday, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
The resolution would
authorise UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to equip the
observers "with a
view to future deployment," the spokesman said.
"I believe the members are
trying to come up with something that would be acceptable
to all of them
and keep the United Nations role in the Congo moving
forward, the next
step being the deployment of these 500," he told
journalists in New York.
Meanwhile, Eckhard confirmed that four UN Military Liaison
Officers (MLOs)
arrived in rebel-held Gbadolite on Wednesday afternoon.
BURUNDI: Three dead in grenade attack on Bujumbura market
At least three people were killed in a grenade attack
in Bujumbura's
central market on Tuesday. Burundi army spokesman Colonel
Longin Minani
told IRIN the attack occurred around midday, and about
20 more people were
wounded. An unidentified man threw two grenades into
the teeming market,
and in the ensuing panic he was able to run away. Only
one grenade
exploded. Minani said the authorities did not yet know
who was
responsible, but an investigation was underway. Regional
analysts point
out this type of attack was fairly widespread during
the violence of 1994
and 1995.
BURUNDI: Rebel attack repulsed in Bujumbura Rural
Minani also said about 15 rebels were killed when they
attempted to stage
an attack on two army posts in Bujumbura Rural earlier
on Tuesday.
However, the army was aware of the impending assault
and managed to
repulse the attackers, he added. One Burundian army
soldier was killed and
two injured. Minani added that security in the volatile
province was
improving, but was unable to give a timetable for the
return of regrouped
people to their homes.
BURUNDI: Choice of new mediator critical, report warns
Burundi analyst Jan van Eck of the South Africa-based
Centre for Conflict
Resolution (CCR) has warned that unless a "genuinely
new and acceptable"
mediation for the Burundi peace process is agreed upon
at a regional
summit later next week, the prospects for durable peace
will be extremely
remote. In his latest report, van Eck said the choice
of mediator was
critical and the wishes of the Burundian government
must be taken into
account. He noted increasing opposition among President
Pierre Buyoya's
support base to continuing the Arusha process in view
of the fact it had
produced few results, particularly in the field of security
and economic
development. "Unless the new mediation is seen
as more non-partisan and
produces results in these areas - especially security
- this opposition is
likely to intensify and will eventually leave the government
with no
choice but to withdraw from the mediation process,"
the report warned.
BURUNDI: Main parties push for Mandela mediation
Representatives of Burundi's influential Convergence
nationale pour la
paix et la reconciliation (CNPR) - which groups together
10 parties within
the country including the main FRODEBU and UPRONA parties
- have been
travelling in the region ahead of next week's Arusha
summit to explain
their position on the peace talks mediation and their
support for a team
of three facilitators, headed by former South African
president Nelson
Mandela. FRODEBU leader Augustin Nzojibwami, who is
also president of the
CNPR, told IRIN on Friday he believed they had the support
of the
sub-region, although he pointed out they had only visited
Uganda, Rwanda
and Kenya, whereas the summit would group 10 countries.
"But it is
difficult to turn down Mandela," he said. Meanwhile,
Jerome Ndiho
spokesman for the rebel CNDD-FDD - which has so far
been excluded from the
peace process - told IRIN his group favoured a team
of mediators, but
stressed there must be no dominant personality in the
team. [For further
details please refer to separate IRIN item: "IRIN
Focus on the Arusha
summit"]
RWANDA: Request for Barayagwiza review welcomed
The Rwandan government on Tuesday welcomed the decision
by the Prosecutor
of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR),
Carla Del Ponte,
to request a review of the decision to release genocide
suspect Jean-Bosco
Barayagwiza. "We welcome any attempt to ensure
that the people responsible
for genocide and massacres in this country are brought
to justice, so we
welcome the proposal of the Prosecutor to apply for
a review of the
Barayagwiza decision," Prosecutor-General Gerald
Gahima stated on Radio
Rwanda.
However, there was no softening of Rwanda's stance that
del Ponte would be
denied an entry visa while the Barayagwiza decision
stood. "As long as it
is not reversed, we are not open to discussion. Their
incompetence should
not be at the expense of justice for the Rwandese,"
the Internews agency
quoted foreign affairs spokesman Seth Kamanzi as saying.
RWANDA: IMF approves loan
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a
US $32.7 million loan
to support Rwanda's economic programme. In a press release,
the IMF said
the loan, approved on Friday, was the second payment
under the country's
three-year US $98 million Enhanced Structural Adjustment
Facility (ESAF).
IMF directors "commended the authorities for maintaining
macroeconomic
stability, improving fiscal management and transparency,
and making
progress with structural reforms...despite a difficult
security
environment", the release said. Rwanda had achieved
"solid economic growth
and low inflation" and its recovery from the 1994
war "now seemed to be
almost complete", the IMF said. However, it stressed
the importance of
improving tax administration, reducing defence outlays
and proceeding
promptly with civil service reform, among other things.
The impact of the
DRC conflict on Rwanda's economy has been limited, it
added.
UGANDA: Army hunting Ikondere killers
State Minister for Defence Steven Kavuma on Tuesday
said the Uganda
People's Defence Forces (UPDF) was searching for those
responsible for the
14 November killing in eastern DRC of Lieutenant Colonel
Reuben Ikondere.
"We are hunting for them inside Congo and we will
bring them to book," the
'New Vision' quoted Kavuma as saying. "But this
does not mean the UPDF
should pull out of Congo because a person has been killed,
we are in Congo
because of our security concerns," he told the
parliamentary committee on
defence and internal security. "It is very easy
to fly from Gbadolite and
bomb Kasese, we have to protect those areas," he
added.
REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Systematic rape of girls in "forgotten war"
Congolese children are facing "terrible suffering"
in the country's
"forgotten war", the UN Special Representative
for Children and Armed
Conflict, Olara Otunnu, said last Thursday. There were
reports of
widespread atrocities, including the systematic rape
of young girls,
children returning to Brazzaville were malnourished,
and many were
severely wounded, he said. Otunnu, speaking to journalists
in New York on
the tenth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights
of the Child, urged
the international community to give the Congo's humanitarian
crisis "the
attention it deserved," a UN statement said. Meanwhile,
humanitarian
sources told IRIN this week that the number of serious
human rights abuses
reported against returning internally-displaced persons
(IDPs) had
increased. Those abuses included summary executions
and rapes, the sources
said.
SUDAN: WFP warns of "looming crisis" in the south
WFP has warned of a "looming humanitarian crisis"
in southern Sudan
because humanitarian agencies were being denied access
to vulnerable
populations by government restrictions on humanitarian
flights and
inter-factional fighting. Humanitarian agencies could
not get access to
many areas of Western Upper Nile in October and November,
"and 140,000
targeted and vulnerable people could not get their emergency
food
assistance", the WFP representative in Sudan, Mohamed
Saliheen, said on
Wednesday. "If this combination of factors continues,
we could face the
same horrifying tragedy that happened in Bahr al-Ghazal
last year,"
Saliheen said, referring to the famine which cost thousands
of lives.
DJIBOUTI: Guelleh seeks IGAD endorsement for Somali peace plan
The Djibouti peace proposal for Somalia is scheduled
to be a key item on
the agenda of an Inter-Governmental Authority for Development
(IGAD)
summit meeting set for Friday, diplomatic sources told
IRIN on Wednesday.
A document outlining peace proposals for Somalia is
expected to be tabled
by Djibouti President Ismail Omar Guelleh, who is seeking
endorsement from
IGAD heads of government. If Djibouti secures IGAD's
endorsement, it would
then seek implementation of the arms embargo on Somalia,
establishment of
a standing committee to consider an implementation plan
and the creation
of a trust fund to support the peace process, the sources
said.
ERITREA: Boycott of Djibouti-hosted IGAD summit
One of the IGAD members, Eritrea, will not be attending
the organisation's
summit meeting this week because it claims the host
country Djibouti "has
been making all sorts of accusations against it",
its Nairobi embassy
spokesman Kidane Woldeyesus told IRIN. Djibouti President
Ismail Omar
Guelleh last week warned of deteriorating relations
between his country
and Eritrea, and said there was "almost a state
of war" between the two.
"It would not be appropriate for us to take part
in this context," Kidane
said on Tuesday. Eritrea is considered a key regional
player in relation
to Somalia, not least because it has been consistently
accused of arming
anti-Ethiopian factions there - a charge it has repeatedly
denied.
ETHIOPIA: Government denies mistreating Eritreans, seizing property
Ethiopia has denied allegations of mistreating deported
Eritreans and
confiscating their property. The Ethiopian embassy in
Nairobi told IRIN
Eritrean citizens were "not subjected to any form
of inhuman treatment"
and their rights to property were in no way affected.
Ethiopia adhered to
international humanitarian laws and the ICRC had "full
access to follow up
the whole exercise" of Eritreans being sent back
to their country, the
embassy stated. "No property that belongs to any
Eritrean has been
expropriated. Eritreans have been allowed to name legal
agents of their
choice to take care of their property," it added.
SOMALIA: MSF suspends activities in Kismayo
The humanitarian relief NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres
(MSF) is to
officially hand over management and responsibility of
Kismayo hospital to
the Regional Health Board on Tuesday, 30 November, after
suspending its
operations in the area due to sustained insecurity,
a press release from
the agency stated last Friday. MSF said that, with insecurity
preventing
the return of expatriate staff evacuated in June amid
deteriorating
conditions, it could no longer fulfill its "fundamental
principle of
guaranteeing the quality of healthcare through direct
supervision" and had
to suspend its activities in Kismayo.
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: RDC members killed in Kembe
Seven members of former president Andre Kolingba's opposition
Rassemblement democratique centrafricain (RDC) party
were killed last week
by unidentified armed men in the eastern city of Kembe,
some 450 km from
Bangui, diplomatic and media sources said. Those killed
included an army
lieutenant, the head of the local gendarmerie and a
vice-president of the
RDC youth movement, but the motive for the killings
remained unclear. The
bodies were dumped in neighbouring towns and villages,
one source told
IRIN. "Troops are being sent in Kembe and Dimbi
today to protect the
civilians from this new wave of acts of banditry,"
Defence Minister
Jean-Jacques Demafouth said on state radio on Monday.
Nairobi, 26 November 1999, 13:45 gmt
[ENDS]
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Item: irin-english-2049
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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999
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Keyword: IRIN
Editor: Dr. Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D
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