Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 17:37:20 +0300 (BEAUT)
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Subject: GREAT LAKES: IRIN-CEA Update 1,087  [2010108]
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U N I T E D  N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network
for Central and Eastern Africa

Tel: +254 2 622147
Fax: +254 2 622129
e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org

IRIN-CEA Update 1,087 for the Great Lakes (Monday 5 January)

CONTENTS:

GREAT LAKES: Humanitarian crisis continues to grow
DRC: "Bilateral" consultations on between rebels
DRC: "No Ugandan troops fighting Kinshasa" - Bemba
DRC: Ituri governor under house arrest
DRC: Soldiers set journalist's house on fire
DRC: Kabila releases three jailed journalists
DRC: Catholic bishop detained in Kinshasa
BURUNDI: Mkapa, Museveni meet over Burundi
BURUNDI: Food availability "might be reduced" - WFP
RWANDA-UGANDA: World Bank approves supplementary credits  


GREAT LAKES: Humanitarian crisis continues to grow

A UN report on affected populations in the Great Lakes region notes that
despite the Lusaka and Arusha peace accords, the magnitude and intensity
of the humanitarian crisis continue to grow. The report, prepared by
OCHA's Great Lakes office, said that in 2000, humanitarian operations
remained under-funded and on the margins of the international community's
attention. During the reporting period - May-December 2000 - a 12 percent
increase in Great Lakes refugees outside the region (Gabon, CAR, Angola
and Zambia) was recorded, as well as a 50 percent rise in the number of
affected people within the DRC. In Burundi, the number of displaced and
regrouped people declined by over 45 percent, while in Rwanda the number
of displaced dropped sharply from an estimated 40,000 to 6,340 as a result
of the government's resettlement programme. Ongoing violence in the DRC
has severely curtailed access to the displaced by the humanitarian
community.

However, positive developments were witnessed in the Republic of Congo,
the report stated. An estimated 810,000 displaced people returned to their
homes of origin and the cessation of hostilities in the country enabled
further humanitarian work to go ahead. Also in Uganda, the number of
displaced people has decreased mainly due to improved security conditions
in the west and the return of some people displaced by earlier fighting in
the eastern Karamoja district. [Full report available at:
http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf ]

DRC: "Bilateral" consultations on between rebels

Rebels of the Bunia-based Rassemblement congolais pour la
democratie-Mouvement de liberation (RCD-ML) and their Gbadolite-based
Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) counterparts began bilateral
consultations in Kampala on Monday. "We are having preliminary discussions
on a possible unification with the MLC," RCD's Commissar in charge of
external affairs, Claver Pashi, told IRIN on Monday. "We are trying to see
the best way to have this done and to work out mechanisms for the union."
According to Pashi, the delegates are "quite careful" that they will come
up with principles which will be implemented by both groups. MLC leader
Jean-Pierre Bemba and RCD-ML leader, Ernest Wamba dia Wamba are both
attending the consultations, Pashi confirmed. The meeting has been
convened by Ugandan government in a bid to unify the groups to facilitate
the "self-determination process" for the Congolese people, news
organisations quoted Ugandan officials as saying.

DRC: "No Ugandan troops fighting Kinshasa" - Bemba

Meanwhile, MLC leader Jean-Pierre Bemba told journalists in Kampala that
there was "not a single" Ugandan soldier at any of the frontlines in the
DRC. Ugandan radio quoted him as saying that the Uganda People's Defence
Forces (UPDF) were "training the liberators but not engaged in any
fighting". He said that intelligence information had also revealed that
DRC President Laurent-Desire Kabila was not holding any Ugandan prisoners
of war. He noted that the security situation in Congo had worsened with
Kabila allegedly regularly bombing parts of the rebel held areas.

DRC: Ituri governor under house arrest

The governor of Ituri province in northeastern DRC, Ernest Uring-Pa-Dolo,
was put under house arrest on Monday, RCD-ML officials in Bunia told IRIN.
Ituri province is under the control of the RCD-ML. The officials said the
arrest was ordered by a Ugandan army colonel Edison Muzoora whom an
official referred to as the "self appointed governor of Ituri". "He has
threatened to arrest me as well," RCD-ML's commissar in charge of local
government, Jacques Depelchin told IRIN on Monday. "He says that I prevent
him from doing his operations and I only report negative things to
Kampala."

"We have sent a delegation to the airport to meet him [Muzoora] because we
feel that he has gone way beyond his prerogative," he added. Depelchin was
speaking from his office in Bunia. Another RCD-ML official said that
Muzoora claimed the two individuals were "sabotaging his economic
interests in Ituri". Muzoora has in the past had problems with local
RCD-ML authorities who among other things accuse him of "high-handedness"
and blocking or frustrating the efforts of the governor of Ituri. 

DRC: Soldiers set journalist's house on fire

Congolese army soldiers set fire to the residence of a senior journalist
with the pro-government daily 'l'Avenir', Marcel Ngoyi Ngoyi Kyenge, on 22
December, the Kinshasa-based watchdog Journaliste en Danger (JED) reported
on Friday. With Marcel Ngoyi Ngoyi Kyenge away at the time, the three
unidentified soldiers locked the journalist's children in a room before
setting the house on fire, JED reported. The journalist's eldest son, aged
15, managed to escape and alert the neighbours. The three soldiers ran
away. The soldiers allegedly left a note for Ngoyi saying: "Marcel Ngoyi,
mind your own business or your family will disappear, risk of death, first
warning", JED quoted the 29 December edition of another daily 'La tempete
des tropiques' as saying. In October, 'l'Avenir' had gone unpublished for
over a week after its offices was raided by the security forces and vital
computer equipment badly damaged. 

Meanwhile, a journalist from the official Congolese News Agency (ACP),
Welo M'Peti, was abducted and seriously beaten by four soldiers as he was
returning from the Kinshasa's N'Djili airport with a friend, JED reported.
The soldiers were later arrested and identified as members of the
Kinshasa/Mikondo artillery unit. 

DRC: Kabila releases three jailed journalists

Three journalists were released by "personal order of President
Laurent-Desire Kabila" on Thursday, JED also reported on Friday. Ten
activists from the opposition party Union pour la democratie et le progres
social (UDPS) and 200 soldiers were released at the same time as the three
journalists in the latest of a series of amnesties announced by President
Kabila since December 2000 in the context of "the policy of national
reconciliation". Freddy Loseke Lisumbu of 'La Libre Afrique', Emile-Aime
Kakase Vinalu of 'Le Carrousel' and Jean-Pierre Ekanga Mukuna of 'La
tribune de la Nation' had been tried and sentenced to jail terms by a
military court for "insulting the army, treason and contributing to a
newspaper which is clearly hostile to the authorities", JED reported. No
journalists remain in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) jails following
these releases. 

DRC: Catholic bishop detained in Kinshasa

A Catholic bishop from the coastal Bas Congo province of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC) is being detained at a military unit in
Kinshasa since his arrest on 28 December, the Pan African News Agency
(PANA) reported on Friday. DEMIAP, the acronym for the military unit
charged with combating "anti-patriotic" activities, accuses bishop Cyprien
Mbuka from the Boma diocese of engaging in "subversive actions and
attempts to incite the peoples to revolt against the current regime", PANA
reported. However, PANA quoted sources close to the Boma diocese who
described the arrest as part of a plot against Mbuka by some priests and
other clerics who oppose reforms he initiated. Mbuka was arrested in the
provincial capital of Matadi on the orders of a general in the Congolese
Armed Forces (FAC) whose identity was not disclosed, PANA said. 

BURUNDI: Mkapa, Museveni meet over Burundi

Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa on Friday paid a one-day working visit
to Uganda, a statement from State House, Uganda said. It said Mkapa and
his host, Yoweri Museveni, held consultations on the DRC crisis, the
Burundi peace process, and on matters of mutual interest. On Burundi, the
two leaders reviewed the progress made in finding peace in that country as
well as reinvigorating regional and international efforts to ensure there
was a ceasefire which, they said, was necessary for ending the cycle of
violence and destabilisation. At a joint press conference, Mkapa dismissed
allegations that his country was training rebels in refugee camps to
destabilise the Burundi government.

He said the allegations were "baseless" and "fabrications" aimed at
tarnishing the good name of his country since "the Tanzanian government
does not train or arm anybody". He emphasised the importance of the new
momentum in the implementation of the Arusha accord so that the situation
in Burundi was resolved once and for all. He said the Burundi issue had
been a subject of consultations of the two leaders in an effort to get a
way forward. On the DRC, the two leaders underscored the importance of the
implementation of the Lusaka agreement to resolve the conflict. 

BURUNDI: Food availability "might be reduced" - WFP

A joint monitoring mission composed of the government of Burundi, WFP and
UNICEF was conducted in Muramvya and Mwaro provinces to monitor food
availability, WFP said in its weekly emergency update. The mission found
out that food availability might be reduced due to "bad precipitation".
Concerning the nutritional situation, the mission found a global
malnutrition rate of 11.6 percent and 1.5 percent of severe malnutrition
in Muramvya province. For Mwaro province, the global malnutrition rate was
estimated at nine percent whereas the severe malnutrition rate was at two
percent. "These rates may, however, rise as food availability is not
ensured in the future due to bad weather," WFP said.

RWANDA-UGANDA: World Bank approves supplementary credits

The governments of Rwanda and Uganda were among seven in sub-Saharan
Africa to receive supplementary credits from the World Bank on Friday, to
help them cope with oil price rises and other losses in their terms of
trade. The World Bank approved a total of US $155 million in these
supplemental credits to mitigate the impact of unexpected oil price
increases and other terms of trade losses which were jeopardising the
sustainability of economic reform programmes in the two countries, as well
as in Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Zambia. Since the recovery
of the Asian economy in 1999-2000, international oil prices doubled,
reaching levels of over US $30 per barrel in the middle of last year, a
World Bank statement said. The price of key commodity exports had also
fallen on the world market, particularly in relation to the cost of oil,
it said. 

Rwanda, where the cost of petroleum imports was around US $63 million in
2000, compared with US $47 million in 1999, would receive a credit of US
$15 million, the press release stated. The rise in oil prices had
contributed to "significant inflationary pressures", a phenomenon
compounded by the fact that Rwanda is land-locked, it said. An increase in
transport costs would affect the mobility of some poor people by reducing
their access to economic and social opportunities, it added. A US $25
million credit to Uganda was intended as a rapid response to combined
adverse effects of increased oil prices and the declining world price of
coffee. The average coffee export price decreased steadily from US $1.38
per kg in October 1999 to US $0.83 per kg in October 2000, which was a
serious cause of concern "as Uganda's high economic growth is partly due
to high international coffee prices", the World Bank stated. 


Nairobi, 8 January 2001, 14:35 gmt

[ENDS]

[IRIN-CEA: Tel: +254 2 622147 Fax: +254 2 622129 e-mail: irin-cea@ocha.unon.org ]


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