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

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e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org


CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 306
19 - 25 November 2005


CONTENTS:

AFRICA: Belgian minister proposes joint EU-AU peacekeeping training
   centres
DRC: Fighting displaces 60,000 in Katanga Province, Bishop says
DRC: EU observers arrive ahead of constitutional referendum
KENYA: President sacks cabinet after gov't loses constitutional
   referendum
TANZANIA: Hope for patients as military doctors replace strikers
BURUNDI: UN mission says claims linking it to rebels "unfounded"
BURUNDI: Annan recommends downsizing UN mission
BURUNDI: Rwandans to be moved closer to own border
RWANDA: Demonstrators demand justice for Hutu victims of violence
CAR: Gov't fails to pay salaries; civil servants continue strike


AFRICA: Belgian minister proposes joint EU-AU peacekeeping training
centres

Belgian Development Cooperation Minister Armand de Decker is seeking
support from his counterparts in the European Union for his proposal to
create peacekeeping training centres in Africa, in partnership with the
African Union (AU), a senior official in the Belgian government has
said.

"This would reinforce cohesion among African states, which would work
together on sensitive security issues and would, at the same time,
enable Europeans to work together in matters of security," Michel
Lastchenko, Decker's deputy director, told IRIN on Wednesday.

He said the centres would be built in Africa and would provide quality
peacekeeping training to both African and European armed forces. Decker
made the proposal to the EU General Affairs and External Relations
Council on Monday, one month ahead of an EU heads of state's summit due
to adopt the 2005-2015 "European Strategy for Africa".

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50279]


DRC: Fighting displaces 60,000 in Katanga Province, Bishop says

Some 60,000 people fleeing fighting between the Congolese army and local
Mayi-Mayi militiamen resisting demobilisation have now arrived in the
village of Dubie in the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) Katanga
Province, Roman Catholic Bishop Fulgence Muteba said on Tuesday.

"They started arriving a week ago when clashes broke out," he said from
the southeastern city of Lubumbashi.

He said 2,000 of the displaced persons arrived Sunday and Tuesday. "Many
other women and children are expected to come," he said.

the 60,000 displaced in Dubie, he added, were in addition to 16,000 who
fled the fighting against a local Mayi-Mayi leader he identified as
Gedeon. So far, no other humanitarian agency has corroborated the number
of displaced in Dubie. Muteba said only Medecins Sans Frontiere-Holland
and the Church were providing care to the displaced.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50255]


DRC: EU observers arrive ahead of constitutional referendum

The head of an advanced team of nine EU observers of a constitutional
referendum set to take place on 18 December declared on Monday that he
would make an exhaustive and unbiased assessment of preparations for the
vote.

"The mission will identify potential improvements that need to be made
and make recommendations to the Congolese authorities and to the
international community," Philippe Morillon, a French general who heads
the mission, said at a news conference in the capital, Kinshasa.

Morillon arrived in Kinshasa on 17 November along with electoral experts
from France, Italy, Ireland, Poland and Spain.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50226]


KENYA: President sacks cabinet after gov't loses constitutional
referendum

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki sacked his entire cabinet on Wednesday; two
days after 3.5 million voters rejected the draft constitution he
strongly supported in a national referendum.

The debate over the new charter had split Kibaki's administration, with
seven members of his cabinet spearheading a vociferous campaign against
the draft.

"Following the results of the referendum, it has become necessary for
me, as the President of the Republic, to reorganise my Government to
make it more cohesive and better able to serve the people of Kenya,"
Kibaki said in a statement broadcast on radio and television.

"Accordingly, in accordance with the powers conferred upon me under the
Constitution of Kenya, I have directed that the offices of all Ministers
and all Assistant Ministers become vacant. Consequently, the occupants
of the said offices cease to hold their respective offices with
immediate effect," he said.

The president added that a reconstituted government would be announced
within two weeks.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50278]

[On the Net: KENYA: New constitution rejected in referendum:
[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50231]


TANZANIA: Hope for patients as military doctors replace strikers

The plight of patients at Tanzania's main referral hospital seems set to
ease somewhat following the arrival there of 75 doctors from military
and research institutions to replace striking junior physicians
demanding better pay.

"At least 16 military doctors are now in the wards on familiarisation,
and some have already started attending to patients," Brig-Gen Yandon
Kohi, a consultant neurosurgeon in charge of the military team at the
troubled Muhimbili National Hospital, told reporters on Friday.

He said the military doctors had been sent to priority departments
including maternity, surgery, medicine and ear, nose and throat.

The chairman of the hospital's governing board, Abdulrahman Kinana, said
the situation was expected to ease by Monday, when a total of 40 army
doctors and 35 more from the various departments and research
institutions under the Ministry of Health report for work at the
hospital.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50310]


BURUNDI: UN mission says claims linking it to rebels "unfounded"

Allegations linking the UN Operation in Burundi, known as ONUB, to the
remaining active rebel group in the country, the Forces nationales de
liberation (FNL), are "serious and unfounded" and undermine the
mission's mandate, ONUB said on Friday.

"ONUB learned through the media that FNL fighters were caught in
uniforms ordinarily worn by soldiers of the South African and Nepalese
contingents," ONUB said in a statement quoting the Special
Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Burundi, Carolyn McAskie.

It said McAskie, who is also the head of ONUB, was dismayed by the
situation and strongly condemned the fact that a rebel movement should
be in possession of uniforms belonging to contingents of the ONUB force.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50200]

[On the Net: BURUNDI: Army probes source of "UN military uniforms" in
rebel hands: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50169]


BURUNDI: Annan recommends downsizing UN mission

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has recommended to the UN Security
Council the reduction, beginning with the military in December, of the
size of the UN Operation in Burundi, known as ONUB.

"The phased withdrawal of two battalions, a level II hospital and an
aviation unit from the provinces of Kirundo, Ngozi, Cankuzo, Ruyigi,
Rutana, Makamba, Gitega, Karuzi and Muyinga could be completed from
April to June 2006," he said. "Troops could also be withdrawn or
redeployed from Mwaro, Muramvya and Bururi during the same period."

"This would result in a reduction of approximately 2,000 personnel, or
40 percent of the current authorised military strength of ONUB," he
said.

He also proposed a reduction in military observers from 200 to 120 by
the end of April 2006.

Earlier in November, the newly elected government asked a visiting
Security Council mission that it place greater emphasis on
reconstruction and development other than on peacekeeping in Burundi.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50284]


BURUNDI: Rwandans to be moved closer to own border

Some 3,500 Rwandans in northern Burundi who the government has labelled
"illegal immigrants" will soon be moved to a temporary camp 30 km from
the Rwandan border, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Thursday.

"It's the only choice that the government offered us," Catherine-Lune
Grayson, the UNHCR spokeswomen in Bujumbura, told IRIN.

She was referring to the planned transit site, which is to be located in
Musasa Zone in the northern province of Ngozi and which UNHCR is set to
begin erecting next week. She said part of the site was expected to be
ready by December and another part by January.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50298]


CAR: Government fails to pay salaries; civil servants continue strike

The main trade union for civil servants in the Central African Republic
has said that many of its members would continue a strike that began in
October as the government has not paid them two months salary arrears as
agreed to on 12 November.

"The strike will not come to an end unless the government fulfils its
promise," Noel Ramadan, a representative of the country's largest trade
unions, the Union syndicale des travailleurs de Centrafrique, said on
Friday.

However, Labour Minister Jacques Bothy told IRIN on Friday, "There are
administrative problems that have made it impossible to withdraw the
money from the bank."

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50317]


RWANDA: Demonstrators demand justice for Hutu victims of violence

Some 100 Rwandans living in Belgium and the Netherlands demonstrated on
Wednesday in Brussels seeking the support of the UN, the EU and the
Belgian government in ensuring that members of the ruling Rwandan
Patriotic Front, whom they claim had been involved in mass killings of
Hutus, are brought to book.

"We want to remind the EU, the UN and the Belgian government that they
did nothing when the RPF attacked Rwanda in 1990, nothing before and
during the 1994 genocide and tell them that they are once again folding
their arms, pushing Rwandans to implement their own justice," Victoire
Ingabire, the chairwoman of the Rassemblement pour la Democratie et le
Retour au Rwanda, told IRIN on Wednesday.

Reacting to the demonstration, EU spokesman Amadeu Altafaj said the EU's
efforts were directed to the on-going improvement of Rwanda's judiciary
which had made considerable and laudable progress.


CAR: Gov't fails to pay salaries; civil servants continue strike

The main trade union for civil servants in the Central African Republic
has said that many of its members would continue a strike that began in
October as the government has not paid them two months salary arrears as
agreed to on 12 November.

"The strike will not come to an end unless the government fulfils its
promise," Noel Ramadan, a representative of the country's largest trade
unions, the Union syndicale des travailleurs de Centrafrique, said on
Friday.

Labour Minister Jacques Bothy told IRIN on Friday, "There are
administrative problems that have made it impossible to withdraw the
money from the bank."

He said workers should be paid by next week but added: "For technical
reasons the government is only in a position to pay one month's
[arrears]".

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50317]


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