IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 21 covering the period 20-26 May 2000

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Asmara says redeployment to 6 May positions complete The Eritrean army withdrew its forces from Zala Anbesa on the central front of the resumed Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict on Wednesday night, announcing that it was pulling out of all disputed areas in compliance with calls from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). “Eritrea stated its readiness to respond immediately and favourably to the two-point appeal of the current chairman of the OAU, namely the immediate cessation of the fighting and the resumption of the proximity talks,” a government press release stated. He insisted that the Eritrean withdrawal was not a defeat. During talks on Thursday with the current chairman of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), President Abdelaziz Bouteflika Algeria, President Isayas Afewerki said that Eritrea had completed the redeployment of its forces to positions held before 6 May 1998, in compliance with calls from the OAU, according to a Foreign Ministry statement. Withdrawal does not pre-judge status - Isayas The ministry statement said that Bouteflika had informed Isayas that Ethiopia was demanding the withdrawal of Eritrean forces “from additional places referred to as Bada and Bure”. Isayas had said that both were undisputed Eritrean territory, but the statement said: “Eritrea commits itself to re-deploy its troops from Bada and Bure in order to deny Ethiopia any pretext... Eritrea’s redeployment from these areas is being done on the basis of the OAU Framework Agreement and the Modalities of Implementation, which state that redeployment does not pre-judge the status of the territories concerned.” Eritrea had earlier published letters between Isayas and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi dated August 1997, which allude to a dispute over territories in the Bada area, predating the Badme clash which precipitated the war almost a year later. Ethiopia was at the time engaged in a counter-insurgency campaign against ethnic Afar rebels in the Bada area. Bouteflika, who left Asmara on Friday for Addis Ababa for talks with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, said in a statement that Eritrea had agreed to resume proximity talks in Algeria on Monday, Reuters news agency reported. Addis Ababa says war not yet over An Ethiopian Foreign Ministry statement on Thursday expressed doubts about the sincerity of Eritrea’s withdrawal pledge. “Ethiopia wishes to make it clear that even now large chunks of territory in the eastern and northeastern part of Ethiopia... are still occupied by Eritrea. The war can only come to an end when Ethiopia has verified that Eritrea has removed its forces of occupation from all the remaining Ethiopian territory under its control. At the same time, Ethiopia wishes to reiterate that it has no desire to remain in Eritrean territory that it holds temporarily, for the purpose of military expediency.” Following its capture of Zala Anbesa on Wednesday night, Ethiopia announced on Friday that its forces had taken four more towns on the central front. A government statement said Ethiopian forces had captured Forte, Senafe, Tsorona and Igri Mekel, and were “chasing and destroying remnants of the Eritrean army that have been fleeing from Zala Anbesa”. The border town of Zala Anbesa, at the centre of the heaviest fighting in this week’s battles, was “completely destroyed” before the Eritreans withdrew their forces on Wednesday night. An IRIN reporter who visited the town on Wednesday said that not a single building was left intact. While shells were landing in and around the town, bombardment did not appear to be the cause of the damage: the town looked as if it had been systematically bulldozed, the reporter stated. ERITREA: Food convoy leaves for western Eritrea Five WFP trucks left Asmara on Thursday morning carrying 77 mt of high-protein biscuits to feed some 39,000 displaced people in western Eritrea. The trucks were heading for Teletabasher, close to the Sudanese border; Dige, near Gash Barka in the southwest; and Goluj, south of Teseney, the agency said. They were expected to take three days to reach their destination. “This is a stop-gap measure until such time we can identify where people are resettling,” after which the agency would concentrate on getting sustainable supplies of maize, flour, sugar and salt to affected populations, WFP spokeswoman Lindsey Davies told IRIN. Davies said there was particular concern about longer-term food supplies in Eritrea since the regions of Dibub and Gash Barka, which normally provided 80 percent of Eritrea’s grain, had been hit by two years of drought and were now affected by the war. Refugee agency says displaced figures unclear In Geneva on Tuesday, UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said it was not clear how many people had been internally displaced by the fighting in Eritrea. President Isayas had said that day that up to one million people were affected by the fighting. The Eritrean authorities had earlier spoken of 550,000 people displaced, but Janowski said this figure presumably included some 300,000 displaced by drought and earlier bouts of the fighting. He said the Eritrean authorities had asked international agencies to mount a cross-border operation from Sudan to assist IDPs around the western Eritrean town of Tesseney, in order to prevent them from fleeing into Sudan. SUDAN: UNHCR to fly tents from Balkans for Eritrean refugees The UNHCR said on Thursday that it would begin airlifting 2,000 tents from stockpiles in Macedonia and Kosovo to Sudan next week to help provide shelter for the thousands of refugees from the latest fighting between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The agency said in a press release that it had registered 20,066 Eritreans who had crossed the border into Kassala state in the past week. Officials in Eritrea estimate that there are a further 20,000 to 40,000 ready to cross the border into Sudan, if the fighting should worsen. As of Wednesday, the UNHCR had distributed 1,600 tents and 2,416 jerrycans to refugees in a region where there is little vegetation and daytime temperatures can reach 50 degrees Celsius. Before the latest influx, there were already some 160,000 Eritreans in camps in Kassala state, most of whom had been there since before Eritrea won its war of independence in 1991. ETHIOPIA: Nutritional problems in Imi, Gudis The food crisis in the Ogaden Region has prompted Medecins sans frontieres (MSF) to set up a new therapeutic feeding centre in Imi East, about 200 km northwest of the regional capital Gode, where around 3,500 inhabitants and displaced people are living, the health NGO said in a statement on Thursday. A rapid nutritional assessment had revealed global malnutrition rates of 42 percent, including 23 percent severe malnutrition, in Gudis (50 km east of Imi) among children under five years, it said. In Denan, 50 km north of Gode, there were 556 children under five registered for intensive, therapeutic feeding and 1,612 more registered for a supplementary feeding programme, MSF said. SOMALIA: Security Council backs Djibouti conference The UN Security Council on Tuesday expressed its support for the Djibouti peace initiative on Somalia. A Council statement also called on members of the international community to provide both financial and political support for the Djibouti government’s endeavours. Diplomatic sources told IRIN on Monday that the UN had produced a report on ways in which donors could support the Somali peace conference in Arta, where the Djibouti government is hosting about 700 Somalis and negotiations are expected to continue for at least another month. Belatwein hit by Shabelle floodwaters Some 2,400 people in 400 households in Belatwein, the capital of Hiran region in central Somalia, have been displaced and their homes put under floodwater from the Shabelle River, swollen by rainfall in its upper regions in the Ethiopian highlands. The flooding did not involve a flash flood and people were able to rescue some of their belongings rather than being left destitute, a UN humanitarian official told IRIN on Tuesday. It had not rained in recent days in Hiran or the Ethiopian highlands so it was hoped, “with fingers crossed”, that the worst of the flooding was now over, he added. The UN was mobilising to provide flood-displaced people with basic requirements - water purification, mosquito netting, blankets, sheeting and drugs - as well as implementing quick programmes to help communities repair river embankments, an inter-agency mission reported last week. In the longer term, it hoped to dredge the Shabelle, in which silt has built up over recent years such that the river is actually higher than the surrounding plains in some parts, making conditions ripe for flooding, the report stated. DRC: Rebel advance violates ceasefire The UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) has expressed its concern about troop movements by the rebel Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) along the Oubangui river and around the city of Mbandaka in northern Equateur province. In a statement received by IRIN on Thursday, MONUC said the MLC advance violated the Lusaka ceasefire agreement on the DRC, as well as the 8 April Kampala disengagement plan. The military activities of the MLC constituted a threat to the peace process and “dangerously compromised” efforts to rapidly deploy UN troops to the country, in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 1291, it said. MLC leader Jean-Pierre Bemba said he was unhappy with the way MONUC had handled alleged government ceasefire violations previously raised by the MLC. “I have reported to MONUC more than 100 ceasefire violations by the government since July last year, but not even once have they mentioned it or condemned the acts ... But when my soldiers act in self-defence and to protect civilians, or when they set out to pursue the violators of the accords, MONUC is quick to condemn,” he said. Preliminary UN investigation into alleged massacre An official from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has travelled to South Kivu to look into allegations of a civilian massacre in the village of Katogota earlier this month. “Our person has met with the governor of South Kivu yesterday and is trying to get to the area to check on the allegations and make a preliminary investigation,” an OHCHR spokesman told IRIN on Thursday. The Catholic missionary news service MISNA last week reported that 300 people had been killed by rebels in the village on 14-15 May. The Goma-based rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) said on Monday it was investigating reports that its forces had been involved. It has also called on the UN to send an “international and independent” team to investigate the reported torture and burial alive of 15 women in the Mwenga area of South Kivu last November, claiming that its troops were not involved there either. UN welcomes demilitarisation plan In a statement received by IRIN on Thursday, MONUC welcomed the agreement by Ugandan and Rwandan army commanders to withdraw their troops from Kisangani. The agreement came into effect on Thursday. MONUC said the demilitarisation accord was reinforced by the agreement of the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) to withdraw its own forces from Kisangani, in accordance with a document signed with MONUC Commander General Mountaga Diallo and the interim chairman of the Joint Military Commission (JMC), General Timothy Kazembe, in Goma on Monday. Two teams of UN military officers were already in Kisangani and a third team was scheduled to join them to oversee and monitor the demilitarisation process, a MONUC official said on Tuesday. “We will continue to build our presence there and we envisage 6 to 8 teams in the longer term,” the official said. Each team comprises three or four officers. Implementation of the agreement would begin on Thursday with a “detailed planning phase”, lasting until Monday. The simultaneous withdrawal of Ugandan and Rwandan forces from the city would be completed within 16 days, he said. Peace talks’ facilitator not received by Kabila Former Botswana President Ketumile Masire discussed the organisation of the inter-Congolese negotiations with Foreign Minister Yerodia Ndombasi in Kinshasa on Tuesday, but a planned meeting with President Laurent-Desire Kabila did not take place, diplomatic sources said. Masire, who is the facilitator of the negotiations on the political future of the DRC, had travelled to Kinshasa on Sunday - at Kabila’s request - to brief him on the outcome of his meetings last week with Congolese rebel groups in Goma, Bunia and Gbadolite, the sources told IRIN on Thursday. Masire, who left for Addis Ababa on Wednesday, had “expressed disappointment” to Ndombasi that Kabila had been unable to receive him, the source added. Masire secures rebels input in dialogue process Masire had earlier secured the participation of the RCD leader Emile Ilunga, MLC leader Jean-Pierre Bemba and Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, embattled leader of RCD-Mouvement de liberation (RCD-ML), for a 5-7 June meeting aimed at preparing for the inter-Congolese negotiations. The June preparatory talks - likely to take place in either Botswana or Benin - would bring together some 20 representatives of the government, rebel groups, civil society and unarmed opposition to seek agreement on the venue, agenda, criteria for representation and rules of procedure for the dialogue. Masire has proposed a 3 July starting date for the negotiations. Meanwhile, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said DRC President Laurent-Desire Kabila was to blame for the delay in the inter-Congolese negotiations. “The longer he waits the more complicated the situation in his country becomes,” Museveni said. BURUNDI: Plenary peace talks set for July The facilitator of the Arusha peace process for Burundi, former South African President Nelson Mandela, said on Tuesday he had worked out a draft agreement between the government and rebel groups during two days of talks in Johannesburg. “Without giving much detail, I can say we have reached a landmark agreement,” Mandela told a news conference. He said rebel groups had asked for more time to study the draft agreement and to consult their field commanders. As a result of the request, Mandela said he had decided to shift the next plenary session of the Arusha talks from June to July. Sources close to the facilitator’s office told IRIN that opposition groups represented at the Johannesburg consultations included the FNL, FDD, CNDD, PALIPEHUTU and FROLINA. However, FDD spokesman Jerome Ndiho told the BBC’s Kinyarwanda service on Wednesday that his group had only sent an “envoy” - rather than a representative - to the Johannesburg talks because it viewed them as “an extension of Arusha,” and that it would not joint hat process until the government closed down regroupment camps and freed all political prisoners. Displaced figure “inflated” by media Humanitarian officials in Makamba province said local media reports of 100,000 people having been displaced by intensive fighting in recent days in the southeastern province were exaggerated. The estimated number of displaced people being used by local officials and NGOs last week was just over 30,000, and there was no way the number of displaced had increased by 70,000 since then, an aid worker in Burundi told IRIN. The clashes between rebels and the Burundian army had seen MSF-France and the IRC move international staff from Makamba to Bujumbura, pending security assessments, but other local and international NGOs continued to work in the province throughout, despite “precarious conditions,” according to humanitarian sources in Burundi. The communes of Kibago and Mabanda were most affected by new movements of internally-displaced people (IDPs), and water availability was “a big problem,” they added. UGANDA: Army fighting ADF incursion The Ugandan army was fighting rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) around Kamwenge town in western Uganda, officials said on Thursday. “Following our successful operations in the Rwenzori mountains, where the rebel bases are being destroyed, they are now trying to infiltrate lowlands ... we are just pursuing them,” army spokesman Major Phenehas Katirima told IRIN. Ugandan radio on Tuesday reported that ADF rebels had abducted four people, including two children, during attacks in the area. Ugandan authorities have reported the capture of several senior ADF commanders over the past month. TANZANIA: UNHCR checking report of refugee arrests UNHCR in Kigoma said it was looking into reports that 167 Burundian refugees were arrested by Tanzanian authorities who claimed they were “combatants” seeking rebel military training in Burundi. “We have received the list of their names,” a UNHCR official in Kigoma told IRIN. “We can’t confirm that they are refugees. We have to check the list against our camp list,” she added. Kigoma Regional Police Commander Placid Chaka said the 167 suspects were arrested last Thursday at Makere village, Kibondo district. They had come from the refugee camps of Karago, Nduta and Mtendeli, he told IRIN on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the human rights organisation Amnesty International said that the lives, security and dignity of thousands of refugees in the Great Lakes region were “once again under threat” as the standards of refugee protection in Tanzania had dropped dramatically since late 1999. An Amnesty report said scores of Burundian and Rwandan refugees had been forcibly returned to their countries of origin in violation of both Tanzanian and international refugee laws, and that Tanzania had also failed to take sufficient action to protect women refugees from human rights abuses. KENYA: Drought brings severe power rationing A 12-hour a day power rationing programme to last at least six months has been drawn up by Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) as a result of low water levels in the country’s hydro-electric power plants. Businesses will have their power cut between 6.30 pm and 6.30 am from Monday to Saturday - except for the central business district of Nairobi, which has been exempted - while householders will have no supply from 6.30 am to 6.30 pm, the ‘Daily Nation’ newspaper reported on Wednesday. Supplies would not return to normal until at least October, when the next short rains were expected, Energy Minister Francis Masakhalia announced.