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CEA: IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 380 for 28 April - 4 May 2007

04 May 2007 12:37:50 GMT
Source: IRIN

NAIROBI, 4 May 2007 (IRIN) - CONGO: Former rebel chief named for humanitarian post CONGO: Ex-rebel group must disarm - president DRC: Dozens killed in army operation against Rwandan rebels UGANDA: Women petition court to outlaw FGM UGANDA: LRA denies killings as peace talks resume UGANDA: Government, LRA agree to address root causes of conflict

See also KENYA: Land dispute spawns violence, displacement

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71884

CONGO: Former rebel chief named for humanitarian post

The Congolese government and representatives of the former rebel movement, le Comité national pour le résistance (CNR) of Frédéric Bintsangou, alias Pastor Ntoumi, on 27 April signed an agreement that puts the former rebel leader in charge of humanitarian affairs.

"This agreement is the result of negotiations that have been ongoing between the government and CNR since 2005. Pastor Ntoumi will gladly accept his nomination as it is one of the clauses of the agreement," the CNR's national secretary of information, Franck Euloge Mpassi, told IRIN.

This is the first time the CNR and the government have signed a 'direct agreement' since 17 March 2003, when both parties reaffirmed the peace agreement. This facilitated an end to the hostilities between the 'Ninja' fighters of the CNR and the regular army in the Pool region between 1998 and 2002. Full report

CONGO: Ex-rebel group must disarm - president

A former Congolese rebel group that has transformed itself into a political party must disarm its militia and hand in its weapons for destruction before it can be considered a genuine political organisation, President Denis Sassou Nguesso said on Monday.

"[Pastor] Ntoumi's movement must surrender its arms and abandon any form of violence in order to be considered a political party," Nguesso said during a meeting with administrative officials and traditional chiefs of the Bouenza district in the southwest of the country.

Le Comité national pour le résistance (CNR) of former rebel leader Frédéric Bintsangou, alias Pastor Ntoumi, announced in January that the movement would become a political party and take part in legislative elections scheduled for June and July 2007. The party is known as the Conseil national des républicains.

Legislative elections in 2002 were held in only eight of Pool's 14 constituencies because of widespread insecurity as the army fought the rebels. Full report

DRC: Dozens killed in army operation against Rwandan rebels

Dozens of Rwandan rebels have been killed in heavy fighting with government troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) eastern North Kivu province since 2 May, a senior military officer said.

"We have taken over two positions that were occupied by the rebels and we have also recovered some weapons," Colonel Delphin Kahindi, the commander of the DRC army in the region, told IRIN on Thursday.

He put the death toll among fighters of the Forces démocratiques de la libération du Rwanda (FDLR) at 48, while the Forces armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC) lost five men. The fighting is reported to have displaced thousands of civilians since the operation against the FDLR and their Mai Mai militia allies began in January. Full report

UGANDA: Women petition court to outlaw FGM

Women's rights activists in Uganda have petitioned the Constitutional Court demanding that female genital mutilation (FGM), practised by several communities in the east of the country, be declared illegal.

"We are seeking a court declaration that the practice is unconstitutional; it is cruel, inhuman and degrading," said Dora Byamukama, a member of the East Africa Legislative Assembly and one of the campaigners against FGM in Uganda.

The activists, who have formed a group known as Law and Advocacy for Women in Uganda, earlier in April succeeded in having the Constitutional Court abrogate the country's law on adultery on the grounds that it made marital infidelity an offence only when committed by women while seemingly condoning it when men were involved.

FGM involves the cutting and/or removal of the clitoris and other vaginal tissue, often under unsanitary conditions. It is practised in at least 28 countries globally. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that up to 140 million girls and women around the world have undergone some form of FGM. Full report

UGANDA: LRA denies killings as peace talks resume

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) denied claims by the Ugandan military that it was responsible for killing seven people in an ambush in the north of the country on Monday evening.

The Ugandan army on Wednesday also charged that the insurgency was in violation of a truce agreement signed in 2006 to pave the way for peace talks under way in southern Sudan.

The LRA, however, denied responsibility for Monday's attack on the passengers travelling in three lorries from southern Sudan to Uganda.

The talks resumed on 27 April after four months of uncertainty that followed an LRA demand that Sudanese mediators be replaced and the venue of the talks moved. The United Nations special envoy to the talks, Joaquim Chissano, managed to convince the LRA to abandon its demands and go back to the negotiating table. The cessation of hostilities agreement initially signed in August 2006 has been extended until the end of June and the rebels have six weeks to assemble at Ri-Kwangba in southern Sudan during the talks. Full report

UGANDA: Government, LRA agree to address root causes of conflict

The Ugandan government and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have signed an agreement that binds them to finding lasting solutions to the underlying causes of the conflict in northern Uganda, officials said on Thursday.

The 'Agreement on Comprehensive Solutions', signed by delegates on Wednesday in Juba, the capital of Southern Sudan, and witnessed by mediators in the peace talks between the Ugandan government and the LRA, will form part of a final settlement at the end of the negotiations.

The agreement commits both parties to such principles as the need for broad-based government, affirmative action for marginalised groups and equitable land distribution.

Two decades of conflict in northern Uganda resulted in the displacement of nearly two million people, who were required by the government to move into crowded camps where authorities believed they would have better protection from marauding gangs of LRA fighters. Full report

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Last updated:Fri May 4 12:38:52 2007