Weekly anb02084.txt #8

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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 08-02-2001      PART #4/8

* Ethiopia-Eritrea. Breakthrough in peace process  -  5 February: The United
Nations has ended the stalemate in the peace process between Ethiopia and
Eritrea. The two sides had been unable to reach agreement on the 
establishment of
a buffer zone where 4,200 peacekeepers will patrol. The breakthrough came 
after
the UN Ambassador Legwaila Joseph Legwaila made an investigation of the two
countries' border claims. The exact location of the border was the catalyst 
for
the war in 1998, but now it seems that Ethiopia and Eritrea will sign a
redeployment agreement in Nairobi on Tuesday. The distrust and apprehension
between both countries has continually placed one stumbling block after 
another,
since a cessation of hostilities agreement was signed by both sides in June 
last
year. But sources last night confirmed that the UN seems to have overcome this
with a combination of careful diplomacy and thorough investigation. After
Ethiopia and Eritrea failed to agree on the establishment of a temporary 
security
zone in December, Mr Legwaila embarked on a mission to resolve the setback.
Eritrea had refused to accept the redeployment plans of the Ethiopian forces,
stating that the line of 6 May 1998, where Ethiopia says it was before the 
war,
was not correct. Mr Legwaila and his team drew up their assessment of the
redeployment plans and last week submitted these to both sides for 
consideration.
Reliable sources say that both sides will be sending their delegations to a 
key
meeting in Nairobi on 6 February. If this is true, it would mean that the two
countries have accepted the UN's plans. 6 February: Eritrea and Ethiopia have
agreed to establish a 25-km buffer zone to allow for the deployment of UN
peacekeepers. The agreement came after a meeting of senior military 
officials in
Nairobi.   (BBC News, 5-6 February 2001)

* Ethiopie/Erythrée. Accord sur une zone tampon  -  Le 6 février à Nairobi,
l'Ethiopie et l'Erythrée se sont mis d'accord pour commencer le 12 février la
mise en place d'une zone tampon au sud de l'Erythrée et le retrait des forces
éthiopiennes qui l'occupent, a indiqué la mission des Nations unies. Depuis la
fin décembre, les deux pays étaient en désaccord sur le tracé de cette 
zone. Le
redéploiement des forces éthiopiennes devra être achevé le 26 février. 
L'Erythrée
doit réarranger ses forces à la frontière nord de la zone tampon entre le 17
février et le 3 mars.   (La Croix, France, 7 février 2001)

* Guinée. Les combats se poursuivent  -  L'armée guinéenne a tué plus de 130
rebelles lors d'affrontements à la frontière avec le Libéria, a annoncé radio
Conakry le 1er février au soir. Une soixantaine d'insurgés ont péri dans le
secteur de Tanangue Zezou et le reste lors d'une série d'accrochages dans 
quatre
autres localités, toutes détruites lors des combats, de la région de 
Macenta. Une
source proche des services de sécurité fait état de quatre militaires tués, 
deux
blessés et deux autres disparus. Des ONG signalent de nouveaux 
affrontements dans
la région. Le HCR a dû évacuer la majeure partie de son personnel de la 
région à
quatre reprises ces trois dernières semaines. Depuis septembre, des 
centaines de
personnes ont été tuées à l'occasion d'une série d'incursions armées de 
part et
d'autre de la frontière entre la Guinée, le Libéria et la Sierra Leone. 
Conakry
impute la responsabilité de ces attaques à des opposants armés soutenus par
Monrovia. - Le 5 février, après de violents combats qui ont fait de nombreux
morts, l'armée guinéenne a repris la ville de Guéckédou, qui était aux 
mains de
rebelles. Les Nations unies ont commencé à évacuer les dizaines de milliers de
réfugiés du camp de Nyaedou, situé à 17 km au nord de la ville. Les réfugiés
coincés dans la bande de Guéckédou devraient être eux aussi bientôt évacués 
par
le HCR.   (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 7 février 2001)

* Guinea. Fighting escalates  -  1 February: The government of Guinea has 
begun
deploying powerful Russian-built attack helicopters to the front-line in its
fight with rebels. This latest military escalation is taking place in an area
where about 250,000 refugees are trapped between armed groups. Aid workers in
southern Guinea say they are now in a race against time to save the lives 
of the
refugees, but that access has become almost impossible because of the military
activity. The refugees fled wars in neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia, 
before
they become further enmeshed in the fighting in Guinea. The arrival of the
helicopter gunships in southern Guinea indicates that fighting is intensifying
and that the plight of the refugees may become even worse. The terrified 
refugees
in southern Guinea have been seeing and hearing weapons of war all around them
for months now. They have anti-government rebels to the south of them and pro-
government forces to the north. Neither armed group will allow the refugees 
free
passage to safety -- even though the vast majority of them are innocent 
civilians
--for fear that a mass movement could conceal enemy manoeuvres. Now the 
refugees
have a new terror to contend with as the helicopter gunships are deployed. 6
February: The UNHCR has sent transport to get thousands of refugees away from
camps in southern Guinea. A convoy of ten trucks, escorted by the Guinean 
army,
has gone from Conakry, towards the country's border with Sierra Leone and
Liberia. Government forces have killed scores of rebels in a fierce battle to
wrest back control of the southern town of Gueckedou. The army recaptures the
town much of which has been reduced to rubble. 7 February: Concern is 
growing for
some 170,000 refugees trapped by fierce fighting. The UNHCR is still unable to
reach a large group trapped in an area known as the Parrot's Beak close to
Guinea's border with Sierra Leone and Liberia.   (ANB-BIA, Brussels, 8 
February
2001)

* Kenya. Constitutional review process  -  27 January: The Daily Nation 
reports
that there has been a great breakthrough in the constitutional review process.
The chairman of the Constitution Review Commission, Prof. Yash Pal Ghai 
indicates
that both the Ufungamano and Parliamentary groups have, in principle, 
agreed on a
merger.   (ANB-BIA, Brussels, 1 February 2001)

* Kenya. Sida: Eglises mises en cause  -  Les Eglises kényanes ont été 
mises en
cause pour le pourcentage alarmant de la propagation du VIH/SIDA dans le pays.
S'exprimant le 2 février à Nairobi lors d'un séminaire sur la gestion de la
maladie, des évêques et pasteurs appartenant à différentes confessions ont dit
que les autorités religieuses devraient être tenues pour responsables de
l'expansion incontrôlée de la pandémie. Ils ont accusé les responsables des
Eglises d'avoir jeté l'opprobre sur les malades du sida, les expulsant même
parfois des groupements religieux en les taxant de pécheurs. Un tel mépris, 
ont-
ils dit, a fait des malades des parias, et les porteurs sains ont peur de dire
publiquement qu'ils ont contracté le virus. Environ 300 leaders religieux ont
pris part à ce séminaire et ont demandé aux Eglises de reviser leur vision des
victimes de la maladie.   (D'après PANA, 3 février 2001)

* Kenya. ECONET picked for telecoms deal  -  Kenya has chosen a consortium 
led by
South Africa-based Econet Wireless to buy 49 per cent of its state-owned
telecommunication company, Telkom - promising a welcome boost to the country's
moribund economy and efforts to put its International Monetary Fund programme
back on course. "We have decided to make them the preferred bidder, and we
believe we will be able to complete a deal by the end of the month," said 
Kitili
Mbathi, who heads Kenya's privatisation unit. Econet has a 50 per cent 
stake in
the Mount Kenya consortium, which also includes South Africa's Eskom and KPN-
Royal Dutch Telecom. It appeared on the brink of winning the bid last year, 
but
at the last minute Kenya's cabinet decided its offer was too low and 
threatened
to halt the process. That, alongside a finance bill that capped commercial
interest rates and the failure of anti-corruption legislation, prompted the 
IMF
to suspend disbursements temporarily. The Telkom deal, which officials say
comprises $225m in equity and $80m in committed financing, is therefore 
crucial
to restoring confidence. "It is extremely important," said Charles Gardner, 
from
the Eastern Africa Association. "Communications are critical to the 
development
of this economy, and the privatisation of Telkom is a central plank of the IMF
programme."   (Financial Times, UK, 7 February 2001)

* Kenya. Kenya Airways crash report not ready  -  One year since the Kenya
Airways plane went down into the sea off Abidjan killing all but ten out of 
the
179 passengers and crew aboard, the report of the disaster is not yet ready. A
report published in the Daily Nation (31 January 2001) quotes a Cote d'Ivoire
official saying that the preliminary report of the inquiry into the crash 
of the
Airbus is unlikely to be ready before the end of June. Cote d'Ivoire's 
Transport
Minister, Aimé Kabran Appia, says the inquiry has to overcome two main 
obstacles
-- one of the aircraft's two black boxes was not functioning and the 
wreckage is
still at the bottom of the sea. In the report, Minister Appia said that the 
sonar
cartography was likely to be completed by the end of February, with the aid of
French experts. Simulation tests will reportedly then follow at Airbus 
industries
headquarters in Toulouse, France, and a final report would be compiled between
April and June 2001. The airline's Technical Director, Mr. Steve Clarke, 
told the
Daily Nation that the airline is awaiting investigations results from Cote
d'Ivoire. He said that not even an interim report had been released to Kenyan
authorities, adding that "they are preoccupied with little things." 
Referring to
the sequence of coups that engrossed Côte d'Ivoire last year.   (Thomas 
Omondi,
T&C Inc, Kenya, 7 February 2001)

* Kenya-Tanzania. US embassy bombing trial  -  5 February: Opening 
statements are
due to be given in New York today, in the trial of four men charged with 
the 1998
bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The twin blasts killed 224
people, including 12 Americans, and wounded thousands of others, as well as
sparking retaliatory US missile strikes on targets in Afghanistan and Sudan.
Prosecutors accuse the four of conspiring with islamic militant Osama bin 
Laden,
who they say, ordered the 7 August 1998 bombings as part of a global 
conspiracy
targeting Americans. Lawyers for two of the defendants admit their clients' 
links
to Bin Laden nut urge the jury that that did not mean they are terrorists. 6
February: The first witness tells the jury that the Islamic militant Osama bin
Laden first called for a holy war against Americans in 1991.   (ANB-BIA,
Brussels, 7 February 2001)

* Lesotho. Elections won't go ahead  -  Continued wrangling between Lesotho's
upper and lower houses of parliament means elections, scheduled for May 
2001 will
not go ahead. On 31 January, the All-Party Interim Political Authority (IPA)
blamed government and parliament for the slow submission and processing of two
bills related to the election. "Legislators don't want this election because
they're worried they may be voted out and have no income", the IPA's co-chair
said. The IPA warned that failure to hold elections this year would totally 
erode
any remaining credibility in the current negotiation process.   (IRIN, 
Southern
Africa, 1 February 2001)

* Libye. Après le verdict Lockerbie  -  1er février. Au lendemain du 
verdict dans
le procès de Lockerbie, les proches des victimes espèrent toujours pouvoir
remonter le fil des responsabilités de l'attentat jusqu'au sommet de l'Etat
libyen. Le colonel Kadhafi, qui a qualifié le procès de "plus politique que
juridique", a promis de faire des "révélations"; il produirait la preuve 
que le
condamné, al-Megrahi, est innocent. D'autre part, des pressions se sont 
exprimées
en faveur de la levée immédiate des sanctions contre Tripoli. Ainsi, la Ligue
arabe, l'Espagne et l'Egypte ont déjà réclamé la fin des embargos qui 
isolent le
pays depuis 1992. L'ex-président de l'Afrique du Sud, M. Mandela, a fustigé 
les
autorités américaines et britanniques suite à leur décision de maintenir les
sanctions. - Le 5 février, Mouammar Khadafi, dans un discours prononcé 
devant la
presse, a affirmé que l'opinion internationale avait été trompée sur le 
rôle joué
par son pays dans l'attentat de Lockerbie et nié toute implication de Tripoli.
Selon lui, les enquêteurs américains ont trafiqué les preuves avant le 
début du
procès, mais il n'a pas apporté de nouvelles "révélations". - Le 7 février, al-
Megrahi, condamné à perpétuité lors du procès, a fait appel de sa 
condamnation.
La justice écossaise soumettra les documents à un seul juge, qui donnera ou 
non
suite à l'appel.   (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 8 février 2001)

Weekly anb0208.txt - End of part 4/8