Weekly anb10241.txt #7

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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 24-10-2002      PART #1/7

* Afrique. Lutte contre l'onchocercose  -  Le Fonds africain de 
développement (FAD) va débourser 2,64 millions de dollars destinés à 
financer la seconde phase du programme africain de lutte contre 
l'onchocercose (la cécité des rivières), a-t-on appris le 17 octobre. Le 
programme 2002-2007 vise à créer un système autonome, efficace et durable 
de traitement dans toutes les zones endémiques. Il aidera aussi à éliminer 
le vecteur de la maladie dans des zones particulières grâce à l'usage de 
pesticides qui n'ont pas de conséquences négatives sur les écosystèmes. 
Selon le FAD, la subvention doit couvrir les projets en Angola, Burundi, 
Cameroun, Congo, Ethiopie, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, Ouganda, RD-Congo, 
Soudan, Tanzanie et Tchad. La cécité des rivières est un problème de santé 
publique et un obstacle au développement à cause du dépeuplement des zones 
fertiles. Plus de 71 millions d'Africains risquent de contracter la 
maladie.   (PANA, Sénégal, 17 octobre 2002)

* Afrique. Sommet de la Francophonie  -  Le 9e sommet de la Francophonie 
s'est ouvert le 18 octobre à Beyrouth (Liban) en présence de chefs d'Etat 
et de gouvernement de 55 pays membres de cette organisation internationale. 
La plupart des chefs d'Etat africains des pays membres étaient présents. 
Les assises sont placées sous le thème du "dialogue des cultures". Le 
président canadien, Jean Chrétien, a cependant insisté pour que 
l'Organisation internationale de la francophonie (OIF) agisse pour le 
renforcement de sa "vocation politique". Evoquant le dernier sommet du G8 
au Canada, il a lancé un appel pour la création de synergies entre le 
NEPAD, le plan d'action du G8 pour l'Afrique et les programmes de 
développement de l'OIF. - Le sommet s'est achevé le 20 octobre. L'OIF s'est 
dotée d'un nouveau secrétaire général en la personne de l'ancien président 
sénégalais Abdou Diouf, qui succède à Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Par ailleurs, 
tous les observateurs soulignent la présence au sommet du président de 
l'Algérie, le seul grand pays francophone qui ne fait pas partie de 
l'organisation. Son intervention remarquée semble être le prélude à une 
adhésion formelle. D'autre part, le sommet s'est engagé notamment à 
défendre la "diversité culturelle" et le droit des Etats "à maintenir, 
établir et développer des politiques de soutien à la culture". La rencontre 
a cependant pris une tournure surtout politique et s'est clôturée sur une 
condamnation du terrorisme et un appel à l'Irak pour respecter ses 
obligations.   (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 21 octobre 2002)

* Africa. NEPAD and Africa's needs  -  18 October: The New Partnership for 
African Development (NEPAD) is a development plan to promote good 
government and encourage investment and aid flows into Africa. It has 
received wide support as an African initiative to take greater 
responsibility for poverty alleviation and encourage higher standards of 
political accountability. The African Union and the Group of Eight leading 
industrialised countries have embraced the goals of the plan. But before 
committing additional assistance to Africa, donor countries and 
multilateral organisations are awaiting details of a peer review mechanism 
-- the principle at the heart of NEPAD whereby an African government will 
invite fellow African governments to assess its performance -- that has 
been expected to put pressure on poorly performing countries to do better. 
Ron Hope, a senior policy adviser at the UN's Economic Commission for 
Africa (ECA), says African countries will volunteer themselves for peer 
review rather than being independently judged for poor governance, human 
rights abuses and weak commitment to democracy. "The peer review mechanism 
will be conducted in a non-adversarial manner. This is about 
self-regulation. At the end of the process there will be no sanctions 
imposed," he says. "It's a voluntary process: nothing is going to be 
imposed." 19 October: About 60 government ministers from across the African 
continent are meeting in Johannesburg to look at ways of implementing 
NEPAD. The meeting hopes to move the much-vaunted initiative forward, with 
the focus changing from aspiration to implementation. It is being organised 
by the UN's Economic Commission For Africa (ECA), and will concentrate on 
economics rather than politics. Much of the talk will be about "peer 
review". In Johannesburg, ministers will be trying to agree on mechanisms 
and standards for assessing economic performance. The peer review system 
will be voluntary and it is not clear why some of Africa's worst-governed 
countries will ever agree to submit themselves to the process. Officials at 
the ECA say they do not expect many countries to embrace peer review in its 
early stages. However, they argue that countries which have passed through 
it will find it easier to attract foreign investment, and in the long run, 
this may convince others to follow suit. 21 October: African finance 
ministers criticise the World Bank's debt relief programme for failing to 
keep step with goals to reduce poverty in some of the poorest African 
countries. At the end of a three-day UN-hosted meeting, the finance 
ministers call for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative to 
be brought in line with the UN's Millennium Development Goals, which seek 
to halve poverty levels by 2015. African governments want the World Bank 
and donor countries to move beyond HIPC to offer greater debt relief and to 
extend relief to non-HIPC countries. "It is clear that the HIPC initiative 
is not working well enough. Only six African countries have reached their 
completion points and for some of them the debt remains unsustainable," the 
ministers say. "What is needed is to move faster to increase relief, to 
align it with the pursuit of Millennium Development Goals and to free up 
resources for development."   (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 21 October 2002)

* Africa. Action against the Media  -  Africa: Reporters sans Frontières 
(RSF) has called on the community of French-speaking nations (17 October), 
to take action against countries which violate press freedom, including 13 
in Sub-Saharan Africa. Côte d'Ivoire: On 16 October, the offices of the 
newspapers Le Patriote, Tassouman, and Abidjan Magazine, were ransacked by 
a group of unidentified persons. -- On 17 October, the Committee to Protect 
Journalists (CPJ) warned that journalists are increasingly at risk, as the 
military crisis continues. Equatorial Guinea/Tunisia: On 18 October, the 
RSF appealed to members of the Francophonie, meeting in Beirut, to suspend 
Equatorial Guinea and Tunisia from the organisation for violating press 
freedom. Malawi: On 22 October, the Media Institute of Southern Africa said 
that police had stormed the newsroom of The Chronicle newspaper, in 
Lilongwe, demanding to see reporter Levison Mwase, who was not in the 
newsroom at the time. The journalist was ordered to report to the central 
region CID office. Uganda: On 16 October, the CPJ strongly condemned the 
Ugandan government's raid on the Monitor media group (10 October). On 17 
October, workers at the Monitor returned to work. Zimbabwe: On 17 October, 
the Media Institute of Southern Africa issued an alert about amendments to 
be made to the Media Law, with more powers being accorded to the Mass Media 
Commission.   (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 22 October 2002)

* Africa. Humanitarian needs  -  Africa: On 21 October, the New York Times 
reported that the FAO has appealed for immediate help for southern Africa 
and Afghanistan, warning that failure to provide food and agricultural aid 
could lead to famine. The agency is asking for $20.1 million to buy the 
food that it says is necessary to curtail a disaster. Angola: IRIN (on 17 
October) reports that desperately needed emergency food aid has been 
sitting in Angolan ports because the Customs and processing charges have 
not been paid. Congo RDC: On 21 October, the New York Times reported that 
international aid workers are warning of a growing humanitarian crisis in 
eastern Congo. The situation could deteriorate even more under the militias 
than it did under the foreign troops. Côte d'Ivoire: By 17 October, UNICEF 
in conjunction with Save the Children-Sweden and other partners, had 
concluded plans to assist vulnerable children affected by the country's 
crisis. -- On 22 October, the World Food Programme (WFP) said it had 
extended its operations in Côte d'Ivoire to assist tens of thousands 
victims of the current unrest, and has resumed food distribution to 
schools. Ethiopia: The International Committee of the Red Cross and the 
Ethiopian Red Cross Society have warned (on 17 October) that ethnic 
conflict is exacerbating the effects of drought in the country. Great 
Lakes: Burundi, the Central African Republic and the two Congos are among 
14 African countries that will share a US $2.64 million grant from the 
African Development Fund for the second phase of the continent's programme 
to control river blindness. Uganda: On 19 October, MISNA reported that the 
situation is tense in the Acholi districts of northern Uganda where 
numerous civilians are living inside "protected villages", trying to find 
shelter from the frequent Lord's Resistance Army incursions. The living and 
health conditions of civilians are very poor due to the lack of basic 
necessities and humanitarian infrastructures.   (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 22 
October 2002)

* Afrique. Premier classement mondial de la liberté de la 
presse  -  Reporters sans frontières vient de publier le premier classement 
mondial de la liberté de la presse. Il établit tout d'abord que la 
situation de la liberté de la presse est menacée aux quatre coins de la 
planète. Dans les vingt pays les plus mal classés, on trouve des Etats 
asiatiques, africains, américains et européens. Si l'on s'arrête sur les 
pays les mieux classés, on se rend compte que le respect de la liberté de 
la presse n'est pas le privilège des pays riches. Des Etats comme le Costa 
Rica ou le Bénin sont là pour nous rappeler que l'émergence d'une presse 
libre ne dépend pas seulement de la situation économique d'un pays. En 
Afrique, l'Erythrée (132e) et le Zimbabwe (122e) sont les Etats les plus 
répressifs d'Afrique subsaharienne. En Erythrée, toute la presse privée a 
été interdite par le gouvernement en septembre 2001 et dix-huit 
journalistes sont actuellement emprisonnés. De son côté, le président 
zimbabwéen, Robert Mugabe, s'illustre régulièrement par ses prises de 
position particulièrement virulentes envers la presse étrangère ou 
d'opposition. A l'opposé, le pays africain le mieux classé est le Bénin 
(21e), qui figure pourtant parmi les quinze pays les plus pauvres du monde 
selon le dernier rapport du Programme des Nations unies pour le 
développement (PNUD). Enfin, dans d'autres Etats africains comme l'Afrique 
du Sud (26e), le Mali (43e), la Namibie (31e) ou le Sénégal (47e), il 
existe une réelle liberté de la presse.   (Résumé par ANB-BIA, 23 octobre 2002)

* Africa. Human rights  -  Congo RDC: On 16 October, The African 
Association for the Defence of Human Rights called for an immediate 
investigation to find those responsible for the recent abduction and 
torture of Sebastien Kayembe Nkokesha, chairman of the Congolese Human 
Rights Observatory. -- On 22 October, PANA reported that the Congolese 
authorities have asked the UN Security Council to set up an international 
inquiry to probe the massacre of more than 100 civilians in Uvira, South 
Kivu province by RCD-Goma rebels. -- In a press release on 22 October, 
Amnesty International said that the Congolese government should investigate 
human rights violations in the Mbuji-Mayi diamond fields. Dozens of 
suspected illegal diamond miners, including children are being shot dead 
every year. Côte d'Ivoire: On 22 October, a report from the BBC indicated 
that days after the signing of the ceasefire, there are reports of violent 
reprisals against civilians from the northern Dioula ethnic group. They are 
blamed for supporting rebels in Daloa, which government forces retook from 
rebel fighters last week. Residents say that showing support for rebels is 
seen as a sign of treachery. Egypt: On 18 October, Amnesty International 
said Egypt is holding three relatives of an exiled Muslim activist and 
warns that they are at risk of torture. Amnesty International says Egypt 
has detained an uncle and two brothers of Yasser el-Serri, who was 
sentenced to death in absentia by a military tribunal in 1994 for trying to 
assassinate then Egyptian prime minister Atef Sedki. Egypt detained Serri's 
uncle Abd al-Ghani, 50, at Cairo airport on October 1. His brothers Yahiya 
and Mohamed were arrested in the city of Suez on August 7. "Abd 
al-Ghani...is being held incommunicado at an unknown location. Amnesty 
International fears that he is at risk of torture or ill-treatment," the 
statement said. Guinea: On 22 October, the BBC reported that relatives of 
people killed by the administration of Guinea's first president, Ahmed 
Sekou Toure, say they have discovered mass graves where hundreds of people 
were buried. A spokeswoman for the group, Aminatta Barrie, said local 
people in the western town of Kindia had led them to the sites in the hills 
and forests around the town. Morocco/Western Sahara: On 23 October, Amnesty 
International called for the immediate and unconditional release of 
prisoner of conscience Ali-Salem Tamek, a human rights activist imprisoned 
for his views in favour of Western Sahar's independence. Nigeria: In a 
report issued on 22 October, Human Rights Watch says the end of military 
rule in Nigeria has brought little benefit to the people living in the oil 
producing communities of the Niger Delta. There is still widespread 
deployment of army, navy and paramilitary Mobile Police at oil facilities 
across the delta. Much greater sums of money are flowing from the federal 
government to the delta region, but ordinary people living in the delta see 
little if any benefit from these funds.   (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 23 October 2002)

* Afrique. L'Afrique va s'auto-examiner  -  Comment convaincre les 
Occidentaux de donner une nouvelle chance à une Afrique de plus en plus 
marginalisée? C'est le pari lancé il y un an par les promoteurs du Nepad, 
le nouveau partenariat pour le développement de l'Afrique. La nouvelle 
génération de leaders africains (le Sud-Africain Mbeki, le Sénégalais Wade, 
le Nigérian Obasanjo et l'Algérien Bouteflika) qui a proposé ce plan, 
avalisé en juillet par les 54 pays de l'Union africaine, espère créer un 
nouveau type de relations avec les pays du Nord, basé sur la 
coresponsabilité. La principale nouveauté du Nepad est le mécanisme de 
"pair review" (examen par les pairs), qui doit être formellement avalisé le 
3 novembre. Les pays africains évalueront eux-mêmes leur gestion politique 
et économique, au lieu d'être obligés de passer par des institutions 
internationales qui posent des conditions à la poursuite de leur aide, 
explique Hakim Ben Hammouda, directeur à la commission économique de l'ONU 
pour l'Afrique. Au départ, les promoteurs du Nepad avaient prévu que chaque 
pays soit jugé par ses pairs tous les trois ans. Mais ils ont dû faire 
marche arrière: la majorité des dirigeants africains craignait un mauvais 
bulletin. Finalement, l'examen se fera sur une base volontaire: le Ghana 
s'est déjà porté candidat et il devrait être rejoint par le Rwanda, 
l'Ouganda, le Sénégal, le Mali, le Maroc et l'Afrique du Sud notamment. Les 
premières évaluations par des experts "indépendants" commenceront début 
2003.   (Valérie Hirsch, Le Soir, Belgique, 23 octobre 2002)

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