DAKAR, 11 September 2009 (IRIN) - Relentless rain in parts of West Africa has worsened flooding, leading governments and aid agencies to step up emergency response efforts.

“It is not yet the end of the rainy season so we do not know just how bad it will get, but we do know the situation is already very serious,” said Moustapha Diallo, spokesperson for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) West and Central Africa office.

Aid agencies estimate that between 400,000 and 600,000 people have been affected by flooding since the beginning of the rainy season – “affected” meaning they have been displaced, they have suffered loss to homes or belongings or their ability to make an income has been stymied, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The number of displaced across the region has not been calculated but government and aid agency figures indicate it is more than 100,000.

Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone are among the worst-affected, says OCHA, which estimated that over 160 people have died thus far across the region as a result of flooding.

Governments in Burkina Faso and Benin have called on international donors and aid agencies to help them respond to the floods.

“The particular force and extent of the flooding this year is really overwhelming governments’ capacity to cope, despite some preparation measures that have been put in place,” said Charles Bambara, spokesperson for Oxfam in the region. This is partly due to the sheer force and magnitude of the downpours – Burkina Faso received one quarter of its average annual rainfall in three hours on 1 September according to the national weather centre.

The impact of 2009 flooding to date is not as severe as in 2007, when the region’s worst floods in decades killed at least 300 people and affected 800,000, according to OCHA spokesperson Yvon Edoumou.

“If the rains continue in some countries – such as Burkina Faso, Senegal and Sierra Leone – we could find ourselves in serious trouble,” he said.

More rain is forecast for Senegal in the coming days, according to regional weather centre ACMAD.

Response

The European Commission’s humanitarian aid department, ECHO, has provided US$4.3 million for flood relief in the region, $3 million of which will go to Burkina Faso. The IFRC has allocated $938,000 to respond to flood damage across the region. It is using pre-positioned supplies of plastic sheeting, blankets, water containers and hygiene materials located in Senegal, Benin and Cameroon to speed up its response to within 48 hours of an alert, according to IFRC’s Diallo.

Read more on the latest flood response in each country

“Tapping into these supplies has enabled us to move more quickly and respond to people’s needs within hours,” Diallo told IRIN.

IFRC has distributed relief supplies to flood-affected families in Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

Meanwhile some 177,500 people in Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger are targeted to receive food aid from the UN World Food Programme. Oxfam, Save the Children and World Vision are among several NGOs sending relief items and water and sanitation experts to assess damage.

Governments and aid agencies say the priority is ensuring affected people have access to clean water and adequate sanitation as well as to essential food and non-food items.

“In the short term having people living next to polluted water and household waste could have dramatic health consequences,” Oxfam International’s West Africa director, Gerard Steehouwer, said in a 9 September communiqué.

Even in normal conditions, access to water and proper sanitation facilities is low in much of the region. Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Sierra Leone rank lowest out of 177 countries evaluated by the UN for access to clean drinking water.

Nearly every year the rainy season brings floods, with conditions exacerbated by a lack of urban planning, poor water and sanitation infrastructure and rapid urban population growth, donors and aid officials say.

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NAIROBI, 11 September 2009 (IRIN) - Ugandan police have used excessive force during clashes with rioting supporters of a local monarch in which at least 10 people died, according to a human rights watchdog.

The clashes erupted on 10 September in the capital, Kampala, sparked off by a planned visit by King Ronald Muwenda Mutebi of Buganda kingdom to the central district of Kayunga on 12 September.

Kayunga is part of Buganda kingdom, but a minority community in the area is opposed to the trip. Kingdom officials say the central government is trying to thwart the visit.

"The available evidence raises serious concerns that police used excessive force in confronting demonstrators," Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said in a statement. "A thorough investigation is needed to find out who is responsible."

Riots continued across the city and in several neighbouring districts on 11 September, with local media reporting five more people gunned down by the police. The Ugandan police deny the allegations.

The government has also suspended four Luganda language FM stations on the grounds that they were instigating violence.

Kings without clout

Before the British colonized it in the 19th century, Uganda comprised several kingdoms - most of which eventually lost their political clout. In 1976, kingdoms were abolished by President Milton Obote. In 1993, President Yoweri Museveni restored them, but as cultural institutions.

The main kingdoms include:

Uganda's largest and most politically powerful kingdom, Buganda is located in the central region along the shores of Lake Victoria. Kampala is also home to Mengo, the seat of the Kabaka (king).

The Baganda are the largest ethnic community in Uganda, with an estimated five million people.

During the colonial era, Buganda became the most influential kingdom in Uganda when the British rewarded it for its collaboration by giving it territories that belonged to the western kingdom of Bunyoro.

Many Baganda have, for several years, unsuccessfully lobbied the government to introduce a federal form of government that would give some autonomy to the regions.

The current kabaka is Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II.

The kingdom of Bunyoro, with about 700,000 people, is in western Uganda along the shores of Lake Albert. It casts itself as the oldest East African kingdom, and is ruled by an Omukama.

Historically one of the most militarily powerful kingdoms, Bunyoro opposed colonization and paid for it with the loss of some territory.

Much of the oil recently discovered in Uganda is in this region.

The current Omukama is Solomon Gafabusa Iguru 1, the 27th king of Bunyoro.

Traditionally, the Acholi people of northern Uganda were organized in groups of clans presided over by a Rwot, or paramount chief.

Two decades of war in the north between the government and Lord's Resistance Army rebels, however, forced about two million Acholi to abandon their homes and seek refuge in camps.

Currently, the kingdom is using traditional Acholi justice systems - such as mato oput, where the offender confesses his crime and is absolved - to try to build peace and reconciliation.

The current Rwot is David Acana Onen II.

On the eastern shores of Lake Victoria where the source of the River Nile is located, Busoga is one of the country's oldest kingdoms. Ruled by a Kyabazinga, the kingdom has about two million subjects.

A succession struggle followed the death in 2008 of the previous Kyabazinga, Henry Wako Muloki. In June, Prince Edward Columbus Wambuzi installed himself as the new Kyabazinga, but opposition remains.

Also in western Uganda, the Toro kingdom - with about 800,000 subjects - was formerly part of Bunyoro; its leader is also called the Omukama.

The kingdom has close ties with Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi, who was made defender of the Toro kingdom in 2001. The current Omukama of Toro is Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, who became the world's youngest monarch at the age of three in 1995.

Located in southwestern Uganda and traditionally ruled by an Omugabe, the Banyankore people are divided into two groups with a total population of 2.3 million - the minority, mainly pastoralist Bahima, and the mainly agriculturalist Bairu.

Although it is one of Uganda's oldest kingdoms, Ankole has not had its title returned, so its leader, John Barigye, is officially regarded only as a prince.

Several other kingdoms and chiefdoms are officially recognized by the government, including the union of Alur chiefdoms, the Iteso paramount chieftancy, the paramount chieftaincy of Lango and the Padhola state.

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DAKAR, 11 September 2009 (IRIN) - The 2009 rainy season in West Africa, with several weeks to go, has caused extensive flooding, affecting hundreds of thousands of people and killing 160, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Here is a synopsis of flood impact and responses in several West African countries.

Burkina Faso
In Burkina Faso at least 100,000 people are currently displaced, over 40,000 of them sheltering at 88 sites – mostly schools – in the capital Ouagadougou and the rest living with friends and relatives, according to the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

The prime minister announced on 9 September that school will resume as scheduled on 1 October and temporary shelters will be set up for people remaining homeless.

Mahamadi Sawadogo, one of 2,000 displaced living in the Lycée Venegre in Ouagadougou, told IRIN: “The authorities must help us to find a plot of land and evacuate the schools so that our children can attend school, since October is near.”

Following a government appeal on 7 September funds are pouring into the country, according to aid agencies, including from neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire which donated US$1 million. The European Commission’s humanitarian aid department, ECHO is giving $2 million, mainly for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Food Programme to provide food, essential medicines and mosquito nets, and to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to rehabilitate small farms that were flooded. WFP will provide emergency rations to 125,000 affected people, the agency announced on 8 September.

The IFRC is providing blankets, mosquito nets and plastic sheeting to 40,000 of the most vulnerable families.

An UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team arrived in Ouagadougou on 4 September to assess emergency needs following a request by authorities. The UN will be issuing a flash appeal in coming days.

Senegal
Over 100,000 people have been affected in the outskirts of the capital Dakar and in other regions, including Mbour just south of the capital, Kaolack in the west, and the city of Saint Louis in the north, according to OCHA. Dakar suburb Pikine is the most heavily affected, with 15 out of 16 of its neighbourhoods flooded.

The government activated an emergency response plan at the end of August, calling on public, private and non-governmental actors to intervene.

The IFRC launched an appeal for $2 million and has worked with the Senegalese Red Cross to distribute mosquito nets, blankets, jerry cans, water sterilization tablets and soap to 5,000 families. Meanwhile the Economic Community of West African States – ECOWAS – on 11 September announced $167,000 for the response.

UN agencies are providing medical and non-medical materials, and help with logistics and coordination to the tune of US$540,000.

Guinea
Heavy rains have hit the capital Conakry and the town of Kindia in the west, affecting 15,000 people, according to OCHA. A number of aid agencies, including the Danish and Guinean Red Cross Societies, have responded by improving access to sanitation facilities and providing relief supplies including clean water.

Niger
Floods in Agadez in the north have affected 16,000 families according to OCHA, with many displaced people sheltering in schools and other public buildings.

The government has set up a flood management committee in Agadez to help with communications; distribution of supplies; and nutrition, health and hygiene needs.

The UN Development Programme will provide $200,000 to help rebuild the town, it announced on 9 September.

Chad
Severe floods hit western Chad in August, killing several people in Mayo Kebbi’s capital Bongor, according to the IFRC. Among an estimated 175,000 affected people, 1,000 families are in need of emergency assistance, the agency estimates.

Mauritania
Some 3,000 people have been displaced by floods in the capital Nouakchott and in Rosso on the southern border with Senegal as of 9 September, according to the government.

“We were sinking in the water; our houses are ruined,” Embarka Mint Warzek from the Dar Naime district of Nouakchott told IRIN.

Prime Minister Moulaye Ould Mohamed Laghdaf has promised to provide clean drinking water to the displaced. WFP has provided food aid to 11,500 people in Rosso.

UNICEF is working with the national water company to build install water pumps, while the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) distributed 1,350 water containers. Both UNICEF and UNHCR have said they will provide materials to rebuild toilets.

Sierra Leone
Flooding in the capital Freetown in late August left four dead, according to the government. Director of disaster management at the Office of National Security, Mary Kamara, said the government is providing relief supplies to displaced families. The Red Cross is also providing assistance.

Nigeria
The Nigerian Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has said flooding in late August affected 150,000 people and displaced tens of thousands across the north. Kaduna, Gombe, Niger, Benue, Adamawa, Nassarawa, Zamfara, Sokoto and Jigawa states as well as the capital Abuja have been worst-affected.

“From the reports we have received so far floods…have submerged whole villages and washed away burial grounds”, NEMA’s Director General Muhammad Audu Bida told IRIN. He added: “The solace is that no lives have been lost.”

Heavy rains flooded the Apa government district of central Nigeria’s Benue state for the second time in 40 years, leaving thousands of people sheltering in public schools, said Bida.

Rabe Muhammad, a resident of Talata Mafara city in Sokoto state, told IRIN: “We have lost all we have…Our major problem is how to feed our families and rebuild our houses now that we have lost both our homes and our crops.”

In Adamawa state in the northeast officials are trying to control a cholera outbreak, which has so far claimed 70 lives, Aliyu Sambo, NEMA’s northeastern Nigeria coordinator told IRIN. “Our major concern is to maintain sanitation and avoid outbreak of diseases in sites where the displaced are sheltering.”

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KAGUIT, 11 September 2009 (IRIN) - Three women walk through lush forest with bowls of rice plants on their heads. It is a spectacular scene in the verdant Casamance region of southern Senegal, but the beauty is marred by red and white-striped warning tape demarcating areas where a team is scanning the land for deadly mines.

But the warning tape and the signs reading “Danger, mines!” in French and Wolof signify the work underway to clear the land of mines and return it to the people, most of whom live off farming.

One farmer told IRIN: “Landmines compromise our existence”.

Each weekday at dawn 10 Senegalese men and women, trained by the NGO Handicap International, head to villages in Casamance – always accompanied by two paramedics – and meticulously search the ground for landmines.

Patrick Hirard, head of operations for Handicap’s demining programme, said the removal of one mine has an immense impact. “It is just one mine, but that frees up thousands of square metres of land for entire communities.”

Since February 2008 Handicap International, for now the only organization carrying out humanitarian demining in the region, has cleared more than 72,000sqm of land and neutralized 99 mines on-site, according to head of mission Camille Aubourg. Humanitarian demining – as opposed to military demining – is performed by civilians and focuses on areas where mines have a heavy impact on the local population.


Landmines are part of the fallout of the 27-year conflict in Casamance, a region between The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau where instability reigns despite a 2004 peace accord between the government and separatist rebels. Since the height of fighting in the mid-1990s at least 748 people have been injured or killed by landmines, according to the National Anti-Mine Action Centre (CNAMS). But existing data might not reflect the true number of victims, according to a UN report on landmine projects worldwide.

A 2005-06 study led in part by the UN Development Programme – the latest such assessment – showed that of 251 localities investigated, 93 were contaminated by mines and/or unexploded ordnance. Experts say further studies are needed as some areas were inaccessible at the time.

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines on 9 September called on African Union members to step up efforts to rid the continent of mines and assist victims. Senegal, a signatory to the Mine Ban Treaty, recently received a seven-year extension – to March 2016 – for the destruction of all antipersonnel landmines.


Funding crunch


Handicap, other aid agencies and CNAMS are seeking funds to continue clearing mines, to run awareness and education campaigns and to provide assistance to people injured by mines.

To date CNAMS has received none of the US$5.1 million budgeted for its 2009 projects, according to Seyni Diop, CNAMS head of education and victim assistance.

Handicap might have to put the demining operation on hold from 1 October unless new funds come in, Aubourg told IRIN. Aside from a contribution from Britain for July-August, since May Handicap has run the operation with its own funds. “It is becoming increasingly difficult,” she said.

Donors that have contributed to Handicap’s operations to date are Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Rotary Clubs of Senegal and the United States, along with the Senegalese government.

Handicap’s Aubourg said a lack of funding would foil important gains made to date. “We now have a true national expertise in humanitarian demining,” she said.

Pending funding, CNAMS hopes to recruit more operators in order to accelerate demining, Diop told IRIN.

Accelerating the removal of mines would be a relief to Casamance residents.

The Handicap team is currently working in Kaguit, a village 30km southwest of the main city Ziguinchor. Kaguit has been hit hard by fighting, mines – with 43 people killed or injured by the weapons – and in recent years pillaging and cattle raids by armed groups. Deminers’ presence is boosting people’s confidence, resident Moustapha Signaté told IRIN.

“Because of the nearby presence of the Senegalese army and the work of the demining team, we have a bit of courage to come back,” said Signaté, who fled Kaguit with his family in 1997 and for the past three years has returned to work the land during the planting season. He hopes to resettle in Kaguit for good.

“Without these two factors it is difficult for us to return, to settle here and work in peace,” he told IRIN. “Before the demining, people were afraid to move anywhere. We lost so many people of Kaguit to mines.”


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KAGUIT, 11 September 2009 (IRIN) - Elisabeth Sambou works with a Handicap International team that sets out out every weekday at dawn in Senegal’s Casamance region to scour the lush land for mines. The demining team members put on vinyl-kneed trousers, a 4-kilogram protective vest and a helmet with a face shield.

They start by testing their equipment, and then they painstakingly go about clearing foliage and scanning the land for signs of the deadly weapons, which since the 1990s have killed and injured at least 748 people; remaining mine contamination continues to block access to thousands of hectares of land in what are mostly farming communities.

“I am really eager to see peace return to Casamance for good. Because the population has suffered for years. When I heard about the job openings with the demining team, I said, why not? Not even really knowing what demining was all about. But I told myself, if there are people living in Casamance who want to resume their livelihoods [and this could help them], I said why not go and help.

“When I started going into the field I felt confident because of the training we received; we know what precautions to take, where to go and not to go.

“I think of the people who over the years have stepped on mines and lost limbs. It sickens me to think about it. Even if they go on living, something is diminished. When I think of these people who have suffered all these years, this is what gives me the strength and morale every day to get up and go to work.

“When we free up land for the people, it brings joy to my heart. The day we destroyed the mines we had found in Dar Salaam [a village in Casamance] it was quite moving. I cried tears of joy. I thought to myself – that explosive was going to strike a person, or several people. So I thank God every day I have the strength and ability to come and do this work.

“My motivation is freeing up the land for the people. Because not everyone can go to [the capital] Dakar and work in offices. There are those who make their living from the land.”


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NKAYA, 11 September 2009 (IRIN) - Degradation of the environment is reaching alarming levels in Nkaya in southern Malawi, where people have to walk ever greater distances to collect firewood and water. Mayi Chambo, a village head in Nkaya, blamed charcoal makers for the deforestation. This is her story.

"In the 1980s we had lush forests here. The rains used to come in time, the soil was fertile and water was not a problem. It was after 1994 when we started experiencing problems that have to do with the environment. People from other areas began settling here in search for fertile soil and products from our forests.

"Soon the trees started to disappear - people wanted rafters for their newly built houses. Even the demand for fuel wood increased because the population had also increased. People began to clear forests for new fields.

"Everything happened just so fast and the trees are gone. We only have shrubs now, and in summer there is nowhere to escape to from the burning sun.

"The demand for charcoal in towns has also worsened matters here. People do not take heed of the messages from government and non-governmental organizations not to cut down trees wantonly.

"They are lured by the money they generate from selling charcoal in the cities, especially in Blantyre [Malawi's second city]. But should we let these people destroy everything because of a bag of charcoal that costs K500 (US$3.57) only? That is not acceptable.

"Women have to travel over 15 kilometres to Rivirivi River to fetch water. Once we had boreholes, but they have broken down. It is not safe for women with babies tied to their backs, walking long distances to fetch water and firewood - there are so many dangers, such as wild animals and robbers.

"All we are asking for now are boreholes or piped water. Government can connect us to the national grid so we can have safe water as well. The water that we drink is not safe because we fetch it from unprotected sources; cattle and other animals drink from the same sources.

"The government has since put the responsibility of looking after forests in our hands; we now fine everyone we find cutting down trees carelessly. It is not easy to deal with people who are burning charcoal, though - they can be dangerous.

"If we continue to destroy our forests at the pace we are going, we will soon have a desert here. The signs are already showing. We do not get the rains in good time, and when we have the rains they are always associated with flooding. The soil needs a lot of fertilizer for the crops to produce, but how many families can afford fertilizer here? Most of us are poor.

"We have destroyed a lot in a short period of time and we are paying heavily for that."

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NAIROBI, 11 September 2009 (IRIN) - The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has released a manual to help build capacity among criminal justice practitioners to prevent and combat human trafficking.

The Anti-Human Trafficking Manual for Criminal Justice Practitioners is a practical guide and training tool based on the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children.

The manual explores a victim-centred approach to effective law enforcement and some content is based on the experiences of more than 45 judges, prosecutors, investigators, academics and NGO and inter-governmental organization representatives.

According to UNODC, more human traffickers are being convicted globally but the process is bogged down by the absence of anti-trafficking legislation in some countries or by the inability to translate legislation into action.

In some cases, human trafficking is mistaken for migrant smuggling, while some victims fear to cooperate because of threats and intimidation by traffickers.

The most common form of trafficking, UNODC noted in a February report based on data from 155 countries, was for sexual exploitation, especially of women and girls.

In 30 percent of the countries, women were the main traffickers. Globally, almost 20 percent of victims were children - although in parts of Africa this proportion rose to 100 percent.

"More must be done to reduce the vulnerability of victims, increase the risks to traffickers, and lower demand for the goods and services of modern-day slaves," UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said during the release of the report.

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NAIROBI, 10 September 2009 (IRIN) - Cholera, measles and polio outbreaks are ongoing in parts of northern Kenya due to a water shortage brought on by drought, and an influx of Somali refugees in the east, say officials.

"About 13 people are reported to have died of cholera in Turkana [in the northwest] since 20 August," Shahnaaz Sharif, the director of public health, told IRIN, adding that five of the deaths occurred in hospital while the rest have been reported by villagers.

New cases are being reported in the Turkana divisions of Kalokol and Kerio, Sharif said.

"The worry is [that] they [Turkana residents] are using water from the Ferguson Gulf, in Lake Turkana, which is contaminated," he said. A broken-down water pump has been repaired to provide clean water. The area also has low latrine cover, contributing to improper waste disposal.

In the capital Nairobi, three cholera cases were reported in the eastern Dandora area seven days ago. "This was caused by the use of water from a well that was sunk close to a latrine," he said.

Dysentery cases are also being reported 250km from the northeastern Laisamis area, where a previous cholera outbreak was reported.

So far, more than 600 cholera cases have been reported in the affected Turkana divisions, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) health coordinator for Kenya, Vincent Kahi, told IRIN.

"Lack of water for Kalokol, Turkana, is the main driver of the disease," Kahi said.

He said NGO partners, with the Health Ministry, were distributing chlorine for water treatment and repairing infrastructure.

The IRC is helping to provide medicine and staff to help in the early diagnosis of the disease.

Polio and measles cases

A total of 18 polio cases have been reported since February in Turkana. The last case was diagnosed four weeks ago, according to the health ministry, which is carrying out control campaigns.

"It looks like it [polio] was imported from Sudan in the north," said Kahi, adding that cross-border movement was rampant in the area.

Poliomyelitis (polio) is a highly infectious viral disease that can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours. It can strike at any age, but mainly affects children younger than three.

Before the recent outbreak, the last polio case in Kenya was recorded more than 20 years ago.

In neighbouring Kakuma refugee camp, two measles cases have been confirmed, he said; there are three more suspected cases.

This has prompted intensified surveillance and screening of new refugee arrivals. Some 12,000 Somali refugees are being transferred to Kakuma from Dadaab camp in the northeast to ease congestion there.

Up to 16 August, some 62 measles cases were reported in the Hagadera camp in Daadab, he said adding that currently, there are new suspected cases in the Dagahaley camp.

Dadaab's three refugee sites house at least 284,306 refugees. This is triple Dadaab's capacity.

Measles, which is also a contagious viral disease, affects mostly children and is transmitted via droplets from the nose, mouth or throat of infected persons. Initial symptoms include a cold and fever, followed by a fine red rash.

A nationwide measles vaccination campaign is scheduled to begin on 19 September.

The Kenya Red Cross Society is supporting water and sanitation projects in drought-hit northeastern Ijara and Isiolo in the east to reduce the vulnerability of pastoralist communities to recurrent droughts.

KRCS staff and volunteers are also training community members in hygiene and are continuing to distribute relief aid to 573,343 beneficiaries in the region.

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NAIROBI, 10 September 2009 (IRIN) - A Darfur security scorecard: figures for 2009 from OCHA (as of end-August 2009):

• Seven national humanitarian staff and three UNAMID staff have been killed.

• 12 humanitarian staff and 10 UNAMID staff have been wounded or injured.
• 11 humanitarians (seven international) have been kidnapped.
• 26 humanitarians and three UNAMID staff have been physically or sexually assaulted.
• 18 humanitarians and 11 UNAMID staff have been abducted during carjackings.
• 44 humanitarians and 12 UNAMID staff have been arrested or temporarily detained by the Government of Sudan.
• 64 humanitarian vehicles and 31 UNAMID vehicles have been hijacked or stolen.
• There have been 103 assaults or break-ins on humanitarian agency premises, and 22 on UNAMID premises.

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BURETI, 9 September 2009 (IRIN) - When he completed high school six years ago, Frederick Chepkwony chose a career in farming. Now 25, he owns almost 1ha on which he practises mixed farming in Bureti District in Kenya's Rift Valley province, an area unaffected by the poor rainfall witnessed in other parts of the country this year.

However, agricultural officials have urged him and other farmers in the area to redouble their efforts and maximise crop production during the El Niño rains, due from mid-September. Chepkwony spoke to IRIN about factors hindering his farming efforts:

"Apart from maize, which I grow on about a quarter of an acre [0.1ha], I have dedicated the rest of my farm to producing crops such as cabbages, beans, potatoes, pumpkin and chillies. I did this when I realised that maize required rainwater to do well whereas I can use borehole water for the rest.

"Right now my greatest impediment is a dependable water supply; I do not have a pump to help me make use of the borehole that I have dug; I am currently getting the water by lowering a bucket into the hole and pulling it up using a rope. I can’t rely on this system to be able to water the crops regularly.

"With a dependable water supply, my production would almost double; it fact it would transform my farm as I would almost double what I produce.

"Right now, for example, I get about 1,500 cabbages from [0.1ha] but I can only plant the vegetables on this patch because it is nearest the borehole. I would extend the acreage if I could water it adequately. As for the potatoes, I know I can get bigger sizes if I water them at the stage they need adequate moisture. As you can see, the potatoes I harvest from areas near the borehole are bigger than those further away.

"Marketing is the other challenge that small farmers like me face. If you go to the local market, you will find that most of the crops I produce are plentiful, so we end up selling them cheap to avoid spoilage. If the government could help us by assisting us in transporting what we produce to the areas that are now facing hunger then we would help reduce the food scarcity being experienced in those parts.

"I will continue farming as it is my main source of income for my family but without a dependable water supply and better marketing of our crops I am afraid our input in cutting hunger and starvation in parts of the country will be very little.”

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NAKURU, 9 September 2009 (IRIN) - For decades the water pan in Daniel Waatho's farm at Njoro in Kenya's Rift Valley province never dried up - until drought hit the area this year.

"I normally harvest rainwater, but last year [2008] was the last time we had some proper rain, so my water pan has dried up," he said.

The drought killed his premature maize crop, while the beans shrivelled and died before reaching the podding stage.

That, however, is just one of Waatho's worries. With the weatherman predicting El Niño rains across Kenya soon, he is torn between preparing his farm for maize or diversifying into short-term crops such as beans, sorghum and cassava.

"I am told El Niño rains are coming. Will my crops recover or will the water pan fill up with soil from the upper farms?" he asked, pointing to the pan at the lowest point of his farm.

Be prepared

Although it is believed this year’s El Niño will not be as severe as that of 1998, the Kenya Meteorological Department has urged the country to be prepared for the rains, expected between mid-September and December.

Joseph Mukabana, the department's director, told a news conference in late August that the El Niño impact was likely to be aggravated by the prolonged drought in many parts of the country.

At least 20 million people are food insecure in the greater Horn of Africa, which includes Kenya, because of the drought, according to the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS Net).

These countries, it added, suffer chronic poverty, civil war or insecurity, refugees and internally displaced persons, environmental degradation, poor marketing mechanisms and constrained income opportunities.

"The environment is quite sick, it is not wearing any clothes, the pastures are degraded and the impact is likely to be more soil erosion and siltation," Mukabana said. Flooding and mudslides, he added, were likely to occur in parts of the country.

The good and bad

Waatho said El Niño would enable him to resume farming. "Although I can't say I have given up [maize-planting], I am seriously thinking about going into other crops," Waatho told IRIN in Njoro.

"I will need seed for these crops; I am therefore appealing to the government to help us farmers with seed and the fertilizer for us to make use of the rains."

The government has set up a crisis centre in the prime minister's office to coordinate emergency interventions and is working with relief agencies, NGOs and development partners to plan for the adverse impact of El-Niño-related rains.

"The effects of El Niño are not the flood waters but the after-effects," Davies Okoko, the disaster preparedness manager for the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS), said on 9 September. "Soon after the floods pass, there will be waterborne diseases, contamination of water sources and other effects."

Rapid response

Like other relief agencies and the government, KRCS has designed a preparedness plan that includes training members from its 62 branches in emergency response in health, water and sanitation, relief, logistics, communication and reporting.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, it has also put in place a structure for rapid deployment and response coordinated by its Emergency Operation Centre.

The society believes the rains will have a beneficial effect. "Favourable conditions are expected by the end of the year," Abdishakur Othowai, the KRCS special programmes manager, said.

"El Niño will lead to food production, especially in the [marginally agricultural] Ukambani areas since they rely on short rains."

irinnews

BUJUMBURA, 10 September 2009 (IRIN) - More than 2,000 refugees in Burundi have rejected UN appeals to move to a new camp for fear they could be exposed to attack.

The refugees, from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Banyamulenge community, are housed in a camp in Gihinga, in Burundi’s central Mwaro province. The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, and the Burundian government have announced that Gihinga camp will close at the end of September and have called on all those living there to agree to be moved to Bwagiriza, in the northeastern Ruyigi province.

Once Gihinga closes, the refugees will only be able receive assistance in Bwagiriza. About 140 have already made the move, but some 2,300 have refused to do so.

The refugees say Bwagiriza is too close to a part of Tanzania that is home to members of the Bembe ethnic group, long-time foes of the Banyamulenge.

"We hear rumours about residents in Ruyigi who want to attack us when we get there, for reasons we do not know. So, the Ruyigi province is not safe for us. We hear all the time cases of killings there - albinos, residents, even policemen. We fear the same can happen to us,” Freddy Gakunzi, representative of the Congolese Banyamulenge refugees, told IRIN.

Although the Bwagiriza camp is quite a distance from the Tanzanian border, the sense of threat was real, said Gakunzi. "People coming to sensitize us [about the proposed relocation] tell us 80km is far from the border, but we consider this distance is short enough for the Bembe to easily come to attack us.”

He said there was also concern that, should they move, the refugees might get caught up in any violence resulting from elections scheduled for 2010.

"Here at Gihinga, we know the local residents very well, so they cannot do any harm to us. They often bring us food to us.

“If they [UNHCR and Burundian officials] do not allow us to stay here or assist us in returning to our country, we are ready to walk for months to reach Congo. We will take the risk of walking the long way to the border,” Gakunzi said, pointing out that many of the refugees were too sick to walk more than a few kilometres per day.

Repatriation talks

A UNHCR spokesman, Bernard Ntwari, said: “We cannot move them by force; refusing to go is their right. If they do not go, it means they have another alternative.”

He added that UNHCR would not be a position to help the refugees move back to their home country until talks with the governments of Burundi and DRC delivered a formal tripartite agreement.

In any event, said Ntwari, “an evaluation should be made to find out if the conditions are conducive for their [voluntary] return” to DRC.

He added that this did not preclude “spontaneous repatriation… which means refugees are generally free to voluntarily and spontaneously repatriate to their countries of origin if they do not need assistance to do so and if they assume there is no more threat in their home countries”.

The latest report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on South Kivu paints a grim picture of the eastern DRC province, where the Banyamulenge originate, and which is the theatre of a joint operation by government and UN forces against Rwandan rebels.

Attacks against civilians in the province include “rape, looting, arson, hostage-taking, illegal roadblocks and forced portering of military equipment”, said OCHA’s weekly update (available in French only).

irinnews

HARGEISA, 10 September 2009 (IRIN) - The number of street children in Hargeisa, capital of secessionist Somaliland, is on the rise as more Ethiopian children cross the border in search of a better life.

The immigrant children are adding to the burden of local street children, most of whom have been forced on to the streets by drought and insecurity within Somaliland and further south, in Somalia.

“You can see old women accompanying about 20 children, of different ages, crossing the border into Somaliland from Ethiopia. These women may be their grandmothers, aunts or mothers,” Khadar Nour, chairman of the Hargeisa Child Protection Network (HCPN), told IRIN.

"The children, who are mainly from the Oromo [region of Ethiopia], beg in the streets of Hargeisa with their mothers," Nour said. Some work as shoe shiners, sending their earnings to relatives in Ethiopia.

Hargeisa is also a popular transit point for those seeking to travel further. “About 100 to 200 immigrant children cross the border from Ethiopia into Somaliland [annually] on their way to [the self-declared autonomous region of] Puntland, or to Yemen,” he said.

Poverty and family break-ups have also fuelled the rise in numbers. There are about 3,000 children, most of them boys between five and 18, living on Hargeisa's streets.

Crime threat

With the rising numbers, officials are concerned about an upsurge in crime. “They [the street children] are becoming a threat to the town's stability,” said Nour.

“When they grow up, they still find themselves living in difficult conditions; it is for this reason that they grab mobile phones."

Consequently, a number of the children are now in conflict with the law. In August, Nour said, a 16-year-old was sentenced to death in a Berbera regional court after being found guilty of murder.

"The grown-up street children have become the new gangsters," Mohamed Ismail Hirsi, Hargeisa's Central Police Station commander, told IRIN.

"In the last 72 hours, we have arrested more than 30 street children who have committed crimes such as stealing mobile phones in different parts of the town."

In the past two years, some 5,000 knives and other weapons, which are commonly used in robberies, have been recovered from the street children, prompting calls for more focused interventions.

"People say good words in workshops, but few interventions for street children have been [implemented]," said Nour of HCPN, which recently started providing food and education support for the children.

Once arrested, the children are charged as adults because a 2008 juvenile justice law has yet to be implemented.

Glue sniffing

The children living rough are turning to drugs. "I use glue because when first I came to the streets I saw my friends sniffing it," Ahmed Omar, 12, told IRIN. "Whenever I use it, I am able to survive a difficult situation."

The lack of a family support system also means more children may end up on the streets, as Abdi-Qani Ahmed’s experience illustrates. "When my mother and father divorced, there was no one left to take care of me," Ahmed, 11, said. "I used to get my food from restaurants in Hargeisa where I fed on leftovers.”

During Ramadan, however, few if any restaurants are open. "I have to wait to see if someone gives me something to eat or not," he said.

Living on the streets puts the children at risk of abuse from other street children as well as strangers. For protection, the children often seek refuge outside the police station at night.

irinnews

NAIROBI, 10 September 2009 (IRIN) - Thousands of people affected by a severe drought in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, are in desperate need of assistance, with officials describing the situation as “very critical”.

"We are at a critical stage and if help does not come within weeks the situation could develop into a catastrophe,” Abdullahi Abdirahman Ahmed, head of the Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management Agency of Puntland (HADMA), told IRIN.

He said a recent assessment by his agency showed that almost all of Puntland was affected by the drought.

“We saw livestock, including camels, dying by the roadside. Others were being abandoned by their owners because they were too weak,” he said.

He said the authorities had started water trucking to the worst-affected parts of the region.

“The government effort can only cover about 30 percent of those who need help,” he said, adding that Puntland did not have the capacity to mount the kind of operation needed. “The resources are simply not there.”

Ahmed said HADMA had informed the agencies of the severity of the situation. "This is not a situation like any we have seen and so I hope that agencies don’t treat it as business as usual."

''On my tour we did not see people dying but what we saw was close to it''
Livestock dying

Haji Muse Ghelle, the governor of Bari region, one of the worst-affected areas, told IRIN some 30 percent of livestock in his region had died and the remaining animals were in very poor condition.

He said the Gu (long) rains had failed, leaving the barkads (water catchments) in the area dry. “Eighty percent of water comes from barkads and they are almost dry.”

Hundreds of families were moving from their villages in search of water and food, he said. Ghelle, who toured parts of his region from 25 August to 4 September, said he had found villages “totally abandoned… They are moving wherever they think they can find water and food."

He said both people and the remaining livestock were weak and "could not last long without help".

The priority should be to save the lives of the people and what is left of the livestock, the economic mainstay of the area. "On my tour we did not see people dying but what we saw was close to it."

Said Waberi Mohamed, the district commissioner of Qandala, in Bari region, one of the hardest-hit areas, said some 13 settlements in the district, with 1,000 families (about 6,000 people), had been abandoned. He said the district was entirely dependent on barkads, which had run dry. “We are facing one of the worst water shortages I have ever seen," he said.

Ahmed of HADMA said many nomadic families were moving to towns in search of assistance. He said the first priority was to deliver water to affected areas and to distribute food to those who had lost their livestock. “If something major is not done to intervene within the next few weeks, we will be facing a serious crisis,” he warned.

irinnews

JOHANNESBURG, 9 September 2009 (IRIN) - Reports and estimates of the impact of climate change appear almost daily, but those by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change remain the authoritative voice.

The World Economic and Social Survey (WESS), published annually by the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs, has devoted its 2009 issue to climate change. It includes an accessible, if unsettling, guide to some of the major impacts of climate change in various African countries, based on the IPCC's reports.


Here is a quick tour of the guide.


Food security

Northern Africa from Morocco to Egypt

By 2100, losses in agricultural production might amount to between 0.4 percent and 1.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Egypt: By 2050, rising temperatures could shrink production of many crops, ranging from 11 percent for rice to 28 percent for soybeans.

A projected decline in precipitation will also affect the flow of the Nile River, while a rise in sea level will affect food production in the Nile Delta.

West Africa

By 2100, agricultural losses might represent two percent to four percent of GDP. Rising annual global temperature, causing warmer seas, will affect fisheries in northwestern Africa.

Gulf of Guinea: Lagoon fisheries and aquaculture could be hit when the low-barrier beaches that limit coastal lagoons are destroyed by the rising sea level. A change in rainfall could also affect the quantity of water in the rivers that feed the lagoons.

Guinea: Between 17 percent and 30 percent of the existing rice-field area could be lost to permanent flooding by 2050.

Benin and Cote d'Ivoire: The inundation and subsequent salinization of coastal soil could threaten palm oil and coconut production.

East Africa

Rainfall is expected to increase in some parts of the region. The loss of about 20 percent of plant and animal life in Lake Tanganyika is projected, with a 30 percent decrease in fish yields.

In Kenya a one-metre rise in the sea level could affect the production of mangoes, cashew nuts and coconuts, causing losses of almost US$500 million a year.

On the plus side, in parts of the Ethiopian highlands a combination of higher temperatures and better rainfall may lengthen the growing season.

Southern Africa

More frequent El Niño conditions - in which sea surface temperatures become warmer across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean - could disrupt rains, bringing a notable drop in maize production.

On the other hand, growing seasons may lengthen in parts of Southern Africa, for example Mozambique, owing to a combination of increased temperature and higher rainfall.

South Africa: In Africa's major grain producer net revenues from crops could shrink by up to 90 percent by 2100.

Water resources

Northern Africa

More people could be experiencing water stress by 2055, particularly in Egypt, where a rapidly expanding population - expected to reach between 115 and 179 million by 2050 - might be demanding more water as the climate gets hotter.

East and West Africa

Rainfall is likely to increase in these regions, easing droughts in the east of the continent but bringing more frequent floods in the west.

Southern Africa

Large areas of the region are already experiencing water shortages, or are arid and trying to prevent encroaching desertification, so there is likely to be a greater number of people living with water stress by 2055 as rainfall becomes more erratic or declines.

Health

West Africa

Good news! By 2050 and beyond, a large part of the western Sahel will probably become unsuitable for malaria transmission.

East Africa

Based on parasite survey data, the previously malaria-free highland areas of Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi could experience modest incursions of malaria by the 2050s, with conditions for transmission becoming highly suitable by 2080s.

In central Somalia, areas that now have low rates of malaria could develop high prevalence of the disease.

Rift Valley fever epidemics - evident during the 1997-1998 El Niño event in East Africa and associated with flooding - could become more frequent and widespread as El Niño events increase.

Southern Africa

More areas are likely to become more suitable for malaria, with a southward expansion of the transmission zone into Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Parts of the Angolan highlands where there are low rates of malaria transmission could see the disease become rife by the 2080s.

irinnews

Three people have been killed in the second day of riots between Uganda security forces and rioters over a row between the government and the kingdom of Buganda.

The violence was triggered over land and power disputes between Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's government and leaders of Buganda - one of Uganda's four ancient kingdoms.

As the riots got worse in the town of Kayunga and capital Kampala, the king of Buganda, Kabaka Ronald Mutebi, postponed his planned visit on Saturday to the flashpoint Bugandan town of Kayunga to the east of Kampala.

Rioters blocked streets as gunshots rang out in Kampala on Friday. Deputy police spokesman Richard Musesi told Reuters that three people, including a teenager, were killed.

Around 50 injured were admitted to Kampala's main Mulago Hospital and about the same number were arrested.

"This kid was not in the protest. They (security forces) shot him in the head in a shop," the boy's mother told Reuters.

At least eight people were killed and several others were injured on Thursday.

On Friday evening, Kampala's streets were mostly deserted, and thick plumes of black smoke from burning tires rose over the city's hills.

presstv

10 Sep 2009
Somalia's president is in neighboring Djibouti to appeal for the deployment of Djiboutian troops to his war-torn nation as part of the UN-backed peacekeeping mission.

President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed met his Djiboutian counterpart Ismail Omar Guelleh on Wednesday to discuss the troops' deployment, a Press TV correspondent quoted a spokesman for the presidential office as saying.

Djibouti, which hosted the Somali reconciliation talks that saw the election of Ahmed last year, has recently pledged to send a contingent of its troops to participate in the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia (AMISOM), heeding to Ahmed's June appeal for troops from neighboring countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Yemen to shore up his fragile administration from the powerful insurgency.

AU has more than 5,000-strong peacekeeping troops from Uganda and Burundi who are helping the weak but internationally recognized government fight against militant groups in the restive capital Mogadishu.

Meanwhile, heavy fighting in the Somali capital between rebel fighters and Somali forces backed by AU troops left at least than six civilians killed and scores injured.

Eyewitnesses say heavily armed al-Shabaab fighters carried out the attacks on AU and government troops in the capital's northern neighborhoods of Hodon and Hawlwadag

Several mortar shells fired by both sides slammed the busy Mogadishu seaport, killing at least 2 workers and injuring seven others.

presstv

09 Sep 2009

A court in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has sentenced two Norwegian citizens to death for espionage as well as murder and ordered Oslo to pay $60 million in damages.

A military court in Kisangani found Tjostolv Moland, 28, and Joshua French, 27, guilty of the charges. Both had denied all allegations.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere described the sentence as “completely unacceptable” and said he would protest to his Congolese counterpart, Alexis Thambwe Mwamba, over the verdict.

"Norway also repudiates the verdict of espionage and the decision that the Norwegian state must bear joint and several liability for damages. Norway is not a party in this case," he said in a statement.

The two Norwegian men were held after their Congolese driver was found shot dead on May 5 in the northeast of the country.

The two accused say that their driver was killed in an attack by gunmen near the city of Kisangani.

French was arrested on May 9 in the Epulu district, around 200 kilometers (120 miles) from Kisangani. Moland was arrested two days later in the Ituri district, a few hundred kilometers further northeast.

Moland had reportedly set up a security company in the Ugandan capital Kampala where he had hired French as a member of the staff.


presstv

9 September 2009

Johannesburg — THE soldiers' violent protest outside the Union Buildings two weeks ago raises doubts about the military's grievance procedure.

Last year, Parliament's defence committee heard that the military had more than 4000 unresolved grievances, some having dragged on for three years without a conclusion.

The recent protest has given the impression of a defence force overwhelmed by problems, forcing frustrated soldiers to join trade unions.

But unionisation and military tradition make for strange bedfellows in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).

Defence analyst Lindy Heinecken says early concerns in the SANDF were that unionisation -- a controversial trend also found in some European countries -- would politicise soldiers, divide troops and undermine operational effectiveness. But a weak grievance procedure and outstanding issues of transformation have resulted in unionisation gaining strength.

Parliament heard last year that the Military Bargaining Council (MBC) and the Military Arbitration Board were not functional. MPs were told the grievance procedure was out of date and did not keep up with changes in the command structure.

However, the military maintains that the grievance procedure is fully operational. Last Friday, the chief of the army, Lt-Gen Solly Shoke, conceded there were delays. But, he said, cases remained open when soldiers were unhappy with the outcome.

While there were five military unions in SA last year, only 20% of soldiers belonged to a union.

Shoke sought to emphasise that discipline comes before negotiations. "I don't mediate. I am a commander and I will take a command decision," he said of the chances of about 1300 soldiers involved in last month's protest keeping their jobs.

While d efence legislation prevented soldiers from joining unions, the constitution provided the legal basis for challenging this .

But resistance to unionisation has lingered after the initial "shock" of a 1998 Constitutional Court ruling that soldiers could join trade unions, says Heinecken, professor of sociology at the University of Stellenbosch.

She says unions do not create grievances. "It is the inability of the military leadership to deal effectively with the grievances which led to unionisation in the first place."

Where armed forces are obliged to deal with discontent, Heinecken says the first response is to create internal channels to address collective grievances, often in an attempt to pre-empt trade unionism.

"The fact that a union might sell itself as the only one that can truly represent the interests of members is in total conflict with the military tradition that an officer's first duty is to take care of his men."

The police and prison services -- also essential services -- have allowed staff to join trade unions. The intelligence services have not.

Having won the right to operate, the South African National Defence Union (Sandu) has had to fight a numbers game. The military has argued that the union , organiser of the recent protest, does not meet the 15000-member threshold required to sit on the MBC.

But Sandu claims to have 17500 members. Sandu is in the MBC after obtaining a court order in June compelling the Department of Defence to negotiate with it. Chief negotiator, Jeff Dubazana, says recent negotiations broke down when military negotiators revealed they had no mandate over salary issues. "Starting from the 7th of July, we were sitting with them in the MBC," he says .

The military now blames the union for walking out of negotiations in favour of an "unnecessary" protest. At the same time, it says an audit is under way to establish whether it actually has enough members to meet the required threshold for sitting in the MBC.

Dubazana attributes the contradictory positions to the military's "habit" of avoiding negotiations.

Meanwhile, in true military fashion, Shoke's main concern is discipline. "Mutinous behaviour in other countries is punishable by death; in other countries you face a firing squad," he says.

It is the inability of the military leadership to deal effectively with the grievances which led to unionisation in the first place.

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allafrica

9 September 2009

Kinshasa — AN MDC-T delegation that was lobbying Sadc to take "stern measures" against President Mugabe and Zanu-PF left Kinshasa disappointed yesterday after regional leaders made it clear that they would not be pressured into making decisions by political parties.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an MDC-T official said "the lowest point" was when their ally Lieutenant-General Seretse Khama Ian Khama of Botswana conceded that the biggest threat to the inclusive Government was the negative attitude of the West towards Zimbabwe.

Sadc, Lt Gen Khama said, needed to redouble efforts to help Zimbabwe counter these negative attitudes.

The development came against the backdrop of MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai's admission that a summit on Zimbabwe was not on the cards, and he did not have the power to convene one.

The MDC-T delegation came here hoping to get Zimbabwe on the agenda in the hope that regional leaders would deal with the "outstanding issues" of who should head the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the Attorney-General's Office.

When it became evident that this was not going to happen, the party's spin-doctors told the media that Sadc leaders were going to arrange a "special summit" that would specifically deal with Zimbabwe "without being clouded by issues like Madagascar".

Though the final communiqué was yet to be released at the time of writing, a senior Zimbabwe Government official close to deliberations said it was highly unlikely that Zimbabwe would be "mentioned except perhaps in passing or in relation to the issue of sanctions".

Sources privy to the discussions in the closed-door session said Lt-Gen Khama had agreed with President Mugabe that economic sanctions were the most pressing issue facing Zimbabwe and not who occupied what office.

The MDC official said, "We had an opportunity to brief President Khama on what was happening in the country and he told us that our report coincided exactly with what President Mugabe had also told him.

"He then said it seemed to him that we were in agreement on what was happening in Zimbabwe and hence there was no real conflict to speak off."

A source close to the proceedings said after South Africa's President Jacob Zuma tabled his report in his capacity as out-going Sadc chair on developments in Zimbabwe, Lt-Gen Khama pointed out that there was need for concerted effort by the bloc to help the country recover.

"Yesterday (Monday), President Zuma tabled a report on Zimbabwe and the report clearly registered enormous progress in the country since February this year when the inclusive Government was formed.

"President Mugabe then gave the Heads of State (and Government) a blow-by-blow account of the events and developments since the constitution of the inclusive Government.

"President Khama then said Zimbabwe's problem was not one of 'outstanding issues' but rather one of perceptions and this cannot be dealt with by the people of Zimbabwe alone.

"He said everyone in Sadc at every level must speak out vouching for the workability of the inclusive Government. He said it was important that Sadc committed itself in a very specific way to taking this campaign to Europe and America.

"President Khama suggested that the new Sadc chair (DRC President Joseph Kabila) must be mandated to lead this campaign. It was amazing because Lt Gen Khama has been sceptical of the inclusive Government."

Another source said President Zuma's recommendation to the summit was that Zimbabweans must resolve any other matters pertaining to the Global Political Agreement because these are "domestic issues". President Mugabe, the source said, indicated that the appointments of the Reserve Bank Governor and the Attorney-General were never in the GPA and President Zuma agreed to this.

"President Zuma, however, pointed out that the MDC party led by (Professor Arthur) Mutambara had said a previous Sadc summit had said the three parties must go and discuss these appointments.

"It was here that President Mugabe said he was aware of this and the matter had been discussed. The result of the discussion, President Mugabe told his colleagues, was that the answer to the MDC's demands was 'no'.

"He said the summit had asked them to discuss and had not ordered Zanu-PF to acquiesce to every MDC demand. His exact words were there were only two possible outcomes to the discussion; either yes or no. In this case it was a 'no'."

It is also understood that President Mugabe had said the issue of appointing Roy Bennett as deputy agriculture minister could not be considered a "make or break issue" for the inclusive Government.

"He said this appeared to be a matter of prestige on the part of MDC-T and pitching the matter highly would not make him relent to their search for prestige.

"He said the higher they pitched the issue the harder their egos would be bruised because he was not prepared as a matter of principle to swear into office someone who was facing criminal charges.

"He said he had not taken away the portfolio from them and they could proceed to nominate someone else in Bennett's stead if they were so concerned about the issue. "President Mugabe said he was baffled by the fascination MDC-T had with the 'appointment of this particular white man with the kind of history he has into Government as if they are short of manpower'.

"A senior Sadc secretariat official told this writer that they were not going to have an extraordinary summit on Zimbabwe anytime soon.

"We know where this talk is coming from and you should be careful who you are taking as your authorities. "The people who told you this are not aware of how Sadc works and I suspect they are trying to soothe their egos after they lost out on having your country placed on the summit agenda.

"And I think it must be pointed out that Zimbabwe was not removed from the agenda as some are saying. It was never on the agenda in the first place," he said.

President Mugabe's spokesperson Mr George Charamba echoed the same sentiments saying Sadc leaders were more concerned right now over how minutes from a meeting of regional heads on the Sadc Tribunal last year were "distorted" and consequently implemented incorrectly.

He said: "A representative of the Sadc tribunal tabled the two so-called judgments against Zimbabwe. It emerged that whilst Sadc leaders had last year asked their Ministers of Justice to look into the mandate and terms of reference of the tribunal, the minutes of that meeting were recast to suggest that the ministers must examine the implications of Zimbabwe's non-compliance with the rulings.

"Clearly someone was lobbied to distort a resolution of summit and to every man, every Head of State expressed consternation at the role of the tribunal as a vanguard of minority interests and as a bulwark against the objectives of the liberation struggles of Southern Africa.

"Last year President (Jakaya) Kikwete (of Tanzania) said 'we have created a monster that will devour us all. Can our Justice Ministers make sure that this monster is destroyed before it devours us all'.

"It would appear that there is some minute-taker who has decided to feed the monster. President Mugabe has said that the issue of ratifying a protocol entails a country ceding some of its sovereignty to a regional body and this is not a matter that should be taken lightly."

On the issue of a "special summit" on Zimbabwe, Mr Charamba said it was not going to happen and he was happy that "Mr Tsvangirai has admitted that he does not have the power to coerce Sadc into convening one".

"Sadc is not an inter-party body, it is an inter-governmental organisation. An extraordinary summit is only convened by member states to deal with an urgent and threatening issue.

"The remarkable progress registered by the inclusive Government is far from being a menace and is in fact a happy occurrence in which Sadc leaders are celebrating and will not call an extraordinary summit for.

"While the GPA provides for a review of the arrangement, it does not say this should take the form of a summit, let alone an extraordinary one. I am quite happy that Mr Tsvangirai has corrected himself on the issue."

allafrica