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Source:
Integrated Regional Information Networks
Date: 26 Jan 2000
Horn of Africa: IRIN
News Briefs, 26 January
ERITREA: UNHCR allowed to resume operations
The Eritrean government
and UNHCR reached agreement on Monday to allow the refugee agency
resume operations in the country, from which it was expelled in May
1997 for what Eritrea considered "undue pressure" to revive
the stalled repatriation from Sudan of Eritrean refugees who fled
their home country during the war of independence with Ethiopia.
Monday's agreement, under which the refugee agency will focus on the
voluntary repatriation of 147,000 Eritreans registered in refugee
camps in Gedaref and El Showak in eastern Sudan, followed a visit to
Asmara by UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner Soren Jessen-Petersen,
UNHCR spokesman Jacques Franquin told IRIN on Wednesday.
Jessen-Petersen had visited to "restore dialogue and discussion"
with Eritrea, while the authorities in Asmara had seen "an
advantage and interest in this renewed relationship" with UNHCR,
Franquin said. Acknowledging that "the new political atmosphere
which has been developing between Eritrea and Sudan" had helped
matters, and that Khartoum was keen to have the situation resolved,
Franquin said "it's time to proceed with the repatriation of
these people, who are a bit forgotten." Although the repatriation
would be voluntary, the Eritrean refugees - over 10 years in exile -
"have to make a choice ... either to integrate in Sudan or to
return" because UNHCR cannot continue to accord them refugee
status and assist them indefinitely, Franquin said. "The return
plan and the pace of the repatriation will be determined by Eritrea's
reception capacity," a UNHCR press release stated, adding that
two UNHCR staff were scheduled to travel to Eritrea in February to
work with the government on a repatriation plan.
ERITREA: Critical food
aid rupture narrowly avoided - WFP
A series of recent donor
contributions had averted a rupture of the emergency food pipeline for
270,000 displaced people and rural deportees in Eritrea, the WFP said
on Friday. "We are most grateful for the recent wave of donations
which have arrived just in time to ensure relief aid is provided to
displaced and war-affected persons who are in desperate need of food.
Our food pipeline was facing a critical break, and we feared that
supplies would run out," said Kofi Owusu-Tieku, WFP Emergency
Coordinator in Asmara. While the nutritional status of the affected
populations had "generally improved," displaced people who
had not been able to cultivate their farms during the last
agricultural season would continue to depend on food aid until at
least the next harvest in December, Owusu-Tieko added. A contribution
of 6,641 mt by The Netherlands on Friday followed a series of
donations from Japan, the European Union, Germany, Norway, Switzerland,
Finland and the US totalling over 25,000 mt in recent weeks.
ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: OAU
gets Ethiopian response on "technical arrangements"
Ethiopia on Saturday gave
the OAU its response to arrangements for implementing the OAU
Framework Agreement intended the end the Ethio-Eritrea conflict,
Agence France Presse reported on Monday. "Ethiopian responses to
the OAU clarifications have been submitted on Saturday to President
Bouteflika in Algiers by the Ethiopian Minister of Foreign Affairs
Seyoum Mesfin. There is no comment in regard to the content," AFP
quoted government spokeswoman Selome Tadesse as saying. At the end of
December the OAU submitted written documents to the Ethiopia
government to clarify the technical arrangements for implementing the
Framework Agreement. Addis Ababa has rejected the technical
arrangements, claiming among other issues that loopholes in the plan
could allow Eritrea to avoid fully withdrawing to its pre-war position
- the "status quo ante" on which Ethiopia insists - before
border demarcation takes place.
ETHIOPIA: Formal start
of election campaign announced
The National Electoral
Board on Monday announced that eligible candidates for the House of
People's Representatives and state councils in the national elections,
due on 14 May, could formally begin their campaigns. The electoral
board said political hopefuls who had obtained candidacy ID cards had
the right to introduce themselves and their objectives "by
organising public meetings, distributing leaflets, through
advertisements and through other campaigning in a democratic manner,"
Radio Ethiopia reported. All candidates had the right to make use of
the state mass media without charge, and "pertinent bodies"
should allow candidates to use appropriate venues for campaigning, it
added. However, the law prohibited campaigning in military camps,
mosques, churches and academic institutions, as well as in government
and public institutions during working hours, the report added. The
'Addis Tribune' reported that the Ethio-Eritrean war dominates the
election agenda, with the economy, employment, social services,
corruption, equal opportunity and national divisions also among the
issues.
SOMALIA: Puntland
retaliates for Somaliland expulsions
The Puntland
administration on Friday declared that it will not take part in any
meeting held in Hargeisa, principal city of the self-declared republic
of Somaliland in northwest Somalia, after the deportation under armed
escort from Hargeisa last week of a group of Puntland teachers due to
attend a training session by the Centre For British Teachers (CFBT).
Puntland also refused to take part in a planning workshop in Hargeisa
this week for the Somalia component of the EC-funded Pan-African
Programme for the Control of Epizotics (PACE), which aims to enhance
livestock production and trade through monitoring and controlling
major notifiable diseases. The Puntland administration's press release,
issued by Information, Post and Telecommunications Minister Awad Ahmed
Asharo, also expressed surprise at the EC and UN's support of
Somaliland, which it described as secessionist and divisive. Asharo
also protested Somaliland's "sending of militiamen to the Sanaag
region of Puntland state" on 16 January. Regional observers told
IRIN on Wednesday that increasing tensions between Somaliland and
Puntland over the disputed territories of Sool and Sanaag underlay the
dispute. There was a drift within those regions towards affiliation
with Somaliland (not least because Somaliland is in a stronger
economic position), which had recently led Puntland to reinforce its
militia presence and send high-level delegations to the regions to
consolidate its claim on them, diplomatic sources said. It would be
hard for the international community to continue to avoid tackling the
issue of Sool and Sanaag, as it has so far, because deteriorating
relations between Puntland and Somaliland had serious implications for
Somalia and, particularly, the Djibouti peace initiative, they added.
SOMALIA: UN
representative to assist Djibouti peace initiative
David Stephen, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative for Somalia and
head of the UN political office for the country, is scheduled to go to
Djibouti for two months to help organise a reconciliation conference
for Somalia. Stephen is to "advise on the conceptualisation and
organisation of the conference," which is part of the Somalia
peace initiative of Djibouti President Ismail Omar Guelleh, a UN press
release stated on Monday. In supporting Guelleh's efforts, Annan
reiterated his view that "the establishment of a central
authority based on wide consultations and agreement will be the only
way to reach a lasting settlement to the conflict in Somalia." A
cultural festival intended to foster a sense of national unity -
involving peace and human rights activists, civil society groups and
community leaders, but "pretty apolitical" overall - was
scheduled to take place before March, as a precursor to the proposed
reconciliation conference, a diplomatic source told IRIN on Wednesday.
The international community is somewhat divided between wanting signs
of progress from the so-called Djibouti initiative and letting
Guelleh's peace committee continue "absorbing all the different
positions and opinions from key players and civil society" in
order to ensure the legitimacy of the process, and increase its odds
of success, he added.
SOMALIA: RRA withdraws
staffing ultimatum
The Rahanwein Resistance
Army (RRA), which controls much of Bay and Bakool regions in
south-central Somalia, on Sunday withdrew an ultimatum it had given to
UN agencies and international humanitarian NGOs that they should
employ only members of the Digle and Mirifle community - and not
"outside clans" - in these areas. RRA chairman Hassan
Mohamed Nur said, in a letter to UN Humanitarian Coordinator Randolph
Kent, that after addressing "genuine complaints" to a UN
delegation in the RRA administrative centre of Baidoa, the RRA had
withdrawn its ultimatum. The militia group would continue to review
and explore with the humanitarian community such issues as the
employment of Somali national staff, security of aid agencies' workers
and resources, humanitarian assistance and the training of the RRA's
newly-appointed administration, the RRA statement added. Meanwhile, a
London-based organisation called the Rahanwein Salvation Army (RSA)
has said it intends to set up a military and political base in the Bay
and Bakool region, and threatened to start fighting if the RRA
excluded it from participating in the affairs of the two regions, the
Somali 'Qaran' newspaper reported.
SOMALIA: Relief
agencies tracking Mogadishu cholera outbreak
Following the confirmation
of a cholera epidemic in Mogadishu, indicated by the confirmation of
five cases three days in a row, the health relief agency Medecins sans
frontieres (MSF) on Saturday, 20 January, opened a cholera treatment
centre (CTC) at Forlanini Hospital complex in the north of the city. A
second CTC established by Action contre la faim (ACF) in southern
Mogadishu has had to be suspended due to security considerations, a
humanitarian official told IRIN on Wednesday. MSF head of mission for
north Mogadishu, Andre Le Sage, told IRIN on Tuesday it was still too
early to indicate the scale of the outbreak - local authorities have
claimed there were 27 deaths and some 300 cholera cases in Mogadishu
in recent weeks, but as yet there are no robust statistics to support
that claim - which is an annual occurrence in this cholera-endemic
area, but differs each year in its timing and severity. There were 13
patients at the Forlanini clinic as of Monday night but many more
could be expected as news that the clinic had opened became widespread,
Le Sage said. Meanwhile, MSF has also confirmed its return to Mudug
General Hospital, Galkayo, which it was forced to evacuate after an
armed robbery late last year.
[ENDS]
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