<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" version="2.0"><channel><title>IRIN - Great Lakes</title><link>http://www.irinnews.org/irin-fp.aspx</link><description>Updated everyday</description><language>en-gb</language><lastBuildDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:30:39 GMT</lastBuildDate><item><title>Analysis: The LRA - not yet a spent force</title><pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201108260920200187t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG 03 February 2012 (IRIN) - The belief that the end is nigh for Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) - a small but ruthless transnational armed group operating in four African states - underestimates its resilience and overestimates the unity and capability of the forces ranged against it, say analysts.</description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG 03 February 2012 (IRIN) - The belief that the end is nigh for Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) - a small but ruthless transnational armed group operating in four African states - underestimates its resilience and overestimates the unity and capability of the forces ranged against it, say analysts. 

The LRA is seen as being in “survival mode”. It has a lightly armed 250-strong militia dispersed across a territory half the size of France, and uses “terror” tactics to subdue local populations and is facing a coordinated response from the armies of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR), South Sudan, Uganda and the USA. 

In recent weeks African Union (AU) special envoy for affairs relating to the LRA Francisco Madeira, and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General Abou Moussa have toured Kinshasa, Bangui, Juba and Kampala to discuss regional military cooperation, following authorization from the AU Peace and Security Council in November 2011, with the support of the UN, for them to deal decisively with the LRA. 

Ashley Benner, a policy analyst at the Enough Project [ http://www.enoughproject.org ] - a US NGO lobbying for an end to mass atrocity crimes - told IRIN: “The proposed AU intervention force will consist of approximately 3,500-5,000 troops from the four affected countries. The mandate and goals of the mission are to end the LRA, protect civilians, and lead to security and stability in the affected countries.” 

The USA has deployed about 100 military advisers - they carry weapons for self-defence only - to assist the region’s military forces, but Benner said this would not be sufficient. 

“The advisers need to be bolstered by more capable troops, greater intelligence and logistical capabilities, including helicopters, improved collaboration between regional forces, and increased efforts to encourage LRA members to leave the group,” she added. 

Sandra Adong Oder, a senior researcher at the conflict management and peacebuilding unit at Pretoria-based think-tank the Institute for Security Studies, told IRIN the same military actors involved in previous and failed attempts to eradicate the LRA were involved in the AU initiative, and asked: “It [the initiative] may be doing more, [but] is it any different?” 

Top priority? 

The LRA was also not a top priority for the four affected countries: Kony’s forces, were no longer operating in Uganda; they were more than 1,000km from Kinshasa and so not seen as a key security issue for the DRC; they are not threatening any economic interests or political constituencies in CAR; and South Sudan was grappling with more urgent security considerations, said Oder. 

In a research note entitled The AU’s Regional Initiative Against the LRA: Prospects and Implications [ http://www.iss.org.za/iss_today.php?ID=1420 ] published on 30 January, Oder said: “The regional intervention force… is based on some assumptions that the LRA is an easy problem to solve, and that the insurgent group’s threat capability has been reduced. This may prove to be a grave mistake… 

“The new force should therefore not merely improve on existing military operations, but needs to refrain from merely duplicating operational structures and techniques that do not work, while at the same time leaving the military command in the hands of national governments, which could fuel suspicion and intraregional tensions within the alliance, which in turn could severely limit cooperation and coordination - and hence the AU’s overall ownership of the mission… 

“This time round, the consequences of another failure will be prohibitive, in the sense that once committed, the AU mission would then have to use all necessary force to avoid failure, and would be under immense pressure to escalate military involvement to ensure success,” the note said. 

The International Working Group on the LRA, in a World Bank June 2011 report entitled: Diagnostic Study of the Lord’s Resistance Army, [ http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&entityID=000386194_20111103040219 ] written by Philip Lancaster and Guillaume Lacaille, said: “It should be remembered that the LRA only has to survive to succeed… 

“As long as it [the LRA] is present, it is capable of generating insecurity in the region. To survive, it needs only to avoid, as much as possible, direct contact with superior armed forces and continue to resupply itself from vulnerable civilians. As long as it retains the freedom to choose the time and place of its attacks, it retains the tactical and strategic initiative,” the World Bank report said. 

In the past month, LRA Crisis Tracker, [ http://www.lracrisistracker.com ] a real-time mapping platform for crimes committed by Kony’s forces, has attributed six deaths and 14 abductions to the armed group. 

Ugandan leadership? 

Uganda, the regional military power, is expected to take the lead role in the military operations by virtue of its acknowledged professionalism compared to the region’s other forces, and its close working relationship with US forces over the past few years, although its dominance in an intervention force could increase regional tensions, especially between Kampala and Kinshasa: Last year DRC President Joseph Kabila asked his counterpart Yoweri Museveni to halt operations in his country against the LRA by the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF), and it is unclear how this impasse will be resolved. 

Oder said although the Ugandan army was “overstretched” with its commitments to the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), it had a personnel score to settle with the LRA, after previous encounters had exposed the “weaknesses, corruption and competences” of the UPDF. “It’s about saving face and pride,” she said. 

A 2 February 2012 Enough Project report entitled Ensuring Success: Four Steps Beyond US Troops to End the War with the LRA [ http://www.enoughproject.org/publications/ensuring-success-four-steps-beyond-us-troops-end-war-lra ] by Sasha Lezhnev, said Uganda’s best troops were in Somalia and it did not have any bases in the DRC. “Some 90 percent of LRA attacks over the past six months have taken place in [DR] Congo… The shortage of troops is also hurting civilian protection efforts, which are in urgent need of a boost.” 

Skilled bush fighters 

The bush fighting skills of LRA fighters have been masked and overshadowed by their reputation as a ragtag bunch of bandits, marauding and raping, reliant on abducted children brainwashed into soldiering under Kony, and with an absolute disregard for human rights. The LRA is responsible for thousands of deaths and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people across the four-country region. 

“We have ample evidence from reports of the past 20 years that the LRA are a force to be reckoned with. Ruthless as they are, their tactics are well adapted to the terrain and the nature of the forces they face,” Philip Lancaster - former head of the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration division of the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC), the predecessor of the current UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO), and coordinator of the UN Group of Experts on the Congo - said in an August 2011 article entitled the Lord’s Resistance Army and Us. [ http://congosiasa.blogspot.com/2011/08/guest-blog-lords-resistance-army-and-us.html ] 

“The LRA make deliberate use of terror to tie up military forces and survive by hit-and-run attacks that are well-planned and flawlessly executed,” he wrote. 

LRA fighters value reconnaissance, are skilled in ambush techniques and the evasion of air surveillance, are trained in both irregular and regular forms of warfare and have adapted to different climatic regions from rainforests to arid wastelands. “Their extraordinary ability to survive, even when constantly on the move, gives LRA fighters an edge over all pursuing armies,” the World Bank report said. 

The notion that the LRA’s estimated 250 fighters and their dispersal into small cells indicates weakness, is misleading, the World Bank report said. “While the LRA has been weakened over the past two years, it is premature to regard them as lacking capacity, since the number of the core fighters is not much lower now than what it has been throughout the years.” 

The response to any concerted military effort against them is likely to be accompanied by the LRA’s “very crude way of operating” in using civilians as targets, Oder said. 

Civilian protection 

The Ugandan 2008 offensive against the LRA, Operation Lightning Thunder, resulted in a sharp rise in the number of LRA attacks on civilians, rather than a drop-off: There were two successive Christmas massacres in 2008 and 2009. 

“These events, particularly the massacre of December 2009 in the Makombo area of Haut Uélé, DRC, provoked questions about the wisdom of offensive operations against the LRA without adequate accompanying measures to protect civilians in the area of operations,” The World Bank report said. 

“The military response from UN peacekeeping and national forces has been totally inadequate insofar as they focus on providing limited static defence of a small number of civilian settlements. The LRA just find the ones that aren’t protected. Since none of the armies deployed have a policy of pursuit after attack, the LRA consistently escape with loot and abducted recruits,” says Lancaster’s article. 

“A major component of the military operations to apprehend Kony and his senior leadership should be civilian protection,” said Benner. 

Kony, an indicted war criminal, has also received an unexpected boost from the undermining of Uganda’s Amnesty Act with the trial of former LRA commander Thomas Kwoyelo, [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93377 ] which “is further worsening chances that LRA fighters will come out; the case has sparked fear of prosecution among the LRA ranks,” the Enough Project report said. 

The UN Disarmament, Demobilization, Repatriation, Reintegration and Resettlement (UNDDRR) exercise has been viewed as a major weapon in deconstructing the LRA through its propaganda campaign to encourage defections. 

The Enough Project report quoted a former LRA captain who had defected from the armed group. “I spent 18 years with Kony. The only thing that can be effective now against the LRA is the gun. Don’t leave the UPDF alone - the international community should step in. US advisers won’t be effective, though. You need joint troops from other countries. Kony doesn’t fear the US advisers because he knows the number [of Ugandan troops and US advisers] now is small. One LRA unit can defeat 10 UPDF units.” 

go/cb 

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94794</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201108260920200187t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG 03 February 2012 (IRIN) - The belief that the end is nigh for Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) - a small but ruthless transnational armed group operating in four African states - underestimates its resilience and overestimates the unity and capability of the forces ranged against it, say analysts.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>DRC: Alarm bells over poor funding for HIV treatment</title><pubDate>Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/20066230t.jpg" />]]>NAIROBI/KINSHASA 02 February 2012 (IRIN) - The lives of thousands of HIV-positive people in the Democratic Republic of Congo are at risk as the country faces declining donor funding and a severe shortage of HIV treatment, according to Médecins Sans Frontières.</description><body><![CDATA[NAIROBI/KINSHASA 02 February 2012 (IRIN) - The lives of thousands of HIV-positive people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are at risk as the country faces declining donor funding and a severe shortage of HIV treatment, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). 

MSF recently launched [ http://www.msf.org/msf/articles/2012/01/85-of-aids-patients-deprived-of-treatment-in-drc.cfm ] a year-long advocacy campaign to raise awareness of the DRC's HIV crisis. 

"The problem is quite old in the DRC; the country has always been minimized by donors who have not seen it as a priority, mainly because HIV prevalence is relatively low at between 3 and 4 percent," Thierry Dethier, advocacy manager for MSF Belgium in the DRC, told IRIN/PlusNews. "But look at the indicators: more than one million people are living with HIV, 350,000 of whom qualify for ARVs [antiretrovirals] but only 44,000 - or 15 percent - are on ARVs." 

Dwindling funds 

Dethier said the main reason for the ARV crisis was the end of six years of World Bank funding [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=88718 ] in 2011. International health financing mechanism UNITAID, which provides funding for paediatric and second-line ARVs, is also ending its funding to the DRC in December 2012; the cancellation of Round 11 funding by the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is only likely to worsen the situation. 

Seventy-five percent of HIV funding in the DRC is from the Global Fund, 25 percent is from UNITAID through the Clinton Health Access Initiative - which provides funding for paediatric ARVs and second-line ARVS - and from the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which funds prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission. 

"The country is currently using funds from round seven and eight of the Global Fund; these funds are due to be consolidated but have also been cut - round seven by 30 percent... round eight may also be cut," Dethier said. "We expect that the consolidated funds will last through 2014, after which there is no funding for DRC." 

The DRC did not qualify for funding under the Global Fund’s ninth and 10th round. 

At risk 

According to the director of an NGO in the capital, Kinshasa, who preferred anonymity, funding problems mean many of his patients' lives are at risk. 

"In Kinshasa alone we have shut two out of the three health centres we used to run, a situation which leaves us [caring] for only 1,800 out of 3,000 people living with HIV," he told IRIN/PlusNews. "Today we are running the one remaining health centre for HIV-positive people by charging each of them US$5 per month. 

"When the funding was available patients could come for checking whenever they were feeling unwell... we do give them treatment but today we receive them once a month unless their health condition has deteriorated," he added. "We are now appealing to the government to intervene in filling the gap that Global Fund is leaving in funding interventions for people living with HIV." 

Dethier noted that there were also problems with HIV testing. "Since there is no treatment people feel it's pointless to test," he said. "As many as 15,000 people have tested HIV-positive and qualify for treatment but are not receiving it," he said. 

Outlook 

The Global Fund says it is reviewing a request for continued funding, and no life-saving programmes will be cut as a result of funding shortages. 

"In terms of future additional funding, Round 11 was cancelled and replaced by a transitional funding mechanism that will allow countries to apply for funding for essential services for continuation of prevention, treatment and/or care services currently financed by the Global Fund," said Marcela Rojo, Global Fund spokeswoman. "Countries that face significant programme disruption between January 1 2012 and March 31 2014 may apply for up to two years of funding. 

"This means that no recipient will be forced to suspend any essential services as a consequence of the round 11 cancellation," she added. 

According to Rojo, with Phase 2 funding, the country aims to scale up treatment to 67,000 people by end-2014. 

MSF's Dethier noted that other donors would have to step up their funding. 

"With funding from the Global Fund, only 15 percent of people have access to ARVs, so we need others to contribute and we need the existing partners - UNITAID and PEPFAR - to honour their commitments to the people they are already supporting and to expand their programmes," he said. "The government aims to have 160,000 people on ARVs by 2014, which means putting roughly 3,500 people on ARVs per month - with money, this can be done." 

kr/pc/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94781</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/20066230t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NAIROBI/KINSHASA 02 February 2012 (IRIN) - The lives of thousands of HIV-positive people in the Democratic Republic of Congo are at risk as the country faces declining donor funding and a severe shortage of HIV treatment, according to Médecins Sans Frontières.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>BURUNDI: Fears of looming food shortage</title><pubDate>Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201101120815280828t.jpg" />]]>BUJUMBURA 27 January 2012 (IRIN) - There are fears of a looming food shortage in Burundi after heavy rains damaged two successive harvests, say officials.</description><body><![CDATA[BUJUMBURA 27 January 2012 (IRIN) - There are fears of a looming food shortage in Burundi after heavy rains damaged two successive harvests, say officials.  

"More than half of the expected harvest was lost in flooding and siltation," Methode Niyongendako, a consultant with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said.  

The rains peaked in mid-September and November, exceeding forecasts in terms of volume and frequency, and were the heaviest since October 1961, according to households questioned, added Niyongendako.  

The most affected provinces include Gitega, Mwaro, Ngozi and Ruyigi, which have many rivers running through them.  

In Makamba, in the south of Burundi, at least 60 percent of the banana, cassava and maize crop was swept away, according to Salvator Sindayigaya, the agriculture provincial director, with the Kayagoro, Kibago, Makamba and Nyanzalac communes the most affected.  

The affected crop accounts for the country's June to December harvest, agriculture season C, which represents 15 percent of the annual production.  

According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) [ http://www.fews.net/pages/remote-monitoring-country.aspx?gb=bi ], the persistence of banana bacterial wilt in the provinces of Cankuzo and Kirundo and the continuation of cassava mosaic disease have further undermined food availability.  

"In Cankuzo, food stocks for the poorest households are quickly depleting because the harvest from the 2011 C, mainly beans and maize, was lower than expected due to excess rains," added FEWS NET.  

At present, the Ministry of Agriculture and partners are assessing the production for season 2012 A, which ends in January and represents 35 percent of the total annual production.  

But there is little hope for good stocks as heavy rains, which started with the planting season in September 2011, continued throughout the cropping season.  

On 11 January, for example, some 45 hectares of crops were destroyed in Buganda, northwestern Cibitoke Province.  

"We were expecting a good harvest but hail destroyed all the crops of cassava and maize," said Ernest Ndayizeye, a local leader. "Our children will die of hunger."  

Rising prices and funding issues  In central Karuzi Province, Isaac Nimpagaritse, an agriculture official, noted that food prices had increased.  A kilogramme of beans is now selling for 800 francs (US$0.62), double the normal price, after the bean crop was damaged at the flowering stage.  

"If they [farmers] plant 50kg of beans they were normally getting 300kg [in harvests] but now they cannot even get [something] to eat. Many now have only a meal per day."  

Food scarcity has also been blamed for primary school drop-outs in Karuzi where 5,000 children left school in the first term of the 2011-2012 school year, according to education officials.  

In response, agriculture and administration officials are calling for help with planting material ahead of the next planting season B, expected to be harvested in June.  

But limited funding is a problem.  

"Emergency needs are not funded; what is provided for the intervention is well below the needs," said FAO's Niyongendako.  

A programme coordinator at the UN World Food Programme, Christian Nzeyimana, said: "There are no pledges; we live on voluntary contributions from donors.  "If the situation worsens with the results of the evaluation of season A, the gap might be even bigger and compromise other programmes." 

jb/aw/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94737</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201101120815280828t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BUJUMBURA 27 January 2012 (IRIN) - There are fears of a looming food shortage in Burundi after heavy rains damaged two successive harvests, say officials.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>HEALTH: The true burden of cancer</title><pubDate>Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2009/200911041028050170t.jpg" />]]>LONDON 26 January 2012 (IRIN) - Breast cancer continues to be misunderstood, under-diagnosed and fatal, particularly in developing countries, say researchers, despite more than one million official annual diagnoses and almost half a million recorded deaths annually.</description><body><![CDATA[LONDON 26 January 2012 (IRIN) - Breast cancer continues to be misunderstood, under-diagnosed and fatal, particularly in developing countries, say researchers, despite more than one million official annual diagnoses and almost half a million recorded deaths annually [ http://globocan.iarc.fr/factsheets/cancers/breast.asp ].  

Even with growing efforts from donors and health agencies to draw more attention to chronic non-communicable diseases [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93756 ], awareness about cancer still lags, said Sara Stulac, clinical director in Rwanda for the US-headquartered Partners in Health NGO.  

"Just bringing up the fact that there are children suffering from cancer in Rwanda, the reaction I often get is 'Oh, cancer - Africa - I never thought about that'."  

"We're victims of our own success, which is very good news," Harvard University's director of Global Equity Initiative, Felicia Knaul, told IRIN, referring to declining numbers of deaths from some communicable diseases in developing countries.  The downside of that success is, "You go on to live through other risks and get other diseases", she added.  

The World Health Organization's (WHO) International Agency on Research on Cancer [ http://globocan.iarc.fr/ ] estimated in 2008 that breast cancer was the most frequently officially diagnosed cancer among women, with an estimated 1.38 million cases.  

It was also the most frequently reported cause of death by cancer for women.  

Eighty percent of up to 3.7 million of deaths by cancer - all types - are reported in developing countries, according to recent research Knaul co-authored with the [ http://ghsm.hms.harvard.edu/uploads/pdf/ccd_report_111027.pdf ] Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control in Developing Countries at Harvard University. 

Costly care  

Women who reached Rwinkwavu Hospital in Kayonza District in eastern Rwanda, where Stulac works, may have already unsuccessfully sought care elsewhere - often at informal or ill-equipped health centres, she added.  As a result, they frequently arrive at hospital with advanced stages of breast cancer that are harder, more expensive and more painful to cure, said Stulac. 

An estimated 70-80 percent of breast cancer cases are diagnosed at late stages in lower- and middle-income countries, according to Knaul.  But even with early diagnosis, breast cancer can mean a painful and debilitating death in cash-strapped countries where specialists are few and costs are high, said Stulac.  

"Over the course of just seeking a diagnosis, [patients] have depleted their family's resources."  

Cancer prevention and awareness campaigns are infrequent in low-income countries. And when cancer is diagnosed, treatment options can often include palliative care, which is scarce, expensive and stigmatized, according to 2011 oncology research. [ http://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/abs/10.2217/fon.11.101 ].  

The Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board says 90 percent of the world's opiate supply for pain relief is consumed in the most developed countries, leaving little for poorer countries. [ http://www.incb.org/pdf/annual-report/2010/en/supp/AR10_Supp_E.pdf ]  

Gathering data  

Knaul urged combating disease with data. "We have to help women to diagnose more, even when we don't have good access to treatment because that's how we'll get to know that the disease exists."  

Since 1980, breast cancer cases globally have risen annually by 3.1 percent on average, according to recent reports [ http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)61351-2/abstract ], and continued rises are predicted by WHO.  

As a complex group of diseases for which there are few national registries, and ones that lack access to diagnostics and treatment, cancer's true burden remains unknown in many developing countries.  

"We need to research at a very basic level of understanding what the disease looks like. We need better data," said Stulac. 

Knaul's report called for public health systems to boost cancer detection alongside anti-poverty, maternal and child health, sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS programming. [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93768 ]  

Breast cancer clinical trials in lower and middle-income countries can help boost tracking and prevention - sorely lacking and almost non-existent in some places, said Ismail Jatoi, chief of surgical oncology at the US-based Texas University Health Science Centre.  "Conducting trials in these countries is a way of setting up infrastructure within [health] centres that are conducting trials."  

While an estimated eight out of 10 cancer cases worldwide are diagnosed in poorer countries, research there only attracts 5 percent of global cancer funding, according to the Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control.  

"When research and science have helped us come up with newer and better medications, one of our goals should be to advocate for bringing those medications not just [to] rich people, but [to] poor people as well," said Stulac.  

oja/pt/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94726</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2009/200911041028050170t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">LONDON 26 January 2012 (IRIN) - Breast cancer continues to be misunderstood, under-diagnosed and fatal, particularly in developing countries, say researchers, despite more than one million official annual diagnoses and almost half a million recorded deaths annually.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>AFRICA: High cost of child trafficking</title><pubDate>Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201201250915460081t.jpg" />]]>POINTE NOIRE 25 January 2012 (IRIN) - Forced child labour remains rampant in Central Africa, where poverty fuels the trafficking of children from poorer countries to oil-rich states such as Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Congo, according to experts.</description><body><![CDATA[POINTE NOIRE 25 January 2012 (IRIN) - Forced child labour remains rampant in Central Africa, where poverty fuels the trafficking of children from poorer countries to oil-rich states such as Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Congo, according to experts.

“Trafficking in children is real,” said Gabon’s social affairs director-general, Mélanie Mbadinga Matsanga. 

“Gabon, for example, is considered an Eldorado and draws a lot of West African immigrants who traffic children.” Matsanga was speaking at a conference on preventing child trafficking held in Congo’s southern city of Pointe Noire.

The meeting was attended by delegates from Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Gabon is primarily a destination and transit country for children and women, who are subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking; boys are forced to work as street hawkers or mechanics, states the US State Department’s human trafficking report for 2011. [ http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/164454.pdf ] 

Child trafficking is defined by the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children [ http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/CTOC/index.html#Fulltext ] as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of children for the purpose of exploitation. This definition is especially important in West and Central Africa where it often occurs with the consent of the parents and sometimes, of the children themselves, notes a UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report [ http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/insight7.pdf ]. 

But a “near total absence of data” on the scope of the problem prevents media coverage of the issue, which is essential in influencing public opinion, noted the 2002 UNICEF report. A decade later, the problem persists. “It is hard to count the number of children [affected]. It is even difficult to talk [about them] because their attitude shows that [the children] themselves are convinced that the work they are forced to do is not normal,” Marianne Flach, UNICEF’s representative in the Congo, told IRIN.  

“The parents in the countries of origin do not even know what happens to their children in the countries of destination,” added Flach. 

Children and their families are ensnared by the empty promises of a better life, leading to the smuggling across borders every year of hundreds of thousands of children, denying them education, health, the right to grow up within a family and to protection from exploitation and abuse, say experts. 

Kidnapping on the rise 

In Cameroon, says the State Department report, trafficking operations usually target two or three children, such as when rural parents hand over their children to a middleman promising education or a better life in the city. 

But traffickers there are increasingly kidnapping their victims, as heightened public awareness means parents are giving away fewer of their children to middlemen.  

“Trafficking is nothing but abuse,” Marcelline Pambou Loubondo of the NGO Movement of Mothers for Peace, Solidarity and Development, told IRIN.  “The traffickers are looking for a better life. They want to get rich very fast, which is why they employ children.” 

The children are often forced to engage in petty trade day and night, lest they are beaten up, added Loubondo. 

The presence of local and foreign armed groups also poses a threat to children’s rights, as do burgeoning oil and mineral sectors. In the DRC, for example, armed groups continue to abduct and forcibly recruit men, women and children as combatants, labourers and sex slaves.  

A significant number of unlicensed Congolese artisanal miners – men and boys – are also exploited in situations of debt bondage by businessmen and supply dealers from whom they acquire cash advances, tools, food, and other provisions at inflated prices, and to whom they must sell the mined minerals at below-market prices, notes the State Department report.   

In Equatorial Guinea, children “…are believed to be exploited in Malabo and Bata where a burgeoning oil industry creates demand for cheap labour and commercial sexual exploitation”. 

According to delegates at the conference, source and destination countries need to form bilateral accords given the trans-border nature of trafficking. 

Weak law enforcement  

At present, those involved in human trafficking are not systematically targeted by law enforcement officials even as trafficking seems to undergo a “seemingly uncontrollable rapid expansion”, noted Congo’s Social Affairs Minister, Emilienne Raoul. 

In Gabon too, according to the US State Department report, the lack of enforcement of counter-trafficking laws has meant there have been no convictions, despite the arrest of more than 68 suspected trafficking offenders between 2003 and 2010. 

While trafficking is often associated with clandestine migration, the merging of these two issues has serious consequences, with trafficked children seen as young offenders rather than victims in need of special protection measures, notes the International Organization for Migration. 

“Human trafficking is a form of migration particularly detrimental to human rights,” added Robert Kotchani, a UN human rights official. 

But, “in the same manner that slavery ended, human trafficking can equally end”, said Viviane Tchignoumba Mouanza, a magistrate and president of the association of female jurists in the Congo. “It is a problem with the mentality, sensitization and reach of the law.”  

lmm-aw/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94721</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201201250915460081t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">POINTE NOIRE 25 January 2012 (IRIN) - Forced child labour remains rampant in Central Africa, where poverty fuels the trafficking of children from poorer countries to oil-rich states such as Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Congo, according to experts.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>DRC-CONGO: Refugee returns to start in April</title><pubDate>Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2010/201001191323480511t.jpg" />]]>BRAZZAVILLE 24 January 2012 (IRIN) - Up to 120,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will be helped to return home from the north of neighbouring Republic of Congo after more than two years.</description><body><![CDATA[BRAZZAVILLE 24 January 2012 (IRIN) - Up to 120,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will be helped to return home from the north of neighbouring Republic of Congo after more than two years. 

An agreement on the voluntary repatriation beginning in April was reached during a recent meeting between officials from the two countries and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), in Congo’s capital, Brazzaville. 

A statement released after the meeting explained that by April the level of the Ubangui river, which separates the two Congos, will be high enough to allow navigation by the large vessels needed for the operation. 

“For this return to be effective, we need everyone to make an effort,” said Germaine Bationo, UNHCR’s deputy representative in DRC. “We are thinking in particular of donors in both the humanitarian and development sectors. 

We invite them to join us and invest in [DRC’s] Equateur Province [where inter-communal clashes rooted in resource conflicts prompted a large-scale exodus in late 2009 [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=87961 ] so that the refugees’ return is sustainable,” she said. 

The voluntary repatriation had been scheduled to start in April 2011 but was postponed for logistical and security reasons. [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=92712 ] 

During the Brazzaville meeting, officials from DRC said peace and security had improved in Equateur, a prerequisite for return expressed by 80 percent of the refugees, according to UNHCR. 

Some 11,000 of those who had fled Equateur have already returned there from Congo and the Central African Republic, the agency said, adding that some 100,000 people displaced internally in DRC had also returned home. 

lmm/am/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94712</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2010/201001191323480511t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BRAZZAVILLE 24 January 2012 (IRIN) - Up to 120,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will be helped to return home from the north of neighbouring Republic of Congo after more than two years.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>DRC: Rebuilding the lives of children associated with armed groups</title><pubDate>Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201201161305140867t.jpg" />]]>NAIROBI 16 January 2012 (IRIN) - A partnership of humanitarian organizations working with community volunteers in South Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has helped demobilize thousands of children formerly associated with armed groups in the province, says the UN Children&apos;s Fund (UNICEF).</description><body><![CDATA[NAIROBI 16 January 2012 (IRIN) - A partnership of humanitarian organizations working with community volunteers in South Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has helped demobilize thousands of children formerly associated with armed groups in the province, says the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). 

"Children are the first to suffer from the burden of conflict; they are caught up in violence as victims of sexual assaults; they lose their families and homes as a consequence of constant migration and they are involved in combat as perpetrators of the conflict," Cornelia Walther, UNICEF's chief of communication in the DRC, said.   

Walther said 101 children aged between 11 and 17 years were currently in the Centre of Transit and Orientation (CTO) in Bukavu, South Kivu's provincial capital, following their demobilization from armed forces or groups.

At least 33,000 children have been demobilized across the country with UNICEF's assistance since 2004, according to Alessandra Dentice, UNICEF's chief of child protection in the DRC.

CTO is managed by the Congolese association, Bureau des Volontaires pour l'Enfance et la Sante (BVES), which has helped to demobilize more than 2,500 children since 2002. 

Who does what 

While UNICEF funds the programme and CTO oversees the demobilization process, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) undertakes family tracing and provides medical support; a network of 34 foster families hosts youth close to their homes in remote areas of the province; community volunteers regularly monitor the reintegration process; and, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) provides food for the children at CTO. 

According to the UN, an estimated five million people in the DRC have been killed by war or disease since 1998. Irregular birth registration across the vast country is one of the major challenges in demobilizing children. A 2010 UNICEF survey indicates that fewer than one in three Congolese children has a birth certificate. 

Murhabazi Namegabe, director of BVES in Bukavu, said recently: "Administratively, these children do not exist. How do you prove to a commander that his soldier is a minor, if even the child itself does not know his age?"  

Many children come from areas where the conflict continues, Namegabe said, adding that such children returning home faced the likelihood of being enrolled in armed groups again. "Every day when a child can be saved is a successful day," he said. 

"There are children who do not want to return home because they are ashamed of what they have done; and finally there are families who refuse to take their children back - because they are afraid of what they have become," Namegabe added. 

Trauma 

The situation for girls associated with armed groups is especially dire, Namegabe said, as they suffer from trauma, most of them having been raped and sometimes made pregnant. All demobilized girls are taken to Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, a medical centre which treats survivors of sexual violence. 

Julia*, 17, told the UNICEF team: "I was born in Rwanda, but I never knew my parents. When I was 16 years old a commander of the national army took me by force. When I got pregnant he threw me away. At a support centre for refugees I was raped a second time. I am grateful to be here now with my baby. If possible I would like to start a small shop of my own." 

At CTO, the children and youth have formal classes, peer-to-peer group discussions and career counselling on their options after the centre. "The situation that brought them into an armed group has not changed; it's important that they have a clear project for their life in this context," Namegabe said. "We want them to build dreams, realistically."  

Rohanne Rosine, CTO's director for the protection of girls, said: "The poverty of families is a big problem. Before they take back their daughters they request food or money, because they have too many starving mouths at home."  

js/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94655</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201201161305140867t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NAIROBI 16 January 2012 (IRIN) - A partnership of humanitarian organizations working with community volunteers in South Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has helped demobilize thousands of children formerly associated with armed groups in the province, says the UN Children&apos;s Fund (UNICEF).</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>AID POLICY: UN Integration under the spotlight</title><pubDate>Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201107270916070449t.jpg" />]]>LONDON 13 January 2012 (IRIN) - Putting all UN operations in a country under a single management structure is not as simple as it might sound. In some countries, different parts of the UN may be negotiating with rebels to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid, while their colleagues might be involved in planning military assaults against the very same groups.</description><body><![CDATA[LONDON 13 January 2012 (IRIN) - Putting all UN operations in a country under a single management structure is not as simple as it might sound. In some countries, different parts of the UN may be negotiating with rebels to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid, while their colleagues might be involved in planning military assaults against the very same groups. 

Neutrality, impartiality and independence are regarded as humanitarian principles, but are not the priorities of UN political or peacekeeping missions, and many humanitarian staff believe integration helps to erode them, hampering their ability to help people in need.

Given ongoing tensions between UN agencies, the UK’s Overseas Development Institute [ http://www.odi.org.uk/ ] and US-based public policy group The Stimson Center [ http://www.stimson.org/ ] have carried out an independent study [ http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/details.asp?id=6205 ] exploring the impact of integration on humanitarian response, finding that the new coordination model has drawbacks and some surprising benefits.

Coordination, or the lack of it, became an issue in the 1990s, as UN peacekeepers, political missions and humanitarian agencies found themselves working side-by-side in conflict-affected countries. (See Box I) The report’s authors detail UN operations in three countries - Afghanistan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - as they struggled to comply with a policy of greater integration in various forms. (See Box II). 

Afghanistan, Somalia and DRC

In all three countries a UN peacekeeping force was trying to stop armed groups threatening a peace process, while a UN political mission was trying to build capacity and support a recognized national government, and humanitarian agencies were trying to provide non-partisan help to all who needed it, regardless of their political affiliation. All three wings of the UN found it difficult when they were told to integrate their operations.

Although the information is presented anonymously, the rawness of interviewees’ emotions shines through the ODI/Stimson report. When it comes to engaging with non-state armed actors [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94095 ] researchers found no evidence that the UN barred contact with such groups, but in some cases individual UN mission leaders created obstacles to contact. In Somalia, where the UN political mission tried to discourage humanitarian agencies from engaging with the Al-Shabab militant group, the overall UN mission head at the time went so far as to say: “Those who claim neutrality can also be complicit. The Somali government needs support - moral and financial - and Somalis as well as the international community have an obligation to provide both.” 

Even where the local UN leadership accepted that the humanitarian agencies had to work with both sides in order to reach people in need, the relationship could be uncomfortable.

In DRC agencies could and did work in rebel controlled areas, but one interviewee told the authors: “It’s difficult to create a relationship with the FDLR [anti government forces] when MONUSCO [the UN peacekeeping force] is partnering with the Congolese army to hit them on the same day!”

One of the report’s authors, Alison Giffen from the Stimson Center, told IRIN they found the issue raised strong emotions among all stakeholders. “We found that despite quite a few reforms in the last five or six years, the debate remains very polarized,” she said. “The challenges and risks facing humanitarian actors are very considerable and this raises the stakes.”

Access and security

The report addresses the issue of whether a closer relationship with military and political operations puts aid workers in greater danger of attack. Encouragingly - and to the surprise of some - the authors concluded: “There is no evidence to suggest that attacks against humanitarian workers are more likely to occur in a UN integrated mission context.” Even in Afghanistan, they say, they could identify no case where there was a clear link between a security incident affecting an NGO and UN integration arrangements.

But Marit Glad of NGO Norwegian Refugee Council, who has written a paper on the implications of integration for the UN’s relationship with other NGOs [ http://www.nrc.no/arch/_img/9608308.pdf ] does not find this particularly reassuring.

"Tying a single incident to integration is very difficult,” she told IRIN. “In some cases, as many as 10-15 different factors could potentially have contributed to a security incident, and it is in many cases impossible to pin down one single reason which caused it.”

Afghanistan has posed some of the starkest dilemmas, with UN agency staff having to relocate to military bases belonging to the NATO-led ISAF force during major security incidents. Some NGOs then stopped coming to meetings in their offices, because they felt that being seen going to the bases would compromise them. Glad says: “Integration brings a clear risk of jeopardizing cooperation between the UN and the NGO community. You have to ask what the benefits are. Is forcing integration worth the risk?”

Pragmatism

In DRC things seem to have been less fraught; a good working relationship with MONUSCO brought benefits to both sides in terms of information sharing, and aid workers benefited from MONUSCO’s help with security and transport arrangements.

Even so, some humanitarian workers worried about the two sides’ different attitude to risk - the military’s only concern was safety, and they felt this tended to make the whole operation too risk-averse, hampering their ability to access populations in need.

Ross Mountain wore the “triple hat” as humanitarian and resident coordinator, and deputy representative of the Secretary-General in DRC. He says his way of working was to try to be pragmatic, and focus on the needs of the victims of the conflict. “There were problems of perception,” he told IRIN, “but we tried to minimize the downside. For instance, as the DSRSG [Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General], I was never personally directly involved in negotiations with rebel groups. We got OCHA [Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs] to do that directly.

“On the plus side, I was very concerned about civilian protection, and being inside the mission, I was able to work closely with the Force Commander, placing the military in areas where the humanitarians had identified concentrations of displaced people so that the peacekeepers’ presence dissuaded militias and other armed groups from attacking them.

“Over time I think integrated missions have become more concerned with the humanitarian dimension... Civilian protection eventually became the number one priority for the UN force in the Congo. What started off at the beginning as an add-on has become the raison d’être of peacekeeping missions.

While the report includes instances where humanitarian advocacy is undermined by integration, Mountain says in DRC in some cases it smoothed his advocacy role with the government. “When linked to the peacekeeping mission, one tended to be rather better listened to by those who didn’t always like what one was saying.”

Clearer guidance needed

The report says it found the reasons for more integration to be poorly understood, and the policy inconsistently implemented. On the whole the political/military side were happier with the outcomes than the humanitarian agencies, but the authors remark that the political/military wings of the mission often did not really understand humanitarian principles [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=85752 ] or the imperative need for neutral humanitarian space in which to work.

Clearer guidance, they conclude, is needed from headquarters, including advice on how potential disagreements can be resolved, as well as better planning and training of staff before they take up their posts. And, says Giffen, “confidence-building really needs to happen across all stakeholders, for shared goals to be reached, but also for specific goals to be reached.”

For better or worse, integration is here to stay, and UN humanitarian agency heads understand they must try to make it work, if possible. As UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos said at the study launch: “Integration is a UN-mandated policy. Withdrawing from (it) is not an option… At the same time, we cannot allow integration to impede the effective provision of humanitarian assistance to people in need.” [ http://www.unocha.org/top-stories/all-stories/humanitarian-issues-integrating-peacekeeping-and-humanitarian-work-%E2%80%93-how-mak ]

But form must follow function, stresses Mountain - with mission objectives leading the way: “You have to ask yourself, `Integration for what?’ It is vital to focus on what you are trying to do, and never to confuse the tools with the objective.”

eb/aj/bp/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94647</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201107270916070449t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">LONDON 13 January 2012 (IRIN) - Putting all UN operations in a country under a single management structure is not as simple as it might sound. In some countries, different parts of the UN may be negotiating with rebels to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid, while their colleagues might be involved in planning military assaults against the very same groups.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>AFRICA: AU wants peace, security and bigger global role in 2012</title><pubDate>Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201201121410270941t.jpg" />]]>WASHINGTON 12 January 2012 (IRIN) - The African Union (AU) has unveiled an ambitious wish-list of priorities for Africa that would give the continent a stronger global voice, boost democracy and encourage peace and security.</description><body><![CDATA[WASHINGTON 12 January 2012 (IRIN) - The African Union (AU) has unveiled an ambitious wish-list of priorities for Africa that would give the continent a stronger global voice, boost democracy and encourage peace and security.

AU Ambassador to the United States, Amina Ali of Tanzania, presented the list of top priorities at a conference on 11 January held at Washington think-tank, the Brookings Institution.

Among them were the regulars - peace and security, enhanced democracy and good governance – as well as improved regional trade and greater involvement of the continent’s large diaspora in African affairs.

The first priority for Africa was the AU's resolve to review its international partnerships to ensure they bring greater benefits to Africa. 

“We are working to be able to build closer partnerships with our international partners so that Africa can really attain a sustainable economy,” Ali told the conference.

The AU wants Africa to manufacture and export finished products to its trading partners rather than just selling them the raw materials as it does now. She cited China, India, the EU and US and other rising stars in trade with the continent, including Turkey and Latin America, and said the AU had held talks on the new breed of partnerships with some of them.

The AU also wants Africa to have a veto-wielding seat on the UN Security Council, and a place at the G20 negotiating table, Ali said.

The peace and security that have eluded Africa for decades continue to be high on the list of problems that the continent needs to resolve, but she spoke only of conflict in Sudan. “The AU will continue to look into issues for Sudan,” Ali said.
 
A report released at the conference, Foresight Africa, highlighted other tinderboxes and called for “urgent instability and warfare policy reviews” to meet the challenges the continent faces in not only Sudan but also in Somalia and Nigeria. [ http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2012/01_priorities_foresight_africa.aspx ]

The report compares the instability in Africa to the decade-old US-led war in Afghanistan, and warned that if “the current trend continues”, a swathe of Africa, stretching from the Horn to Nigeria, “is likely to experience increasing instability and warfare, while narratives of jihadist revolt and terrorist technologies circulate among its citizens”.

The unrest could affect Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Sudan, Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia, the report says. Clearly, the AU has to do more than just supervise goings-on in Sudan and its new neighbour, South Sudan.

The AU also pledged to "review the mechanism for democratic process in Africa" after the wake-up call from the uprisings in the Arab world, including North Africa, a year ago, Ali said.

The AU will press member states to sign a charter ratified by the AU assembly in 2007, which aims to strengthen democracy and good governance in Africa, she said.

The charter was inspired in part by concern that “unconstitutional changes of governments” are a key cause of insecurity and “violent conflict” in Africa, and by a determination to “strengthen good governance through the institutionalization of transparency, accountability and participatory democracy”.

As of November last year, 38 of the AU’s 54 member states had signed the charter, but only 10 had ratified it. It is notable that nearly all the countries in the areas of Africa that are “likely to experience increasing instability and warfare” have signed the charter, with the exception of Somalia and Eritrea in the east and Cameroon in the west.

Food security

The AU will take steps to establish “food reserves” that give areas that face drought a “cushion” against famine, said Ali. She also voiced fears that parts of west Africa could be hit by drought this year, highlighting the need to rapidly establish food reserves – a tough challenge in a time of high food prices and an economic crisis in Europe, which has hit Africa.

Africa also has to “secure access to markets and competitive prices for farmers” or “risk inciting unrest” and food riots, the Foresight Africa report says.

AU officials will push in 2012 to establish a free trade zone that spans the length and breadth of the continent, Ali said. It would boost commerce between countries, a key step towards development.

At present, less than 15 percent of African trade stays on the continent - the rest is sold abroad.

The last item on the AU wish-list is greater involvement of the African diaspora, said to outnumber Africans at home, in the continent’s affairs.

The AU is due to host an African diaspora summit in May, Ali said.

Ali stressed the importance of the diaspora to the continent: remittances represent a larger revenue source for Africa than overseas development aid.

kdz/oa/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94630</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201201121410270941t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">WASHINGTON 12 January 2012 (IRIN) - The African Union (AU) has unveiled an ambitious wish-list of priorities for Africa that would give the continent a stronger global voice, boost democracy and encourage peace and security.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>HEALTH: Yaws treatment study prompts WHO review</title><pubDate>Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201201110749170559t.jpg" />]]>BANGKOK 11 January 2012 (IRIN) - Findings that a one-time oral treatment to cure yaws, a neglected tropical disease, is as effective as the currently recommended penicillin injection have prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to convene a meeting on how the disease may be wiped out.</description><body><![CDATA[BANGKOK 11 January 2012 (IRIN) - Findings that a one-time oral treatment to cure yaws, a neglected tropical disease, is as effective as the currently recommended penicillin injection have prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to convene a meeting on how the disease may be wiped out. 
 
 "We may be closer now than we have been in decades," Kingsley Asiedu, a yaws expert with WHO's Department of Neglected Tropical Disease Control, told IRIN, calling the study [ http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)61624-3/abstract ] on the bacterial skin disease, which leads to chronic disfiguration and disability in 10 percent of untreated cases, the most significant in half a century. 
 
 After a UN-led worldwide control programme cut infections from 50 million to 2.5 million in 1964 in 46 countries, the disease re-emerged in the 1970s when control efforts lagged, affecting an estimated 460,000 people - mostly children - in poor, tropical rural areas mainly in Africa and Asia, according to the most recent figures reported to WHO in 1995. 
 
 In 2010, the Lihir Medical Centre in Papua New Guinea (PNG), where the disease is still endemic, gave the one-time oral dose of the antibiotic azithromycin to about half of 250 infants and children from six months to 15 years infected with yaws. 
 
 Follow-up exams in 2011 showed the treatment was as effective as penicillin injections, which - unlike oral antibiotics - require trained health staff and equipment often scarce in areas most in need of treatment, wrote the researchers. 
 
 In a recent index of health workers' outreach [ http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/HealthWorkerIndexmain_4.pdf ] by the NGO Save the Children, PNG ranked in the bottom 20 of 161 surveyed countries. 
 
 The meeting of yaws experts convened by WHO in Geneva from 5-7 March will "fully define how we are going to embark [on a new yaws treatment regimen] using azithromycin", said Asiedu. 
 
 WHO's yaws treatment guidelines date back to the 1960s and there have been no alternatives since, he added. 
 
 In Southeast Asia, WHO set the goal for regional eradication by 2012 in two remaining endemic countries - Indo¬nesia and Timor-Leste. PNG, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have also reported cases. 
 
 Sub-Saharan Africa was the most heavily affected based on earlier estimates, but the "picture is not entirely clear now", said Asiedu. Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Togo have all reported cases. 
 
 More studies are needed to ensure resistance to azithromycin treatment does not develop, said David Mabey from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. 
 
 While penicillin "has stood the test of time" - still as effective fighting the bacteria causing yaws after roughly 60 years - he noted mass azithromycin had only been used in developing countries for about a decade to treat trachoma [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=89568 ], another bacterial disease prevalent in poor rural areas. 
 
 Discussions at the upcoming WHO meeting will include a measure to monitor antibiotic resistance, said Asiedu. "Antibiotic resistance is a risk in any treatment and we always have to be vigilant." 
 
 pt/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94621</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201201110749170559t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BANGKOK 11 January 2012 (IRIN) - Findings that a one-time oral treatment to cure yaws, a neglected tropical disease, is as effective as the currently recommended penicillin injection have prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to convene a meeting on how the disease may be wiped out.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: UN highlights &quot;security vacuum&quot; as northern clashes continue</title><pubDate>Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201201110937450253t.jpg" />]]>BANGUI 11 January 2012 (IRIN) - Among the most pressing security threats in the Central African Republic (CAR) is a Chadian armed group active in the north of the country, which allegedly continues to recruit and acquire weapons, despite having undertaken to return to Chad.</description><body><![CDATA[BANGUI 11 January 2012 (IRIN) - Among the most pressing security threats in the Central African Republic (CAR) is a Chadian armed group active in the north of the country, which allegedly continues to recruit and acquire weapons, despite having undertaken to return to Chad.

On 26 December, members of this group, the Front Populaire Pour le Redressement (FPR – Popular Front for Recovery) clashed with fighters of a domestic insurgency, the Front Démocratique du Peuple Centrafricain (FDPC – the Central African People’s Democratic Front) in the northern village of Vafio, on the road between Kabo and Batafongo, according to a bulletin released by the country’s Humanitarian Development Partnership Team, which said two FPR fighters were killed.

The prospect of retaliatory attacks by both sides led the UN to suspend movement along the road.

According to unconfirmed press reports, four civilians were killed and several houses burnt a few days later when 300 FPR elements attacked the town of Kabo.

“Panic gripped the town after these criminals burned one of their victims alive,” one report quoted Kabo’s deputy mayor, Philippe Gonzay, as saying.

“The population can no longer go about its daily business. We regret that the security forces present in the region did not react to these rebel attacks on the civilian population,” he said.

The FPR, which arrived from Chad in 2008, has also been implicated in security incidents in the central province of Ouaka, where a November 2011 report by local officials said the group “had taken up position in several villages and settlements where they extorted more than 900 cattle, several motorbikes and a large sum of money”.

According to local sources, the FPR has also conscripted members of the Peul community, an ethnic group - sometimes called Fulani - present in many West African states, as well as CAR, Chad and Niger. The FPR claims to be protecting the wider Peul community.

UN response

In a 21 December resolution, the UN Security Council expressed “deep concern” about the “extensive recruitment and the acquisition of weapons by the FPR, which threaten peace and security in the Central African Republic and the region and constitute violations of the commitments made by the FPR to lay down its weapons and enter into discussions towards peace in the Final Communiqué signed on 13 June 2011 by FPR leader Baba Laddé and the national mediators of Chad and the Central African Republic”.

The resolution went on to condemn “human rights violations perpetrated by the FPR, and [to encourage] the Government of the Central African Republic to continue to liaise with the Government of Chad to reach a solution”.

According to the 13 June communiqué, a peace agreement was supposed to have been reached within a month on the understanding that this would lead to the return to Chad of 400-500 FPR fighters.

A 28 November Secretary-General’s report to the Security Council said talks aimed at implementing the agreement had stalled, “mainly over the issue of security guarantees for the return of Baba Laddé to Chad”.

The same report said a faction of another armed group, the Armée populaire pour la restauration de la démocratie (APRD – the Popular Army for the Restoration of Democracy), had said it would only join in a national programme of disarmament and demobilization if the FPR returned to Chad.

Two days after the report was released, CAR President Francois Bozizé said of the FPR, “We will resume previous negotiations to send them back to Chad and if the dialogue fails we will take this matter into our own hands.”

But, as the Security Council report underlined, a “serious security vacuum in many parts of the country” is a direct result of “the lack of state authority outside the capital. The national security and defence forces, which should function as primary security providers in the remote areas of the country, are under-resourced and largely incapable of fulfilling their responsibilities.”

While the Secretary-General’s report noted “significant progress” in disarming former combatants in CAR, the head of the UN Peacebuilding Office in the country, Margaret Vogt, warned of the dangers of under-funding this process.

“Failure to consolidate security in the CAR would increase its attractiveness as a safe haven for regional brigands and rebel groups operating in the region,” she said on 14 December.

For his part, Laddé denies accusations of abusing civilians, and recently told a local radio station his group was working to protect people from criminal gangs – known as Zaraguinas - which have long preyed on civilians in several parts of the country.

cd-k/tl/am/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94624</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201201110937450253t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BANGUI 11 January 2012 (IRIN) - Among the most pressing security threats in the Central African Republic (CAR) is a Chadian armed group active in the north of the country, which allegedly continues to recruit and acquire weapons, despite having undertaken to return to Chad.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>RWANDA: Aiming towards two million medical male circumcisions</title><pubDate>Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201110270750430610t.jpg" />]]>KIGALI 09 January 2012 (IRIN) - This will be a busy year for Rwanda&apos;s health centres as the country attempts to reach its goal of medically circumcising 50 percent of men by June 2013 as part of HIV prevention efforts.</description><body><![CDATA[KIGALI 09 January 2012 (IRIN) - This will be a busy year for Rwanda's health centres as the country attempts to reach its goal of medically circumcising 50 percent of men by June 2013 as part of HIV prevention efforts. 
 
 "We plan to extend free male circumcision services to all men in Rwanda - we are targeting two million circumcisions by 2013," said Simoni Kanyaruhango, head of the national male circumcision programme at the Rwanda Bio-Medical Centre. "The programme has, under the sponsorship of the Global Fund [to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria], extended the necessary kits ... to all district hospitals, which will in turn offer the service free of charge to the public." 
 
 The free male circumcision programme began in October 2011, and officials at the Ministry of Health say demand is growing. 
 
 "Here we carry out circumcisions every weekend but we are looking at including the working days as the demand is increasing by the day," said Christian Ntizimira, director of Kibagabaga Hospital in the capital, Kigali. 
 
 A large randomized controlled trial in Kenya, South Africa and Uganda found that medical male circumcision can reduce a man's risk of contracting HIV through vaginal intercourse by almost 60 percent. 
 
 In order to reach 80 percent coverage - a target set by UNAIDS and the World Health Organization (WHO) under a new plan [ http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94404 ] to accelerate medical male circumcision in eastern and southern Africa - Rwanda would need to circumcise 1,746,052 men; at present, some 15 percent are circumcised. 
 
 However, with a severe shortage of highly trained medical staff - according to WHO, [ http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/EN_WHS2011_Full.pdf ] Rwanda has just two doctors per 100,000 population - the goal is unlikely to be met unless lower cadre health workers are involved in the campaign. 
 
 Simpler techniques 
 
 At present, the programme is using circumcision surgery, the only WHO-approved method. 
 
 The government is hoping for WHO approval of a device known as the "PrePex system", which delivers "bloodless" male circumcision [ http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=91919 ] and would reduce the need for a sterile environment, anaesthetic and highly trained medical personnel. The PrePex system works through a special elastic mechanism that fits closely around an inner ring, trapping the foreskin, which dries up and is removed after a week. 
 
 "This device has been clinically studied and found effective. We are only awaiting approval from the World Health Organization Technical Advisory Group on technical innovations in male circumcision," said Vincent Mutabazi, lead investigator in the PrePex Clinical study. 
 
 "With WHO approval of the device, we could perform male circumcisions anywhere, any time or even run mobile clinics out to remote communities rather than have men travel long distances for the circumcisions," said Agnes Binagwaho, the Rwandan Minister of Health. 
 
 Education gaps 
 
 Messages on male circumcision have been widely broadcast using print and electronic media, and health centres are also being used to promote the programme. 
 
 However, many in the target population remain unaware or afraid of the procedure. "I know about it of course and I appreciate its importance, but what would happen if I don't heal properly or even heal at all?" asked James Nkuusi, a restaurant owner in Remera, a Kigali suburb. "Besides, my wives are used to me the way I am now - my size, you know. If I got circumcised it would be difficult for me to satisfy them I guess, and I would never let that happen." 

 Experts say male circumcision does not affect [ http://www.malecircumcision.org/publications/documents/Low_cost_leaflet.pdf ] penis size. 
 
 Rwanda Bio-Medical Centre's Kanyaruhango said the government had made significant progress in demystifying the procedure. It is also being careful to emphasize that male circumcision must work in conjunction with other HIV prevention methods to be successful. 
 
 "Male circumcision should only be one element of a comprehensive HIV prevention package, which should include the promotion of condom use, the provision of HIV counselling and testing services and treatment of sexually transmitted infections. And this is what we emphasize," said Kanyaruhango. 
 
 rkm/kr/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94604</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201110270750430610t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">KIGALI 09 January 2012 (IRIN) - This will be a busy year for Rwanda&apos;s health centres as the country attempts to reach its goal of medically circumcising 50 percent of men by June 2013 as part of HIV prevention efforts.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>FILM: Our most-watched films of 2011</title><pubDate>Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2010/201012011430250686t.jpg" />]]>NAIROBI 28 December 2011 (IRIN) - Launched in 2004, IRIN’s film unit has won numerous awards for its productions, several of which have been aired by prominent international broadcasters. Here is a list of the unit’s most-watched films in 2011.</description><body><![CDATA[NAIROBI 28 December 2011 (IRIN) - Launched in 2004, IRIN’s film unit has won numerous awards for its productions, several of which have been aired by prominent international broadcasters. Here is a list of the unit’s most-watched films in 2011. 
 
 1. Slum Survivors (2007) [ http://www.irinnews.org/film/?id=4142 ]: More than a billion people live in slums worldwide, hundreds of thousands of them in the Nairobi slum of Kibera. The film tells the stories of a few Kibera residents and charts their remarkable courage in the face of extreme poverty. 
 
 2. Soldiers’ Stories (2011) [ http://www.irinnews.org/film/?id=4786 ] follows two Ugandan soldiers - a female gunner and a male nurse - serving in the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) at a critical stage in the battle for Mogadishu between Al-Shabab insurgents and the internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government. From their training in Uganda to deployment in the shattered city in July 2011, Roselyn Namutebi and Otto Moses share their thoughts and fears on the frontline of one of the world's most intractable crises. 
 
 3. Turning the Page? (2011) [ http://www.irinnews.org/film/?id=4511 ]: In August 2000, a peace accord was signed in Burundi, bringing to an end more than a decade of ethnic conflict. This film analyses the fragile state of the peace process in the wake of elections held in 2010. 
 
 4. In Search of Stability (2011) [ http://www.irinnews.org/film/?id=4710 ]: In November 2010, a presidential election in Côte d’Ivoire led to a wave of violence between supporters of incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo and the internationally recognized winner of the poll, Alassane Ouattara. The film examines the prospects for lasting peace and the need for equitable justice. 
 
 5. The Sex Worker (2010) [ http://www.irinnews.org/film/?id=4443 ]: This film profiles Sou Southevy, a 70-year-old transgender sex worker who has been plying the streets of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh since he was thrown out of home by his parents at the age of 14. Through the worst ravages of the Khmer Rouge regime and since, Sou has been subjected to terrible discrimination and at times violence, and in the absence of any support groups working with transgender and gay men, he decided to start one himself. 
 
 6. Bolivia’s Changing Climate (2010) [ http://www.irinnews.org/film/?id=4263 ]: In Bolivia, melting glaciers and erratic rainfall patterns are driving tens of thousands of people to the capital La Paz in search of water. 
 
 7. Leprosy (2011) [ http://www.irinnews.org/film/?id=4540 ]: Part of a series featuring neglected diseases, this film was shot in a leper colony in Egypt and highlights the stigma attached to the disfiguring disease which affects more than 200,000 people worldwide. 
 
 8. A Question of Trust (2011) [ http://www.irinnews.org/film/?id=4665 ]: Nepal’s decade-long civil war ended in November 2006 with a comprehensive peace agreement. The Maoist rebels won elections two years later and a Constituent Assembly was also elected to write a new constitution. However, by 2009, the peace process was not complete, with little progress made on key issues like the disarmament and integration of thousands of Maoists ex-fighters. 
 
 9. Bus Schools (2011) [ http://www.irinnews.org/film/?id=4739 ]: Millions of children living in the slums of Delhi in India do not have access to formal education. Many parents would rather put their children to work than send them to school. So the schools featured in this film - converted buses - travel to the children. 
 
 10. The Colonel (2011) [ http://www.irinnews.org/film/?id=4596 ]: One of several Heroes of HIV [ http://www.irinnews.org/film/?id=4869&SeriesID=2 ] profiled by IRIN Films, Col Felix Ntungumburanye was the first member of the Burundian army to declare himself HIV-positive. Doing so during a time of conflict left him fighting on two fronts: against rebels and stigma. Ten years later, largely thanks to the colonel’s courage, the army’s policies on HIV/AIDS have been transformed. 
 
 em-js/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94553</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2010/201012011430250686t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NAIROBI 28 December 2011 (IRIN) - Launched in 2004, IRIN’s film unit has won numerous awards for its productions, several of which have been aired by prominent international broadcasters. Here is a list of the unit’s most-watched films in 2011.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>DRC: Measles immunization campaign targets 1.7 million children</title><pubDate>Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201112211013110936t.jpg" />]]>NAIROBI 21 December 2011 (IRIN) - Amid rising measles and polio cases, tens of thousands of children are being targeted for immunization in health campaigns in affected regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to the UN Children&apos;s Fund.</description><body><![CDATA[NAIROBI 21 December 2011 (IRIN) - Amid rising measles and polio cases, tens of thousands of children are being targeted for immunization in health campaigns in affected regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). 
 
 At least 128,965 measles cases, with 1,573 deaths, have been recorded in the DRC in 2011, and 89 wild polio-virus type 1 cases had been reported up to 13 December, UNICEF said. 
 
 The current campaign against measles in Kinshasa is targeting at least 1.7 million children aged 6-59 months. 
 
 Alphonse Toko, UNICEF's immunization specialist in the DRC, said: "Vaccination is the most efficient tool to protect children from epidemics that kill or paralyze". 
 
 On 16 December, Health Minister Victor Makwenge Kaput urged parents to get their children vaccinated. 
 
 A door-to-door polio vaccination initiative using mobile health teams, which started on 19 December, will end on 21 December in the provinces of Bandundu, Bas-Congo, Kasaï Oriental, Katanga, Maniema and South Kivu, where at least 1.1 million children under five are being targeted. 
 
 The polio virus re-emerged in the DRC in 2006, with 13 cases being recorded at that time, before peaking at 100 cases in 2010. [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94070 ] 
 
 aw/js/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94516</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201112211013110936t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NAIROBI 21 December 2011 (IRIN) - Amid rising measles and polio cases, tens of thousands of children are being targeted for immunization in health campaigns in affected regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to the UN Children&apos;s Fund.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>AID POLICY: Spotlight on New Deal for fragile states</title><pubDate>Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2010/201004161825220375t.jpg" />]]>DAKAR 20 December 2011 (IRIN) - At the global aid effectiveness forum in Busan, South Korea, in November and December this year, the “G7+”, a group of nations which includes 19 fragile and conflict-affected states, agreed a New Deal on fragile states, which sets out concrete and, they hope, more relevant ways to improve peace- and state-building goals.</description><body><![CDATA[DAKAR 20 December 2011 (IRIN) - At the global aid effectiveness forum in Busan, South Korea, [ http://www.aideffectiveness.org/busanhlf4/ ] in November and December this year, the “G7+”, a group of nations which includes 19 fragile and conflict-affected states, agreed a New Deal on fragile states, which sets out concrete and, they hope, more relevant ways to improve peace- and state-building goals.
  
 The New Deal will be piloted in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Timor-Leste, with help from Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA. 
  
 It identifies five peace- and state-building goals as prerequisites for development without which “no MDG [Millenium Development Goals] will be met”, said Marcus Manuel, director of the Budget Strengthening Initiative at the UK’s Overseas Development Institute (ODI), one of the architects of the New Deal. 
  
 The goals include legitimate politics, security, justice, economic foundations and revenues and services. “If you don’t sort them [these criteria] out, no matter how many schools you build, if you haven’t figured out the payroll, you won’t be able to move forward,” Manuel told IRIN. 
  
 For years donor governments have struggled with how to approach development support to fragile states, which lack the systems or resources to process aid effectively, and often have high levels of corruption leading to low value-for-money. [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93402 ] 
  
 Aid to fragile states has often propped up corruption, rather than weakened it, says the World Bank. 
  
 Some 1.5 billion people live in conflict-affected and fragile states, most of which are not on track to meet a single MDG. 
  
 However, the recognition that fragile states need a different approach to aid altogether, has gradually turned from policy and discussion - at the Paris and Accra aid fora [ http://www.oecd.org/document/18/0,3343,en_2649_3236398_35401554_1_1_1_1,00.html ] and declarations for action - into a more concrete action plan, said Manuel. 
  
 New approach
  
 Under the proposed changes (to be presented to member states at the UN General Assembly in September 2012 ) “compacts” with countries will be agreed, i.e. there will be a shared understanding of aid modalities and priorities drawn up by donors, recipient governments and civil society.
  
 Rather than each donor assessing a recipient’s fragility, countries will be encouraged to carry out their own fragility assessments, which should create more apt solutions, Manuel told IRIN. For instance, the government of Timor-Leste deemed the need to re-house internally displaced people as a security priority once the conflict was over, and proposed giving each displaced family significant cash sums to do so. Donors said this approach was too expensive and would not work, but it did, and paid off, says the ODI. 
  
 With country ownership at the heart of aid efforts, donors should not shy away from direct budget support to fragile governments early on, if the right safeguards are set up first, says the ODI in a briefing paper. [ http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/details.asp?id=5961&title=budget-strengthening-fragile-states-conflict-g7 ] Donors waited five years after the conflict to invest in government structures in South Sudan, versus two years in Sierra Leone and Rwanda, and just a few months in Afghanistan, and in each example the early support was “critical” to rebuilding state structures, says the ODI. 
  
 In Guinea, deemed by many to be a fragile state, the health and public hygiene minister, Naman Kéita, told IRIN donor hesitancy to fund ministries directly, hampered their chances of setting ambitious agendas. 
  
 However, supporting national auditing systems, and strict financial safeguards come with this approach, stress aid analysts. 
  
 In other proposed shifts, donors will agree to streamline aid flows and their administration under the New Deal, for instance by setting up just one programme management and monitoring unit in each ministry rather than the current practice, where each donor may have its own. When the Rwandan government insisted on this approach, the capacity of its ministries started to increase rather than be over-stretched.
  
 Practical things, such as caps on pay rates also need to be introduced, say the G7+, though the modalities are yet to be worked out. In Liberia, the UN was hiring well-qualified professionals at the same time as the government was, but the UN hired 10 times as many staff, and could pay them two to three times more, constraining the government's ability to hire. 
  
 Critics
  
 However, some practitioners with long experience of working in fragile states, say country ownership and dismantling corruption may not always be a priority for governments. 
  
 John Morlu, ex-auditor-general in Liberia, who some say was pushed out of the job because his anti-corruption probes [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93431 ] threatened high-level government officials, was skeptical. “I think we have to be very careful. We talk about countries taking ownership, but do they want to take ownership? I can think of cases in Liberia where it’s much easier to say, `This is UN driven, this is IMF [International Monetary Fund] driven’ because that gives you the political cover you need.” 
  
 Furthermore, local citizens may have priorities other than greater transparency and less corruption, Guinean and Sierra Leonean youths told IRIN: they want jobs more than anything else. 
  
 Manuel hopes that as country systems strengthen, development progress will also speed up - for now, patience is still required: a 2011 World Bank report estimates it takes 20-30 years to dismantle corrupt systems in a government. [ http://wdr2011.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/WDR%20Background%20Paper%20-%20Johnston_0.pdf?keepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=600&width=800 ]
  
 aj/cb
  
]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94502</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2010/201004161825220375t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">DAKAR 20 December 2011 (IRIN) - At the global aid effectiveness forum in Busan, South Korea, in November and December this year, the “G7+”, a group of nations which includes 19 fragile and conflict-affected states, agreed a New Deal on fragile states, which sets out concrete and, they hope, more relevant ways to improve peace- and state-building goals.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: A healthcare crisis, says MSF</title><pubDate>Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2010/201006281910060031t.jpg" />]]>BANGUI 14 December 2011 (IRIN) - Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has described the Central African Republic (CAR) as being in a state of “chronic medical emergency” and is calling on donor governments and development agencies to provide additional funding and take urgent action.</description><body><![CDATA[BANGUI 14 December 2011 (IRIN) - Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has described the Central African Republic (CAR) as being in a state of “chronic medical emergency” and is calling on donor governments and development agencies to provide additional funding and take urgent action. 

The NGO sounded the alarm in a 13 December report, Central African Republic: A Silent Crisis [ http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/publications/article.cfm?id=5668&cat=special-report ] based on a countrywide survey conducted over the past 18 months. 

According to the report, CAR has one of the high mortality rates in the world, in some areas three times over the emergency threshold of one death per 10,000 inhabitants per day. The country also has the second lowest life expectancy in the world, at 48 years. This situation is mainly attributed to conflict, displacement and an absence of basic healthcare provision. 

“The health system has been eroded by years of political and military instability and has massive structural problems… Access to basic healthcare is extremely limited and all these factors contribute to high mortality rates,” says Olivier Aubry, head of the MSF mission in CAR. 

Malaria is the country’s leading health problem and primary cause of death, with every inhabitant infected at least once a year. MSF has a shortage of essential drugs, while the state’s failure to adhere to a policy of providing free malaria treatment to all children under five is a major contributing factor to the disease’s mortality rate. The NGO recommends a widespread distribution of treated nets. 

About 11,000 people die every year from HIV/AIDS; the prevalence rate is 5.9 percent in the 15-49 age group. A total of 15,000 patients are receiving antiretroviral drugs out of approximately 45,000 people and 14,000 children needing urgent assistance, according to the National Committee for the fight against AIDS (CNLS). 

In 2011, MSF was providing treatment to just fewer than 1,000 HIV patients. The report said fewer than 20 percent of the 19,000 people thought to have tuberculosis, the latent form of which is often activated by HIV infection, were receiving treatment and that this prevalence rate was “certainly an under-estimate given the lack of diagnostic facilities in most of the country”. National programmes to deal with HIV and tuberculosis are ineffective, mainly due to shortage of drugs and funds from the government and international organizations. 

“We are aiming towards the Millennium Development Goals and recognize the need to make more effort to achieve these goals, which implies the need for more financial resources and a coordinated aid effort,” said Modeste Hoza, director of communications at the Ministry of Health. 

“In developing countries it is difficult to mobilize resources and take urgent action, which is why we are asking for support from external partners. In principle, 15 percent of the budget should be dedicated to health, but in reality only 9 percent is. When it comes to disbursements, what is disbursed is not what is allocated,” he said.

“This report has positives and negatives to it. Negative, because when we ring the alarm, we give the impression that nothing is being done. Positive, because we can get attention, take action and move forward,” he added.

cd-k/tl/am/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94470</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2010/201006281910060031t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BANGUI 14 December 2011 (IRIN) - Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has described the Central African Republic (CAR) as being in a state of “chronic medical emergency” and is calling on donor governments and development agencies to provide additional funding and take urgent action.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>DRC: Keeping track of mineral resources</title><pubDate>Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201112161242240031t.jpg" />]]>KINSHASA 13 December 2011 (IRIN) - In the Democratic Republic of Congo, two projects are under way to map mineral deposits in South Kivu province to facilitate traceability, amid increasing concerns in the international community that profits from the minerals trade are being illegally used to fund armed groups in the east.</description><body><![CDATA[KINSHASA 13 December 2011 (IRIN) - In the Democratic Republic of Congo, two projects are under way to map mineral deposits in South Kivu province to facilitate traceability, amid increasing concerns in the international community that profits from the minerals trade are being illegally used to fund armed groups in the east. 
 
 The chaotic management that has plagued the mining sector since the 1980s is, however, proving a sticking point in the process. The survival of thousands of artisanal miners is one of the humanitarian issues at stake in this project. 
 
 A guide to reforming the mining sector in the east, produced by researchers at NGO Ipis [ http://www.ipisresearch.be/download.php?id=334 
 Filename:20110412_Guide_Mining_Reform_EDRC.pdf ], explains that “despite calls for a map to be drawn up from the UN expert group in its December 2008 report, there is currently no reliable map available. The volatile security situation on the ground would mean that the map would have to be regularly updated.” 
 
 Data is urgently needed. Although it is not yet clear how it will be enforced, the Dodd-Franck Act, passed by the US Congress in July 2010, contains a provision allowing only minerals that have been certified “DRC conflict free” to enter the US. The European Union is considering similar legislation. 
 
 According to Sara Geenen, a PhD student at the University of Antwerp, who specializes in the South Kivu artisanal mining sector, traders are “willing to back a certification and traceability system, provided they reap some sort of benefit from it, such as a tax reduction”. 
 
 The International Conference for the Great Lakes Region, the UN Group of Experts, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development are unanimous in calling for the mapping and categorization process to move as quickly as possible to avoid an embargo, which could inflame an already volatile region. 
 
 Two complementary projects 
 
 The Kinshasa Group, comprising the UN Stabilization Mission (MONUSCO) and the German Federal Institute for Geo-Science and Natural Resources (BGR), is behind one of the initiatives. Michel Liete, head of the South Kivu province mining division, explains that “the aim of this project is to categorize the mining sites surrounding the 16 future mineral trading centres, which will coordinate artisanal mining within a 25km radius. These mining sites will be certified based on human rights criteria covering the presence of armed groups, illegal taxes, women's rights, and the presence of children under the age of 15.” 
 
 Only one trading centre in Mugogo (in Walungu) has so far been built, and the surrounding sites have been classed as “clean” or “dirty”, according to their compliance with the specifications. These classifications, which are due to be communicated by Kinshasa, are still confidential. 
 
 A separate initiative, led by Ipis and financed by the Belgian Foreign Affairs Ministry, the US government and the World Bank, via PROMINES [ http://www.pactworld.org/galleries/re...ce-center/PROMINES Report English.pdf ], will continue for 18 months and cover all of South Kivu. Specifically, it will aim to map artisanal mining sites, transportation routes, and mineral trading points, reflecting the security and human rights situation on the ground, using the Geographic Information System (GIS) programme. The aim is to gradually hand over control to the Mining Cadastre (registry) as it builds up human and technical resources. 
 
 In the eye of the storm 
 
 Artisanal miners can only work in seven mining zones in South Kivu (two in Kalehe, two in Mwenga and three in Shabunda). According to Gabriel Kamundula, a researcher at the Applied Development Economics Laboratory at the Catholic University of Bukavu, “the number of artisanal miners exceeds the capacities of these seven sites”. In March 2011, without taking into account “independent” miners, the regional mining department registered 52,000 in mineral cooperatives. 
 
 Kamundula explains that, “in order to alleviate social pressure on the government, the region is trying to collaborate with companies present on the ground, such as the Canadian multinational BANRO, by asking them to tolerate the presence of artisanal miners on their sites for an agreed timeframe, with guarantees in place to ensure the practice does not continue beyond this fixed period”. 
 
 However, Janvier Kilosho, a researcher at the South Kivu mining sector management centre of expertise (CEGEMI), thinks that the Congolese government did not want to support and formalize artisanal mining activity, deeming industrial operations “more favourable and more transparent”. 
 
 The social stakes of the mapping project are high. In cases where the Mining Cadastre decides to disqualify artisanal sites that do not meet the criteria, the miners will be pushed out into the cold. Their only hope is a dormant licence. 
 
 Cleaning up 
 
 Past oversights are also coming back to haunt the mapping projects. According to Kamundula, “Many problems have arisen from concessions being granted by Kinshasa not corresponding to the situation on the ground; it isn't uncommon for a single concession to have been allocated twice. Moreover, some GPS coordinates correspond to locations in Lake Kivu.” 
 
 The Mining Cadastre is not yet operational, and despite assurances from Martin Kabwelulu, the Mining Minister, that “blood minerals no longer exist in the Democratic Republic of Congo; the business climate is favourable and foreign investors no longer have anything to fear”, Kinshasa is reluctant to disclose the results of its site qualifications, which will either displease the artisanal miners in the east, or the industrial sector and international community. 
 
 Faced with such a predicament, the government is having to adopt a long-term vision to clean up a situation that is far from being resolved. Mapping the mining sites is the first step to increasing transparency in the sector and ensuring revenue from the mineral deposits does not go towards financing armed groups. 
 
 cm/mw
]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94465</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201112161242240031t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">KINSHASA 13 December 2011 (IRIN) - In the Democratic Republic of Congo, two projects are under way to map mineral deposits in South Kivu province to facilitate traceability, amid increasing concerns in the international community that profits from the minerals trade are being illegally used to fund armed groups in the east.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>DRC-CONGO: Thousands flee election tension</title><pubDate>Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201112061355160348t.jpg" />]]>BRAZZAVILLE 06 December 2011 (IRIN) - At least 3,500 people have arrived by boat in recent days in Congo’s capital, fearing violence in the run-up to the announcement, due before midnight on 6 December, of the outcome of the presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to an official.</description><body><![CDATA[BRAZZAVILLE 06 December 2011 (IRIN) - At least 3,500 people have arrived by boat in recent days in Congo’s capital, fearing violence in the run-up to the announcement, due before midnight on 6 December, of the outcome of the presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to an official. 
 
 Yves Ikiaye, a captain in Congo’s immigration service, said those crossing the Congo River, which separates Brazzaville from the DRC capital, Kinshasa, between 4 and 6 December included politicians and their families, diplomats and UN officials. 
 
 “We came here to escape war,” said Dorcas Mukaku, a schoolgirl, who arrived with her two younger sisters. 
 
 “The Lubas [one of DRC’s ethnic groups] said that if Etienne Tshisekedi was not elected they would set Kinshasa on fire and shed blood,” she told IRIN. 
 
 Others “who support President Joseph Kabila [who is running for re-election] said it had to be him or no-one”, she said. 
 
 “I decided to leave my parents and studies behind to observe the situation from afar and save my life. I am too young and have nothing to do with what’s going on,” she said. 
 
 However, Congo’s Interior Minister, Raymond Mboulou, said: “We are not in a crisis situation,” adding that it was normal for people from Kinshasa to travel to Brazzaville. 
 
 Brazzaville’s chief of police, Général Benoît Moundélé-Ngollo, said a special camp would be set up if the numbers arriving increased significantly. 
 
 lmm/am/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94406</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201112061355160348t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BRAZZAVILLE 06 December 2011 (IRIN) - At least 3,500 people have arrived by boat in recent days in Congo’s capital, fearing violence in the run-up to the announcement, due before midnight on 6 December, of the outcome of the presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to an official.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>CLIMATE CHANGE: Durban or bust - the Trans-African Caravan of Hope</title><pubDate>Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201112021157010891t.jpg" />]]>KAMPALA 02 December 2011 (IRIN) - Brandishing a plea for developed countries to make good their promises to reduce carbon emissions, 300 farmers, youths and activists took the scenic route to the COP17 conference in Durban, travelling more than 7,000km from Burundi in 17 days, through 10 eastern and southern African countries, aboard a convoy of buses draped in various national flags.</description><body><![CDATA[KAMPALA 02 December 2011 (IRIN) - Brandishing a plea for developed countries to make good their promises to reduce carbon emissions, 300 farmers, youths and activists took the scenic route to the COP17 conference in Durban [ http://www.cop17-cmp7durban.com/ ], travelling more than 7,000km from Burundi in 17 days, through 10 eastern and southern African countries, aboard a convoy of buses draped in various national flags. 
 
 The aim of the Trans-African Caravan of Hope, organized by the Pan African Climate Change Justice Alliance [ http://www.pacja.org/ ], was to gather information about and raise awareness of the impact of climate change [ http://www.irinnews.org/IndepthMain.aspx?reportid=78246&indepthid=73 ] on those least responsible for causing it. 
 
 Signatures were gathered en route for a petition, the African People’s Protocol, which urges developed nations to abide by their Kyoto treaty commitments to reduce emissions and finance adaptation programmes. [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94214 ] 
 
 IRIN spoke to some of those travelling with the convoy: 
 
 Emile Hakizimana 25, Burundian student and blogger: “Look, people in Africa are bound to face hunger because food production is going down as a result of floods and drought. 
 
 “We require sound pro-people governance that will put to use outcomes of the COP 17 [Conference of the Parties http://unfccc.int/meetings/durban_nov_2011/meeting/6245.php ] meeting to improve lives of the rural communities facing the effects of climate change.” 
 
 Boniface Okot, 25, Ugandan student: “Food production will remain unpredictable if the weather continues to be unpredictable. The only way out is to find an agreeable means by which we can preserve the environment for the future. 
 
 “We require more knowledge and technology transfers that will help the developing economies have sufficient food and at the same time develop.” 
 
 Chandia Benadette Kodili, 25, Ugandan blogger with ActionAid International [ http://www.actionaid.org/activista ]: “This [journey] gave me a great opportunity to experience the climate situation in other countries and how that affects the food security of people and eventually their lives. 
 
 “I have come to appreciate Uganda as the pearl of Africa because most of the countries we went through are so dry and hot; I wonder how people struggle to live in these places with devastating effects of climate change. 
 
 “I come from Moyo District, which has been affected greatly by floods displacing people, leading to diseases and food shortages... In the countries I have passed through... I have seen massive effects. 
 
 “I live in the city and depend on these small-scale women farmers struggling to produce food for their survival and at the same time feeding people in the city yet their crop yields are falling due to bad weather. 
 
 “I hope there will be a [positive] outcome from Durban, that is why I spent over 17 days on the road to South Africa. I could have flown in but I chose the long and harder way so that I could share in solidarity with the many women farmers in other countries and how they are coping with these changes in the climate. 
 
 “Developed nations have to do something; we are already seeing Canada pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol, and the US, one of the biggest polluters, is not even part of this agreement. I ride in hope that they will get to their senses because right now they are politicking.” 
 
 Collins Odhiambo 24, Kenyan resident of Nairobi’s Kibera slum: “The caravan was a tough journey that required commitment; it provided me with the opportunity to meet and talk to people, some of them from communities affected by the drought crisis in eastern and southern Africa. 
 
 “Hearing their sad tales of how climate change has shattered their lives was heart-breaking. One thing that came out clearly in all the countries we visited is that climate change is real and it is here with us. It is the reality of our lives and the sooner action is taken the better; otherwise, our survival is at stake. 
 
 “Looking at the attention and reception that the caravan was receiving in different countries it passed through, it was humbling to see people from all walks of life, senior government officials, women, youths, children and men, come out in large numbers to speak out in one voice: immediate action is needed to save the world. 
 
 “I don’t see any breakthrough in the COP 17 meeting in Durban. In fact I am beginning to lose faith in these meetings because they are a waste of time and resources. 
 
 “How many COPs do we need before we can agree?” 
 
 ca/am/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94372</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201112021157010891t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">KAMPALA 02 December 2011 (IRIN) - Brandishing a plea for developed countries to make good their promises to reduce carbon emissions, 300 farmers, youths and activists took the scenic route to the COP17 conference in Durban, travelling more than 7,000km from Burundi in 17 days, through 10 eastern and southern African countries, aboard a convoy of buses draped in various national flags.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>HIV/AIDS: A deadly funding crisis</title><pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2007/2007070412t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG 01 December 2011 (IRIN) - This World AIDS Day on 1 Dec should have been a much more joyous event: the global HIV/AIDS response has turned a significant corner, with record numbers of people on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and fewer new HIV infections. But the announcement by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria, cancelling its next funding round, has cast a shadow over any celebrations and highlighted the precarious nature of HIV/AIDS funding.</description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG 01 December 2011 (IRIN) - This World AIDS Day on 1 Dec should have been a much more joyous event: the global HIV/AIDS response has turned a significant corner, with record numbers of people on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and fewer new HIV infections. But the announcement by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria, cancelling its next funding round, has cast a shadow over any celebrations and highlighted the precarious nature of HIV/AIDS funding. 
 
 That money for HIV/AIDS efforts is not as plentiful as in previous years hardly comes as a surprise. UNAIDS notes that the global economic crisis appears to have put an end to a decade of funding increases by donors - after flattening out in 2009 for the first time, international AIDS assistance fell by 10 percent in 2010. [ http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93521 ] 
 
 Nandini Oomman, director of the HIV/AIDS Monitor, which tracks AIDS spending at the Washington-based Centre for Global Development, admits that “we are in a bad situation” and faced with “less money and more [health] priorities”. Moreover, non-communicable diseases have overtaken HIV/AIDS as the leading cause of death worldwide. Global and national leaders are now confronted with a “set of tough choices”, she noted. 
 
 Zimbabwe’s Minister of Health, Dr Henry Madzorera, believes it is still too early to gauge the full impact of the global funding decline. “We do anticipate that [this] will have a negative impact on our universal access goal… that the consequences of this global economic meltdown will be catastrophic to our programmes… [and] will take us back many years,” he told IRIN/PlusNews. 
 
 The big squeeze 
 
 As the world’s largest donor to HIV/AIDS efforts, the United States contributes 54 percent of international AIDS financing, but the Centre for Global Development warns that in America’s current political and fiscal climate, this level of support for AIDS funding may have reached a “tipping point” and “will be increasingly difficult to maintain in coming years”. 
 
 Oomman pointed out that the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was protected by legislation until 2013, so cuts in the funding mechanism may not be as deep as feared. “The real questions [about the future of PEPFAR] will open up in two years, when the US is faced with reauthorizing PEPFAR,” she noted. 
 
 In the meantime, the US global AIDS budget has been cut for the second year running - funding for PEPFAR in 2012 will be US$90 million less than the current allocation - and support for the Global Fund has flat-lined. 
 
 The cost implications are huge, particularly for countries such as Uganda that rely heavily on PEPFAR. According to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), less than half of the people needing treatment in Uganda get it, and PEPFAR currently supports 75 percent of all patients receiving ARVs in the country. International donors are increasingly requesting that Uganda look for domestic funds to support its response. 
 
 Although South Africa is better resourced and funds more than 80 percent of its treatment costs, it still receives substantial amounts from foreign donors. PEPFAR’s shift from direct service provision to technical assistance has caused hospices and institutions that were providing ARVs to close down, and patients have been referred to a public health system that is overstretched and poorly equipped to deal with the growing numbers, Nokhwezi Hoboyi, district coordinator for the Treatment Action Campaign, told journalists at a press briefing. 
 
 The UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) is also cutting bilateral aid for HIV/AIDS projects in developing countries by 32 percent, from £59.9 million ($92 million) to £41 million ($64million), between now and 2015. 
 
 Bailing out of the Fund? 
 
 With many donor countries preoccupied with the economic crises on their doorsteps and slowly starting to reduce their HIV/AIDS funding, the Global Fund remains a crucial player despite its latest setback. The amount of money that the multilateral body has made available since it was created in 2001 was “absolutely unprecedented” said Dr Eric Goemaere, head of MSF South Africa’s medical unit. 
 
 On 28 November, MSF warned that many low-income countries with a high HIV/AIDS burden were relying heavily on money from the Global Fund to continue providing treatment as well as to scale up their programmes. Some countries have been unable to implement the most recent World Health Organization guidelines, which call for earlier initiation of treatment and better first-line drugs. 
 
 The Global Fund has also been hit by a crisis in confidence in recent months, after reports of grant mismanagement found by the Fund’s Office of the Inspector General and the findings of a high-level independent review panel that recommended major changes to its accountability structures. 
 
 Oomman told IRIN/PlusNews that rather than “buckling down” to fix the Global Fund model, however, donors were “bailing out” by failing to live up to their commitments. “This doesn’t absolve the Fund of the responsibility to fix itself and reform… but it was created by the donors and should be fixed by the donors,” she commented. 
 
 High-burden nations need to do more 
 
 With its future at stake, the Global Fund has been encouraging emerging markets to pick up the baton, but the reality is that financial backing from traditional donors such as America and the European countries is still vitally important. “If I were an emerging market government, would I put my money in [an organization] which Western donors are pulling out of?” Oomman asked. 
 
 Activists agree that although some countries with high HIV prevalence rates still can’t afford to put a lot of money into their AIDS response, they cannot be completely absolved. 
 
 “Sustainability depends on domestic funding. Even in this hard economic environment, countries can at least lay down the enabling instruments that will grow over time and take over from donor funds when these funds dry up,” Zimbabwe’s Madzorera acknowledged. 
 
 “African governments are not doing enough at this stage,” he said, “and it cannot be allowed to be ‘business as usual’ in the face of this global economic crisis.” 

Read more on the impact of the HIV/AIDS funding crunch: http://www.plusnews.org/IndepthMain.aspx?Indepthid=93&amp;reportid=94341
 
 kn/he

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94354</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2007/2007070412t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG 01 December 2011 (IRIN) - This World AIDS Day on 1 Dec should have been a much more joyous event: the global HIV/AIDS response has turned a significant corner, with record numbers of people on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and fewer new HIV infections. But the announcement by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria, cancelling its next funding round, has cast a shadow over any celebrations and highlighted the precarious nature of HIV/AIDS funding.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>HIV/AIDS: Feeling the pinch</title><pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2010/201009300628350156t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG/NAIROBI 01 December 2011 (IRIN) - Faced with the global economic downturn and less money from donors, national HIV programmes in East and Southern Africa - the region hardest hit by HIV/AIDS - are struggling to stay afloat. IRIN/PlusNews brings you a wrap of countries feeling the biggest pinch.</description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG/NAIROBI 01 December 2011 (IRIN) - Faced with the global economic downturn and less money from donors, national HIV programmes in East and Southern Africa - the region hardest hit by HIV/AIDS - are struggling to stay afloat. IRIN/PlusNews brings you a wrap of countries feeling the biggest pinch. 
 
 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 
 
 According to medical relief agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), funding shortfalls caused the government to cap the number of people starting on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment at 2,000 new patients for 2011, even though an estimated 15,000 people are on waiting lists for the drugs. Only 12 percent of those in need of the life-prolonging medication are receiving it. 
 
 NGOs have been asked by the Ministry of Health to limit HIV testing because there is no money available to buy drugs to treat those eligible for ARVs. Access to drugs for opportunistic infections and testing for CD4-counts or viral loads is extremely limited. 
 
 DRC is largely dependent on the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria to finance its treatment programmes, and other donor projects are winding up, making the country even more dependent on dwindling Global Fund grants. 
 
 Uganda 
 
 Poor funding in 2010 led HIV care facilities to reduce patient enrolment. Service providers said they were afraid to encourage people to test for HIV in case they needed ARVs and were unable to provide the medication. In August PEPFAR responded [ http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=90288 ] to appeals from healthcare providers overwhelmed by patients by making a commitment to increase its support to the national treatment programme. 
 
 However, HIV programmes remain poorly funded and Uganda's appeal for $270 million from the Global Fund in Round 8 was rejected. Although the government now contributes some $60 million annually to buying HIV drugs from a local manufacturer, critics say HIV/AIDS efforts will remain stunted unless the government makes a more meaningful contribution [ http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=86336 ]. 
 
 South Africa 
 
 In November 2011, South Africa's leading HIV/AIDS lobby group, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), which is largely dependent on the Global Fund, released a statement warning that without this money, TAC will be forced to close its doors and retrench 280 employees in 130 branches at the end of January 2012. TAC volunteers distribute over 5 million condoms a year and the group's treatment literacy project educates patients about HIV treatment in many of the country's public health facilities. 
 
 As some donors pull out entirely and others shift from programme implementation to technical assistance, many patients who previously got their treatment from well run NGOs are being transferred to already overcrowded public health facilities. 
 
 Burundi 
 
 Following a Global Fund rejection [ http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=81105 ] of its application for money in November 2007, the government said there was a gap of $83 million to cover all the needs of the national AIDS strategic plan from 2007 to 2011. 
 
 In 2010, HIV-positive patients in some parts of the country complained that they were unable to access drugs to treat opportunistic infections [ http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=90128 ] and many could not afford a CD4 test, which measures immune strength and is required before health facilities can initiate patients on ARVs. 
 
 At the end of June 2011, World Bank funding - more than $50 million over a nine-year period - for Burundi's AIDS response ended and has not been renewed. The Global Fund and the World Bank have been Burundi's largest HIV donors. In September, associations of people living with HIV reported [ http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93657 ] that several of their members had died due to an ongoing shortage of ARV drugs. 
 
 Swaziland 
 
 The country with the highest HIV prevalence has been grappling with shortages of HIV treatment, testing kits and laboratory tests essential for initiating and managing patients on ARV treatment, caused mainly by a drop in revenue from the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) as a result of the global economic downturn. 
 
 Swaziland recently received emergency funding from PEPFAR to help supply first-line ARVs until the end of April 2012, but further ARV shortages have been predicted. 
 
 Mozambique 
 
 An estimated 96 percent of the HIV budget is donor-funded, with the Global Fund and PEPFAR providing the largest portion. Mozambique’s Round 9 funding has not yet been released due to concerns over poor financial and supply management, and its Round 10 grant proposal was not approved. Other donors, including the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative, have withdrawn support as the UNITAID grant comes to a close. 
 
 Mozambique is expected to face shortages of first-line ARVs by the end of 2012 or even earlier, unless an emergency funding request to the Global Fund is approved. The country is looking for other funding alternatives to help bridge the projected shortfall. 
 
 Kenya 
 
 HIV/AIDS funding received a blow when the Global Fund rejected its proposals in rounds eight and nine. Kenya has a projected $167 billion shortfall to cover its HIV programmes up to 2013. The country has put more than 400,000 people on ARVs, but another 600,000 need the drugs and have no access to them. 
 
 At the end of November 2011, HIV-positive people in Coast Province, eastern Kenya, held demonstrations over the lack of drugs in health facilities, forcing people to purchase the drugs from private pharmacies, but many who can't afford the drugs are going without. 
 
 Kenya's Cabinet has proposed [ http://blog.usaid.gov/2011/09/seeking-a-sustainable-solution-for-hiv-funding-in-kenya ] that the Ministry of Finance create an HIV/AIDS Trust Fund to support scaling up the HIV response. If approved, the government will contribute 1 percent of its annual revenue to the fund. 
 
 kr/kn/he

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94363</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2010/201009300628350156t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG/NAIROBI 01 December 2011 (IRIN) - Faced with the global economic downturn and less money from donors, national HIV programmes in East and Southern Africa - the region hardest hit by HIV/AIDS - are struggling to stay afloat. IRIN/PlusNews brings you a wrap of countries feeling the biggest pinch.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>BURUNDI: A new rebellion?</title><pubDate>Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2009/200911201029460156t.jpg" />]]>BUJUMBURA 30 November 2011 (IRIN) - Amid growing concerns about a wave of political assassinations in Burundi, a former police officer has announced the formation of a new armed group, with the aim of overthrowing a government he accuses of numerous killings, rampant corruption and economic incompetence.</description><body><![CDATA[BUJUMBURA 30 November 2011 (IRIN) - Amid growing concerns about a wave of political assassinations in Burundi, a former police officer has announced the formation of a new armed group, with the aim of overthrowing a government he accuses of numerous killings, rampant corruption and economic incompetence.
 
 The army quickly denied a new rebellion was under way and a news blackout has been imposed.
 
 Some 300,000 people are thought to have died during a civil war that raged in Burundi between 1993 and 2005 and whose aftershocks continue to be felt in the form of frequent violence and political instability.
 
 "Our men are on the front in Cankuzo and Ruyigi [in the east of the country],” said Col. Pierre Claver Kabirigi, naming his group during a 25 November interview on Radio Publique Africaine as the Le front de restauration de la démocratie (FRD) Abanyagihugu.
 
 Kabirigi said his group carried out attacks in the provinces of Cankuzo and Ruyigi. On 21 November, clashes were reported between government security forces and a group of armed men in a locality in Cankuzo.
 
 In a statement, he said he formed his group in reaction to the misappropriation of public funds, as well as a wave of extrajudicial killings allegedly carried out by intelligence operatives and police at the instigation of the ruling Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie-Forces de défense de la démocratie (CNDD-FDD) party, in an operation codenamed Safisha, which is Kiswahili for “to clean”.
 
 Kabirigi further alleged that state agents were behind the 18 September massacre of 40 people in a bar in Gatumba [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93777 ] and the 8 October execution of two university students.
 
 "Oddly, as far as the Burundian authorities are concerned, all is well. [But the] Burundian people are feeling abandoned and to deal with this situation, they have decided to take up arms." 
 
 In keeping with previous official reactions to armed violence, on 28 November, army chief Maj. Gen. Godefroid Niyombare dismissed Kabirigi’s supporters as mere “criminals” and “bandits”, insisting no new rebel group had been created. He said Kabirigi was a fugitive from justice who had already served prison time.
 
 But Kabirigi’s claims of government complicity in widespread killings have been echoed by Burundi’s human rights community.
 
 According to the Observatoire de l’Action Gouvernementale (OAG), a watchdog comprising 18 organizations, as well as journalists and members of parliament, at least 300 members of opposition parties have been killed by security forces or the youth wing of the CNDD-FDD.
 
 “We have observed with dismay that in all parts of the country, a diabolical machine has continued killing opposition party activists,” OAG chairman Onesphore Nduwayo told a 21 November press conference. 
 
 “Since May, at least 300 [civil society] activists or former demobilized FNL combatants have been killed,” he said, referring to the Forces nationales de libération, one of the main armed groups during the civil war, which is now a political party. FNL leader Agathon Rwasa fled Burundi in 2010 for eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where he has reportedly been remobilizing [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=91322 ].
 
 “The people were arrested by the Imbonerakure [the ruling party’s youth wing] or by police elements or the secret service and taken to an unknown location and later found dead, executed,” said Nduwayo.
 
 At present, the violence and political assassinations seem directed towards members of the Movement pour la solidarité et la démocratie (MSD) party, whose leader Alexis Sinduhije is also in exile.
 
 “[The MSD] today seems to be in the eye of the storm,” said Nduwayo.
 
 The president of the Association for the Defence of Human Rights and Prisoners' Rights (APRODH), Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, added: “I know that there are people who were killed because of their political [affiliations] and I say this loud and clear, they were political assassinations and if I should die because I have spoken the truth, I accept [that].” 
 
 "Score-settling"
 
 A government report on security over the past two years, released this month, acknowledged numerous killings had taken place but attributed them to score-settling, land disputes, banditry and the prevalence, despite several post-war disarmament campaigns, of weapons across the country.
 
 Playing down charges of an orchestrated campaign against the opposition, government spokesman Philippe Nzobonariba told reporters that numerous government officials had also died in the violence, especially in the province surrounding the capital, Bujumbura.
 
 The report said several police and military officials were among 223 arrested for crimes including murder or attempted murder, rape or attempted rape, robbery, fraud, embezzlement and corruption, illegal possession and sale of weapons and complicity to escape.
 
 But according to APRODH’s Mbonimpa, only a few people have been arrested and jailed in relation to extrajudicial executions.
 
 Time to talk
 
 The European Union, through its representative in Bujumbura, Stephane de Loecker, called on the government and all political partners to sit and talk to avoid bloodshed.
 
 “The European Union is concerned by the current situation especially the executions and the extrajudicial killings,” said De Loecker, noting that it would not be easy to bring parties to the negotiating table.
 
 According to Pacifique Nininahazwe of the Forum de Renforcement de la Societé Civile, a grouping of civil society organizations, the government should meet the exiled opposition politicians to enable a return to peace and security.
 
 “We do not want any more war in the country. The bloodshed since independence is enough,” said Nininahazwe.
 
 Media under pressure
 
 There are also concerns over increasing pressure on journalists. 
 
 On 29 November, Radio France International (RFI) said its Kiswahili service correspondent, Hassan Ruvakuki, had been arrested the previous day while attending a regional summit in Bujumbura because of his alleged links with Kabirigi, whom he is accused of meeting in Tanzania. RFI said it believed Ruvakuki was being interrogated in a military camp in the east of the country.
 
 Explaining the development, National Intelligence Service spokesman Télesphore Bigirimana appeared to contradict the official government position that no new rebellion existed, telling reporters: “[Ruvakuki] was arrested with others, not as a journalist, but as an individual, for investigations. He is suspected of lending support to a rebel group. If he is innocent, I think he will be released quickly."
 
 Reporters Without Borders, which works for press freedom around the world, criticized the authorities for carrying out the "abduction-style arrest" and for failing to disclose Ruvakuki's whereabouts, even to his family.
 
 Meanwhile, the National Council for Communication has banned media from reporting on Kabirigi and his group, or even commenting on its existence.
 
 A few days earlier, Daniel Bekele, Africa director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), warned [ http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/11/21/burundi-stop-menacing-media ] that “statements by senior government officials [with regard to journalists] have heightened the tension.
 
 “On November 11, the National Security Council issued a statement, delivered by Defense Minister Pontien Gaciyubwenge, accusing certain members of the media and civil society of flagrantly violating [a separate] blackout on coverage of the Gatumba massacre and calling on the government to enact sanctions against them quickly,” said Bekele.
 
 dn/aw/am/mw
 
]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94346</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2009/200911201029460156t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BUJUMBURA 30 November 2011 (IRIN) - Amid growing concerns about a wave of political assassinations in Burundi, a former police officer has announced the formation of a new armed group, with the aim of overthrowing a government he accuses of numerous killings, rampant corruption and economic incompetence.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>SECURITY: US advisers limited to &quot;support&quot; role in tracking down LRA</title><pubDate>Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201111210904450285t.jpg" />]]>NEW YORK 22 November 2011 (IRIN) - The main stated aim of the US deployment of 100 military advisers to central Africa is to improve coordination among the armies of countries affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to avoid repeating the fiasco of the 2008 multinational offensive against the group.</description><body><![CDATA[NEW YORK 22 November 2011 (IRIN) - The main stated aim of the US deployment of 100 military advisers to central Africa is to improve coordination among the armies of countries affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to avoid repeating the fiasco of the 2008 multinational offensive against the group.
 
 They “are not directly involved in the operation to find members of the Lord's Resistance Army”, said Major James Rawlinson of the US Special Operations Command, Africa, in a statement to IRIN. While they will be “working and living closely with African security forces”, the focus is “on enabling their ability to better conduct command and control, planning and coordination”.  
 
 In testimony before the US Congress in October, Alexander Vershbow, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, said “the bulk” of the 100 advisers would be based in Uganda but “small teams would deploy forward in partnership with local forces, to help them improve their skills on the front-lines”. 
 
 They will carry small-arms weapons only for self-defence, he said. Vershbow would not describe the weapons for the Congressional panel.
 
 The main goal, both said, is to help the militaries of Uganda, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Central African Republic (CAR) share intelligence, which would allow for prompt and concerted action against the LRA. 
 
 The failure of Operation Lightning Thunder in 2008 against an LRA camp by Uganda, the DRC and South Sudan, was blamed on poor coordination among the combatant forces and a lack of operational secrecy. Seventeen US military advisers provided support for the operation. 
 
 In its immediate aftermath, LRA units went on the rampage, killing hundreds of civilians and forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes.
 
 At present, 440,000 civilians in the region are displaced, most in DRC, because of LRA activities, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
 
 “Our intention is to supplement host nation military efforts with advice and assistance that maximizes the flow of information to, and synchronizes the activities of host nation units in the field,” said Rawlinson. 
 
 Vershbow said he hoped “fusing the intelligence information with the operational plans” would lead to the elimination of “the remaining leadership of the LRA".
 
 Raising questions
 
 Congressman Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California, criticized Vershbow for being “vague” about the US operations. In comments to CNN, Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, echoed those sentiments: “The LRA is one of the most atrocious and barbaric organizations in history and I applaud the goal, but I would like to know more.”
 
 Richard Downie, a fellow and deputy director of the Africa Programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, cautioned that the increased US involvement did not guarantee the LRA’s days were numbered.
 
 “I think you do have to be a little bit cautious in your expectations,” he said. “The difficult thing here is ultimately the responsibility is going to lie with the militaries on the ground.”
 
 Ashley Benner, a policy analyst for the Enough Project, a Washington-based NGO that advocated for the US mission, worried that only sending advisers “will not make enough of an impact and, when the desired results are not seen, will likely lead to their premature withdrawal”. 
 
 She called on the Obama administration to urge African countries to improve their special forces, convince European countries to provide logistical assistance, defuse tensions between regional governments, and ensure the protection of civilians. 
 
 “The advisers should be tasked with helping to develop and coordinate a targeted apprehension strategy and improve US oversight of mission planning and execution,” she said. “Only then do we have a real chance of finally apprehending Joseph Kony and his senior commanders and bringing them to justice.”

 For more, visit IRIN's in-depth: On the trail of the LRA [ http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?indepthid=92&amp;reportid=94259 ]

 pd/am/mw
 
 ]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94261</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201111210904450285t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NEW YORK 22 November 2011 (IRIN) - The main stated aim of the US deployment of 100 military advisers to central Africa is to improve coordination among the armies of countries affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to avoid repeating the fiasco of the 2008 multinational offensive against the group.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Waiting for Washington</title><pubDate>Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201111210938380098t.jpg" />]]>ZEMIO 22 November 2011 (IRIN) - “We want American soldiers here on the ground. They could sort this out. Just having two of them here would make a big difference.” Sitting outside his office in Zémio, 730km east of the Central African Republic capital, Bangui, the mayor, Pierre-Raymond Agueboti, spoke with anger and frustration about the havoc wrought by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in his region. </description><body><![CDATA[ZEMIO 22 November 2011 (IRIN) - “We want American soldiers here on the ground. They could sort this out. Just having two of them here would make a big difference.” Sitting outside his office in Zémio, 730km east of the Central African Republic capital, Bangui, the mayor, Pierre-Raymond Agueboti, spoke with anger and frustration about the havoc wrought by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in his region. 
 
 “We have no freedom now,” Agueboti told IRIN. “In the past we could hunt, we could fish, we could farm our land. All of that has gone into decline now. There is no security for us. Our hands are tied and our arms are crossed.” Agueboti welcomed the interventions made by NGOs and UN agencies in Zémio and the surrounding region, providing shelter for IDPs and refugees, running health clinics and supporting local agriculture. But he said people were wary of the culture of dependency that had resulted. Agueboti warned that the continuing insecurity had left the region increasingly isolated. Civil servants, teachers and medical personnel were more reluctant to move to the southeast, particularly after the killing of a senior doctor in a road ambush in June.
 
 Like others in the southeastern Haut-Mbomou region, Agueboti refers to the LRA as the “Tongo-Tongo”, loosely translated from the local Zande dialect as “those who never sleep, who march at night, and who can catch you any time”. Witnesses of LRA attacks talk of groups of heavily armed men breaking into houses, destroying property, killing or abducting their victims, easily recognizable because they speak Acholi, Kiswahili or Lingala, not central African languages like Zande or Songo.
 
 Since early 2008, the LRA has attacked dozens of villages in CAR, mostly in the southeast, forcing a mass exodus into towns such as Obo and Zémio, where they are now mostly sheltered in hastily assembled displaced people's (IDP) sites, joining thousands more forced out of their homes by the LRA across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). 
 
 "Let down" 
 
 Three years ago, the tide appeared to be turning against the LRA. Well-armed troops from the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF), deployed in the CAR with the full blessing of the host country’s government, had mounted a high-profile counter-insurgency operation against the LRA, tracking the mixed columns of rebel soldiers and their abductees through the bush. The UPDF confidently announced that a long elusive victory was at hand, pointing to the elimination of several senior LRA lieutenants, hinting that the movement’s leader, Joseph Kony, was finally within their sights. 
 
 Agueboti said Kony was still in southeast CAR, hiding out in the forests north of Zémio, near the River Vovodo. He praised the UPDF for its display of force - “without them this place would have fallen to Kony” - but said his people felt let down. He accused the Ugandan military of failing to deliver on its initial promises, the UPDF not liaising effectively with the local population, losing out on valuable local intelligence. Augeboti was more dismissive of the Central African Armed Forces (FACA). “If there is an LRA attack, they are wholly underprepared. They have to come to this office to get money for fuel before they can go off on an operation.” 
 
 Augeboti said people were now setting up special prayer cells, asking God to deliver them from the LRA. “We have used our fetishes against them, we have used our gris-gris, but they have been no match for Kony.”
 
 News has filtered through to Zémio of President Barrack Obama’s stated intention to deploy at least 100 military advisers as part of a commitment to enforce the 2009 Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. Obama’s pledge has been accompanied by a 30-page strategy paper and a promise “to help bring an end to the brutality and destruction that have been a hallmark of the LRA across several countries for two decades”. 
 
 In a paper entitled Ending the Lord’s Resistance Army, Enough, the Washington-based Project to End Genocide and Crimes against Humanity, applauded the deployment of observers, but stressed that much more concerted military action was needed. Enough urged the US “to provide a surge of military, intelligence, logistical, and diplomatic support”, enrolling special forces from European nations and giving strong backing to AU initiatives to eliminate Kony. [ http://www.enoughproject.org ] Scepticism 
 
 But there is still considerable scepticism and confusion regarding Washington’s intentions, particularly among the displaced. 
 
 “The Americans have let us down for two years,” said Moise Wodouaia, president of the IDP community at one of the four IDP sites in Zémio. “They said they were coming to help us push Kony back, but we have watched in vain. Do they want us all to die before they come to our aid?”
 
 Wodouaia and others said the US had the technology available to locate Kony and eliminate him if necessary. “That is something we could never do ourselves. Our own army doesn’t care about the southeast, while we have only spears to use against the Tongo-Tongo and they have AK-47s.”
 
 Justin Rabby is also convinced Joseph Kony is at large in the CAR. Now a nurse in Zémio, Rabby spent two years as an LRA hostage, kept alive because of his medical skills, moving from base to base and regularly treating Kony himself. Having escaped his captors, Rabby now heads an association for survivors of the LRA. 
 
 He warns against underestimating Kony’s military capability, pointing out that the LRA has in the past used its captives as human shields, deterring military strikes. Rabby says Kony himself should be captured not killed. “If the man dies, we the victims lose out,” Rabby told IRIN. “It would be far better to have Kony before the International Criminal Court.” 
 
 For more, visit IRIN's in-depth: On the trail of the LRA [ http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?indepthid=92&amp;reportid=94259 ]

 cs/mw 
 
 ]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94262</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201111210938380098t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">ZEMIO 22 November 2011 (IRIN) - “We want American soldiers here on the ground. They could sort this out. Just having two of them here would make a big difference.” Sitting outside his office in Zémio, 730km east of the Central African Republic capital, Bangui, the mayor, Pierre-Raymond Agueboti, spoke with anger and frustration about the havoc wrought by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in his region. </td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Analysis: Taking on the LRA</title><pubDate>Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201109090734440184t.jpg" />]]>GULU-JUBA-KINSHASA 22 November 2011 (IRIN) - Washington’s contribution of 100 military advisers to help central African forces neutralize the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been welcomed by some in the countries where the insurgency sows terror, but has also been met by caveats and calls for a negotiated path to peace.</description><body><![CDATA[GULU-JUBA-KINSHASA 22 November 2011 (IRIN) - Washington’s contribution of 100 military advisers to help central African forces neutralize the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been welcomed by some in the countries where the insurgency sows terror, but has also been met by caveats and calls for a negotiated path to peace.
 
 “The situation is completely out of hand, people are being killed day and night,” Silvestor Kimbezi, a Congolese priest, told a recent workshop on the LRA’s impact in Uganda, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Central African Republic (CAR), held in the northern Ugandan town of Gulu.
 
 “These people are experiencing the worst form of violence they have ever witnessed; women and children are being abducted and subjected to inhuman conditions while older people are clobbered to death. We urge governments of these countries to get serious, otherwise people might be wiped out in these places,” he added.
 
 Although the LRA is estimated to have fewer than 500 fighters, it has displaced some 440,000 people across the three countries, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Between January and August 2011, there were 240 attacks attributed to the LRA, leading to 130 deaths and 327 abductions. Most of these incidents took place in northeastern DRC.
 
 “The government of South Sudan has endorsed and accepted the role of the US to help fight the LRA,” that country’s information minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, told IRIN in Juba.
 
 “The US has a major role in terms of logistical support, in terms of trying to locate [groups] on difficult terrain,” he added.
 
 “We need the support from the superpowers, who have the capacity to detect them [the LRA] hiding in very deep forest,” echoed military spokesman Philip Aguer, remarking on his country’s lack of necessary air power and surveillance capacity.
 
 In South Sudan, into which LRA forces were first chased from their original northern Uganda bases in the late 1990s, the group remains active, especially in Western Equatoria State’s Yambio County, according to Justin Ginara, director of child welfare in the newly independent nation.
 
 “People in Western Equatoria depend on the land. The LRA has frightened them away and they are running. All the villagers surrounding Yambio [town] have been pushed or displaced to Yambio and denied their source of livelihood, which is the land on which they depend,” he said.
 
 "They do not have food, they do not have medicines. They become vulnerable to anything that can happen and they cannot access all the basic services like health and education," he added.
 
 “We hope that this suffering will soon come to an end,” civil society organizations working in the region’s LRA-affected areas wrote in a recent open letter to South Sudan President Salva Kiir, published online by Human Rights Watch. [ http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/11/11/letter-president-republic-south-sudan-salva-kiir-mayardit-civil-society-representati ]
 
 Such organizations have criticized the governments of affected countries, especially DRC, for playing down the threat posed by the LRA to civilians.
 
 Attacks
 
 DRC’s government spokesman and communications minister Lambert Mende insisted in an interview with IRIN that “almost all [LRA] troops” have left DRC for CAR.
 
 “According to the reports of our troops in the field and the evaluations that our partner make, there have been no LRA attacks since seven or eight months,” he said.
 
 “We have instances of abductions and looting in a few villages but each time we arrested the culprits we were surprised to see that they are Congolese citizens using the LRA label to scare the others and then try to loot them. So you can understand that the LRA is not as active as it was eight months, a year or two years ago,” he said.
 
 According to OCHA, the LRA was responsible for 82 attacks, 32 deaths and 41 abductions in northern DRC between June and August 2011.
 
 Junior Safari, executive secretary of Groupe Lotus, a human rights NGO based in Kisangani, capital of Orientale province, suggested such assurances were attributable more to politics than reality.
 
 “The LRA is still not annihilated. It still continues to massacre the population in villages.
 
 “As the electoral campaign got under way, it is no surprise the authorities say the security situation is under control in the country, whereas this is untrue. As for the people allegedly ‘arrested’ the government is referring to, this is just a trick for them to be seen as peacemakers,” he said.
 
 Guy-Marin Kamandji, in charge of communication at Caritas Congo, told IRIN there was a “clear discrepancy between the official discourse” and the reality on the ground.
 
 “The fact is that the threat really exists and that our populations still suffer the consequences.”
 
 Kamandji described the US intervention as a “good start that will reinforce efforts already under way” but warned that the Americans would “have problems collecting information in the field because of the difficulty of the terrain, which includes the Virunga National Park.
 
 “And they will have to face rebels who behave like guerrillas, who can disappear when they want,” he said.
 
 Another caveat about the US involvement came from regional civil society organizations, which warned, in a common declaration signed after an October meeting in the northern DRC town of Dungu, that the “deployment will only be effective if the governments of CAR, South Sudan and Congo... fully commit to meaningful cooperation in regional and international efforts to protect civilians.”
 
 They also suggested that Washington’s commitment, on its own, would be insufficient and appealed for “significant engagement from the African Union, European Union, UN Security Council and UN peacekeeping missions in the LRA-affected region”. They further called for “more financial and technical support to early warning networks, sensitization and demobilization efforts, and long-term rehabilitation for returnees and ex-combatants”.
 
 Early warning
 
 “The task will not be easy,” warned Richard Downie, deputy director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, in an analysis posted on the organization’s website.
 
 A botched international operation - codenamed “Lightning Thunder” - mounted against the LRA with US involvement in December 2008 prompted the massacre of at least 700 civilians and led the LRA to “scatter into smaller groups, making them much more difficult to track down... The groups have discarded any communication equipment that would allow them to be traced and instead rely on runners to relay messages. In addition, the LRA is a hardened guerilla force used to operating in difficult terrain. It has survived against the odds for a quarter of a century.”
 
 Religious opposition
 
 Religious leaders in Uganda and Sudan, meanwhile, have spoken out against further military intervention.
 
 The chairman of Uganda’s Episcopal conference and the Archbishop of Gulu John Baptist Odama told reporters earlier this month: “We do not want the aspect of pursuing Kony with military means. History has taught us pursuing these people militarily will just make the conflict and suffering spill over to other places.”
 
 Sudanese bishops issued a similar message in late October, declaring: “The people of Western Equatoria, Western Bahr el-Ghazal and neighbouring countries continue to suffer due to the activities of the Lord's Resistance Army. We reject further militarization of any of these conflicts, and call upon governments and the international community to work for negotiated settlements.”
 
 After years of negotiations a peace agreement was completed in 2008 but at a ceremony in South Sudan Kony refused to sign it, mainly over concerns about his ICC indictment.
 
 The catastrophic consequences of Operation Lightning Thunder are likely to be repeated with any further military action, according to the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI), [ http://www.arlpi.org/ ] which has played a leading mediatory role.
 
 “While many have lost hope in any peaceful resolution to the conflict, the reality is that the peace process, in particular the Juba peace talks which began in 2006, is responsible for the relative calm being experienced in northern Uganda today,” ARLPI said when the US deployment was announced.
 
 “Instead of relying on military intervention, let us redouble our efforts to engage in dialogue. We believe this is the only way to bring about a lasting solution that will foster healing and reconciliation in a region of the world that has long experienced instability and deserves peace.”

 For more, visit IRIN's in-depth: On the trail of the LRA [ http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?indepthid=92&amp;reportid=94259 ]

 ca-hb-hm/am/mw
 
 ]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94263</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201109090734440184t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">GULU-JUBA-KINSHASA 22 November 2011 (IRIN) - Washington’s contribution of 100 military advisers to help central African forces neutralize the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been welcomed by some in the countries where the insurgency sows terror, but has also been met by caveats and calls for a negotiated path to peace.</td></tr></table>>]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>
