AFRICANEWS
ClippingsAngola The security situation around Angola's eastern city of Luena, is of great concern, due to an increase in mine incidents, humanitarian organisations have warned. A total of 24 incidents were registered in the last two months in a 60 km perimeter around Luena, the provincial capital of Moxico. Access roads are being re-mined by what a UN report described as "unknown groups of people". October's toll of mine blasts was the worst so far this year, with 29 people killed or wounded in 18 incidents. According to aid workers in Luena, most of the explosions occurred within a 25 km perimeter of the city. The majority of victims were civilians. They reported that a man was recently captured by the police in Luena smuggling anti-personnel mines into the city. The aid workers said there was speculation among residents that the UNITA rebel movement was paying people to lay new mines. Guinea Guinea has appealed for international humanitarian support to enable it to cope with some 750,000 refugees from strife-torn neighbours. The sheer numerical strength of the refugees, mainly from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea-Bissau, is tasking the meagre resources of the country. (Source: PANA) Lesotho The Lesotho High Court on November 9 ordered police to refrain from torturing a 48-year-old mother of three to force her to admit involvement in a 6-year-old murder case. In a urgent application by the woman's legal representative, advocate Hae Phoofolo, the Lesotho police are alleged to have tortured and inhumanly treated the woman Maqentso Neko in March 1993 and again during at the begining of this month. Justice Gabriel Mofolo granted the application in terms of which the Lesotho police have been interdicted from "torturing, abusing or in any manner subjecting" Neko to any form of inhuman and degrading treatment while in police custody. Neko said in her application she was first arrested in March 1993 in connection with the murder of an unidentified woman whose body was found along a main road in the northern district of Lesotho. Neko said she was "savagely beaten up with fists and kicked all over". The police released her at the time when she denied any knowledge of the murder but re-arrested her on 5 November this year. She alleged the police handcuffed her and bound her legs with iron chains after ordering her to undress. Neko alleged her head was covered with a plastic bag, tied tightly around her neck and water forced into the bag to suffocate her. Advocate Phoofolo indicted that he will start legal proceedings against the Lesotho government for compensation on behalf of Neko. (Source: Africa Press Bureau) Mozambique Mozambique's government announced on 9 November that it would commission a national survey of landmines to determine exactly how much of a threat they posed. The United Nations estimates that at least two million of the indiscriminate killers were buried in Mozambique during the country's devastating 16-year civil war. Only a fraction of the mines, along major roads and railway lines, have been lifted since the civil war ended in 1992. The remaining mines have become a fierce debating point in Mozambique's current election campaign, with the opposition RENAMO party accusing the ruling FRELIMO government of neglecting the country's deep rural areas. Minefields in agricultural centres were, RENAMO said, frightening off investors and crippling small-scale farming. (Source: Africa Press Bureau) Rwanda/Uganda. The government of Rwanda has slapped a ban on food imports from Uganda. Officials from the Uganda revenue authority, told the Sunday Vision that no reason has been given by the Rwandese authorities, but they suspect the matter to be political as their counterparts in Rwanda say the orders came from "very high up". Uganda's minister for the presidency, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, confirmed the ban but refused to speculate on the reasons: "We have raised the issue with our brothers in Rwanda and a delegation led by Dr Fabius Byaruhanga is soon going to Kigali to find out the reason for the ban and seek solutions to it". The ban, which has been on for about a fortnight, started with milk, then fish and this week was extended to include anything from Uganda including matoke. The move by the Rwandese authorities has been criticised from several quarters including the pro-RPF Rwanda Times. (Source: The Sunday Vision) Sudan The case of Father Hillary Boma and others has been pending now for many months. al Ray Alaam published in Khartoum reported on 6 Nov 1999 that their trial is now to be transferred from a military to a civil criminal court. This is seen as a positive step in ensuring the eventual release of those who have been tortured into making confessions about their alleged involvement in the Khartoum bombings of 29 June 1998. The Minister of Justice & Attorney General, Ali Yasin, issued a decree to the effect that the trial of those accused of involvement in the Khartoum explosives case be transferred from a ordinary military court to a ordinary civilian court. (Source: Al Ray Alaam) Tanzania The Tanzanian authorities have arrested a man suspected of personal involvement in the Rwandan genocide of 1994, and have handed him over to the international tribunal investigating the massacres. The suspect, Mikaeli Muhimana, a local official in western Rwanda at the time of the genocide, was arrested by police in Dar-es-Salaam on 8 November. He has been transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda's detention centre in Arusha. Meanwhile, the TPR's new prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, says she'll work to speed up procedures. (Source: BBC News)
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