UGANDA: Rebel commander’s defection “a boon” to peace

Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN

A resident who was mutilated in an LRA attack (file photo): The LRA are accused of mass murder, rape and pillage in northern Uganda, the DRC and Southern Sudan

KAMPALA, 30 January 2009 (IRIN) – The reported defection of a senior rebel commander could revive hopes of a peaceful end to a regional conflict in which hundreds have recently died and thousands fled their homes, a leading cleric in northern Uganda said.

Okot Odhiambo, second-in-command of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), contacted the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to announce his defection.

“We are coordinating with the Ugandan government and the UPDF [Uganda People's Defence Force]; I can confirm that he has defected,” Jeremy Haslam, IOM’s head of office in Uganda, told IRIN.

The IOM, he added, was now negotiating Odhiambo’s safe passage from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to Uganda.

“I have heard about the intended surrender; the treatment he gets will play a big role for similar moves by [other] rebel commanders in future,” Gulu Catholic Archbishop, John Baptist Odama, told IRIN on 30 January.

“This must be the time where mercy triumphs over other convictions to build true reconciliation. Let him be handled like someone who has surrendered,” said the cleric, who has been involved in various efforts to peacefully end more than two decades of war between the LRA and the Ugandan government.

Odama said he hoped the surrender would lead to the conclusion of a peace process through a signed agreement, and ease an ongoing military offensive in eastern DRC.

“When he comes out, he should convince his boss [LRA leader, Joseph Kony] to come and sign [a peace agreement] instead of resorting to war,” Odama told IRIN. “War generates hatred, revenge and other evils. We think that it will be of no use for the government to go on with an outright military offensive with its consequent loss of lives.”

The LRA have been flushed out of their bases in the Garamba National Park, north-eastern DRC, but have split into smaller groups. These are now accused of mass murder, rape and pillage in DRC and Southern Sudan.

They have also abducted children and driven tens of thousands of people from their homes. On 27 January, the UN reported an attack by 13 suspected LRA rebels on the remote village of Tora in which at least 100 civilians were killed.

The LRA have been particularly vicious since December when Uganda launched an offensive against them, with the support of the DRC and Southern Sudan armies. This “poorly executed” offensive provoked a wave of “retaliatory” massacres, according to Enough Project, an international think-tank.

Mixed reactions

The Ugandan army said military pressure from the three armies had started yielding results and that the surrender would weaken the LRA military command. “If he surrenders, Kony will be isolated because Odhiambo was one of his field men who were running around,” spokesman Maj Felix Kulaigye said.

Walter Ochora, Gulu district commissioner, said the surrender “would mean the LRA has been surprisingly weakened and that it is on its death bed, which can only be good news for the people of northern Uganda”.

Others had different opinions, however. “[The defection] will be the only obvious positive contribution of ‘Operation Lightning Thunder’ instead of what we have heard since it was launched,” said Kalule Kawooya, a lawyer in Kampala.

Opposition leader Ogenga Latigo doubted reports of Odhiambo’s defection. “If he really comes out, it will mean there are some dissenting voices [developing] in the LRA, opposed to the strategy of Kony, and it will signal the beginning of the end to the LRA. I still have my doubts that this is true.”

Odhiambo is one of five LRA commanders indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in 2005. Two have since died, including Vincent Otti, Odhiambo’s predecessor, who was reportedly killed on the orders of Kony in 2008.

The rebels agreed to a truce with the government in 2006 and entered into peace negotiations, but the process has been stalled, with Kony insisting the ICC warrants must be dropped before he signs a final agreement.

vm/js/eo/mw source.www.irinnews.org

BURKINA FASO: Progress on MDG education goal creates new problems

Photo: Brahima Ouedraogo/ IRIN

University of Ouagadougou sits empty during a nationwide university professor strike, January 2009

OUAGADOUGOU, 30 January 2009 (IRIN) – Years of boosting primary school enrolment in Burkina Faso to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has increased pressure on the country’s universities. Education officials must now manage the “explosive growth” at higher levels created as more students enrol and stay in school longer, according to the Ministry of Education.

The MDGs, adopted in 2000, call for universal primary education by 2015.

Joseph Pare, Minister of Higher Education, told IRIN that university enrolment in Burkina Faso has increased by 25 percent in 2007, in part because of more high school graduates. “There is now a strong trend of students making it though the secondary level, which creates infrastructural and human resource problems.”

In 2007 the main public university in the capital Ouagadougou had 400 professors for 40,000 students, according to the government.

The lack of teachers as well as inadequate classroom and research space led to student strikes in 2006 and 2007. The most recent ended in clashes with security forces.

Higher Education Minister Pare told IRIN the government has invested more than US$15 million to improve and adapt universities since 2005.

While reforms are underway, Pare said expensive temporary measures are the only way to accommodate the ever-growing student population. “Every year, we are forced to rent classroom space downtown at the cost of $784,000. And this is done with the country’s five-percent annual economic growth.”

Strikes spread

In December professors at the University of Ouagadougou and two smaller public universities, in Kodougou and Bobo Dioulasso, went on strike, demanding more government benefits.

“The entire system is crumbling,” said Magloire Somé, secretary general of the national teachers’ union known as Synadec. “No one is addressing the current problems of infrastructure, lack of teachers or students’ learning conditions.”

Union leaders met with Ministry of Education officials on 30 January to find a compromise to re-open the universities.

The government has agreed to pay $360 in back pay owed to each professor, but union leader Somé said “overburdened” teachers need more. “The education level will continue to decline because it is not possible for one teacher to oversee 100 students.”

Professors currently earn almost $300 per month after four years of teaching, according to the union.

Expenses grow

The government’s Pare told IRIN as the number of students has increased, so has financial need. He said the government offered $1 million in scholarships in 2008, increasing student loan and grant amounts to $400 and $300, respectively.

Union leaders are demanding $400 per professor in monthly housing subsidies, rejecting the government’s offer of $120. Teachers currently receive $110 per month for housing.

Minister Pare said the government is already paying $1.3 million per year in teacher benefits and that this amount can reach up to nearly $2 million in the case there are additional teachers who collect benefits.

But union leader Somé said without more attractive benefits, teachers will opt out of education to make ends meet. “Improved conditions [in public institutions] would lead to better-trained professors who would not need to look elsewhere in the private sector [for employment].”

University professors are scheduled to hold further talks with the government on 16 February. “We are fighting for better salaries and benefits to make the job more attractive so as to welcome more professors to fill the void left by those who retire,” said Somé.

Within the next five years, 120 professors will retire, according to the union Synadec.

Every year in Burkina Faso fewer than half of 50 university teaching vacancies are filled, forcing authorities to start recruiting from doctoral students to fill the widening gap.

bo/pt/np
source.www.irinnews.org

MOZAMBIQUE: Another drought looming in the south

Photo: IRIN

High food prices have also pushed aid needs higher

JOHANNESBURG, 30 January 2009 (IRIN) – “This year is going to be much harder than last year because the rainfall we have recorded [in southern Mozambique] in the first month of this year is lower if you compare with the same period in 2008,” Mussa Mustapha, head of country’s meteorological institute (INAM) told IRIN.

Southern Mozambique, which is arid, had been hit by a drought in early 2008. “The below average rains, which are much lower this year than 2008, and the high temperatures in the southern parts mean agricultural production is going to be badly affected,” said Mustapha.

“We can say the wet season has already ended in the central and southern parts, and the drought has begun because the rains are moving away from this region.”

Since October 2008 less than half the usual rain has fallen and farmers in the region are headed for their third consecutive year of drought. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, 450,000 people need food assistance and up to 150,000 face a critical situation.

The country has also been affected by the high cost of food: maize prices rose by almost 102 percent last year, leaving people more vulnerable than in 2007, according to the Community and Household Surveillance (CHS) conducted in southern and central Mozambique in 2008.

In the first ten days of January 2009, Maputo Province, in the south, received 2.9mm of rainfall compared to about 40.8mm in the first ten days of 2008.

The Famine Early Warning Network (FEWS-NET), which is funded by USAID, warned in November 2008 that crops planted in southern Mozambique had not received adequate rainfall.

“Also, a more worrisome situation is the long delay of the start of rains in the central region, which may compromise this year’s agricultural season in that region,” FEWS-Net said in its last report.

The World Food Programme recently appealed for  US$8.5 million to buy 10,840 tonnes of cereals to supplement household reserves and help families cope with high food prices until the next harvest, due in April/May.

gn/jk/he
source.www.irinnews.org

CAPE VERDE: WFP to shut down by 2010

Photo: Phuong Tran/ IRIN

Primary school child in Praia, Cape Verde

PRAIA, 30 January 2009 (IRIN) – After 30 years supporting national school feeding in Cape Verde, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is handing the programme over to the government, saying the country is ready to fully finance it by 2010.

The head of Cape Verde’s UN team who represents all UN agencies working in Cape Verde, Petra Lantz, told IRIN that WFP’s decision to pull out was based on overall gains the country has made. “WFP uses two primary indicators to determine whether it should have a country presence, namely the degree of stunting among children under five and GNP [income] per capita.

“Cape Verde’s ‘graduation’ from WFP assistance in 2010 is thus a result of the country’s positive development indicators over a long period.”

Employed Cape Verdeans earn on average more than twice the income cap of US$1,100/year for countries where WFP works. Based on its growing average income per resident, Cape Verde shed its UN least-developed country status in 2007.

The government has been on track to take over the lunch programme, but the world financial crisis has presented new and unexpected challenges, said Felisberto Moreira, president of the governmental Cape Verdean Institute of School Social Services. “Right now we are completely engaged, but you never know, with the international economic crisis. The government will continue to make all the necessary efforts to provide the same services.”

Recession

The UN’s Lantz said Cape Verde’s reliance on money from overseas makes it more vulnerable to external financial shocks.

The most recent government census showed more Cape Verdeans living overseas than the fewer than half million who live on the islands. Remittances from overseas relatives constituted 12 percent of the national budget in 2007, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the African Development Bank.

Cape Verde faces a recession with the economy expected to grow by 0.5 percent in 2009 compared to an estimated tourism-fueled seven-percent growth in 2008, according to the Ministry of Finance.

Despite the gloomy economic outlook, national school social services director Moreira said the government is working to ensure a smooth handover for school feeding. He said the government has set aside $1.7 million to pay almost all costs in 2009.

Take two

As of 2008, the programme served 100,000 primary and some pre-school students, according to the UN.

WFP decreased support for school lunches in Cape Verde in 1995, but resumed full funding seven years later after it noted a drop in school enrolment after the government took over, said UN’s Lantz.

Primary school teacher Maria Jose Cabral who has taught for 23 years told IRIN her students are not regularly fed at home. “Some of them come in the morning with nothing but coffee in their stomachs. Without lunches, students may still attend, but they would not be able to concentrate.”

At the New President primary school where she teaches in the capital Praia, more than 200 students get daily meals, mostly soup and rice. “I hope the government gets it right this time,” said Cabral. “Mobilise private businesses, do whatever is necessary because this school, this entire country, cannot grow its own food magically.”

Less than ten percent of the once-volcanic archipelago is cultivable, according to the Ministry of Agriculture; most all of the islands’ food is imported

About one out of every 10 people — slightly more in rural areas — is severely malnourished and has less than 65 US cents a day to buy food, according to a recent government study conducted with the Food and Agricultural Organization; the report used 2002 data.

The school-feeding programme covers lunches for students up to age 12. Teacher Cabral told IRIN many youths do not continue school after that age. “They tend to drop out and wash cars.”

The drop-out rate for youths 12 and older is almost twice as high as the overall school-abandonment rate of 11 percent in 2007, according to the government.

pt/aa/np
source.www.irinnews.org

Key politicians plotted against bid to speed up tribunal Bills

Key politicians are behind the tactical move by Parliament to increase the possibility of dragging ministers and MPs suspected of being behind the post-election violence to The Hague.

Obama’a plan to suspend Guatamano proceedings hits snag

Written By:AFP