KINSHASA, Thursday (Reuters) – Military operations against Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have reduced the rebels to at most 100 in Congo but most remaining fighters are in Central African Republic, the region’s weakest link, the United Nations said.

Having terrorised civilians in northern Uganda for nearly two decades, the rebels crossed into Congo’s remote northeast in late-2005, where a group of 800-1,000 fighters were untouched until Uganda led a multi-national strike on them last December.

Joseph Kony, the group’s elusive leader who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, escaped the raid and the rebels launched reprisal attacks, killing hundreds of civilians. But UN-backed anti-LRA operations have continued.

“We feel that there are between 50 and 100 scattered in small pockets, mainly in the eastern part of the Garamba Park and near the border with Central African Republic,” General Babacar Gaye, the UN Congo force commander, said on Wednesday.

The rest, Gaye said, had crossed Congo’s northern border into CAR, one of the region’s poorest and most isolated states, where the LRA has already killed and kidnapped civilians.

“The LRA has always been considered a sub-regional threat. It is not a surprise that the LRA is moving towards the country where they feel they will have less difficulty to settle. They’re moving towards the weakest link,” he said.

Uganda has dispatched military intelligence units and special forces soldiers to hunt down the rebels in CAR.

New York-based rights campaigner Human Rights Watch estimates that LRA fighters have killed at least 1,200 Congolese civilians in reprisal attacks since the beginning of the multi-national offensive last year. The rebels have also killed and kidnapped people in Sudan and Congo.

NIAMEY, Thursday (Reuters) – Libya has begun repatriating hundreds of Nigerien Tuareg rebel fighters, state television in Niger reported on Wednesday, the latest sign of progress in pacifying Niger’s north after two years of revolt.

The fighters, who are from an MNJ faction of Niger’s Tuareg rebels who launched an uprising in 2007, had laid down their weapons in Libya, a country that they used as a base but also acted as mediator to end the conflict in the uranium miner.

Over the last 48 hours, 386 rebels have been flown back to the town of Agadez, in Niger’s north, the television reported.

“We are happy to see that these young men who took up arms have returned home to take part in building their country,” Abba Malam Boukar, the governor of the Agadez region, which is home to most of the uranium and was central to the violence, said.

The rebels launched their uprising calling for more representation for the nomadic Tuareg people and a greater share of the minerals mined in Niger’s north, where they live.

Tuaregs in neighbouring Mali have also been fighting their government over the last few years. Both rebellions can be traced back to failures to end similar uprisings in the two countries in the 1990s.

Having intially dismissed the rebels as bandits and smugglers, Niger’s President Mamadou Tandja earlier this year accepted Libyan help in ending the conflict and has agreed to amnesty all rebels who disarm.

Two rebel factions have agreed to disarm while a third, the FFR led by Rhissa Ag Boula, has said it wants to join the peace process but is not yet ready to lay down its weapons.

MOGADISHU, Thursday (Reuters) – Unidentified gunmen have shot dead a judge in northern Somalia who had jailed pirates and members of a hardline rebel group, police said on Thursday.

Mohamed Abdi Aware was shot several times in the head and chest by two masked men as he left a mosque late on Wednesday in Bossaso, a port in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region.

Puntland is a major base for pirates who have been wreaking havoc in the strategic shipping lanes off the Horn of Africa. Experts say it is also home to organised criminals, including money counterfeiters and human traffickers.

Aware had jailed many of them, including several members of the al Shabaab Islamist insurgent group, which the United States accuses of being al Qaeda’s proxy in the region.

Also on Wednesday, two gunmen armed with pistols killed a local member of parliament, Ibrahim Elmi Warsame, as he sat at a tea shop in Puntland’s capital Garowe.

“The two men ran off into the darkness after the shooting,” witness Jama Yusuf told Reuters by telephone.

Police said they were investigating both incidents, and extra security officials were deployed in Bossaso overnight.

Heavily armed Somali pirates, many of them from Puntland, are holding at least 13 vessels and more than 230 crew hostage.

Patrols by a multinational naval force in the busy shipping lanes that link Asia to Europe through the Gulf of Aden only appear to have forced the gangs to extend their range and strike ever deeper into the Indian Ocean.

In the latest incident, a regional maritime official told Reuters a Taiwanese fishing vessel, the Fengli 8, came under attack on Thursday southeast of Nishtun, Yemen.

In Summary

The government has defended plans to build a Sh112 million cultural centre in honour of US President Barack Obama at his ancestral home in Kogelo.

Permanent secretary in the Ministry of National Heritage and Culture Prof Jacob ole Miaron described as misleading reports in sections of the press that the plan was a waste of public funds.

According to the PS, the move was in line with the Kenya National Policy on Culture and Heritage that has been approved by the Cabinet.

“A key statement in this Policy is the commitment by the government to partner with the private sector to create an enabling environment for the development of the cultural industries in line with the overall economic development blueprint of the Vision 2030,” Prof ole Miaron observed.

The centre, the PS added, would also provide an avenue of wealth distribution as well as promote intra- and intercultural dialogue for national integration and cohesion as envisioned in the policy.

“The Ministry has observed that Kenyan communities are developing in parallel to each other with very little cultural interaction. This has allowed this void to be filled with stereotyping bordering on ethnic hatred,” he stated while defending the project.

According to the PS, the government set aside Sh40 million towards the construction of cultural centres including Kogelo Leadership and Cultural Centre.

“On completion, the Kogelo Cultural Centre will have an auditorium, library and a leadership centre.”

The centre, he added, would allow the Ministry to play an important role in development, promotion and support of creative cultural industries that have potential for employment and wealth creation towards meeting the economic pillar of Vision 2030.

The government, he further disclosed, had an ambitious plan to develop community cultural centres in all constituencies, construct a state-of-the-art international arts and cultural centre, museums, national art gallery, national hall of fame for honouring heroes among others.

“I wish to reiterate that the ministry will continue to promote the identification and certification of cultural homes in each community including Kogelo that can provide cultural experiences for both domestic and international tourists as outlined in the Vision 2030 under the tourism flagship programmes.”