PRESS BRIEFING BY HUMANITARIAN COORDINATOR FOR GREAT LAKES REGION
Press Briefing
PRESS BRIEFING BY HUMANITARIAN COORDINATOR FOR GREAT LAKES REGION
19970306
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for the Great Lakes Region, Martin Griffiths, briefed correspondents yesterday afternoon, 5 March, on the situation in the region in view of what he called "rapidly changing events". He said he had recently returned from the region and would be going back there later in the week.
With respect to eastern Zaire, he said the authorities controlling the refugee group in the Tingi-Tingi camp, south-east of Kisangani, had stated last Friday that all international and humanitarian staff should leave the camp, as imminent attack was anticipated. That move took place over the following 24 hours, and the refugees had been moving towards Kisangani on the main road. The Government of Zaire was seeking to divert them to Ubundo, a small town on the Zaire River south-west of Kisangani. His information was that the refugees were nevertheless seeking to reach Kisangani and that 300 or 400 had already arrived.
There were reliable reports that several hundred of the Tingi-Tingi refugees, who originally numbered some 160,000, were now moving back eastward, back home, Mr. Griffiths said. He had received a report this morning from Goma that 80 unaccompanied minors from among that group had already transited back into Rwanda.
He said the United Nations and non-governmental organizations staff had pulled out of Kisangani on Saturday morning, 1 March, back to Kinshasa. That decision had been taken on the basis of security concerns. Efforts were continuing to determine what could be done to provide assistance in new bases, should Kisangani fall to the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire. The World Food Programme (WFP) had been exploring the possibility of operating out of Lodja, which is west of Kindu, as well as out of a small airstrip in a place called Ikela.
Mr. Griffiths said the Alliance forces were closing in on Kisangani. They had moved beyond Libutu, moving up from the south-east. They were also closing in from the east and the north. The leader of the Alliance had made it clear their objective was to take Kisangani.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the WFP were making plans for the repatriation of the Rwandan refugees -- both the 160,000 from the Tingi-Tingi group and the 25,000 who were in Kalima, Mr. Griffiths said. "But such an operation eastward, in Alliance territory, is going to be very, very difficult
indeed. It's bad enough anyway, because of the logistics, but to do it when there's a war going on, without a cessation of the conflict, makes an already complicated operation even more complicated." A cessation of the conflict was therefore imperative.
The question of where the refugees were in the eve of such a cease- fire -- in territory controlled by the Alliance or under Government administration -- was of vital importance, he said. A separation must be made between the refugees and the intimidators -- the former Rwandan Armed Forces (EX-FAR) and the Interahamwe -- who still retained a large measure of control, particularly over the Tingi-Tingi population. If the refugees remained on the Government of Zaire's side, in the absence of a systematic attempt to make that separation, their repatriation would become extremely difficult. If they ended up in Alliance territory, the Alliance would no doubt proceed militarily to make that separation, which would lead to a loss of refugee lives, with the remainder hopefully being able to repatriate in a voluntary and safe way.
Mr. Griffiths said the Secretary-General had stated that a multinational force should be seen from a humanitarian point of view. If there was a cessation of the conflict, the land corridors for return to Rwanda, of which there were chiefly two, should have some kind of international monitoring. Such monitoring would be to reassure the refugees that their return was safe, in an area where the Alliance did not have complete control.
Talks were continuing with the authorities in Kinshasa and with the Alliance on how such a repatriation might take place, he said. It would be complicated by the fact that, as far as the United Nations system was concerned, the western prefectures of Rwanda -- which abutted the Alliance territory -- were still under phase IV security measures, which meant that only minimal United Nations staff were present. Plans for repatriation were well advanced, but their execution would depend on the issue of security and of the separation of the EX-FAR and Interahamwe from refugees.
In addition to the refugee populations already noted, there could also be up to 200,000 refugees in the area who remained unaccounted for, having not come to identified sites for assistance, Mr. Griffiths went on to say. That was based on the original counting by the UNHCR and the WFP when those refugees were in the Kivu camps. It was hoped that, should a significant repatriation operation be put into place, it would draw those who had survived out of the forest and back, repatriating to Rwanda.
Mr. Griffiths then turned to the situation in Burundi, which was frequently forgotten but remained a place of great humanitarian concern, he said. He was there last week to discuss with non-governmental organizations and United Nations agencies the humanitarian priorities there. One key issue was that of regroupement -- a policy by the authorities in Burundi to relocate Burundians, principally Hutus, to regroupement camps as a security measure, to
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take them out of conflict areas. While the policy was described by those authorities as voluntary, the areas of choice for those being regrouped was limited
The humanitarian dilemma was the issue of providing them with assistance, Mr. Griffiths went on to say. "I was visiting one such centre just last week and seeing -- as I have seen elsewhere in Burundi before -- degrees of malnutrition in children which are disgraceful, this level of need. And it would be very difficult indeed -- indeed, contrary to our mandate -- were we not to provide assistance to those who have been relocated, even where they have been forcibly relocated to those areas. But it's a typical humanitarian dilemma, because we do not wish, in any sense, to become complicit in this policy, which is a security policy." That issue was now being discussed at the level of the heads of the humanitarian agencies.
Mr. Griffiths then drew attention to the system within the sanctions regime on Burundi which provided for exemptions on humanitarian grounds:
"We have had difficulties ensuring that these exemptions are granted in a speedy and timely way; we've had a problem of lack of fuel for our operations -- again, this is not just the United Nations system but non- governmental organizations as well. We have been granted permission to import fuel from the United Republic of Tanzania and it's slowly beginning to come in, and yet we still have applications for exemptions, for example for primary education materials, for hand tools, for kerosene, to which we have had no response from the regional sanctions committee, which last met on 9 and 10 February in Lusaka. And we find this hard to understand in a situation where the sanctions regime was never intended, and is not intended, to have an adverse impact in humanitarian terms. So we obviously continue to make representations to the regional and national sanctions committees, to see why the process of exemptions isn't working as effectively as we would like."
In the Great Lakes region, the daily events changed the priorities for humanitarian agencies in a way which made planning difficult, he said. It also made it even more difficult to implement safe humanitarian operations for those who desperately needed such help.
In response to a question, Mr. Griffiths said it was often security considerations that prevented United Nations humanitarian agencies from proceeding west into areas where they were needed and had been invited, and to repatriate refugees. Land access was getting easier, but the logistics were very difficult. Any good repatriation programme required some kind of air support, for resupply of materials as well as people.
How would you rate the effectiveness of the United Nations humanitarian effort, on a scale of 1 to 10? a correspondent asked. "You're asking a biased source here", Mr. Griffiths said. The operational effectiveness of the
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humanitarian agencies was very high, he said. The problem was contextual, including security and political issues. For example, in the Alliance area, only humanitarian assistance had been provided. "We have not become involved in any rehabilitation, let alone development, because we have felt that would be wrong in principle at this time. And yet, there are, of course, substantial needs for rehabilitation and then development."
Asked to provide a measure of the magnitude of the displacement in Burundi and how widespread the malnutrition was in the camps, Mr. Griffiths said the Prime Minister of Burundi had told him last week that up to half a million people might be affected by the regroupement policy, presumably over time. "We're nowhere near that point at the moment." It was very difficult to make an accurate estimate since access was a problem owing to security concerns. The Prime Minister's estimate was in addition to 300,000 internally displaced, principally Tutsi population in Burundi, for whom assistance was already being provided.
On the level of malnutrition, Mr. Griffiths said he could not provide any figures. The United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations had been looking at the problem of data collection over the past three or four weeks to get a sense of the broad level of need, not limited to malnutrition. That survey had not yet been completed. One of the problems of operating in a place like Burundi was the difficulty of getting solid figures of malnutrition, and the degree of need, and of numbers in need, owing to issues of security and access. "It's one of the hidden stories of Burundi, which is that none of us -- non-governmental organizations or United Nations agencies - - are able to assess the extent of the humanitarian damage caused by this brutal conflict in that country", he said.
Asked if he could speculate as to why he was having trouble getting the exemptions to the sanctions regime, Mr. Griffiths said that any sanctions regime with provisions for humanitarian exemptions would be difficult to administer. One mistake had been the lack of a very clear administrative process on applying for exemptions from the beginning of that sanctions regime. There was a complicated relationship between the regional sanctions committee and the various national sanctions committees in the region.
"I think that is at least part of the problem", Mr. Griffiths said. He added: "I would hate to speculate on any further reasons for difficulties. I would, however, say, that it is distressing that we haven't been able to move fertilizers of crucial importance to the upcoming agricultural season in Burundi from Kigoma in Tanzania to Bujumbura by boat -- an exemption which was granted, clearly for humanitarian purposes, self-evidently. But we have been unable to persuade the local authorities in Kigoma to approve that movement by barge up the lake. And again, I wouldn't like to speculate as to the reason for that, but it's very unwelcome."
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