ANC NEWS BRIEFING 27 December 1998
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A N C D A I L Y N E W S B R I E F I N G
MONDAY 28 DECEMBER 1998
PLEASE NOTE: This News Briefing is a compilation of items from South
African press agencies and as such does not reflect the views of the
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@ LABOUR-AMPLATS
JOHANNESBURG December 24 1998 Sapa
TALKS CONTINUE TO END AMPLATS STRIKE
Talks between Anglo American Platinum Corporation and the
National Union of Mineworkers are to resume Thursday in a bid to
end the strike by thousands of NUM workers at Amplats' mines in
North West.
Amplats spokesman Steve Calladine told Sapa that management had
wanted the pay dispute referred to arbitration which he claimed the
union had originally agreed to.
"Now," he said," the NUM want it to go to mediation."
The strike, which began early on Wednesday and affected
Amplats' operations at Potgietersrus, Amandelbult, Lebowa and the
Waterval smelter at Rustenburg, is technically continuing.
But Amplats said on Thursday that the majority of mining
personnel had "worked in" previous holidays so as to have the long
Christmas weekend off.
"Mining on our operations will resume with the night shift on
Sunday," said Calladine. "Hopefully by then this dispute will have
been resolved."
The NUM members are seeking an across-the-board wage increase
of eight percent. Amplats, which says the pay negotiations are
confidential, is understood to be offering 4,5 percent.
It is not clear how many miners have participated in the strike
- Amplats says 3000, the union claims 10000.
There have been no reported clashes between the NUM members and
those of the rival Mouthpeace Workers' Union who have not gone on
strike.
Amplats made a record net profit of R1,64 billion in the year
ended June.
While Amplats' share price has eased slightly since the
industrial action began analysts consider the reason to have been
the fall in precious metal prices.
@ 48 MUNICIPALITIES GO BEGGING TO BISHO
Issued by: East Cape News (Ecn)
GRAHAMSTOWN (ECN) - Serious financial problems and
overstaffing have forced at least 48 Eastern Cape municipalities to
go cap-in-hand to Bisho for bridging funds to tide them over
Christmas and into the New Year.
And a "transitional grant" of R1m has been granted on a provisional
basis to 40 of these institutions to prevent them going into a
financial tailspin
This was confirmed yesterday (Subs:Weds) Department of Housing
and Local Government spokesman Mr Litha Twaku.
He said the R1m would be split among the 40 TLCs which had met
certain criteria.
He could not give details of the other eight municipalities
other than to say they were not getting the bucks.
Among those receiving financial aid are the municipalities of
Bathurst, Bedford, Alicedale, Alice, Adelaide, Bizana Cala,
Cookhouse, Elliotdale, Engcobo and Flagstaff.
Twaku stressed the financial rescue was "provisional" and the
municipalities had been warned to get their staffing structures
sorted out.
"One of the major problems is many of these municipalities are
overstaffed and they must now right-size.
"They were asked long ago to correct their staffing structures and
must now prioritise."
Twaku said a number of municipalities were unable to pay their
creditors and, in places like Bedford, their employees.
The grants would be drawn from a "special fund". - ECN
Thursday 24/12/98 Municipality*** SUBS' NOTE: This news is
distributed by Sapa on behalf of East Cape News (Pty) Ltd and is for
the exclusive use of ECN subscribers. Non-ECN subscribers are
welcome to publish on arrangement with ECN (Tel: 046 - 636-1013,
Fax: 046 - 636-1050; Editor's cell 082 569 1167).
@ ANGOLA-SAFRICAN
PRETORIA December 24 1998 Sapa
SEARCH STILL ON FOR SOUTH AFRICAN, NINE OTHERS, LOST IN ANGOLA
The search is still continuing for 10 people, including South
African metallurgist Douglas Larsen, who went missing after an
attack on a Canadian-owned diamond mine in Angola last month.
Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Adri Cronje on Thursday said search
efforts were being hampered by the fact that nobody had yet claimed
responsibility for the attack.
"Nobody has any idea where to start. Our hands are tied."
About 50 armed men attacked DiamondWorks' Yetwene mine in
northeastern Angola on November 8, killing eight people.
Cronje said the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Angola,
as well as the Angolan government, had been requested to be on the
lookout for those missing.
Earlier this week DiamondWorks said in a statement that it was
following every avenue to locate the 10 employees still missing
after the attack.
"There is no new information to report at this time although
the company remains hopeful as to their safety."
DiamondWorks said good progress had been made with preparations
for the resumption of production at the Yetwene mine, planned for
late January. These included enhanced security features.
The company was currently suffering monthly production losses
of about US$2 million at Yetwene, the statement said.
@ DEPUTY PRESIDENT THABO MBEKI'S XMAS MESSAGE
Issued by: Office of the Executive Deputy President T.M Mbeki
Deputy President Thabo Mbeki joins millions of South Africans
in
celebrating Christmas and the dawn of the New Year. 1998 saw
government, business, labour and other sectors of our population
take further efforts in creating a better life for all our people.
The Deputy President expresses his hope that 1999 will see
accelerated efforts aimed at creating a qualitatively better life
for all South Africans. The Deputy President central message is:
* Don't drink and drive! Arrive Alive
* Don't fool yourself speed, drunken and reckless driving kill!
* Use a Condom!
Issued by Office of Deputy President T.M. Mbeki
Communications Division
P/Bag X955
Pretoria
0001
24 December 1998.
@ TORNADO-DISASTER
PRETORIA December 24 1998 Sapa
UMTATA, LIBODE, NGQELENI DECLARED DISASTER AREAS
President Nelson Mandela on Wednsday officially declared the
tornado-stricken Eastern Cape magisterial districts of Umtata,
Libode and Ngqeleni as disaster areas, the Welfare Department said
on Thursday.
This meant that people affected by a tornado which killed 18
people and injured 162 on December 15 could apply for relief, a
departmental statement said.
Applications would be considered by the board of the disaster
relief fund.
"The board will only look at people who have been affected by
the tornado and will not address infrastructural problems," the
statement said.
People wishing to apply for relief should contact the
department.
Last week an inter-ministerial committee on disaster management
decided Umtata and the surrounding area should be declared a
disaster area. Mandela signed the declaration on Wednesday.
@ RECONSTRUCTION OF UMTATA
Issued by: Government Communications (GCIS)
MEDIA STATEMENT BY THE TASK TEAM OF NATIONAL, PROVINCIAL AND LOCAL
GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES AND STAKEHOLDERS ON THE RECONSTRUCTION OF
UMTATA
The City of Umtata has been struck by one of the most
destructive natural phenomena. On the afternoon of Tuesday 15
December a violent hail and thunderstorm developed two tornado
funnels that wreaked havoc across the city and surrounding rural
areas.
The tornado left 18 people dead, at least 184 injured and damage
to property estimated at many millions of Rands.
Roofs were blown off buildings, trees were uprooted - blocking
roads and landing on houses and cars.
This disaster is linked to the La Nina phenomenon that causes
abnormal weather conditions, and above average rainfall. Other
events linked to La Nina include the Tornadoes in Kwa Zulu Natal,
flash floods in Mpumalanga and the Western Cape and last night's
cloud burst in Potchefstroom.
As a result of these events, an emergency meeting of the Inter
Ministerial Committee on Disaster Management (IMC) was convened to
evaluate the effectiveness of coordination of the responses to the
disasters across the country.
The IMC, inter alia, dispatched a delegation of
Directors-General and technical experts to Umtata to evaluate
emergency relief efforts by the local authorities and role players,
as well as to map out a strategy for the longer term reconstruction
of the city and its environs.
The delegation also prioritised the coordination of efforts
between the local, provincial and national spheres of governments,
and between government and other role players such as non-government
agencies, businesses and the community. Members of the technical
team are now calculating the actual amounts of money required for
the reconstruction of the damage.
The first draft report has been produced. It will be followed by
a financial plan setting out all the financial requirements.
The money from the reconstruction will be obtained from a range
of sources that include insurance pay-outs, local, provincial and
national budgets, as well as contributions to the Umtata disaster
relief fund.
Aside from the loss of life and injuries sustained by people,
the main categories of damage include:
* Public infrastructure (water, lights, sewerage works)
* Public buildings (schools, hospitals, offices, garages of
emergency service vehicles)
* Communication networks (telecommunications infrastructure,
computers, including the motor vehicle registration database)
* Private dwellings
* Private business premises.
It should also be noted that many of the dwellings and
businesses damaged or destroyed by the tornado belong to people who
have invested their life savings without access to insurance cover.
The extent of loss and human suffering is thus far greater than the
material value of the property lost.
The people of Umtata, led by representatives of the Local
Council, the business community, volunteer relief organisations,
religious organisations and the security agencies have performed a
phenomenal task:
* A memorial service was held in memory of those who were
fatally injured
* The injured were treated
* People were provided with food, shelter, medicine and clothing
* An emergency fund has been established
* Clean and safe water and sewerage services have been restored
* The water is free of pollution
* Roads blocked by fallen trees have been reopened
* Refuse collection is back to normal
* 90% of the electricity supply is restored
* Temporary repairs to houses, public and business premises have
commenced
* Traffic control systems are functioning and the remaining
malfunctioning traffic lights will be repaired soon.
This remarkable effort is particularly significant because of
the fact that much of the relief was in the form of non-monetary
donations from citizens and volunteer efforts by people who have
cancelled their holiday plans to assist.
The task of the more permanent reconstruction of the affected
area is thus the issue the Task Team is currently dealing with. This
is a particularly challenging task, given that most of the affected
people are not insured and do not have the resources to repair the
damage within the foreseeable future. National line function
departments, in conjunction with their provincial and local
counterparts, have thus drafted reports on the effects of the
tornado within the areas of responsibility of those institutions.
This process is being coordinated by the City Engineer.
President Mandela has declared the Umtata, Libode and Ngqeleni
Magisterial districts to be disaster areas in terms of the Fund
Raising Act 1978. This allows for money to be set aside from the
Disaster Relief Fund (administered by the Department of Welfare) to
assist people who meet the prescribed criteria and have been left
destitute through the destruction of their dwellings.
We are currently formulating proposals on the additional
assistance that ought to be rendered to businesses and the owners of
private dwellings who do not qualify for assistance in terms of the
Fund Raising Act. The City Engineer will ensure that everything is
done to finalise all elements of our plan of action.
National government will continue to pay attention to this
matter. The provincial government will also ensure that full
attention is given to the needs of other affected areas in the
Province, particularly Libode and Ngqeleni and the surrounding rural
areas.
We have to commend the TLC leadership for a job well done. May
all of you have a blessed Christmas. We call on everyone to give
whatever assistance he or she can. We have to support the
fundraising efforts.
Issued by the local (Umtata), provincial (Eastern Cape) and national
governments on 24 December 1998
Contact Mr. Zam Titus on 0825504950
@ ANGOLA-LD-FIGHTING
LUANDA December 24 1998 Sapa-AFP
UNITA REBELS RENEW ASSAULT ON STRATEGIC ANGOLAN TOWN
UNITA rebels on Thursday renewed an artillery barrage on the
strategic central Angolan town of Kuito, the local media reported,
after government troops said they had repelled some enemy units.
Clashes were taking place around Kunje, a small community less
than seven kilometres (four miles) to the north of Kuito, the chief
town in Bie province, several local sources said.
On Thursday, a military aircraft was able to land at Kuito's
endangered airport carrying general staff advisors from the Angolan
Armed Forces (FAA) whose aim was to consolidate the position of
regular forces, reports said.
A state television journalist, whose name was not given, was
badly hurt in the shelling of Kuito early Thursday, after a day of
calm in the centre of the town, the Roman Catholic radio station
Ecclesia reported.
Artillerymen of the National Union for the Total Independence
of Angola (UNITA) have dug into hillsides overlooking Kuito, which
was devastasted when all-out war first broke out anew in Angola
between general elections lost by UNITA in 1992 and a second peace
pact signed in November 1994.
Violence has escalated since March this year, mainly between
Luanda's troops and rebel diehards loyal to Jonas Savimbi, whose
UNITA opposition has been placed under international sanctions for
failing to comply with the 1994 Lusaka protocols.
@ RWANDA-ANGOLA
KIGALI December 24 1998 Sapa-DPA
RWANDA DENIES TAKING SIDES IN ANGOLA CONFLICT
Rwandan Foreign Minister Anastase Gasana denied
Thursday that his country had taken sides in a renewed upsurge of
fighting between government forces and UNITA rebels in central
Angola.
"Rwanda is seriously concerned about the fractional conflict in
Angola, and strongly condemns the violation of the Lusaka peace
accord by (Jonas) Savimbi and his UNITA," the minister said in a
statement broadcast on Radio Rwanda.
Gasana said alegatins that Rwanda was supporting UNITA forces
were false.
@ ELEPHANTS
PRETORIA December 24 1998 Sapa
KLM AIRLINE WILL NOT TRANSPORT TULI ELEPHANTS
Dutch airline KLM on Thursday said it would no longer transport
seven juvenile elephants being kept at a plot outside Brits to
Germany and Switzerland.
Spokesman James Johnston said KLM management in Amsterdam made
this decision on Wednesday. He declined to reeal the reasons for
the move.
The elephants' owner, African Game Services boss Riccardo
Ghiazza, said KLM's decision posed no real problem.
"We have arranged a chartered aircraft sponsored by a donor
which will transport the elephants."
Spokesman for the National Council of Societies for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Rick Allan, said Ghiazza had only
four days left to export the seven elephants, which have been sold
to zoos in Germany and Switzerland.
The Brits Magistrate's Court ruled earlier this month that the
animals had to be exported by December 16.
The deadline was later extended to December 28.
Allan said the NSPCA agreed to a postponement of the deadline
because it was concerned about the way the elephants were treated
on Ghiazza's plot.
Asked whether Ghiazza would be granted another extension, he
said: "I don't think so. We have to draw the line somewhere."
Ghiazza could not say when the animals would be moved.
The seven elephants were part of a group of 30 bought by
Ghiazza from the Botswana Tuli Reserve in August to be trained for
overseas zoos and safari parks.
The Brits Magistrate's Court on December 2 gave custody of the
elephants to the NSPCA, which claimed the animals were being
abused.
Magistrate Herman Glas said the NSPCA could relocate 23 of the
elephants and gave permission for the other seven to be exported.
About a week later the Pretoria High Court placed a moratorium
on the relocation of the 23 elephants pending the outcome of a
review of Glas' decision.
Of the other seven elephants, two each have been sold to the
Erfurt and Dresden zoos in Germany, and three to the Basel zoo in
Switzerland.
@ NIGERIA-FUEL
LAGOS December 24 1998 Sapa-AFP
LABOUR UNIONS GIVE NIGERIAN GOVT ULTIMATUM ON FUEL PRICE HIKE
Workers have given the Nigerian government 14 days to reverse a
fuel price hike which saw a litre of petrol (gasoline) more than
double in the domestic market, press reports said Thursday.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Wednesday warned the
government against "workers' wrath" if the decision was not
rescinded by January 4 1999, the independent newspaper The Guardian
reported.
The NLC, which comprises 29 industrial unions, said the
decision was "a violation of memorandum of understanding signed by
the federal government and the NLC in the wake of the 1988 SAP
(Structural Adjustment Programme) riot that resulted from similar
increases".
It said the price hike would not end perennial scarcity and
smuggling of the products in the oil-rich west African country.
"It will only enrich a few Nigerians," the NLC said.
Media reports on Wednesday quoted the general secretary of the
National Public Service Negotiating Council, Sylvester Ejiofor, as
saying the price increases would "rubbish" the new salary package
announced by the government in September.
He said the timing for the price hike was "unreasonable",
coming a few days before Christmas.
Another workers' leader, Paul Okolo of Civil Service Union,
said the price hike was "saddening" and urged the government to
reverse it.
Retail prices of petroleum products rose by almost 400 percent
overnight Monday after distributors adjusted their prices.
A litre of kerosene shot up from six to 23 naira (seven to 27
cents), petrol from eleven to 25 naira and diesel from nine to 23
naira.
The development led transport fares to jump at least fourfold
Tuesday.
Many people could not afford the new fares, and were stranded
at bus stops.
Industry analysts believe that hiking prices will earn more
money for Nigeria to repair its four refineries and discourage
smuggling to neighbouring countries, where prices are much higher.
A major world oil exporter, Nigeria produces some two million
barrels per day and earns around 10 billion dollars in export
income annually.
@ AFRICA BRIEFS
AFRICA BRIEFS
KAMPALA, Uganda - The army captured an anti-aircraft gun during
clashes last weekend with rebels who had crossed into northern
Uganda from bases in southern Sudan, the New Vision newspaper said
Thursday.
Brigade commander Brig. Katumba Wamala told the
government-owned daily that more than 150 rebels of the Lord's
Resistance Army are believed to have entered Uganda in the past
week.
He said the army captured the anti-aircraft gun during fighting
in the northern town of Agoro, 370 kilometers (230 miles) north of
the capital Kampala, near the Sudanese border.
He also said they had found a rebel weapons cache that included
guns, ammunition and grenade launchers.
Wambala displayed the captured weapons for journalists in his
office in Gulu, 265 kilometers (165 miles) north of Kampala. He
said most of them had been brought into Uganda over a month ago,
and some had been dropped from an airplane.
He accused the Sudanese government of arming the LRA rebels.
-
NAIROBI, Kenya - Three tourists who refused to stand when the
Kenyan national anthem was played in the Kenya Cinema were ejected
from the theater, the customer service manager said Thursday.
In all movie theaters in Kenya, a message is flashed on the
screen before the film informing the audience that standing is
mandatory when the anthem is played.
"It is not a case of they did not know," said manager David
Mwaura.
Mwaura said the German and two Americans who had intended to
see "Antz" Wednesday were seen sitting during the playing of the
anthem by the hall manager who approached them and told them to
leave.
Once outside, Mwaura said, the tourists tried to argue, but
when the hall manager told them he would summon the police, they
left.
The tourists' names were not available.
Under Kenyan law, everyone is required to stand wherever the
national anthem is played.
-
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - When Father Ignatius Fidgeon holds
services at a Roman Catholic Church in Johannesburg, some members
of the audience barely stop scratching and yawning.
It's not a sign the parishioners are bored - the scratchers and
yawners are Bella and Sasha, two cocker spaniels who accompany
Fidgeon everywhere. They're even near the altar when he delivers
his sermons.
There haven't been howls of complaints from Fidgeon's
congregation. In fact, the dogs have become as regular a part of
the church as Bible reading and the singing of hymns, which - to
almost everyone's relief - the dogs haven't tried to participate
in.
@ TRAFFIC
PRETORIA December 24 1998 Sapa
496 PEOPLE DIE ON SA ROADS SINCE DEC 1
Road accidents in South Africa have claimed the lives of 496
people since December 1, an Arrive Alive statement on Thursday
said.
This included 165 drivers, 178 passengers and 153 pedestrians.
The deaths were a result of 343 fatal crashes, of which 43
percent involved pedestrians.
Head-on collisions accounted for nine percent of the accidents
and 35 percent involved vehicles overturning.
Fifteen pedestrians were killed over the 24-hour period ending
at noon on Thursday. Eight vehicles overturned which resulted in
eight deaths.
Alcohol abuse caused 60 percent of the accidents reported since
the beginning of the month, while 33,5 percent of the crashes were
attributed to jay-walking.
Most road deaths, 99, were reported in KwaZulu-Natal, 84 in the
Western Cape, 70 in Gauteng, 61 in the Eastern Cape, 48 in
Mpumalanga, 45 in the Free State, 38 in the Northern Province, 33
in North West and 18 in the Northern Cape.
Most reported passenger deaths were in the Western Cape, while
most drivers had died in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape.
@ LESOTHO-SA
JOHANNESBURG December 24 1998 Sapa
LAW PROFESSOR QUESTIONS LEGALITY OF SA'S INTERVENTION IN
LESOTHO
South Africa may have infringed several international laws and
the Constitution when its army entered Lesotho earlier this year,
the Law Society said in a statement on Thursday.
This was the opinion of Professor George Barrie, a law
professor at the Rand Afrikaans University, who wrote an article on
the subject in the January issue of the attorneys' journal De
Rebus.
Barrie wrote that intervention - especially involving armed
force - had effectively been banned by the International Court of
Justice (ICJ) in 1986. Armed intervention also violated an article
of the United Nations Charter.
This article reflected customary international law, which was
law in South Africa according to the Constitutiothe ICJ had already noted that if one state
disapproved of the political system of another, this did not
legallypermi it o itervene and effect changes.
"Since a state's rights to sovereignty, territorial integrity
and political independence are paramount in international law,
intervention is forbidden.
"Interference would constitute severance of diplomatic
relations, discontinuance of exports and other types of economic
sanctions."
In order to justify its intervention into Lesotho, South Africa
would have to prove that its response to circumstances in the
mountain kingdom was not in conflict with Lesotho's legal right to
self-determination.
South Africa could prove that its intervention was legal if it
could be proved that this was at the request of Lesotho, and with
its consent.
"As long as the requesting government is in overall control of
the state this principle applies," said Barrie.
In the case of a civil war, outside states no longer had
permission to intervene unless forces opposed to the government
were being supported by another state.
"The traditionally-held principle that a revolution or civil
war or state of emergency justify intervention by another state has
become clouded since the coming into force of the United Nations
Charter," Barrie said.
@ ZAMBIA-DRCONGO
LUSAKA December 24 1998 Sapa-AFP
REGIONAL SUMMIT ON DR CONGO POSTPONED AGAIN
A southern African regional summit expected to finalise a
ceasefire agreement in the Democratic Republic of Congo conflict
has been postponed, a Zambian presidential aide said Thursday.
"The summit has been postponed to a date to be announced
because we are now in the festive period," an aide to would-be host
President Frederick Chiluba told AFP.
He said that Chiluba, who was to chair the summit, decided to
reschedule the talks because of possible low attendance by leaders
during the festive season.
The five-month-old conflict pits President Laurent Kabila's
regime in Kinshasa, backed by troops from Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia
and Chad, against a mainly Tutsi rebel uprising in the east,
supported by Rwanda and Uganda.
The meeting, which had been set for December 28 in Lusaka, was
to seek to "finalise a ceasefire agreement" to end the conflict,
following last week's resolution to this effect by the Organisation
of African Unity (OAU) in Burkina Faso.
The aide emphasised that there was no major problem which had
brought about the change of date for the talks.
The meeting, initially planned for early this month, was
cancelled for unexplained reasons although diplomats said it was as
a result of differences in approach to the talks involving the
Tutsi rebels and Kabila.
South Africa, seeking to act as a regional power-broker, wants
direct talks between the DR Congolese warring parties as the rebels
insist, while Kabila and his military allies favour indirect
contact.
@ ZAMBIA-POLITICS
LUSAKA December 24 1998 Sapa-AFP
ANGLO-AMERICAN CHIEF LAUNCHES NEW OPPOSITION PARTY IN ZAMBIA
The regional head of Anglo-American Corporation (AAC), Anderson
Mazoka, on Thursday officially launched an opposition party to take
on Zambian President Frederick Chiluba's party at the polls.
Anderson Mazoka, AAC's chief executive officer for eastern and
central Africa, launched the United Party for National Development
(UPND) with the aim of contesting general elections in 2001.
Mazoka, addressing thousands of supporters gathered for the
inauguration ceremony in Zambia's capital, criticised Chiluba's
Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) for alleged bad governance
and repression.
"The MMD has shown a willingness to suppress dissent, victimise
or imprison political opponents, harass the press and keep criminal
suspects in detention for years without trial," Mazoka said.
He accused the MMD of showing great intolerance to dissenting
views and manipulating political and legal procedures to exclude
opponents from participating in the political process of the
country.
The Anglo-American chief, who retires from the mining
corporation next week, said his party would present an effective
opposition to the MMD and had viable political, social and economic
alternatives to those of the current government.
"Today we are launching a new political party... This is the
party that will lead Zambia into the next millenium. UPND has a
clear mission and vision for our country," Mazoka said.
Mazoka annnounced that a 30-member interim national committee
will manage the affairs of the party. Among its members will be
intellectuals, businessmen and Zambian former diplomats.
@ TORNADO-UMTATA
UMTATA (Changes fm Pretoria) December 24 1998 Sapa
ADDITIONAL HELP PROPOSED FOR UMTATA BUSINESSES, HOME-OWNERS
A governmental task team was formulating proposals for extra
financial assistance to businesses and home-owners affected by the
tornado in the Umtata area, the team said in a statement on
Thursday.
The tornado on December 15 left 18 people dead and at least 184
injured and caused damage to property estimated at millions of
rands.
President Nelson Mandela on Wednesday officially declared the
districts of Umtata, Libode and Ngqeleni as disaster areas, the
Welfare Department said in a statement on Thursday.
This meant that people affected by the tornado could apply for
relief from the disaster relief fund, a departmental statement
said.
The board of the fund would not address infrastructural
problems though, the department said.
A task team representing all three levels of government and
stakeholders said they were formulating proposals on additional
assistance for businesses and private home-owners who did not
qualify for assistance in terms of the Fund Raising Act.
The team was aiming at a more permanent reconstruction. This
was difficult because most affected people were did not have
insurance or money to repair the damage, the team's statement said.
A draft plan had been produced and would be followed by a
formalised plan setting out the financial requirements for
reconstructing Umtata. Reparation was needed to public
infrastructure and buildings, communication networks and private
and business properties.
The Eastern Cape administration would also ensure that
attention was given to the needs of other affected areas in the
province, particularly Libode and Ngqeleni and the surrounding
rural areas, the statement said.
Besides from the relief fund, the money for the reconstruction
would be obtained from insurance pay-outs and local, provincial and
national budgets.
@ LABOUR-AMPLATS
JOHANNESBURG December 24 1998 Sapa
TALKS CONTINUE TO END AMPLATS STRIKE
Anglo American Platinum Corporation and the National Union of
Mineworkers are to go to mediation on Monday in a bid to resolve
the strike by thousands of NUM workers at Amplats' mines in North
West.
Amplats spokesman Steve Calladine told Sapa on Thursday: "Both
Amplats management and the NUM have agreed to refer the matter to
mediation. The strike however continues while the mediation process
takes place.
"All the terms and conditions for mediation, including the
designated mediator, have been agreed upon and the mediation
process will commence on the date originally set for arbitration -
Monday December 28."
The strike, which began early on Wednesday and affected
Amplats' operations at Potgietersrus, Amandelbult, Lebowa and the
Waterval smelter at Rustenburg, is technically continuing.
But Amplats said on Thursday that the majority of its 40000
mining employees had "worked in" on previous holidays so as to have
the long Christmas weekend off.
"Our mining operations are due to resume with the night shift
on Sunday," said Calladine.
The NUM members are seeking an across-the-board wage increase
of eight percent.
It is not clear how many miners have participated in the strike
- Amplats says 3000, the union claims 10000.
There have been no reported clashes between the NUM members and
those of the rival Mouthpeace Workers' Union who have not gone on
strike.
Amplats made a record net profit of R1,64 billion in the year
ended June.
While Amplats' share price has eased slightly since the
industrial action began analysts consider the reason to have been
the fall in precious metal prices.
@ ELEPHANTS
PRETORIA December 24 1998 Sapa
KLM AIRLINE WILL NOT TRANSPORT TULI ELEPHANTS
Dutch airline KLM on Thursday said it would no longer transport
seven juvenile elephants being kept at a plot outside Brits to
Germany and Switzerland.
Spokesman James Johnston said KLM management in Amsterdam made
this decision on Wednesday. He declined to reveal the reasons for
the move.
The elephants' owner, African Game Services boss Riccardo
Ghiazza, said KLM's decision posed no real problem.
"We have arranged a chartered aircraft sponsored by a donor
which will transport the elephants."
Spokesman for the National Council of Societies for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Rick Allan, said Ghiazza had only
four days left to export the seven elephants, which have been sold
to zoos in Germany and Switzerland.
The Brits Magistrate's Court ruled earlier this month that the
animals had to be exported by December 16.
The deadline was later extended to December 28.
Allan said the NSPCA agreed to a postponement of the deadline
because it was concerned about the way the elephants were treated
on Ghiazza's plot.
Asked whether Ghiazza would be granted another extension, he
said: "I don't think so. We have to draw the line somewhere."
Ghiazza could not say when the animals would be moved.
The seven elephants were part of a group of 30 bought by
Ghiazza from the Botswana Tuli Reserve in August to be trained for
overseas zoos and safari parks.
The Brits Magistrate's Court on December 2 gave custody of the
elephants to the NSPCA, which claimed the animals were being
abused.
Magistrate Herman Glas said the NSPCA could relocate 23 of the
elephants and gave permission for the other seven to be exported.
About a week later the Pretoria High Court placed a moratorium
on the relocation of the 23 elephants pending the outcome of a
review of Glas' decision.
Of the other seven elephants, two each have been sold to the
Erfurt and Dresden zoos in Germany, and three to the Basel zoo in
Switzerland.
@ COURT-STAGGIE
CAPE TOWN December 24 1998 Sapa
HARD LIVINGS GANG LEADER STAGGIE RELEASED ON R30,000 BAIL
Hard Livings gang leader Rashied Staggie, charged with the
theft of weapons from a police armoury, was on Thursday in the
Kuils River Magistrate's Court released on R30,000 bail.
He surrendered himself to the Wynberg police last week in
connection with the alleged theft from the armoury in Faure in the
Western Cape in June.
Magistrate Phillip Kriel said Staggie had not interfered with
or intimidated witnesses in the six months since the incident, and
it was unlikely that he would do so now.
He ordered Staggie, who had moved from the Cape Flats to an
undisclosed address in KwaZulu-Natal, not to return to the Western
Cape without first notifying police Superintendent Johan Kotze, who
is in charge of the investigation.
Shaun Michaels, who allegedly helped to take the weapons to
destinations in the Cape Flats, was released on bail of R10000.
However, Hard Livings gang co-leader Roland Olince, Staggie's
bodyguard Graham Greentree and co-accused Charles Benjamin were
denied bail.
The magistrate said those denied bail had a propensity to
violence and were likely to interfere or intimidate witnesses in
the case.
The case was postponed until January 25.
@ XMAS-RASOOL
CAPE TOWN December 24 1998 Sapa
ANC'S EBRAHIM RASOOL CALLS ON LEADERS TO END CRIME
African National Congress Western Cape leader Ebrahim Rasool on
Thursday called on athorities in the province to double their
efforts in dealing with "the scourge of crime and terror".
In his end-of-year message, he urged all the major religious
communities to observe the festive season as a holy period. He said
in a statement the period offered an opportunity to reflect on 1998
and to seek guidance for the new year.
@ ZIMBABWE-BANANA
HARARE December 24 1998 Sapa
BANANA STILL ENTITLED TO GOVERNMENT BENEFITS, SAYS MINISTER
Convicted former Zimbabwean President Canaan Banana, awaiting
sentencing on sexual assault and sodomy charges, is still entitled
to his benefits, Ziana news agency reported on Thursday.
It quoted Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister
Emmerson Mnangagwa as saying Banana would enjoy all privileges
until all court procedures were exhausted.
Sentencing was delayed when the Methodist cleric skipped bail
and absconded to South Africa through Botswana. He claimed his life
was threatened by political enemies.
Banana voluntarily returned on Sunday and appeared in the High
Court on Monday. Sentencing was postponed to January 18.
The 62-year-old theology lecturer was found guilty on 11 counts
of sexual assualt during and after his term as President. His
alleged victims included male state house employees and other
ordinary citizens.
"When all the procedures are finished, that is when we will
look at the law and see what it says about his case," said
Mnangagwa.
He said any action at this stage could be prejudicial and would
depend on the sentence. It also depended on whether Banana
appealed.
Despite his conviction, Banana continued to enjoy all benefits,
including the use of a state-owned Mercedes Benz and pensions, he
added.
@ ANALYSIS-ANGOLA-WAR
HARARE December 24 1998 Sapa-AFP
ANGOLAN ARMED PRESENCE IN THREE CONFLICTS RINGS ALARM BELLS
Angolan armed involvement in conflicts in the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) and Congo, as well as battling rebels at
home, is an alarming sign of the internationalisation of war in
Africa, analysts said Thursday.
"It's extremely worrying and can be blamed partly on the power
vacuum left by the West when it decided - after the debacle in
Somalia - to leave peacekeeping in Africa to Africans," defence
analyst Michael Quintana said.
"Local leaders have been given carte blanche to manipulate the
situation for their own purposes, under the guise of peacekeeping."
Quintana, editor of the Africa Defence Journal, pointed out
that although Angola sent troops to the DRC in the name of the
Southern African Development Community (SADC), it is protecting its
own interests in the west of the country.
While supporting DRC President Laurent Kabila, Angola has the
advantage of being able to police its own borders against rebels of
the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), at
a time of renewed civil war within the country.
On the other side of the vast former Zaire, Uganda and Rwanda
- which support rebels trying to topple Kabila - cite their own
security concerns for the presence of their troops in DRC
territory.
Quintana says several other countries such as Eritrea,
Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan are already tenuously linked to the
DRC war through the cross-border implications of their own
conflicts, "and there is a danger that they could become more
involved."
Charges and counter-charges of meddling in each others affairs
abound throughout the region.
An intelligence officer for a major African power told AFP that
while the truth had yet to be established, Zimbabwe and Namibia
have some obligation to support Angola at home because the three
countries are allies in the DRC.
He said, however, he believed Luanda's army of some 100,000
troops was capable of stepping up its operations against UNITA in
the wake of a collapsed peace accord while still maintaining its
forces in the DRC and Congo.
In Congo-Brazzaville, which borders Angola's oil rich Cabinda
enclave, Angolan troops have recently been in action against
militia forces opposed to President Denis Sassou Nguesso, a former
military ruler who seized back power last year.
General Sassou Nguesso's government in turn accuses Angola's
UNITA rebels of supporting anti-government militiamen.
For its part, UNITA has charged that Zimbabwean and Namibian
troops are involved in an offensive against its bases in Angola.
Both countries have denied the allegation.
The intelligence officer, asking not to be named, said that
"Angola has not committed ground troops in the east of the DRC, and
even if they have a couple of mechanised brigades in the west of
the country it is a very small proportion of their total armed
forces."
"It also gives them a tactical advantage in that they have some
of their forces outside Angola's borders in a situation where they
can move them in behind UNITA in a pincer movement," he added.
The officer said he hoped a regional peace summit set for
Lusaka on December 28 would put an end to the worrying spread of
the DRC war - but it was announced later Thursday that the summit
had been postponed yet again.
@ DRCONGO-MBEKI
JOHANNESBURG December 24 1998 Sapa
ENVOY TO MEET MBEKI OVER DRCONGO CRISIS
An envoy from the Zambian Government is due to meet Deputy
President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday to discuss the peace process
aimed at ending the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
reports SABC television news.
The planned meeting follows the Zambian Government's
postponement of a summit, at which the belligerent parties were
expected to sign a ceasefire agreement.
The two-day summit, announced last week at the Organisation of
African Unity summit in Burkina Faso, was due to have started in
the Zambian capital Lusaka on Sunday.
@ OLYMPICS-BRIBES
NEW YORK December 25 1998 Sapa-AP
OLYMPIC QUESTION: WHEN IS A GIFT A BRIBE?
There are gifts, favors and possibly bribes among Olympic
perks.
And then, there are bulldogs.
As the International Olympic Committee wrestles with its
greatest ethics scandal and three panels investigate alleged
bribery in Salt Lake City's bid for the Winter Games, IOC members
and potential host cities face the issue of where friendliness ends
and corruption begins.
Atlanta, like most bid cities, handed out gifts to visiting IOC
members, and at least one had four legs and a wet nose - a bulldog
for a Cuban delegate.
"You get caught up in the entertainment mode and you may do
things that stretch the rules," said Charlie Battle, who was in
charge of international relations in Atlanta's winning bid for the
1996 Olympics. "You go over the top."
In what may have been one of the most creative acts of
gift-giving, Atlanta boss Billy Payne gave a bulldog to IOC member
Manuel Gonzalez Guerra after he admired Uga, the mascot of Payne's
alma mater, the University of Georgia.
"The biggest problem we had was getting Customs to let him
take the dog back," Battle said. "They don't like people taking
things to Havana from the United States. Maybe they were afraid we
were hiding spy gear in his collar."
There's no way of knowing if Guerra voted for Atlanta in the
secret balloting in Tokyo in 1990, and IOC rules now limit gifts to
a total of dlrs 150 a member - meaning any current canine giveaways
would probably involve a mutt.
In the two weeks since the Salt Lake Organizing Committee said
families of six IOC members received dlrs 400,000 in college
scholarships during its successful bid for the 2002 Winter Games,
Olympic organizers past, present and future have defended their
work amid allegations that the scandal extends far beyond Utah.
Marc Hodler, the IOC's senior member and one of its most
respected, said 5 to 7 percent of the committee's 115 members were
open to bribes and that vote buying occurred in the campaigns for
the 1996, 1998 and 2000 Olympics.
Olympic organizers and IOC members say they have done nothing
wrong and played by the rules, but they also acknowledged that
those rules are now being drastically tightened by the Salt Lake
case.
"I would think that after what has happened, any U.S. city
bidding for the Olympics in the next 30 years is going to be so
squeaky clean they'll have Ivory soap for a sponsor," said Sue
Loder, coordinator of San Francisco's bid for the 2012 Summer
Games.
Loder's committee and seven other cities in the early stages of
the race to be America's choice for 2012 operate under 23 pages of
ethics guidelines set down by the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Among other things, the bidders are barred from any contact
with the IOC until the USOC picks its candidate in 2002, three
years before the international panel votes, and must keep gifts to
a total of dlrs 50 a person during the preliminary phase and dlrs
150 if they reach the finals.
"The USOC has made it clear to us what we can and cannot do,"
said Nick Vehr, the head of Cincinnati's bid. "We have their
entire undertaking on limits of gifts and such."
The USOC had no rules on bidding when Salt Lake City finally
won the Olympics on its fifth try in 1995, according to committee
president Bill Hybl.
The IOC imposed its first limits in 1986, after the volume of
gifts and favors in the campaigns for the 1992 Games became
embarrassing. Those "tokens" included fur coats, diamond jewelry
and unlimited first-class travel for members who wanted one more
peek at cities like Paris, Barcelona and Brisbane.
"There was a great deal of concern, because there were no
rules," said Anita DeFrantz, an IOC vice president from the United
States.
Racks of minks and expensive porcelain are no longer wheeled
through the lobby of hotels housing IOC members - a practice that
was blatant in Seoul - but bidders still know how to catch a
member's attention.
Paul Henderson, who ran Toronto's 1996 bid, told The Toronto
Star that Atlanta "set the standards" that triggered the current
scandal. He said he suspected that Salt Lake City got the
scholarship idea from its U.S. predecessor.
Henderson offered no evidence to support his suspicions and
Battle denied any wrongdoing, saying a personal touch helped
Atlanta win, while staying within the rules.
He said organizers made sure a visiting IOC member received
proper care when he complained of chest pain during a 1990 visit.
The member, David Sikhulumi Sibandze of Swaziland, has been linked
to unusual gifts or favors in Salt Lake City, Sydney and Falun,
Sweden, which bid for the 1998 Winter Games.
Doctors in Salt Lake have confirmed providing free medical care
- including plastic surgery - for IOC members at the request of bid
organizers.
But Battle said Sibandze's hospitalization in Atlanta was an
emergency and not an attempt to curry favor.
"He had heart pain while he was here. He was admitted to the
hospital and spent an extra day. He didn't come here for
treatment," Battle said.
@ MANDELA-MARGATE
QUNU VILLAGE December 25 1998 Sapa
PRESIDENT SHOCKED, OUTRAGED OVER MARGATE MASSACRE
President Nelson Mandela on Friday expressed shock and outrage
over the Christmas eve killing of eight people near Margate on the
KwaZulu/Natal south coast.
In a statement made from his home at Qunu, near Umtata in the
Eastern Cape, Mandela said he was particularly distressed by the
fact that the cold blooded killing occurred when the country was
preparing for the "most peaceful festive season" so far in
KwaZulu/Natal.
"I appeal appeal to members of the public not to take the law
into their own hands and resort to any revenge attacks," Mandela
said.
Anton Ngubane, Bha Ngubane, Ncamfile Shonga, Niba Mkhize,
Charlie Hicco Shutzhini, Nhlanhla Ngubane, Thulani Shutzhini,
Jabulani Shanga were killed when a group of men opened fire on a
family celebrating Christmas Eve with friends and neighbours at
their home between the Jericho and Nosita settlements.
Two people were also wounded in the attack at about 11pm when
they were approached by a group of men who wanted to join the
party.
When they were refused entry the suspects fired several shots,
fatally wounding eight people and injuring two.
Seven people survived the attack.
The motive has not been estabished, but it is believed to be
gang related, police said.
Mandela was on Friday briefed about the incident and he urged
police to do all in their power to bring the purpetrators to book.
He also appealed to members of the public to cooperate with the
police and he urged all South Africans to be good to one another
and to try and make the festive season as peaceful as possible.
The President conveyed his condolences to the Ngubane family
and wished those injured a speedy recovery.
38@ CRIME-MARGATE
DURBAN December 25 1998 Sapa
POLICE LAUNCH MANHUNT FOR MARGATE KILLERS
KwaZulu/Natal police on Friday morning launched a manhunt for
the killers of eight people who were gunned down in cold blood at
Jericho, near Margate on the south coast while they were
celebrating Christmas Eve with friends.
KwaZulu/Natal police spokesman Captain Bongani Nzimande said a
team of detectives under the command of Senior Superintendent
Morris Moodley and memebrs of the violence investigation unit were
investigating the killings.
No arrests have yet been made.
President Nelson Mandela on Friday morning strongly condemned
the killings from his home village at Qunu in the Eastern Cape and
he urged police to do their best to bring the perpetrators to book.
The deceased were part of a group who were visiting at the home
of Anton Ngubane on the border of the Jerico and Nositha locations
in Margate to celebrate Christmas when a group of men tried to gate
crash at about 11.10pm on Thursday.
When they were refused entry the gunmen opened fire on the
group of people with 9mm pistols and R5 assault rifles.
Anton Ngubane, 43, Ba Ngubane, 30, Jabulani Shonga, 25,
Ncamisile Shonga, 18, Thulani Thutshini, 20, Chico Thutshini, 23,
Nhlanhla Ngubane, 24, and Niba Mkhize, 30.
Thandile Ngcobo, 16, were shot in the right leg and Elizabeth
Shonga, 48, were wounded in her right leg. They were taken to
hospital.
Five people escaped without injury, Nzimande said.
"The MEC for safety and security, Inkosi Nyanga Ngubane and
other provincial politicians have recently took part in discussions
with the view to find peace in the Harding area where six people
were killed in faction fighting a few days ago," Nzimande said.
He requested anyone with information on the killing to phone
Crime Stop at 0800111213.
@ DRCONGO-REBELS
BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo December 25 1998 Sapa-AP
REPUBLIC OF CONGO REBELS OPEN UP NEW FRONT: GOVERNMENT
A rogue militia group loyal to Republic of Congo's former prime
minister has opened up new attacks in towns west of the capital, a
government spokesman said Friday.
The Ninja militia fighting on behalf of ex-Prime Minister
Bernard Kolelas has attacked soldiers and civilians in the
neighboring towns of Nkayi and Dolisie about 250 kilometers (150
miles) west of Brazzaville, Francois Ibovi told reporters without
giving details.
Ibovi accused Kolelas and former President Pascal Lissouba of
hatching a "criminal plot" to destabilize the Central African
country and divide its ethnic groups.
Human rights and aid groups say recent fighting between the
Ninjas and President Denis Sassou-Nguesso's personal Cobra militia
has prompted tens of thousands of civilians to flee their homes in
Brazzaville and towns in the country's southwest.
Unarmed residents have been killed, women raped and homes
destroyed in shelling between the two forces.
The hostilities are a reversal of last year's civil war that
ravaged Brazzaville and resulted in up to 10,000 deaths when
Sassou-Nguesso captured the presidency from Lissouba, a sometime
ally of Kolelas.
Sassou-Nguesso, the Republic of Congo's longtime Marxist
dictator who is now advocating capitalist reform, was ousted in the
country's first multi-party elections in 1992.
Angola and Chad have soldiers in Republic of Congo supporting
Sassou-Nguesso's government.
@ ANC-MARGATE
JOHANNESBURG December 25 1998 Sapa
ANC CONDEMNS JERICHO MASSACRE
The African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal on Friday
condemned the killing of eight people who were gunned down in cold
blood at Jericho, near Margate on the south coast while they were
celebrating Christmas Eve.
The deceased were part of a group who were visiting at the home
of Anton Ngubane on the border of the Jericho and Nositha locations
in Margate to celebrate Christmas when a group of men tried to gate
crash at about 11.10pm on Thursday.
When they were refused entry the gunmen opened fire on the
group of people with 9mm pistols and R5 assault rifles.
Anton Ngubane, 43, Ba Ngubane, 30, Jabulani Shonga, 25,
Ncamisile Shonga, 18, Thulani Thutshini, 20, Chico Thutshini, 23,
Nhlanhla Ngubane, 24, and Niba Mkhize, 30, died in the incident.
ANC spokesman Bheki Cele said in a statement reports that the
motive for the killings was crime related needed to be
investigated.
"The ANC is strongly not cutting off the possibility of
political violence. It is unbelievable that eight people can be
murdered just for a TV set, hi-fi and CDs," said Cele.
He called on the community to co-operate with the police in
apprehending the murderers, urging them to be calm but vigilant.
The ANC sent its condolences to the Ngubane family, friends,
relatives and neighbours who have lost loved ones.
President Nelson Mandela who was still on holiday at Qunu in
the Eastern Cape, earlier on Friday also condemned the attack.
5E@ ANC STATEMENT ON KWANOSITHA KILLINGS
Issued by: African National Congress
AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION AND PUBLICITY
ANC STATEMENT ON KWANOSITHA KILLINGS
The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal is saddened by the killing of eight
people at KwaNositha area, KwaMavundla in the lower south coast by
balaclava wearing men last night. The victims were gathered at the
Ngubane kraal for a festive season celebration when the gunmen
opened fire and killed Mr Anton Ngubane, his brother, his child,
Jabulani Shonga, and other four neighbours. The murderers had then
left with a hifi system, a TV set and CDs.
The ANC calls on the police to speedily investigate these
killings and apprehend the murderers. We hope that the sooner the
murderers are apprehended the better to know the motive of these
killings. Reports that the motive of the attack was crime needs to
be investigated.
The ANC is strongly not cutting off the possibility of political
violence. It is unbelievable that eight people can be murdered just
for a TV set, hi-fi and CDs.
In this regard, the ANC calls upon members of the community to
cooperate fully with the police in apprehending the murderers. We
are also calling on our communities to raise war against crime by
working closely with the SAPS.
The ANC further calls upon people of KwaNositha and the entire
KwaMavundla area under Inkosi S. Mavundla to remain calm but to
exercise maximum vigilance during this festive season.
The ANC sends its deepest condolences to the Ngubane family,
friends, relatives and neighbours who have lost their loved ones.
Issued by: ANC KwaZulu-Natal Department of Information and Publicity
25 December 1998
Contact Bheki Cele, ANC Provincial Spokesperson on Safety and
Security at 082 900 3569
@ UGANDA-SAFRICA-PORT
KAMPALA December 25 1998 Sapa-AFP
SOUTH AFRICAN RAIL COMPANY TO BUILD INLAND PORT IN UGANDA
A South African company, Trans-Africa Railway Corporation, has
been licenced to start business in Uganda and is due to build the
country's first inland port near the capital, officials announced
in Kampala.
In a statement released late Thursday, the Uganda Investment
Authority (UIA) said the establishment of the "dry port" will come
ahead of efforts to establish a rail link between Uganda and Zambia
as a gateway to southern Africa.
The UIA, responsible for the licencing of new investments, said
that the inland port is expected to be ready for operations during
the first half of 1999 at Namanve, a swampy area eight kilometres
(five miles) east of the city centre, already earmarked as an
industrial zone.
A UIA official said the new port will be connected to a rail
line and by road with the Indian Ocean ports of Mombasa in Kenya
and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. The aim is to boost trade between
Ugandan and South African companies.
The link would also generally increase trade between Uganda and
other countries of the region and help bolster the
industrialisation level in Uganda, since trains loaded with
merchandise would be leaving South Africa for Kampala on non-stop
trips.
The Kampala government has been setting aside a quota of the
state budget for several years for the construction of dry ports to
help attract more investments, but nothing had hitherto
materialised regarding areas gazetted to house the facilities.
Finance ministry officials are now optimistic that the new
inland port will help meet complaints from manufacturers over
current modes of clearing and forwarding which, they say, are a
hindrance to their work and drive up the costs of imported raw
materials and of production.
A ceramics manufacturing plant manager, Aloysious Ogwal, on
Thursday told AFP that the present system made "our finished
products not so competitive on the market".
Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) public relations officer,
Florence Munyirwa, said Uganda will be linked up with the Tanzania
Railways Corporation and the Zambia Railways very soon.
Transport Minister John Nassasira recently told parliament that
the interconnections, expected to be completed by next year, will
also include Kenya Railways.
According to a Lloyds List report of September, the South
African firm Protekon, a division of the umbrella transport
parastatal, Spoornet, has started constructing Kidatu
Trans-shipment Container Yard in Tanzania, as part of a regional
network from South Africa to the Great Lakes region.
The Kidatu facility will transfer cargo from the wider
Tanzania-Zambia Railway (TAZARA) gauge track to Tanzania Railways'
narrower line. Kidatu will also have a complete stacking area,
trackwork, storing sheds and handling equipment. Its completion
will allow the Great Lakes region railways to be connected to the
rail system of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
A system of cranes at Kidatu will transfer goods from an entire
train arriving on one gauge to another train in a few hours, the
Lloyds report said, pointing out that it would be the only such
facility on the African continent.
The Kidatu yard forms a link between administrations with
different rail gauges, including South Africa, Tanzania and TAZARA,
which is jointly-owned by Tanzanian and Zambian governments.
The South African railway system, which was established under
the auspices of the Southern African Transit Transport Project,
covers Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland,
Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
@ BANGLADESH-SAFRICA
DHAKA, December 25 1998 Sapa-AFP
SOUTH AFRICAN MINISTER VISITS BANGLADESH
South African Justice Minister Dullah Omar arrived here Friday
on a visit carrying a message from President Nelson Mandela for
Bangladeshi leaders.
Omar will deliver the message to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
Wajed on Sunday, the official BSS news agency reported but gave no
indication on its content.
The minister will also call on President Shahabuddin Ahmed and
hold talks with his Bangladeshi counterpart Abdul Matin Khasru.
@ IRAQ-SA
JOHANNESBURG December 25 1998 Sapa
MUSLIM GROUPS TO BOYCOTT US AND BRITISH PRODUCTS
A coalition of Muslim organisations known as the Iraq Action
Committee on Friday said it was organising a boycott of selected
American and British products to protest the bombing of Iraq by the
two countries.
In a statement in Johannesburg the committee said the boycott
was to be international and was aimed at developing a culture of
resistance to gross violence and crimes against humanity as
happened in Iraq.
Spokesman for the organisation Dr Yusuf Saloojee said a range
of protest actions were being planned throughout South Africa
against the US and Britain.
The coalition called for a "united action of peace loving
people internationally and within South Africa to condemn the
unilateral bombing and massacre of the Iraqi people by the United
States and Britain", the statement read.
@ LAND-ROMAN
JOHANNESBURG December 25 1998 Sapa
HARTBEESPOORT SIGNING CEREMONY DELAYED
A delay in drawing up legal documents meant 14 families who
were promised a Christmas gift of title deeds to land in the North
West province would have to wait a little longer.
The families live on land owned by Roger Roman who is on hunger
strike to try and prevent the Hartebeespoort Transitional Council
from forcing him to pay for water and sanitation services to the
families.
Roman said he did not have money to pay for these services.
Instead, he was prepared to grant the families freehold rights
which would enable them to qualify for a government housing
subsidy.
This was due to have taken place on Christmas day but Roman
told Sapa the Legal Resources Centre had not finished the
documentation on time.
The signing ceremony would be rescheduled.
LUANDA December 25 1998 Sapa-AFP
TWO MILLION ANGOLANS SPEND CHRISTMAS IN BATTLE SHELTERS
More than two million frightened residents of eastern and
central towns threatened by rebels in Angola spent Christmas in
shelters on Friday because of clashes, reports reaching the capital
said.
Shells fired by UNITA rebels exploded Friday in the embattled
town of Kuito, capital of Bie province, according to a relief
worker, while government troops proclaimed "victory" on some
fronts.
Fighting continued in the Kuito area, as local media said that
at least six people were killed and around 10 injured on Thursday,
causing people in the town to hide away, as they did in Huambo,
capital of the neighbouring province of the same name, and in
Malanje in the east.
Kuito residents depended for nourishment on handouts from the
UN World Food Programme (WFP), the only agency to have a warehouse
in the town which has been spared looting, some said in telephone
calls to state television.
After two weeks of battles, the government's local military
commander, General Simione Mukume, ordered his men to "fight on
until the enemy has been crushed".
Gunfire has already damaged buildings on the outskirts of
Kuito, which had already been razed in fighting which broke out
after the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola
(UNITA) lost general elections held in September 1992 as part of a
first bid under UN auspices to end civil war.
That battle was among the fiercest in a conflict which has
pitted Jonas Savmbi's UNITA against the ruling People's Movement
for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) since independence from
Portugal in 1975.
In Huambo, where youths have been called up to join troops
fighting guerrillas to the north, east and south, provincial
governor Paulo Kassoma on Thursday told a public meeting that
"Here, UNITA will never move in."
However, many residents have fled the town.
Many inhabitants of Malanje, mostly young people and children,
have also fled because of insecurity, many using chartered planes
to fly to the capital, an AFP correspondent saw at Luanda airport.
President Jose Eduardo dos Santos this month obtained strong
backing from an MPLA congress to pursue a hard line and smash UNITA
by military means, now that his government considers Savimbi wholly
responsible for carrying on with the war and refusing to hand over
strongholds and disarm all his forces in line with November 1994
peace accords.
UNITA's failure to comply with those protocols signed in the
Zambian capital Lusaka has already led to UN sanctions against the
movement, but UN officials trying to inch the peace process forward
have also sought to have the government retain Savimbi as a
political player.
However, a former advisor to the UNITA leader has been
suspended from his parliamentary post by a dissident faction which
emerged in August and disavowed the veteran foe of the regime, the
splinter group said Friday.
Abel Chivukuvuku, an ex-political aide to Savimbi, himself
broke with the head of UNITA in October, but did not rally to the
dissidents who charged that the guerrilla chief was bent on
igniting renewed war.
The dissident group, now the only wing of the UNITA with which
the Luanda regime is prepared to work, described Chivukuvuku's
behaviour as "obstructionist", without going into details.
Led by UNITA's ex-spokesman Jorge Valentim and former
secretary-general Eugenio Manuvaloka, the faction said the
ex-advisor had never followed the instructions of their
"provisional leadership".
Chivukuvuku, one of the UNITA MPs elected in 1992, had kept his
seat after the dissidents staked their ground, but been sacked as
head of the parliamentary group to be replaced by Manuvakola.
Early October, he was shot at in front of his Luanda home with
a machine-gun fitted with a silencer.
@ DRCONGO-RWANDA
KIGALI December 25 1998 Sapa-AFP
RWANDA "BACKS" DR CONGO PEACE, DENIES BEING BEHIND SUMMIT DELAY
Rwanda firmly supports peace efforts for the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Foreign Minister Anastase Gasana said Friday,
denying that Kigali was to blame for the postponement of a regional
summit.
"Rwanda firmly supports the Lusaka peace process, as well as a
ceasefire among the Kinshasa authorities, the rebels and the
countries that are bearing the consequences of this conflict,"
Gasana said on Radio Rwanda.
He told the official radio that his government, which like
Uganda has provided military support to the mainly Tutsi rebels
fighting the Kinshasa regime, "is not the cause" of the delay of a
summit which was to have been held in Lusaka on Monday.
"Rwanda is in no way responsible for the postponing of this
summit," he said, after an official announcement in the Zambian
capital on Thursday that it had been put off until an unspecified
date.
The date of December 28 was "badly chosen because it lies just
between Christmas and New Year's Day," Gasana said, adding:
"According to my information from Zambia and Ouagadougou, many
political figures wanted to spend Christmas with their families
rather than on planes."
Zambian President Frederick Chiluba, organiser of the summit,
which is intended to bring together all countries with troops in
the conflict, put it off for the second time this month, because
not enough heads of state would turn up, his office announced.
For Gasana, "Rwanda in absolutely no fashion wishes to be a
cause of the stalling of the peace process and we will continue to
make every effort to see that negotiations take place."
An underlying problem, following a summit in Ouagadougou on
December 18 under the aegis of the Organisation of African Unity
(OAU), has been the refusal of DRC President Laurent Kabila to talk
face-to-face with the rebels who rose up in the east of his country
early in August.
His regime in Kinshasa has consistently minimised the role of
the ethnic DR Congolese Tutsi rebels and accused neighbouring
Uganda and Rwanda of invading the former Zaire, where their forces
helped him to power in May 1997.
Tutsi-dominated Burundi is also accused of backing the rebels,
but the Bujumbura government denies any involvement.
Kabila has won military support from Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia
and Chad. The first three of these allied countries are members of
the Southern African Development Community and have justified their
intervention on grounds of helping a fellow SADC nation.
@ LIBYA-DRCONGO
TRIPOLI December 25 1998 Sapa-AFP
DR CONGO PRESIDENT KABILA MAKES AN "URGENT" VISIT TO TRIPOLI
Laurent Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC), on Friday arrived here and immediately met with Libyan
leader Moamer Kadhafi, state television said.
Kabila and Kadhafi "held long talks on the Great Lakes region's
latest developments," during the "urgent" visit, the televised
report said.
It showed Kabila at the airport here but did not say if he had
violated a 1992 United Nations air embargo against Libya, as he has
done several times since September.
The DRC aided by Angola, Zimbabwe and Chad is in the midst of a
five-month struggle against rebels backed by Rwanda, Uganda, and
Burundi, though the latter's goverment has repeatedly denied any
involvement.
Kadhafi in September hosted a mini-summit on the region which
brought together presidents from Chad, Niger, and Eritrea, and at
which he was "peace process coordinator."
Another regional summit planned for December 28 in Angola to
broker a ceasefire in the DRC, on Thursday was pushed back for the
second time in a month, the Zambian presidency said.
@ ANGOLA-FIGHTING
LUANDA December 25 1998 Sapa-AP
DOZENS KILLED AND WOUNDED IN REBEL ATTACK ON ANGOLAN CITY
A rebel attack on the highland city of Kuito killed and wounded
dozens of people, some sheltering in a Roman Catholic church, but
Christmas service in the town went ahead Friday during a lull in
the shelling, church workers said.
Thirty people were killed and 37 were wounded Thursday in the
heaviest rebel attack on the besieged city since fighting between
UNITA rebels and the government flared anew early this month, the
private Radio Eclesia reported.
Nine of the dead were killed when mortar fire hit a Roman
Catholic church in Kuito's outskirts, the Portuguese news agency
Lusa quoted military sources as saying.
"I can't express what it was like," a church worker in Kuito,
who did not identify herself, said Friday, referring to the
intensity of Thursday's all-day shelling.
People emerged from shelters during a brief lull Friday morning
to attend Christmas services, but UNITA rebels entrenched around
Kuito began shelling the city again Friday around noon, a male
church worker said.
Kuito, about 500 kilometers (310 miles) southeast of the
capital Luanda, has been a major focus of the latest fighting
between UNITA rebels and government forces, which has sent more
than 50,000 people fleeing from their homes.
The fighting has undermined a 1994 peace accord that called for
UNITA to disband a 70,000-strong guerrilla army and hand over
control of almost half the country to the government.
The U.N. Security Council has blamed the renewed fighting on
UNITA and expressed dismay that Angola appears headed back to civil
war, which has ravaged the southern African nation for most of its
nearly quarter-century of independence.
The government regained control of Kuito from the rebels during
the intensive conflict that followed UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi's
refusal to accept defeat in the country's first elections in 1992.
Kuito's population of about 100,000 was swollen with a further
30,000 displaced in the past two weeks, as battles raged throughout
the central highlands.
"A lot of people have come from other towns and villages and
they have nothing to eat," the female church worker said.
Relief agencies have stopped flying food and medicine into the
city's airport that has been targeted by the rebels to prevent the
government from sending in reinforcements.
Angola's civil war began in 1975, following a 14-year fight for
independence from Portugal's colonial rule.
About half a million people were killed, and hundreds of
thousands were left maimed, homeless and exposed to disease and
hunger.
UNITA - the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola
- has an estimated 30,000 guerrilla soldiers hiding in the vast
southwest African nation. The government has 100,000 troops.
@ FEATURE-ANGOLA-ECONOMY
LUANDA December 26 1998 Sapa-AFP
ANGOLA'S ECONOMY SLIDES AMID NEW FIGHTING, FALL IN OIL PRICES
The virtual resumption of the civil war in Angola and the fall
in the price of oil, the country's main resource, have pushed the
national economy further towards collapse.
Officially classed as a "least developed country" by
international agencies, Angola has failed to eliminate the effects
of a Marxist regime and endemic corruption.
Agricultural and industrial output has been severely hit by the
war between the government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and
the National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA) of
Jonas Savimbi, which has been raging off and on since independence
in 1975.
UNITA only partially complied with a peace accord signed in
Lusaka in November 1994, and fighting has flared again in the past
month, sending millions of people fleeing their homes.
With oil accounting for the bulk of its revenue, the government
is faced with declining revenues to fund both the civil war and its
foray into the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, where it
has sent troops to help President Laurent Kabila against a rebel
movement.
For 1998 income from tax on oil is expected to fall by 450
million dollars, and a western analyst forecast growth of minus
four percent for the non-oil sector.
Agricultural output in a country which is potentially among the
wealthiest in Africa is insufficient to feed the population, and
the estimated deficit for the 1988-89 season is 470,000 tonnes.
Many inhabitants depend on handouts from the World Food
Programme and other agencies.
Investments in industry meanwhile are directed principally at
oil-related enterprises, and a privatisation programme is making
little progress.
The other main source of mineral wealth, diamonds, has been in
UNITA hands for most of the civil war. Some mines were given up by
the rebels under the Lusaka accord, but the resumption of fighting
threatens their production once more.
This year output of diamonds by government-controlled mines is
estimated at less than 400 million dollars, compared with 500
million for those operated by UNITA.
Analysts are generally pessimistic about the situation in
Angola, fearing widespread unrest over an unemployment rate of 55
percent. Many of those in work are employed by the state in an
over-inflated bureaucracy, and with a public deficit of 1.3 billion
dollars there is little chance of putting funds into much needed
public welfare.
Thousands of refugees from the war in the interior have flooded
into Luanda, squatting in shanty-towns with few facilities, relying
on what they can scrounge or steal.
Hotels, restaurants and shops all employ armed gurards and the
premises of foreign oil companies, construction firms and embassies
have been turned into virtual fortresses, surrounded by walls,
barbed wire and watch towers.
The only hope of some relief is a rise in the world oil price,
and a projected 16 percent increase in production next year and
beyond as new offshore fields come on stream.
But analysts also stress the need for better management of the
economy and greater transparency. "A small but politically powerful
minority is enjoying considerable advantages from the present
system," one said.
@ ANGOLA-FIGHTING
LUANDA December 26 1998 Sapa-AFP
FIGHTING IN EMBATTLED TOWN OF KUITO KILLS 35 ANGOLANS
Thirty-five people died over Christmas in Kuito as UNITA rebels
continued their bombardment of the embattled central town, state
television said on Saturday.
One family lost eight members in the shelling as residents of
the ruined town spent the Christmas period in shelters.
Rescue services recovered the bodies of the victims as shelling
eased off and buried most of them in communal graves.
The local hospital admitted 63 people injured by artillery fire
overnight, two local radio stations said.
Clashes between the army and forces of the National Union for
the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) intensified in the north
of the town Saturday, while fighting was also reported to the
south.
UNITA artillery was deployed on the hilltops around Kuito,
preventing the Angolan air force from intervening in fighting on
the outskirts of the town, military experts in the capital Luanda
said.
The rebels claimed to have shot down five air force planes.
The military denied the claims, but admitted having lost one
plane in Kuito two weeks ago.
Kuito residents depended for nourishment on handouts from the
UN World Food Programme (WFP), the only agency to have a warehouse
in the town which has been spared looting, some said in telephone
calls to state television.
After two weeks of battles, the government's local military
commander, General Simione Mukume, ordered his men to "fight on
until the enemy has been crushed".
However, the Bishop of Kuito, Jose Nambi, called for a stop to
the killing and appealed to civilians and soldiers to find a
peaceful solution to the situation.
Kuito, already reduced to ruins in battles that followed a
UNITA electoral defeat in 1992, has seen renewed destruction of its
outskirts in recent weeks as fighting flared up in a government
offensive against rebel strongholds.
In the capital Luanda, four people also died during Christmas
festivities, a toll which was down on previous years, police said.
In the eastern and central towns threatened by the rebel forces
of Jonas Savimbi, more than two million frightened residents spent
Christmas in shelters because of the clashes, reports reaching the
capital said.
Many have also fled the region for the capital.
President Jose Eduardo dos Santos this month obtained strong
backing from his party to smash UNITA by military means, now that
his government considers Savimbi entirely responsible for
continuing the war and refusing to hand over strongholds and disarm
all his forces in line with November 1994 peace accords.
UNITA's failure to comply with the protocols signed in the
Zambian capital Lusaka has already led to UN sanctions against the
movement, but UN officials trying to inch the peace process forward
have also sought to have the government retain Savimbi as a
political player.
@ WITCHCRAFT-NPROV
PIETERSBURG December 26 1998 Sapa
VILLAGERS TORCH HOMES OF THREE 'WITCHES'
Villagers burnt three women's houses to the ground in the
Northern Province on Saturday after accusing them of practising
witchcraft, police spokesman Captain Thomas Ramatseba said.
In Mohloumeng village, villagers set alight the houses of
65-year-old Linah Mafokoame and 25-year-old Grace Ramoshaba.
In nearby Lekgwareng village, 39-year-old Eveline Mashele's
house was also razed after she was accused of witchcraft, Ramatseba
said.
The three women were accused of causing the death of a person
who had died in an accident.
Six people have been arrested so far and more arrests were
expected in the next few days, Ramatseba said.
@ BOTSWANA-LESOTHO-TROOPS
GABORONE December 26 1998 Sapa-AFP
BOTSWANA CUTS PEACE ENFORCERS IN LESOTHO
The Botswanan Defence Force announced it would reduce its troop
numbers on peacekeeping duty in Lesotho by 100, official Botswana
radio said Saturday.
It quoted Major Mogorofi Batweng as saying the first of the
returning group was expected to arrive in Gaborone later Saturday.
"The decision was taken after it was realised that the security
situation in that country no longer poses any threat," Major
Batweng said.
However, more than 300 Botswanan troops will remain in the tiny
mountain kingdom along with around 700 South African soldiers, the
remnants of more than 2,000 peacekeepers from the Southern African
Development Community deployed in Lesotho in September.
The September 22 deployment came when the Maseru government
requested assistance to quell unrest and prevent a coup.
@ BEACHES
DURBAN December 26 1998 Sapa
HOLIDAYMAKERS JAMPACK DURBAN BEACHFRONT
More than fifty thousand people jam-packed Durban's beachfront
on Saturday despite poor weather conditions, the SABC reported.
However, police called on parents to collect more than one
hundred lost children.
In the Eastern Cape, perfect weather conditions saw thousands
of people spending the day on Port Elisabeth and East London
beaches.
Police reported no incidents.
@ KWANATAL-SAPS-MANDELA
PRETORIA Dec 26 SAPA
TOP LAW ENFORCERS TO ASSIST IN KWANATAL VIOLENCE INVESTIGATIONS
President Nelson Mandela had given his firm support to top law
enforcers assisting in the investigations into recent killings in
Kwazulu-Natal, acting Safety and Security Minister Geraldine
Fraser-Moleketi said on Saturday.
She said the ministry was shocked by the violence which had
claimed 14 lives at Harding and Margate over the festive season.
Government would beef up the capacity of detectives
investigating these two cases, Fraser-Moleketi said.
"A representative from the office of the National Director of
Public Prosecutions and a senior member from the National Detective
Branch of the South African Police Services will be assigned to
assist in the investigation and preparation of cases for any
resultant criminal proceedings."
Mandela had been briefed on the status of the investigation and
the current situation in Kwazulu-Natal.
He had given his firm support to the initiative and had urged
members of the community to support and assist the police in
rooting out the perpetrators of such heinous crimes, she said.
Meanwhile, police on Saturday confirmed that gunmen killed
three people and critically injured another when they stormed a
house in Umlazi on Christmas Day.
SABC TV news said the killings could have been part of a
revenge attack following clashes between the township's youths.
@ ANGOLA-PLANECRASH
UNITED NATIONS December 26 1998 Sapa-AP
UN PLANE WITH 14 ON BOARD CRASHES IN ANGOLA
A UN aircraft with 14 people on board reportedly crashed
Saturday in Angola in an area where the government's army has been
fighting UNITA rebels, a U.N. spokesman said.
There was no word on whether any of the four crew members and
10 passengers had survived. There was also no immediate information
on the cause of the crash.
The Portuguese news agency Lusa said the aircraft burst into
flames shortly after take-off at noon (1100 gmt) from Huambo, some
500 kilometers (310 miles) southeast of the capital Luanda, and
crashed 40 kilometers (25 miles) away in Vila Nova.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed to the Angolan government
and UNITA to enable members of the U.N. Observer Mission in Angola
to go to the crash site and assist in search and rescue operations.
According to preliminary information from government sources in
Huambo, the C-130 probably went down in an area east of Vila Nova,
the U.N. spokesman said.
The Portuguese news agency said U.N. military observers were
among the passengers. There was no confirmation from the United
Nations.
The plane, owned by TransAfric and chartered by the U.N., was
headed for Saurimo, in the province of Lunda Sul, about 630
kilometers (390 miles) east of Huambo, according to the news
agency.
The secretary-general also called on the two parties to
cooperate in a full investigation of the crash, the spokesman said.
The U.N. Security Council has expressed dismay that Angola
appears headed back to civil war, which has ravaged the southern
African nation for most of its nearly quarter-century of
independence.
The fighting has sent more than 50,000 people fleeing from
their homes in the central highlands.
Diplomats have been unable to get both sides to adhere to a
1994 peace accord. It called for UNITA - a Portuguese acronym for
the National Union for the Total Independence for Angola - to hand
areas under its control to the government. However, lingering
hostility between the two sides has hindered implementation of the
deal.
The council on Wednesday again accused Angolan rebel leaders of
undermining the peace process and demanded an immediate end to the
fighting.
A statement adopted by consensus reaffirmed the council's firm
commitment to preserve Angola's unity and reiterated that "only a
political settlement ... will bring a lasting peace to Angola."
@ CANADA-MONARCHY
OTTAWA December 26 1998 Sapa-AFP
NEARLY HALF OF CANADIANS WOULD LIKE MONARCHY ABOLISHED: POLL
Nearly half of all Canadians would like to see the monarchy
abolished, but they feel there are other priorities, according to a
poll published Saturday by the Ottawa Citizen.
The nationwide survey, carried out by POLLARA, shows 48 percent
of Canadians no longer want Queen Elizabeth II as their head of
state, while 39 percent want to keep the constitutional link with
Britain and 13 percent have no opinion.
But pollster Michael Marzolini said respondents made it clear
that while nearly half of the country would like to have a Canadian
head of a republican nation, they also feel that there are other
priorities.
"In terms of level of concern, it's well behind pretty well
every other issue," said Marzolini.
"People are not saying, 'Gee, everything is great in Canada
except for the monarchy'."
The poll was carried out in the wake of revelations that senior
members of Prime Minister Jean Chretien's office and the governing
Liberal Party had been discussing the idea of Canada becoming a
republic in time for the new millennium.
But Chretien, in year-end interviews, said he had no plans to
abolish the monarchy.
"I have enough problems with the separatists in Quebec and I
don't want to have problems with the monarchists in Ontario," he
said.
"For me, it is not a priority."
Canada is one of a handful of the Commonwealth's 54 independent
member nations - not counting Britain - which retain the monarchy
with the queen represented in the country by a governor-general.
Most, including India, South Africa, Bangladesh, Pakistan,
Ghana, Cyprus, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, are republics with
their own heads of state.
Australia is due to hold a referendum on abolishing the
monarchy there next year.
There have also been reports of growing sympathy for severing
links with the monarchy in New Zealand, which also recognizes the
queen as its head of state.
In Canada, such a move would require a constitutional change
which would need the approval of all 10 provincial governments.
That could prove difficult, especially considering the acrimony
that has surrounded recent attempts to modify Canada's
constitution.
In three attempts - in 1982 (EDS: correct), 1990 and 1992 -
Canadians have been unable to agree to constitutional amendments to
resolve the status of the French-speaking province of Quebec in
Confederation.
Premier Mike Harris of Ontario, the country's largest province,
has said in the past few days that he believes the monarchy has
served Canada well.
New Brunswick Premier Pat Binns has stated he would veto any
move to get rid of it.
The POLLARA poll surveyed 1,000 Canadians across the country
between December 18 and 21 and claims to be accurate within 3.2
percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
@ KROUGE-ARREST
PHNOM PENH December 27 1998 Sapa-AFP
RIGHTS GROUP CALLS FOR ARREST OF KHMER ROUGE DEFECTORS
Two senior leaders of Cambodia's genocidal Khmer Rouge who have
defected to the government must be arrested to stand trial for
crimes against humanity, a human rights group declared Sunday.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement that
nominal Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan and top ideologue Nuon
Chea should be grabbed when they are brought to the capital next
week.
"They must be arrested and tried for mass murder before there
is any talk of national reconciliation," said Sidney Jones, Asia
director for Human Rights Watch.
"If the government wants to pardon these two once they have
been brought to trial before an independent international court on
charges of crimes against humanity, and the Cambodian public has
heard the evidence against them, that is their decision.
"But to allow these men to return to society as if one of the
worst mass murders of the 20th century never took place, that is
unthinkable," he added in the statement.
The group said there were "mixed signals on how the men will be
treated" when they are brought to Phnom Penh next week. However it
slammed the government's policy of allowing them "to live
comfortable lives in absolute freedom."
Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea - both among the top cadre of Pol
Pot's murderous rule - defected to Phnom Penh following
discussions with Prime Minister Hun Sen in which they requested to
live as "simple" citizens and end their fading jungle rebel lives.
Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge field commander, accepted the
pair's defection, while King Norodom Sihanouk - briefly Pol Pot's
head of state - rubber-stamped it.
"In other countries where there has been both a pattern of
massive abuses - South Africa, Argentina, Rwanda and Chile - and
a desire for national reconciliation, the consensus has been that
no reconciliation can take place until those responsible have been
identified and the extent of their crimes fully known," the
statement added.
The Khmer Rouge's brutal ultra-Maoist rule over Cambodia from
1975 to 1979 led to the deaths of up to two million through
torture, overwork, execution and starvation.
@ TAIWAN-AFRICA
TAIPEI, December 27 1998 Sapa-AFP
TOP TAIWAN ECONOMIC OFFICIAL TO VISIT AFRICA
Taiwan's top economic planner will visit Senegal and Gambia
next month, a news report said Sunday as the island moves to
strengthen ties with remaining allies, a news report said Sunday.
P.K. Chiang, chairman of the Council for Economic Planning and
Development (CEPD), told the Liberty Times however that his
itinerary has not been finalized.
Chiang said the visit originally scheduled at January 9 was
arranged by the foreign ministry.
"Consolidating diplomatic ties is a responsibility of all
government agencies," Chiang said.
But he denied reports the coming trip would be followed by a
state visit by President Lee Teng-hui.
No foreign ministry officials were immediately available to
comment on Chiang's remarks.
Africa has emerged as one of the major battlefields for the
incessant tug-of-war between Taiwan and China since their
separation in 1949 at the end of a civil war.
China has scored a series of diplomatic victories in Africa
this year - luring away South Africa, the Central African Republic
and Guinea-Bissau from Taiwan's dwindling diplomatic camp.
Twenty-seven countries recognize Taiwan which Beijing regards
as a breakaway province.
@ LAND-PAC
JOHANNESBURG December 27 1998 Sapa
ANC BETRAYED AFRICANS ON LAND: PHEKO
The Pan Africanist Congress on Sunday said 1998 would go down
in history as the year in which the African National Congress
shamelessly and effectively betrayed the landless in the country.
PAC deputy president Motsoko Pheko in a statement accused the
ANC of pretending it was returning land to Africans since it came
to power in 1994.
"But it was clear that the Land Commission and the Land Claims
Court hardly had land to distribute to those who claimed it.
"After December 31, 1998, no African will claim the land of his
or her ancestors. The pretence by the ANC Government that it was
giving land back to the people now stands nakedly exposed as the
blackest lie ever told the African people and African royalty of
this country," Pheko said.
Applications to the Land Claims Court by those who lost their
land closes on December 31.
Pheko said South Africans have been treacherously betrayed on
the question of land.
"The consequence of this betrayal is homelessness or ant-hills
scattered throughout the country called houses... joblessness,
poverty, poor health care, short life expectancy and escalating
crime," Pheko said.
@ ANGOLA-PLANECRASH
LUANDA, December 27 1998 Sapa-AFP
FIGHTING HAMPERS SEARCH FOR CRASHED UN PLANE
Battles between Angolan government troops and UNITA rebels
hampered a search for the wreckage of a UN plane which crashed in
the centre of the war-torn African country, UN sources said on
Sunday.
The UN Observer Mission in Angola (MONAU) said the Hercules
C-130 plane was carrying 10 passengers and four crew when it went
down east of Vila Nova (EDS: correct), 45 kilometres (30 miles)
from Huambo.
Huambo, capital of the east-central province of the same name,
is one of several areas where rebels of the National Union for the
Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) are fighting government
troops.
A MONUA statement said the plane burst into flames and crashed
at about midday (1100 GMT) after taking off from Huambo for the
northestern city of Saurimo (EDS: correct), without giving details
of those who were aboard.
The United Nations has appealed to the government and UNITA for
help in access to the crash site and for assistance in rescuing any
survivors, but it was not known whether they included UN observers
who have been trying to implement peace protocols signed in Lusaka
in 1994.
MONUA officials were not available for comment early Sunday.
Angola plunged back into serious conflict this year, as
hardliners in UNITA loyal to the movement's veteran leader Jonas
Savimbi have refused to disarm and demobilise in line with the
Lusaka protocols and President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has decided
to crush the armed guerrillas by force.
In the past month, heavy fighting causing hundreds of
casualties has broken out in the chief town of Bie province east of
Huambo, Kuito. Kuito was already devastated in ferocious battles
that broke out anew after UNITA lost general elections to Dos
Santos's People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) late
in 1992.
On Sunday, an independent Roman Catholic radio station,
Ecclesia, said that some 200 people had been killed since UNITA
forces began an offensive on Kuito on December 9, adding that 463
people needed hospital treatment after heavy bombardments which
ended on Saturday night.
Thirty-five people died on Friday in Kuito, one family losing
eight members in the shely night.
Thirty-five people died on Friday in Kuito, one family losing
eight members in the shelling, and 63 people were wounded.
The Angolan army struck back against the rebels on Saturday,
forcing UNITA artillery units to withdraw from the hills around
Kuito, Ecclesia reported.
The residents of the ruined town left shelters on Sunday where
they had spent Christmas and many went to mass.
UNITA and the formerly Marxist MPLA have been struggling for
power since independence from Portugal in 1975, and successive
attempts by the United Nations and mediating countries to end the
conflict have foundered.
The Luanda government estimates that Savimbi still has some
35,000 men in arms.
@ TRAFFIC
JOHANNESBURG December 27 1998 Sapa
FESTIVE ROAD FATALITIES NOW STAND AT 555
The number of people who have died on South African roads since
the start of the festive season at the beginning of December has
risen to 555, an Arrive Alive spokesman said on Sunday.
Arrive Alive spokesman Godfrey Maluleke said the number of
fatal road collisions on South African roads rose from 378 to 388
and the death toll in these collisions rose from 538 to 555 since
Saturday.
Maluleke told Sapa a total of 180 drivers, 197 passengers and
178 pedestrians died in these accidents.
"The total numbers might be higher than this, especially in the
Northern Province, because we rely solely on reports from the
police. So far, this is what they have managed to give us," he
said.
Head-on collisions accounted for 17 percent of the accidents,
overturned vehicles for 27 percent and pedestrians for 32 percent.
"The main contributory factors in the last 24 hours are speed
which resulted in three crashes and three fatalities.
"We had five overturning vehicles resulting in six fatalities,
and six pedestrians were killed.
"It is also important to note that North West police in
Mafikeng arrested a 16-year-old boy for drunken driving.
"The vehicle he was driving overturned and his friend was
killed," said Maluleke.
He appealed to drivers to respect the lives of other people by
not drinking and driving. He also urged pedestrians to abstain from
using roads where possible.
Maluleke said most of the pedestrians who were killed were
knocked over by vehicles while they were walking in the middle of
the road under the influence of alcohol.
KwaZulu-Natal still topped the list with 106 fatalities
followed by the Western Cape with 91, the Eastern Cape with 73,
Gauteng with 72, Mpumalanga with 57, the Free State with 53, the
Northern Province with 42, the North West with 41 and the Northern
Cape with 20 fatalities.
@ ANGOLA-PLANECRASH
LUANDA December 27 1998 Sapa-AP
U.N. CALLS FOR 48-HOUR CEASE-FIRE TO PROBE PLANE CRASH
The United Nations called Sunday for a 48-hour cease-fire
between the Angolan government and UNITA rebels to allow an
investigation team to reach the site of a U.N. aircraft that
crashed with 14 people on board this weekend.
The C-130 aircraft went down in an area 500 kilometers (310
miles) southeast of the capital Luanda where the government army
has been fighting UNITA for nearly a month.
It was not known if there were any survivors.
U.N. spokesman Hamadoun Toure said there was no immediate
information on the cause of the crash. He cited government sources
in the central highland city of Huambo as saying they had seen a
plane go down in flames shortly after takeoff from there and that
it had crashed 25 miles (40 kilometers) away in Vila Nova.
An Angolan government plane was shot down Dec. 14, just north
of another central highland city of Kuito, killing 10 people. It
was not clear who had fired at the aircraft.
Onboard the plane that crashed Saturday were four Angolans, two
Russians, an Australian, an Egyptian, a Cameroonian, a Zambian, a
Namibian, a South African, a Bolivian and a Filipino.
Eight were members of the U.N. Observer Mission in Angola and
two were employed by a private communications company, Dinacom,
working with the United Nations, Toure said. The other four were
the plane's crew.
The World Food Program reacted to the crash by suspending food
delivery flights throughout Angola until Wednesday, pending more
information on the crash, according to Brenda Barton, a spokeswoman
for the organization in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
The U.N. military observers are charged with monitoring a 1994
peace accord that is severely threatened by fighting between the
government and UNITA rebels that flared up again three weeks ago.
Kuito and Huambo, which lie some 130 kilometers (80 miles)
apart, have served as a stage for heavy battles between UNITA and
the government for nearly a month.
Neither the government nor the rebels responded to the U.N.
call for a cease-fire, Toure said.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed to the Angolan
government and to UNITA to allow members of the U.N. Observer
Mission in Angola to go to the crash site and assist in search and
rescue operations, a spokesman said in a statement.
The plane, owned by TransAfric and chartered by the United
Nations, was headed for Saurimo, in the province of Lunda Sul,
about 390 miles (625 kilometers) east of Huambo, Toure said. The
four-engine C-130, one of the most widely used military transport
planes, can carry up to 92 people.
The U.N. Security Council has expressed dismay that Angola
appears headed back to civil war, which has ravaged the southern
African nation since the country's 1975 independence from Portugal.
Diplomats have been unable to get both sides to adhere to a
1994 peace accord. The agreement called for UNITA, whose name is a
Portuguese acronym for the National Union for the Total
Independence for Angola, to disarm and to hand areas under its
control to the government. However, lingering hostility between the
two sides has hindered implementation of the deal.
The council on Wednesday again accused Angolan rebel leaders of
undermining the peace process and demanded an immediate end to the
fighting.
WFP's Barton said that food distribution to approximately
400,000 Angolans displaced by the conflict would not be interrupted
by the grounded flights.
But she said the situation was "grave" because air cargo is
the only way to replenish supplies. Commercial food supplies via
roads have been shut down by the fighting.
@ NP-SAPS
JOHANNESBURG December 27 1998 Sapa
PAY SERIOUS ATTENTION TO CRIME - NEW NP URGES GOVERNMENT
The government should pay serious attention to crime levels in
South Africa and make available adequate funds to help eradicate
it, National Party spokesman for safety and security Piet Mathee
said on Sunday.
Reacting to a confidential SA Police Service overview of crime
for the country over the next five years - which was leaked to the
media over the weekend - Mathee said the African National
Congress-led government lacked vision and commitment in fighting
crime.
"The NNP has repeatedly requested that a clear strategy be
spelt out in terms of crime. This strategy must display measurable
goals with specific time frames that must be adhered to.
"The government should address the shortfall of R412,29-million
in the current budget as well as the backlog of R2-billion in
equipment that has built up since the present government came to
power," Mathee said.
He said the safety and security portfolio committee of the
national assembly should urgently convene to discuss the report.
"The NNP demands urgent action from the government and that the
findings of this report be given the serious attention it deserves
or the future of South Africans may be destroyed."
Among other things the confidential report leaked to Sunday
paper Rapport tabulated the chaos prevailing in the SAPS as a
result of corruption, mismanagement and lack of financial, material
and human resources.
The document which were drawn up to give police management
three possible scenarios of what could happen in South Africa in
the next five years, stated that the country could be dropped in
chaos if current tendencies of crime and political violence
continued.
The possible scenarios included that political violence in
KwaZulu/Natal could increase, the emerging of a more militant brown
nationalist force in the Western Cape, an increase of the
unemployed in the country by 350,000 per year and and increase in
the influx of illegal immigrants into the country.
@ LABOUR-AMPLATS
JOHANNESBURG December 27 1998 Sapa
AMPLATS WORKERS SET TO RESUME THEIR WORK STOPPAGE
Workers of the Anglo American Platinum mines, who broke off
their two-day old strike for the Christmas weekend, will resume
their work stoppage on Sunday night, a union spokesman told Sapa.
National Union of Mineworkers deputy general secretary, Archie
Palane said workers due to report for Sunday night and the Monday
morning shifts will stay away pending the results of an independant
mediation which was expected at 10am on Monday.
"The outcome of that mediation will determine whether we return
to work or not," said Palane.
About 10,000 workers, mostly members of the NUM, downed their
tools on Wednesday following a deadlock over wage increases.
Amplats has offered the workers a 4,5 percent increase and
another four percent hike - linked to productivity - while the
union is insisting on an eight percent across the board increase.
@ LIBYA-UGANDA-DRCONGO
TRIPOLI, December 27 1998 Sapa-AFP
UGANDA'S MUSEVENI SEES KADHAFI OVER GREAT LAKES
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Sunday said he was
visiting Libya to see Colonel Moamer Kadhafi about African problems
in a reference to the conflict in the DRC, the JANA news agency
reported.
Museveni, who arrived on Saturday night, stated that he and the
Libyan leader were "to discuss some African problems, notably in
the centre of the continent," referring to the war in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), JANA said.
The Ugandan head of state, who like Rwanda's leaders has sent
troops to support DRC rebels fighting President Laurent Kabila, was
expected to hold talks with Kadhafi on "the measures necessary to
restore peace in the Great Lakes region", according to the agency.
JANA added that Museveni's visit followed "a long meeting on
Saturday" between Kadhafi and Kabila, who arrived in Libya on
Friday.
Libya in September offered its good offices to help settle the
conflict in the DRC, where countries openly drawn into the war
include Uganda and Rwanda on the side of mainly Tutsi rebels in the
east, and Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia and Chad backing Kabila.
A mini-summit on the Great Lakes region, bringing together
presidents Idriss Deby of Chad, Ibrahim Bare Mainassara of Niger
and Issaias Afeworki of Eritrea took place in September, chaired by
Kadhafi as a "coordinator of the peace process in the region".
Museveni was in Tripoli at the time, but did not participate.
The ethnically and politically volatile Great Lakes region
straddles the east of the DRC, or former Zaire, Uganda, Tanzania,
Rwanda and Burundi. The latter country is also accused by Kinshasa
of sending troops of its mainly Tutsi army to back the insurgency,
which began early in August, but the Bujumbura government denies
it.
A southern African regional summit due to have been held on
Monday in the Zambian capital Lusaka with a view to bringing about
a ceasefire among all parties in the DRC has been indefinitely
postponed, the Zambian presidency announced last Thursday.
The official reason is a divergence of opinion over whether
Kabila should hold direct talks with the DR Congolese rebels, which
he has so far refused to do, stating that the real opponents of the
Kinshasa regime are Uganda and Rwanda.
Museveni arrived in Libya by plane, JANA said. The country has
been under a UN air embargo since 1992.
@ OBIT-DOROTHY-NYEMBE
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa December 27 1998 Sapa-AP
ANTI-APARTHEID ACTIVIST WHO LEAD WOMEN INTO STRUGGLE BURRIED
Dorothy Nyembe, 67, an anti-apartheid activist who led rural
women into the struggle against white minority rule, was buried
Thursday in Umlazi, a sprawling black township outside of Durban.
She died last week of asthma.
Jailed for 18 years by the apartheid government, Nyembe defied
"conventional wisdom" that rural women must only care for
children and cook for their men, the Sunday Times of Johannesburg
wrote in an obituary.
Like her better-known comrade, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the
ex-wife of President Nelson Mandela, Nyembe held her own in
political debates mostly dominated by men, the Times wrote.
Both women were key organizers of the 1956 women's campaign
against apartheid era pass laws that required nonwhites to carry
documents limiting their mobility to designated regions of the
country.
After the African National Congress was banned in 1960, Nyembe
joined the underground military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. She spent
two jail terms - one for three years, another for 15 - for her
political activity.
The staunch Methodist Christian received a top medal from the
former Soviet Union for her fight against white oppression.
As an inmate at Barberton Prison in the eastern part of the
country, Nyembe was forced by wardens to wash laundry for her male
counterparts, the Times said.
Several thousand ANC supporters, including several Cabinet
ministers, attended her funeral on Sunday, according to Bheki Cele,
spokesman for the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal.
@ HOUSING-REPORT
JOHANNESBURG December 27 1998 Sapa
MOFOKENG TO RELEASE AUDITOR-GENERAL'S REPORT ON HOUSING DEPT
Gauteng MEC for Housing and Land Affairs Dan Mofokeng will on
Monday morning release the Auditor General's report on findings
into allegation of irregularities within his department.
The allegations levelled against the department were contained
in an anonymous document circulated in the provincial government
and the Gauteng legislature early this year.
"Our call on the Public Protector to investigate allegations in
the department are an indication of our commitment to transparency.
"Our coming public on the 17 allegations investigated also
reiterates our dedication to accountability,' Mofokeng said on
Sunday.
Among other issues the report will cover allegations of
irregularities within the MEC's office, lack of proper management
systems and breaches of tender procedures.
@ ANGOLA-PLANECRASH-IDENTITY
LUANDA December 27 1998 Sapa-AFP
MISSING PASSENGERS FROM ANGOLA PLANE CRASH WERE UN STAFF: UN
Ten passengers missing after a UN-chartered plane crashed near
Huambo in civil war-torn central Angola were all UN staff, the UN
Observer Mission in Angola (MONUA) said in a statement Sunday.
Four crew and 10 passengers were on board the Hercules C-130
aircraft which went down and burst into flames shortly after taking
off from Huambo airport on Saturday, UN officials earlier said.
One UN source in Luanda on Sunday identified those aboard the
plane as four Angolans, with two Russians and eight other
foreigners from Australia, Bolivia, Cameroon, Egypt, Namibia, the
Philippines, South Africa and Zambia.
Nobody was likely to have survived among the passengers and the
crew, who came from the Transafrique company, the source added,
quoted by the LUSA Portuguese news agency in Lisbon.
In a statement on Sunday, the UN special envoy to Angola, Issa
Diallo, expressed his sadness at what he described as an
"accident". The big cargo aircraft hit the ground in a battle zone
east of Vila Nova, 45 kilometres (30 miles) from Huambo.
"According to the only reports we have from the government and
the FAA (Amgolan Armed Forces), the plane in flames was seen by FAA
troops at Vila Nova," the communique from Diallo's spokesman said.
Earlier, MONUA said that fighting made a search for the
wreckage and ant potential survivors impossible.
"Saturday was a bad day for MONUA and for all the UN personnel
who have committed their lives to peace in Angola," the statement
added.
The UN World Food Programme on Sunday announced a suspension of
all relief supply flights in the country, after the crash of the
plane. Angola has been ravaged by fighting for most of the years
since independence from Portugal in 1975.
@ COURT-APPOINTMENT
PIETERMATRITZBURG December 27 1998 Sapa
MOODLEY APPOINTED TO THE KWANATAL PROVINCIAL HIGH COURT
Advocate Yoga Moodley has been appointed acting judge for the
Natal Provincial Division of the High Court.
The appointment is with effect from June 1999.
Moodley has acted as a High Court judge five times before.
He was appointed Senior Counsel in 1994 and has presided in the
Umtata High Court and in the Natal Division.
He also acted as a judge of Pietermaritzburg High Court.
@ ANGOLA-FIGHTING
LUANDA December 27 1998 Sapa-AFP
KUITO IN RESPITE FROM ANGOLAN CLASHES; UN FEARS PLANE CREW DEAD
The shell-blasted central Angolan town of Kuito had a respite
on Sunday, but residents counted hundreds of dead and wounded
mainly from artillery duels between government troops and UNITA
rebels.
The Roman Catholic radio station Ecclesia reported from the
city that some 200 people were estimated to have died in two weeks
of fighting, 35 of them in Christmas Day shelling, while 463 people
had been hospitalised with injuries.
After rebel shlling of the town of about 150,000 from
surrounding hills, the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) went on to the
offensive and drove back the enemy gunners early at the weekend,
reports reaching Luanda said.
Many townsfolk came out of shelters to go to mass on Sunday
morning, according to Ecclesia, whose correspondent Simo da Rocha
reported: "The town is calm. The sun rose with a smile for
everybody."
However, previous heavy rain had not completely washed away
blood from corpses later buried in common graves.
Government troops pushed UNITA back north and east of Kuito,
according to reports which gave no casualty details, but the town
lives with fearful memories of some of Angola's worst fighting in
the civil war that followed independence from Portugal in 1975.
After Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence
of Angola (UNITA) lost general elections to the ruling People's
Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) late in 1992, Kuito
was pounded to ruins by renewed battle.
On Sunday, UN officials in the southern African country to
monitor increasingly shaky prospects for full implementation of a
1994 peace pact said they feared that the 14 people, mainly foreign
UN staff, aboard a cargo aircraft shot down on Saturday were all
dead.
The Hercules C-130 transport plane, chartered by the UN
Observer Mission in Angola (MONAU), reportedly hit the ground in a
battle zone and caught fire east of Vila Nova, 45 kilometres (30
miles) from Huambo, capital of the province of the same name. It
borders on Kuito's Bie province.
A UN source in Luanda on Sunday identified the crew and
passengers as four Angolans, with two Russians and eight other
foreigners from Australia, Bolivia, Cameroon, Egypt, Namibia, the
Philippines, South Africa and Zambia.
Nobody was likely to have survived among the passengers and the
crew, who came from the Transafrique company, the source added,
quoted by the LUSA Portuguese news agency in Lisbon. In Luanda,
officials said FAA troops saw the plane in flames.
In a communique, UN special envoy to Angola Issa Diallo
expressed his sadness at what he described as an "accident". An
earlier MONUA statement said the Hercules crashed soon after taking
off from Huambo for the northeastern city of Saurimo.
The United Nations appealed to the government and UNITA for
help in access to the crash site and for assistance in rescuing any
survivors.
"Saturday was a bad day for MONUA and for all the UN personnel
who have committed their lives to peace in Angola," the statement
added.
The UN World Food Programme on Sunday announced the suspension
of all relief supply flights in Angola, after the crash of the
plane. UN staff have already reported serious malnourishment in
tracts of the country, but supply operations have been rendered
increasingly hard this year by escalating violence.
Angola has plunged back into serious conflict as hardliners in
UNITA loyal to Savimbi have refused to disarm and demobilise in
line with Lusaka peace protocols signed in 1994.
President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has decided to crush the
rebels by force and this month got strong backing to that end from
an MPLA congress. His government now only recognises dissidents who
have broken with Savimbi since August as negotiating partners.
The Luanda government estimates that Savimbi still has some
35,000 men in arms.
@ MANDELA-CHURCH
PORT ELIZABETH December 27 1998 Sapa
MANDELA BRIEFLY VISITS PE AS GUEST OF CHURCH
President Nelson Mandela was in Port Elizabeth briefly on
Sunday as guest of honour at a ceremony at the Bantu Church of
Christ, which has more than one million members around the country.
Mandela unveiled a monument and the tombstones of the founding
bishop of the New Brighton church, James Ngcanjini Limba, and his
two successors, Bishops Lulu Fibi and Joel Pitana and their wives.
Church spokesman Lulamile Booi said the remains of the three
bishops and their wives were exhumed from township cemeteries and
reburied at the New Brighton church earlier this year.
Mandela was invited by local Bantu Church of Christ head Bishop
January Monki to attend the consecration and unveiling of the
monument and tombstones.
The president arrived at 10am from his ancestral home in Qunu
in the former Transkei, accompanied by Eastern Cape Premier
Makhenkesi Stofile.
@ MBEKI
IDUTYWA December 27 1998 Sapa
MBEKI SENDS STRONG WARNING ON ABUSE OF SA'S DEMOCRACY
Deputy president Thabo Mbeki on Sunday sent a strong warning to
South Africans against misuse of the country's newly found
democracy.
Addressing a crowd of over 10,000 people at a gathering in
Idutywa in the Eastern Cape, Mbeki said political liberation did
not mean freedom to rape, to steal other people's property, to stay
away from work or to do as one pleased.
It was sad to note that the advent of democracy had seen a
general decline of moral values, he said.
"Today we have among members of the African National Congress
town mayors and councillors who aspire to leadership positions."
"Not because they are committed to serve their communities but
because they want to line their pockets with ill-found financial
reaches."
"Some of our comrades pretend to be genuine ANC members when in
fact they are tsotsis," he said.
Mbeki, the ANC's national president, appealed for political
discipline among members of the organisation. The ANC should make
1999 a year of change - a year in which change was sought even in
the manner the country is ruled.
The occasion at Mbeki's birthplace in Ngcingwana village was a
coming-home celebration organised by his tribal clan before he
takes over from President Nelson Mandela as executive head of the
country next year.
@ ANGOLA-PLANECRASH
LUANDA December 27 1998 Sapa-AP
ANGOLAN RADIO BLAMES REBELS FOR CRASH OF U.N. PLANE
Angolan state radio blamed UNITA rebels for shooting down a
U.N. chartered plane carrying 14 people, a U.N. official in Luanda
said Sunday.
The United Nations called for a 48-hour cease-fire to allow a
search for any survivors of Saturday's crash, said spokesman
Hamadoun Toure.
He said that despite the radio report, the United Nations had
no immediate information about the cause of the crash. He said
neither rebels nor the government had responded to the call for a
halt in the fighting.
According to Toure, RNA radio said the C-130 aircraft was shot
down by UNITA troops battling the army in the Huambo area, about
500 kilometers (310 miles) southeast of the capital, Luanda. UNITA
has neither confirmed nor denied the accusation.
Toure said the aircraft was painted with the U.N. colors, and
that both sides were informed of the flight's schedule before
takeoff.
The 10 passengers included three Angolans, two Russians, an
Australian, an Egyptian, a Cameroonian, a Zambian and a Namibian.
The crew was made up of a South African, an Angolan, a Bolivian and
a Filipino.
Eight passengers were members of the U.N. Observer Mission in
Angola, which is montioring a 1994 peace accord between the rebels
and the government, and two were employed by a private
communications company, Dinacom, which works with the United
Nations, Toure said.
The peace accord is severely threatened by the latest fighting.
Toure said government sources in Huambo in the central
highlands said they saw a plane go down in flames shortly after
takeoff. It crashed 40 kilometers (25 miles) away in Vila Nova, the
sources told Toure.
The Portuguese news agency Lusa cited UNITA Secretary-General
Paulo Lukamba Gato as saying he knew the plane had crashed in a
rebel-held area, but that he had not yet spoken to UNITA rebels
there.
Given the resumption of fighting this month, "No one should be
flying in those areas," Lusa quoted Gato as saying.
He admitted UNITA rebels had shot down a government plane Dec.
14, just north of another central highland city, Kuito. All ten
people on board died.
Kuito and Huambo, which lie some 130 kilometers (80 miles)
apart, have served as a stage for heavy battles between UNITA and
the government since the beginning of the month.
Some 200 people were killed and more than 400 wounded over the
past two week in Kuito,the private Radio Eclesia reported Sunday
from the city.
The World Food Program reacted to Saturday's plane crash by
suspending food delivery flights throughout Angola until Wednesday,
pending more information on the crash, spokeswoman Brenda Barton
said from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
She said, however, that food distribution to approximately
400,000 Angolans displaced by the conflict would not be
interrupted.
On news of the crash, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan
appealed to the government and UNITA to enable observers to go to
the site and assist in search and rescue operations. He also asked
for their cooperation in the investigation.
The plane, owned by TransAfric, was headed for Saurimo, about
625 kilometers (390 miles) east of Huambo, Toure said.
The U.N. Security Council has expressed dismay at Angola's
apparent slide back to civil war. The country has been ravaged by
conflict since gaining independence from Portugal in 1975.
The 1994 accord called for UNITA, a Poruguese acronym for the
National Union for the Total Independence for Angola, to disarm and
hand areas under its control to the government.
The Security Council last week accused rebel leaders of
undermining the peace process and demanded an immediate end to the
fighting.
@ CONGO-LIBYA
KIGALI, Rwanda December 27 1998 Sapa-AP
LIBYA'S GADHAFI FAILS TO BRING TOGETHER CONGOLESE SIDES
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi failed to bring about a meeting
between Congolese rebels and Congo's President Laurent Kabila to
explore ways to move the stalled peace process, a rebel leader said
Sunday.
"There was no contact with Kabila," Ernest Wamba dia Wamba,
leader of the rebel Congolese Democratic Coalition, said in the
Rwandan capital, Kigali. "Gadhafi wanted to hear from us our
position regarding the peace process."
Gadhafi, who has supported Kabila in Congo's five-month war,
invited the rebels and the president they are fighting to oust to
Tripoli on Saturday to try to push the peace process.
Kabila's refusal to negotiate directly with the rebel coalition
of ethnic Tutsis, disaffected Congolese soldiers and opposition
politicians has torpedoed efforts to broker a cease-fire and open
political negotiations in Congo.
Last week, African negotiators postponed another round of peace
talks scheduled for Dec. 27-28 in Lusaka, Zambia.
The Organization of African Unity has been trying to obtain a
cease-fire in Congo, followed by the withdrawal of foreign forces
and talks on the future of Africa's third largest nation.
Rwandan diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
Gadhafi had put forward his own initiative, different from the
African proposal. They had no details.
Kabila accuses Rwanda and Uganda of sponsoring the August
rebellion and is demanding the withdrawal of foreign troops from
Congo. Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Chad have sent troops, arms
and aircraft in support of Kabila's government.
Rwanda and Uganda say they will stay in Congo as long as their
security is threatened. They accuse Kabila of enlisting thousands
of Rwandan and Ugandan rebels who had been using eastern Congo to
destabilize their governments.
On Sunday, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni flew to Tripoli
for talks with Gadhafi on the situation in Congo, the official
Libyan JANA news agency reported.
Uganda, like Rwanda, has been supporting a cease-fire, but only
if negotiated directly between Kabila and the rebels.
According to Chadian press reports, Gadhafi has bankrolled the
involvement of Chadian troops fighting the rebels in northern
Congo. Several hundred Chadian soldiers have been taken prisoner by
Ugandan forces in Congo.
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
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