ANGOLA: Bishops appeal to UN
Angola's Roman Catholic bishops have
made an impassioned appeal to the United Nations to promote peace talks
between the government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and Jonas Savimbi's
UNITA rebels. They asked the UN to "review its policy in Angola and
try to play a more efficient role".
"The truth here is that we are talking of 25 long years of war, of brothers spilling their brothers' blood, of 25 years of history seeped in blood, of one of the longest lasting genocides in contemporary Africa," the bishops said. "There is no city where people can feel safe and secure."
Citing human rights abuses by both sides in the civil war, the bishops urged the UN to step up its human rights monitoring in Angola, and said it had to push both sides towards dialogue aimed at ending the war: "Closing the doors to dialogue would be opening them to a war with no end in sight."
NAMIBIA: Security threat increases
Namibian Home Affairs Minister Jerry
Ekandjo, on Wednesday warned that the country faces its most serious security
problems since independence due to the Angolan rebel movement UNITA's banditry
along the northeastern border,
'The Namibian' reported on Thursday.
Addressing law enforcement officials in the capital, Windhoek, Ekandjo said the meeting was taking place "at a time when Namibia's security needs are at their highest since independence".
"The banditry and terrorist activities being committed by UNITA in the Kavango and Caprivi regions require vigilance and all-time preparedness on the part of our security forces, while the incidence of crime must also be combated in the rest of the country," Ekandjo told the law enforcement agents, who included police, prisons and traffic officials.
Namibia last December allowed the armed forces of war-torn Angola to use its territory to pursue UNITA rebels into their strongholds in the southern parts of Angola.
ZIMBABWE-SWAZILAND: TB cases increase
More than 50,000 new cases of tuberculosis were reported in Zimbabwe in 1999, while Swaziland attended to over 40,000 new cases during the same period, media reports said on Thursday.
The reports said in both countries the majority of the TB cases are also infected by the HIV/AIDS disease. In Zimbabwe, between 50 and 75 percent of these cases were linked to HIV/AIDS, while in Swaziland a 1998 study indicated that 58 percent of the TB patients were also infected by HIV, added the reports.
Both countries, however, have set up
centres to provide free TB treatment as well as to closely monitor the
disease. Zimbabwe, said the reports, has been experiencing an upsurge in
TB cases since 1987 when the first HIV/AIDS cases
were reported in the country.
[ENDS]
IRIN-SA - Tel: +27-11 880 4633
Fax: +27-11 447 5472
Email: irin-sa@irin.org.za
[This item is delivered in the English service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or Web: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer.]
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2000