UN Radio

UN and Africa
Programme Number: 123
Week of: Sunday, 22nd October, 2006
Recording Date: Thursday, 26th October, 2006
Topical Issue(s):

" The people in the DR Congo are counting down to the presidential run-off elections on Sunday. The head of the UN Mission in the country, William Swing says the campaigning has been going on well and he expects a good turnout similar to the July elections.

" Hundreds of Africans from Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan continue make the dangerous voyage across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen in search of a better life. The UN refugee agency says that in the middle of October alone more than 500 people have arrived in Yemen and over sixty died making the crossing.

" Rumours that former Liberian fighters have crossed over to fight as mercenaries in Cote d'Ivoire have prompted the UN missions in Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire to patrol the border between the two countries. General Isaac Obiakor of UNMIL says the joint exercises are going to be routine.

RESENTER: This is United Nations Radio in New York.

Hello and welcome to UN and Africa, I'm Ransford Cline-Thomas.

PRESENTER:

In this edition, the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo count down to the presidential run-off elections on Sunday. The head of the UN Mission in the country, William Swing is optimistic about the conduct of the elections.
CLIP 1: WILLIAM SWING

"We anticipate it will be very similar to the election of 30 July which took place in calm circumstances without any major incidents." (0'09"

PRESENTER:

Also in this programme, Ethiopians and Somalis continue to suffer as they use smugglers' boats to cross the Gulf of Aden to Yemen.
CLIP 2: RON REDMOND
"Passengers on one boat reported that five Ethiopians were beaten by the smugglers, thrown overboard and attacked by sharks in view of the others on the vessel" (0'09)

PRESENTER:

Ron Redmond, the spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency. And later in the programme you will hear about a joint patrol by United Nations peacekeepers on the border between Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire as rumours abound about mercenaries being recruited to fight in Cote d'Ivoire.

So, stay tuned to UN and Africa.

PRESENTER:

Well, come Sunday and the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo will go to the polls to elect their president. The last time they voted in July they had to choose among more than thirty candidates but no candidate received the majority to become president. This time, they will be choosing between President Joseph Kabila and Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba who emerged as front runners in the first ever democratic elections in forty years. UN Radio's Diane Bailey spoke on the line to Kinshasa with the head of the United Nations Mission in the country, William Swing who says the campaigning has been somewhat unusual because it has been run by the deputies and not by the candidates themselves.
SWING: There has been somewhat greater campaigning perhaps in the large cities than in the rural areas. But the candidates themselves have generally restricted themselves to the TV and radios, although there may be some other large gatherings before the actual polling day on Sunday 29 October. But it has been marked by some isolated instances of violence in places like Lubumbashi, Basangusu, Loja, Mbandaka and some other places. But on a more global scale, these have been more isolated instances, I would say.

DIANE: Do you have any concerns about how the actual election will go on Sunday?

SWING: Obviously all of us who are supporting the process will be very vigilant to try to see that it is an orderly process on Sunday, orderly in terms of the polling at the actual stations. There are 50,000 polling stations throughout this large country. We'll be doing our best to support the national police who have the primary responsibility for the conduct of the elections, the security aspects. We'll be concerned to make sure that those unauthorized to be carrying weapons are kept off the streets. But I think we anticipate it will be very similar to the election of 30 July which took place in calm circumstances without any major incidents.

DIANE: Will MONUC be playing the same role that they played in the July elections?

SWING: Very much the same, we're there very much in the support role. As you know, our role has been largely one up to now, first of all helping train the 50,000 police, a large portion of which have been trained by MONUC and the rest by other international either bilateral governments or organizations. We'll continue to be using our military helicopters and aircraft to transport electoral material. We've done more than 600 helicopter sorties and more than 75 major aircraft, large aircraft from South Africa here with the 60,000 electoral kits and the 25 million ballots. There will continue to be vigilant obviously in the east and the Kivus, where you still have about 10,000 armed elements and the insurgency in the district of Ituri in the northeast. But up to now we have no reason to think that there will be problems there.

DIANE: What is the mood of the people like, as far as you can tell and what your advisors and the people on the ground tell you?

SWING: I think that one can say that throughout the process, if you look back on 30 July, the first round of elections, there's been a great deal of enthusiasm on the part of the people. They have waited a long time for this moment and until then they have not had an election in more than 40 years, not an election that could be called democratic in which they could choose freely their own leaders. Obviously there's a little more anticipation this time because there's no longer 33 candidates for the Presidency, but it's down to two. But they'll also be putting in place provincial assemblies, about 620 positions for which there are nearly 14,000 candidates. A lot of interest there at the local level- all politics is local as we know- and these are the instances which will first hear the demands of the people at the grass roots level. They will elect the senators, the upper house, and they will elect all the governors and deputy governors. So there's a lot at stake there and the interest is quite high.

DIANE: You mention the enthusiasm that has been present all along. Do you expect as big a turnout as you had in July?

SWING: I would have thought so, but there are no nationwide polls here so one doesn't know. I think there is a lot of interest in the races. You know, it's a big effort for them to vote here because even with 50,000 polling stations, many people still have to walk 10, 20 sometimes 30 km to be able to vote. It's a big investment. . Last time we had a 70 percent nationwide turnout which included two provinces that didn't get up to 50 percent. There were problems there, from a political point of view, the voters didn't turn out, so even with that you still had 70 percent nationwide. We would have thought that it would be in that range again this time, based on what we've seen so far of the campaign.

PRESENTER:
That was William Swing, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, talking with UN Radio's Diane Bailey.

STING/JINGLE: UN AND AFRICA THEME

PRESENTER:

It is that time of the year when hundreds of Africans, mainly from Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan embark on a rather dangerous voyage across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen. Despite a crackdown on smugglers in the Puntland region of Somalia, these people continue to pay smugglers and risk their lives to get to Yemen. UN Radio's Zenawit Melesse reports.
NARRATOR:
Unscrupulous smugglers take advantage of these desperate Africans who flee insecurity, drought and economic hardships, in search of a better life elsewhere. And, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, close to six thousand people have so far arrived in Yemen this year. More than sixty people have died making the crossing while over sixty others are missing. UNHCR spokesman, Ron Redmond says that those who have been lucky enough to arrive in Yemen have been talking about their horrific experience at sea.
CUT 1: Ron Redmond
Passengers on one boat reported that five Ethiopians were beaten by the smugglers, thrown overboard and attacked by sharks in view of the others on the vessel. Upon arrival on the Yemen coast, the smugglers forced 25 Ethiopians to remain aboard one of the vessels because it had developed engine trouble and their weight was required to maintain balance for the return voyage to Somalia. They have not been seen since.

NARRATOR:
In the meantime, UNHCR workers are taking care of people who arrive in Yemen.

CUT 2: Ron Redmond
Of the more than 5,700 arrivals since early September, a total of 3,314 Somalis, 200 Ethiopians and two Sudanese were transferred to UNHCR's reception centre near Bir'Ali in southern Yemen. They received medical care, food assistance and other help from UNHCR and its partners.

NARRATOR:
The UN refugee agency is also working in Somalia where it is interviewing and counselling Ethiopians who continue to arrive in the Puntland region of Somalia despite a smuggling crackdown by local authorities. UNHCR has been consistently calling on the international community to take measures to address the root causes of smuggling of Africans to Yemen. In addition the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres says there is a need to tackle the problem of smuggling people with the same determination that is seen in cracking down on drug trafficking.
CUT 3: Antonio Guterres
I think unfortunately, drug trafficking can affect the lives of the families of every decision making in the world but human trafficking will probably not affect large majority of decision makers in the world and so there is not the same determination, not the same political will in fighting the trafficking and the smuggling of human beings.

Mr. Guterres further stresses that developed countries can help to stop illegal smuggling of people by opening their borders to migrants from developing countries including Africa who are looking for employment. He points out that ironically in the globalised world economy, money and goods flow more freely than people.
CUT 4: Antonio Guterres
People still have lots of obstacles to move. And this is one of the factors that makes the world more unfair. Markets also work for people. And if supply and demand are not met legally, they will be met illegally. Everybody must understand, and create the conditions for migration to become a normal thing in today's world and an important instrument for development both in the North and in the South.

NARRATOR:
Antonio Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and reporting for UN Radio, this is Zenawit Melesse

PRESENTER:

The region of West Africa has until recently been the scene of conflicts and instability. Countries such as Sierra Leone and Liberia are in the process of recovering, while Cote d'Ivoire is still facing an uncertain future as the country remains divided between the north which is controlled by the Forces Nouvelles and the south under the government. So when rumours circulated recently that former Liberian fighters had crossed over to fight as mercenaries in Cote d'Ivoire, the United Nations mission in that country, known as ONUCI, and the one in Liberia, known as UNMIL took the situation very seriously. That's what I learned from the Force Commander of UNMIL, Lieutenant General Isaac Obiakor of Nigeria.
OBIAKOR: We have gone in there with our counter-parts from ONUCI to authenticate the veracity of those stories. And apart from that, in the process of doing that we are building confidence and, of course, trying to mentor elements of the countries involved to get to do their job which eventually they will have to do on their own.

C-THOMAS: So tell me, what exactly are these troops doing? Can you explain to me? Are you, for example, flying helicopters overhead or are you marching along the border? Take me through the process.

OBIAKOR: We are doing three things at the same time. One is walking the roads. We are plying the roads with vehicles and then, of course, sometime we fly. And what precisely is happening is that we are doing concurrent parallel reconnaissance along the border. And so when we meet we decide where we meet next and we continue on our side of the border until we meet again and exchange information and details regarding what we found as we moved on.

C-THOMAS: Now I also understand that your mission in Liberia has called on those living along the country's borders to assist your mission in preventing any recruitment of mercenaries and any trafficking in arms. Can you tell us a little more about this? Are you getting any kind of response from them, positive, negative?

OBIAKOR: Obviously the people are happy and they are responding because when we do carry out these patrols we talk to the people. We educate them on the need for them to be vigilant and to ensure that nobody uses them for such untoward activities in that place. I think they have enough of those things. And if you may know, this exercise we carried it we carried it out also along the border with Sierra Leone.

C-THOMAS: Now as far as these exercises are concerned the people, when you carry out the exercises, I know you try to talk to them and calm their fears, but they don't show any signs of actually being scared and fear that there might be some other civil war or tragedy looming in the horizon?

OBIAKOR: Indeed they get reassured when we talk to them because they themselves have heard some of these stories too. And so when they see us around trying to check the veracity of those talks or stories they feel that, all said and done, UNMIL are around to make sure that nothing happens. So far we have tried and exhausted every bit of information given to us and we have not accessed anything in that manner or what is supposed. So until we discover that I think we will likely feel that all those things are just rumours.

C-THOMAS: So you are feeling confident about what you have done so far and therefore how long will it continue? Indefinitely?

OBIAKOR: Indeed this exercise from now on will now be routine. We have done the first Operation Mayo, that's along the Cote d'Ivoire border and the Operation Loco along Sierra Leonean border for the second time. From now on it is going to be routine, because we have, by these exercises, worked out the modalities for troops on either side of the divide to continue to maintain vigilance, continue to patrol and continue to exchange information. I may just add that we are equally exploring the possibility. Indeed my SRSG had made a move to see if we could extend this exercise along the Guinean border. And so we are in the process of exploring that, to see if we could equally do the same thing with the Guineans on their own side of the border.

PRESENTER:

Lieutenant General Isaac Obiakor, the Force Commander of the United Nations peacekeepers in Liberia.
SIG TUNE ((Bring up briefly, dip and hold under)
And that's all for this edition of UN and Africa. Our producer was Derrick Mbatha, the Production Assistant was Zenawit Melesse, and our sound engineer was Sally O'Brien.
And now from me Ransford Cline-Thomas, bye for now.
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