THE INDIAN OCEAN NEWSLETTER # 772 - 05/07/1997

MOZAMBIQUE FIGHTING OVER THE SAME BONE The bitter infighting between two French companies, semi-public CIDEV and privately-owned OGS, to get their hands on a FFr.18-million demining contract in Mozambique financed by the parastatal Caisse Française de Développement illustrates the difficulty the French military Establishment has to keep a footing on terrain largely held by NGOs and Anglo-Saxon companies (ION N° 764 & 769). (...). [Total : 586 Words]. (8,2USD)

UGANDA MERCENARIES AND SECURITY The security company Saracen Uganda, subsidiary of a parent company itself belonging to South Africa-based specialty group Executive Outcomes headed by ex-South African army lieutenant-colonel Ebeen Barlow, has the wind in its sails. (...). [Total : 155 Words]. (4,7USD) MADAGASCAR NEXT STEP WITH GSM PHONES Following on the heels of the licence to instal a GSM cellular telephone network which bypassed France Telecom subsidiary France Câbles et Radio, the supply of equipment for this contract has now slipped between the fingers of French semi-public company Alcatel to go to Germany's Siemens group. (...). [Total : 364 Words]. (4,7USD) MADAGASCAR WALTZING FISHERY PERMITS Madagascar's fisheries minister Houssene Abdallah has cancelled seventeen shrimp fishing permits issued to ships owned by Reunion Island businessman Abdeali Goulamaly, Groupe Kaleta (owned by Jean Andre Soja), and the companies Longo and Cora (ION N° 762). (...). [Total : 344 Words]. (4,7USD) MOZAMBIQUE ROAD REMAKING ROUND PEMBA The African Development Bank's African Development Fund has granted Mozambique a US$36 million loan for rehabilitation of 210 km of the Pemba-Montepuez road, in Cabo Delgado Province in northern Mozambique. (...). [Total : 196 Words]. (4,7USD) KENYA ENERGY PROGRAMME OFF THE GROUND After several years of difficult negotiations with the Kenyan government, International Development Association (a subsidiary of the World Bank) finally approved at the end of June financing of US$125 million for the country's energy sector, now being revamped. (...). [Total : 351 Words]. (4,7USD) SOUTH AFRICA COST OF QUITTING APARTHEID Leaving behind the era of apartheid cost the Republic of South Africa a stiff price, which the government sees now in the strong growth of public debt in the last years. (...). [Total : 328 Words]. (4,7USD) TANZANIA ID PROJECT A contract to print Tanzanian national identity documents was reportedly secretly signed last month with a British firm called Regional Services, with delivery due to be made within the next three months. (...). [Total : 184 Words]. (4,7USD) ETHIOPIA AL AMOUDI STILL LEADING After the US$175 million offer from National Mining Corporation owned by Saudi-Ethiopian businessman Mohamed Al Amoudi was preferred to the bid from South Africa's JCI to take over the Ethiopian gold mine at Lega Dembi, he is now believed to be standing pretty to take over Awash Tannery too. (...). [Total : 426 Words]. (4,7USD)

KENYA OPPOSITION CHALLENGE National Convention Executive Committee, which groups opposition parties, human rights organizations, and religious representatives, threw down the gauntlet to the regime of head of state Daniel arap Moi this week by calling for a Day of National Mobilization on July 7 to demand a reform of the constitution. (...). [Total : 221 Words]. (4,7USD) REUNION ISLAND FOUR MPS BEHIND MURCY The chairman of Caisse Générale de Sécurité Sociale (CGSS) on the French overseas territory of Reunion Island, Alfred Murcy, whom the CGSS board decided on June 12 to suspend from his functions following a long dispute (ION N° 761), has received the support of four of the island's five MPs (Huguette Bello, Claude Hoarau and Elie Hoarau of Parti Communiste Réunionnais and Nichel Tamaya of Parti Socialiste Reunion branch) and the communist senator Paul Vergès who addressed a collective letter to Socialist minister of labour and solidarity Ms. (...). [Total : 396 Words]. (4,7USD) AFRICA FREE-SPEECH FOR CONSUL Speaking during a reception in St Denis De La Reunion on June 26 on the occasion of Madagascar's national day, the Malagasy consul on Reunion Island Rene Rakotoniaina delighted his listeners by his frank way of speaking. (...). [Total : 275 Words]. (4,7USD) MOZAMBIQUE ELECTORAL COMMISSION Mozambique's national assembly has just designated seven of the nine members who will make up the new national electoral commission in the perspective of local elections in December. (...). [Total : 198 Words]. (4,7USD) TANZANIA MOTORIZED ENCUMBRANCE The government of Zanzibar was forced to explain itself on June 15 over the purchase of a Mercedes Benz vehicle for president Salmin Amour which reportedly he used only once before seeing it break down (ION N° 758). (...). [Total : 323 Words]. (4,7USD) COMOROS ISLANDS GUNNING THE FLAG The Comoros Islands government sent armed troops to Anjouan Island last week in response to action by separatists, who hoisted the French tricolour at Mutsamudu. (...). [Total : 344 Words]. (4,7USD) ETHIOPIA CRIME GROWING IN ADDIS The powerlessness of the police to contain the mounting crime wave in Addis Ababa has led traders to form private security forces. (...). [Total : 311 Words]. (4,7USD) MAURITIUS GOVERNING WITH A SINGLE BRICK As preliminary discussions with Parti Mauricien Social Démocrate (PMSD, opposition) of Herve Duval got nowhere, it was a government of ministers from the Labour Party alone which the prime minister (and party leader) Navin Ramgoolam set up in Port Louis on July 2. (...). [Total : 370 Words]. (4,7USD)

SOMALIA / CANADA ALI MOHAMED SIAD The son of the late Somali president Mohamed Siad Barre was expelled from Canada to the United States last week after having been refused the status of political refugee by the Canadian authorities. (...). [Total : 62 Words]. (1,5USD) SOUTH AFRICA / UNITED KINGDOM NELSON MANDELA South African head of state Nelson Mandela is to make an official visit to Great Britain from July 8 to 2. (...). [Total : 37 Words]. (FREE!) SOUTH AFRICA / FRANCE JACQUES DONDOUX French junior minister for foreign trade Jacques Dondoux, South African minister of trade and industry Alec Erwin, and Southern African Development Community executive secretary Kaire Mbuende are to inaugurate an exhibition, France Technologies, in Johannesburg on July 8. (...). [Total : 38 Words]. (FREE!) ZIMBABWE ENOCK KAMUSHINDA Indigenous Business Development Centre secretary general Enock Kamushinda denounced, in Harare last week, the World Bank credit line of US$70 million for small loans to small businesses. (...). [Total : 66 Words]. (1,5USD) MOZAMBIQUE / PORTUGAL JOSE BECA CHAGUA Mozambique's air force chief of staff, general Jose Beca Chagua, was on a mission to Lisbon this week during which he met his Portuguese opposite number, general Aleixo Corbal, and representatives of the Portuguese government. (...). [Total : 35 Words]. (FREE!) TANZANIA JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES WARNED Tanzania's interior minister Ali Ameir Mohamed served notice of a possible ban on the Church of Jehovah's Witnesses last week, following an incident at Mbeya hospital. (...). [Total : 176 Words]. (1,5USD) ERITREA OPPOSITION FESTIVAL Eritrean Liberation Front Revolutionary Council (ELF-RC, opposition) plans to hold its annual festival, the eleventh of the name, at Kassel in Germany from July 31 to August 3. (...). [Total : 52 Words]. (1,5USD)

SUDAN KHALAFALLAH AL RASHID Sudanese head of state general Omar Hassan Al Bechir has named a commission, chaired by former Chief Justice Khalafallah Al Rashid, to draft a new constitution. (...). [Total : 120 Words]. (4,7USD) DJIBOUTI / FRANCE DIDIER ROBERT Director of the parastatal Caisse Française de Développement in Haiti since 1995, it's back to Africa for Didier Robert, as head of the Djibouti branch of CFD, taking over from François Rivière. (...). [Total : 180 Words]. (4,7USD) MAURITIUS KAILASH PURRYAG Incoming deputy prime minister in Navin Ramgoolam's third government formed on July 2, Kailash Purryag is a member of the Vaish Hindu caste, as Ramgoolam. (...). [Total : 207 Words]. (4,7USD) ERITREA / DENMARK PETER TRUELSEN Although work on the new Danish embassy in Asmara is not completed, the newly appointed Danish ambassador Peter Truelsen officially inaugurated the building on July first. (...). [Total : 147 Words]. (4,7USD)