UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
IRIN-West Africa Update 143, 98.2.11

IRIN-West Africa Update 143, 98.2.11


U N I T E D N A T I O N S Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa

Tel: +225 21-73-54 Fax: +225 21-63-35 e-mail: irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci

IRIN-WA Update 143 of Events in West Africa, (Wednesday) 11 February 1998

SIERRA LEONE: Thousands flee Freetown

Thousands of people fled Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, on Tuesday and Wednesday as fighting between the ruling Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and troops from the West African intervention force ECOMOG intensified, according to media reports and IRIN sources. UNHCR told IRIN on Wednesday some 800 refugees had already arrived in neighbouring Guinea by boat, and that as many as 7,000 were expected to follow. A humanitarian source in Guinea also claimed some AFRC cabinet members were among the refugees registered. According to UNHCR, unconfirmed numbers of Sierra Leoneans had also arrived in northwest Liberia.

Meanwhile in Freetown, media reports said it was not clear whether ECOMOG would now take control of the city. A spokesman for the AFRC told the BBC his forces would resist to the end. However, ECOMOG commander Major General Timothy Shelpidi told IRIN on Wednesday he was "one hundred percent confident" his forces would take Freetown as soon as possible. "The objective is not only Freetown, but the whole of Sierra Leone," Shelpidi said. According to the general, ECOMOG would avoid civilian targets. However, he said AFRC weaponry had been deliberately dispersed in residential areas.

A Western military analyst told IRIN on Wednesday that by fighting from house to house, ECOMOG could capture Freetown in three to four days. However, if ECOMOG was still in the same positions in two days, it might not have enough resources to defeat the AFRC outright. "They made slow progress today," the analyst said.

Liberian fighters cross into Sierra Leone

As many as 2,000 fighters from Liberian President Charles Taylor's former faction, the National Patriotic Front for Liberia (NPFL), crossed into Sierra Leone at the weekend, media reports said. The troops were reportedly sent in to support AFRC forces near Kenema in east Sierra Leone. Nigerian army spokesman Colonel Godwin Ugbo also said in Lagos the NPFL was helping the AFRC. "Seven trucks of NPFL troops were seen going into Freetown" on Monday, AFP quoted Ugbo as saying. However, Liberia's Secretary of State for Defence, Daniel Chea, told the BBC the reports were "pure propaganda".

Nevertheless, a security analyst in Monrovia told IRIN on Wednesday it was almost certain some Liberians were fighting in Sierra Leone. According to the analyst, fighters from Liberia had been involved in the civil conflict in Sierra Leone since the early 1990s. "The issue is whether Taylor is now allying himself with the AFRC against ECOMOG, or not," the source said.

NIGERIA: Ex-ECOMOG chief to preside at coup plot tribunal

Former ECOMOG force commander Major General Victor Malu told IRIN that he had been appointed president of a seven-member military tribunal established to try those charged with plotting a coup in December against the Nigerian leader, General Sani Abacha.

Media reports on Wednesday said the tribunal's members had been drawn from the army, navy and air force. The trial would be held in Jos, 850 kms north of Lagos. General Oladipo Diya, the former deputy to Abacha, and Generals Abdulkarim Adisa and Tajudeen Olanrewaju, former ministers in the Abacha cabinet, would appear before the tribunal.

A further 23 military and civilian defendants also to be tried were not identified. "We want to finish with this ugly incident," PANA quoted the Nigerian chief of defence administration, Rear Admiral Festus Porbeni, as saying. "We hope by the end of this week he [Malu] will be inaugurated." Porbeni said that the suspects could choose their lawyers from within the military.

Meanwhile, 'The Guardian', a Lagos-based daily, on Tuesday reported that the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (NADL) and the Human Rights Laws Service (HURI-LAWS) had urged the Nigerian government "to charge the officers for treasonable felony, an offence punishable by life imprisonment rather than treason, which attracts the death sentence". It said the suspects would be probably tried under a 1990 decree on "treason and other offences", which called for capital punishment.

Abiola faces new legal hurdle

The lawyer of Chief Moshood Abiola, the presumed winner of Nigeria's 1993 presidential election, has accused the government of blocking legal attempts to file for his release from detention, news organisations reported on Wednesday. The lawyer, Godwin Ajayi, said the authorities had failed to appoint a supreme court judge who would hear the application. Abiola was arrested in June 1994 for proclaiming himself head of state.

Nigerian parties meet with Abacha

The Nigerian government on Tuesday assured the five registered political parties that it would meet with them on a regular basis to discuss issues affecting Abacha's pledged transition to civilian rule, news organisations reported. The first meeting between political parties and Abacha was held on Tuesday.

Four of the five parties have floated the idea of asking Abacha to be the consensus candidate. The only serious challenger to the proposal so far is Mohammed Yusufu, chairman of the Grassroots Democratic Movement (GDM), which "dissociated itself completely" from the call by other parties. The Nigerian independent press has reported that Yusufu's candidacy might be sponsored by Abacha to give the impression of an open contest. Abacha has not yet declared whether he would run for the presidency.

Civil service faces 30 percent cut

The Nigerian government on Tuesday announced its intention to slash 30 percent of the civil service, news organisations reported. The public service is estimated at up to 800,000 workers. Reuters, quoting a presidential statement issued at the weekend, said that the cuts were in line with the recommendations of a government reform panel.

MAURITANIA: Three-year sentences sought for anti-slavery activists

A prosecutor on Tuesday demanded three-year jail sentences for three anti-slavery activists, AFP reported. He also sought for the confiscation of assets belonging to SOS Slavery. Boubacar Messaoud, head of SOS Slavery, Cheikh Saad Bouh, president of the Mauritanian Human Rights Association, and lawyer Brahim Ould Ebetti were accused of forming and belonging to an unauthorised group and spreading false propaganda.

The three were arrested after taking part in a French television documentary on slavery in Mauritania.

An exiled Mauritanian opposition group, the African Liberation Forces of Mauritania (FLAM) condemned the trial, AFP reported. It appealed to all patriotic and democratic forces to mobilise and fight to "save the county from disintegration and implosion".

CHAD: Eleven killed in hostage release

Security forces killed 11 people and captured 19 when they freed four French nationals taken hostage last week in southern Chad, AFP reported on Tuesday. The four hostages, held by the anti-government Forces Democratiques de l'Union (FDU), were freed on Sunday after an intervention by security forces. The government displayed guns and medical equipment to the press, which it said had been used by the kidnappers. The former hostages have since returned to France.

EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Three Nigerians arrested for separatist attack

Three Nigerians have been arrested in Equatorial Guinea for allegedly taking part in a separatist attack last month, Western diplomats told AFP on Tuesday. According to the diplomats, hundreds of Nigerians had also been detained and later released after the Movimiento para la Autodeterminacion de la Isla de Bioko (MAIB) killed five government soldiers. The minority Bubi ethnic group in Bioko, an island off the coast of Equatorial Guinea, is demanding independence from the mainland Fang.

Meanwhile, AFP quoted diplomatic sources as dismissing Nigerian press reports that 700 Nigerians had been killed in Equatorial Guinea in reprisal for the incident. Relations between Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea have been strained over oil rights in the Gulf of Guinea, AFP said.

LIBERIA: US Special Envoy to visit Monrovia

US special envoy for the promotion of democracy in Africa, Reverend Jesse Jackson, was expected to arrive in Liberia on Wednesday, the US Embassy in Monrovia told IRIN. Jackson was to meet President Charles Taylor, a cross-section of Liberian civil society, opposition leaders and government officials.

According to media reports, Jackson told reporters before he left Washington that ending violence and the enforcement of human rights were key factors in "attracting capital for investment" in Liberia.

Abidjan, 11 February 20:00 gmt

[ends]

[The material contained in this communication comes to you via IRIN West Africa, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. UN IRIN-WA Tel: +225 21 73 66 Fax: +225 21 63 35 e-mail: irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci for more information or subscription. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this report, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. IRIN reports are archived on the Web at: http://www.reliefweb.int/emergenc or can be retrieved automatically by sending e-mail to archive@dha.unon.org . Mailing list: irin-wa-updates]

Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 20:16:44 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 143, 98.2.11 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980211201204.11799A-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>

Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar

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