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IRIN-WA Update 158 of Events in West Africa, (Wednesday) 4 March 1998
SIERRA LEONE: ECOMOG prepares return of elected president
The force commander of the West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, Timothy Shelpidi, told IRIN on Wednesday that he had visited the main Sierra Leonean cities earlier this week, ahead of elected Sierra Leone President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's return home on 10 March. On Monday, Shelpidi was in Bo and Kenema, in eastern Sierra Leone. He said food, medicine and shelter were urgently needed in the cities which had suffered massive destruction at the hands of the retreating fighters of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and its allies, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). However, Bo and Kenema airstrips were in good condition and could be used by the humanitarian community to bring in emergency supplies.
Shelpidi also met the eleven-man task force appointed by Kabbah in the capital, Freetown, to discuss preparations for Kabbah's return. Several West African heads of state, including Nigerian leader General Sani Abacha, are expected to attend Kabbah's reinstatement ceremony. A further trip to Freetown was scheduled for the weekend to finalise preparations, Shelpidi added.
Caches of weapons discovered
Shelpidi and a team of inspectors toured the Sierra Leonean army's headquarters in western Freetown, where large quantities of arms and ammunition were abandoned by retreating fighters, AFP reported. An ECOMOG official said a large cache of ammunition was also discovered in the residence of toppled AFRC leader Johnny Paul Koroma.
ECOMOG chief calls on Sierra Leoneans not to seek revenge
Meanwhile, on Monday, Shelpidi called on Sierra Leoneans not to exact reprisals against perceived supporters of the ousted AFRC, according to AFP. Addressing some 225 AFRC and RUF fighters in detention in Freetown, Shelpidi said ECOMOG would guarantee their security but warned them against any attempt to escape.
Commonwealth welcomes end of military rule
The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) meeting in London on Tuesday welcomed the ousting of the AFRC from Freetown, media reports said. According to the BBC, a final communique praised the role played by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), but avoided any mention of the regional military intervention. The group agreed to send a ministerial mission to the country after Kabbah's return to explore how to assist Sierra Leone in the task of national reconstruction and peace-building. Representatives of Canada, Ghana, Malaysia, Zimbabwe and Britain would be part of this team. The foreign ministers also expressed their "grave concern" over the humanitarian situation.
The CMAG noted Kabbah's request for Commonwealth assistance in training the police force, but said this should be in close coordination with other international agencies in order to ensure an effective security environent, PANA reported.
UN seeks funds to meet humanitarian needs.
The United Nations on Tuesday launched a flash appeal
for US$ 11.2 million to meet priority humanitarian
needs in Sierra Leone over the next three months. Two
UN assessment missions to Sierra Leone determined last
month that the current humanitarian situation remained
"serious". The appeal sought funds for urgent
interventions to re-establish basic health and education
services, ensure the resumption of food aid distributions
and provide assistance to the most vulnerable groups
affected by the conflict.
A UNICEF press statement said the destruction of basic infrastructures had placed the country in "a desperate situation". Humanitarian programmes in the relatively safe northern regions had been devastated by recent fighting. According to UNICEF, children have been exposed to acts of violence, while many were sent to battle as combatants.
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported on Tuesday that 20,000 displaced Freetown residents and some 5,000 Liberian refugees had received WFP food. Another 6,000 persons, whose homes had been destroyed, were provided with food and other relief supplies. A second WFP-chartered vessel carrying 1,500 mt of food was expected in Freetown port on Friday.
UNHCR reported there were a total of 201,101 Sierra Leonean refugees residing in Guinea. At least 10,000 Sierra Leoneans had fled the recent fighting and sought refugee in Lofa county in neighbouring Liberia.
Meanwhile in Freetown, the situation is slowly returning to normal. AFP reported that the price of rice had dropped from US$ 100 to US$ 33 since the lifting of the embargo, easing the plight of Sierra Leoneans. Shelpidi said that water systems were being repaired and telephone lines rehabilitated. The University of Sierra Leone announced that student registration would commence on 9 March.
Authorities hold 750 AFRC supporters
The Sierra Leone authorities have detained 750 AFRC supporters, including 145 civilians, pending investigations into their alleged involvement with the toppled AFRC, AFP reported. Julius Spencer, a member of the task force charged with the running of the affairs of the state, was quoted by AFP as saying the Attorney-General was investigating who should be charged. He added that several senior army officers were among those detained. Former AFRC spokesman Alieu Kamara was also in detention.
Meanwhile, the ICRC told IRIN on Tuesday its staff had visited detention centres in Freetown and had delivered medicines to Pademba Road prison and Wilberforce Hospital in the city. It would now be focusing its attention on the situation in Bo and Kenema, where a number of soldiers had been taken prisoner by ECOMOG.
NIGERIA: Police break up anti-government march
Heavily armed police broke up a rally of 5,000 anti-government protesters in the largest Nigerian city, Lagos, on Tuesday, the BBC reported. The police used tear gas to disperse the crowd and arrested some 30 people. The two-day anti-Abacha protest was called by a coalition of 26 pro-democracy and human rights organisations under the umbrella of the national United Action for Democracy (UAD). The European branch of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), in a statement issued on Wednesday, said that Olisa Agbakoba, the convener of the UAD, had been arrested and severely beaten at a Lagos police station. He had not received any medical treatment. AFP quoted Abraham Adesanya, head of the main opposition group, NADECO, as saying the police show of force in Lagos demonstrated further that Nigeria was run by a "fascist government".
Meanwhile, in the federal capital, Abuja, the two-day pro-Abacha rally, dubbed the "two million-man march" went ahead unhindered and was attended by only around 20,000 people, according to the BBC. The rally was covered by Nigerian state radio and television. The government denied being behind the Abuja rallies.
Commonwealth urges "credible" transition programme
The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group called on the Nigerian government to issue the new Nigerian constitution providing benchmarks for the electoral process, media reports said. The Commonwealth, while acknowledging the holding of the state elections in December 1997, urged the government to put in place a "credible transition process". It also expressed concern about the health and welfare of political detainees and called for their release.
Media watchdog warns of worsening conditions
Meanwhile, the media watchdog, Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), in an open letter on Tuesday to Abacha, expressed its concern about the "continuous infringements of the freedom of the press". It also said Abacha's warning to Nigerian journalists in November 1997 not to upset the transition process to a civilian government had contributed to the "deterioration" of conditions for journalists. The private press in Nigeria was going through its "darkest hour", it added.
TOGO: France calls for an all-inclusive election
France said on Tuesday it favoured a transparent and all-inclusive presidential election in Togo, AFP reported. The French minister for cooperation, Charles Josselin, said that he told Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema the French government wanted the presidential elections to be inclusive, allowing the participation of all opposition parties. He added that France preferred to contribute election monitors within a multilateral observer framework. Earlier in the week, Eyadema had invited independent observers to supervise the elections.
GUINEA BISSAU: Suspected arm smugglers being tortured, parliament claims
The Parliament in Guinea Bissau has been told that a number of people arrested on suspicion of being involved in the smuggling of arms to rebels in the neighbouring separatist Senegalese province of Casamance have been tortured, the BBC reported. The chairman of the parliamentary investigating committee, Luis Olivera Sanca, said the alleged leader of the group was in hospital in a "serious condition". The chairman said Defence Minister Samba Lamine Maneh, who last week denied that anyone had been tortured, tried to prevent committee members from visiting the prisoners in jail. At least 15 people were being held at two military barracks in Guinea Bissau.
WEST AFRICA: Nigeria denies killing Cameroonian soldiers
Nigeria denied Cameroonian reports on Tuesday that its forces had killed seven of its soldiers in the disputed Bakassi peninsula, AFP reported. Nigerian spokesman Godwin Ugbo, quoted by AFP, said that the report on the killing was a "lie". Ugbo said that there had been no more clashes since the UN had declared a ceasefire between Nigeria and Cameroon in 1997. The Cameroonian pro-government daily 'Cameroon Tribune' said its forces had repelled the assailants and recaptured several guard posts taken in recent months by Nigerians forces.
On Monday, Nigeria rejected the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague over the disputed territory. The two countries have clashed several times over the peninsula since 1994.
WEST AFRICA: Drugs trafficking
The US government 1998 international narcotics control strategy report has cited Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo as serving as transit points for drugs destined for the European and North American markets. It acknowledged that most of the states mentioned had made drug control efforts. However, Nigeria was described as the "hub of African narcotics trafficking".
Abidjan, 4 March 1998, 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, 4 Mar 1998 20:18:21 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 158, 98.3.4 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980304201707.2904C-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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