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IRIN-WA Update 188 of Events in West Africa, (Thursday) 16 April 1998
SIERRA LEONE: ECOMOG advance meets fierce resistance
Troops from the Nigerian-led West African intervention force, ECOMOG, continued to meet fierce resistance from members of Sierra Leone's ousted Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) as they advanced on the former military government's last strongholds in the east of the country, AFP reported on Thursday. ECOMOG sources quoted by AFP said the force had exchanged heavy fire with the AFRC around the diamond-mining town of Koidu in Kono district, some 250 km east of the capital, Freetown, and close to the border with Liberia. AFP also reported several ambushes by AFRC troops in the area this week killing a BBC reporter, one ECOMOG soldier and five members of Sierra Leone's Kamajor hunter militia loyal to President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who was restored to power by ECOMOG in February.
ECOMOG said the AFRC in east Sierra Leone had also been targeting civilians in the area, cutting off the hands, feet and ears of some 20 villagers they had captured. ECOMOG's commander in Sierra Leone, Colonel Maxwell Khobe, vowed to eradicate all AFRC resistance, AFP reported. "We shall bring these heartless people to justice", Khobe was quoted as saying.
Parliament approves cabinet
Parliament approved Kabbah's nomination of five ministers to Sierra Leone's new cabinet late on Tuesday, AFP reported. The ministers approved by parliament were: Sama Banya (foreign affairs), Alhaji Mohamed Deen (mineral resources), Charles Margai (internal affairs), Charles Spencer (information), and Sulaiman Tejan Jalloh (health). Sierra Leone's former UN ambassador, James Jonah, named minister of finance, development and planning was expected to be approved by parliament on his return from a trip abroad. All other cabinet members retained from previous positions in Kabbah's government did not require approval, AFP reported.
Kabbah also appointed Colonel Maxwell Khobe to take charge of Sierra Leone's national security system. Kabbah said the secondment of the Nigerian officer had been approved by Nigeria's head of state General Sani Abacha.
LIBERIA: Liberia training RUF
Nigeria's defence spokesman Colonel Godwin Ugbo accused the Liberian government on Wednesday of training Sierra Leonean Revolutionary United Front (RUF) fighters in northern Liberia, AFP reported. Speaking at Nigeria's defence headquarters in Lagos, Ugbo said it had "just been established" that Liberia's President Charles Taylor was helping to train some 3,000 RUF soldiers. Ugbo said that deposed AFRC chairman Major Johnny Paul Koroma was also still hiding at an undisclosed border crossing between Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Earlier this week, the Liberian government rejected accusations by ECOMOG commanders in Liberia that it was training members of the AFRC in northern Liberia. It said an international delegation visiting Camp Naama military base in northern Nimba County had found no evidence of illicit training programmes.
NIGERIA: Opposition clashes with police
At least three people were killed and several others injured on Wednesday in clashes between opposition supporters and security forces in Ibadan in southwestern Nigeria, media reports said. According to the BBC, police were reported to have fired shots and used teargas to disperse demonstrators who had gathered outside a stadium, where supporters of Nigerian head of state General Sani Abacha were holding a rally.
The BBC correspondent in Nigeria said the demonstrators were angered by the authorities' decision to allow the pro-government rally to go ahead in Ibadan, the heartland of Nigeria's opposition, where permission to hold an earlier anti-Abacha rally had allegedly been refused.
According to Reuters, riot police also broke up a similar pro-democracy rally in Lagos last month.
Coup trial still in progress, spokesman says
The trial of 26 alleged coup plotters, including the Nigerian leader's former deputy, General Oladipo Diya, before a special military tribunal was still in progress, Nigerian defence ministry spokesman Colonel Godwin Ugbo told a press briefing on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Ugbo blamed the tribunal's failure to submit its findings by the original 30 March deadline on the tribunal's need to "do a thorough job, taking in consideration that human lives were involved", the report said.
NIGER: Health workers strike
Nigerien health workers started a two-day strike on Thursday to protest delays in paying allowances agreed with the government in a 1997 pay accord, AFP reported. According to AFP, the strike had affected health facilities throughout Niger, with health and maternity centres in the capital, Niamey, effectively paralysed in spite of a minimum service.
The government promised health workers a number of allowances to end a strike last year, which indirectly led to the deaths of four patients. However, allowances scheduled to start in January this year had not been paid, infuriating workers, AFP said.
Meanwhile, the national teachers union encouraged its members on Tuesday to go on indefinite strike until salaries for January and February this year were paid.
MALI: Opposition accepts Carter reconciliation plan
Mali's opposition parties have accepted a plan proposed last week by former US president Jimmy Carter, which would see them re-join Mali's political process, AFP reported on Thursday. An opposition umbrella group was quoted by the news agency as saying it would accept the Carter plan but that issues stemming from last year's disputed presidential and legislative elections could not be considered a closed matter until they were appropriately discussed.
Last week, Carter recommended opposition parties end Mali's year-long political crisis by recognising President Alpha Oumar Konare, reconstituting the national independent electoral commission and revising the electoral roll ahead of municipal elections.
ACF resumes programmes
Paris-based NGO Action Contre la Faim (ACF) resumed humanitarian programmes in northern Mali some 20 days after they were first suspended on security grounds, AFP reported on Wednesday. An ACF press release quoted by the news agency, said ACF decided to resume activities in the area following a series of security meetings with local authorities.
Last month, armed bandits attacked ACF national staff
members near Gao, 950 km northeast of Bamako, stealing
an ACF vehicle and an undisclosed sum of money, AFP
reported.
TOGO: Censure motion defeated
An opposition censure motion against the government for failing to resolve Togo's current water and power crisis was dismissed by national assembly officials on Wednesday, AFP reported. The censure motion by the Comite d'Action pour Renouvellement (CAR), which controls some 32 of parliament's 81 seats, was rejected on the technical grounds that no proposed replacement to the current prime minister had been nominated, as required by Togolese law.
WEST AFRICA: Secretary-General reports on African conflicts
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report released on Thursday that African leaders, the international community and the UN had all failed the peoples of Africa by not avoiding colossal human tragedies in Africa in recent years. Annan's report on conflict will be considered by the Security Council at the end of this month. According to the report, some 14 of the continent's 53 countries were afflicted by armed conflict in 1996 alone. Over 30 wars had occurred in Africa since 1970, mostly within states, and accounting for more than half of all war-related deaths worldwide. While Annan noted "foreign interests" continued to play a large role in sustaining some conflicts in the competition for oil and other resources, he also criticised African states for the role some played in "supporting and sometimes even in instigating conflicts in neighbouring countries".
In addition to specific recommendations on the international arms trade, economic and humanitarian issues, Annan also called on all concerned to "summon the political will" to produce positive change in Africa. "The United Nations stands ready to play its part," Annan said. "So must the world. So must Africa."
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Six-nation peacekeeping exercise starts
A six-nation military exercise to train West African troops in peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance duties started on Wednesday in Burkina Faso, PANA reported. According to the news agency, some 4,000 troops from Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Togo would take part in the seven-day manoeuvres.
Another exercise exclusively for 700 Ghanaian troops and run by US and Belgian forces also opened near Accra this week, AFP reported on Thursday.
River blindness conference opens
Health experts from 11 West African countries have met in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, to draw plans to continue the fight against river blindness disease, the BBC reported on Thursday.
At the meeting, the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Africa Director, Ebrahim Samba, said a long-running programme to combat the disease had made gains, but he called for a fresh push to eliminate it entirely.
According to the BBC, West African countries and their European partners plan to set up a regional centre to monitor outbreaks of river blindness.
Abidjan, 16 April 1998 18:30 gmt
[end]
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Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 19:10:44 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 188, 98.4.16 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980416190121.9943B-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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