| UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER |
Tel: +225 21-73-54 Fax: +225 21-63-35 e-mail: irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci
IRIN-WA Update 220 of Events in West Africa, (Tuesday) 2 June 1998
EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Protests mount against death sentences
Spanish Foreign Minister Abel Matutes has appealed to President Teodor Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea to commute the death sentences passed on 15 people found guilty of terrorist attacks in the island of Bioko, news reports said on Tuesday. AFP said the appeal coincided with a statement by one of the lawyers fearing the executions "could be carried out any moment".
The 15 were among a group of 113 tried by a military tribunal last week. Four Spanish nationals among them were acquitted of the attacks last January, which the government blamed on the separatist Movimento para la Autodeterminacion de la Isla de Bioko (MAIB). The others were served jail terms ranging from six to 24 years each, news reports said. Matutes wrote a letter seeking clemency to Equatorial Guinea's foreign minister, Miguel Onyono. He said Spain and the international community hoped the government would show "magnanimity".
Fabien Nsue Nguema, a lawyer in the case interviewed by AFP said: "The text of the verdict has not yet been communicated to us. The lives of our clients are now in the hands of President Nguema."
SIERRA LEONE: UNHCR appeals for US$ 7.3 million
UNHCR issued an urgent appeal on Tuesday for US$ 7.3 million to help refugees fleeing atrocities committed by fighters from Sierra Leone's deposed Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) in the north of the country. According to UNHCR, some 182,000 refugees have fled to neighbouring Guinea this year while a further 55,000 also escaped to Liberia swelling the total caseload from the seven-year civil war in both countries to 530,000. UNHCR's Assistant High Commissioner, Soren Jessen-Petersen, who visited camps in Guinea at the weekend, said he was appalled by evidence of killings, mutilations and rapes committed by the AFRC and its allies from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Jessen-Petersen said Sierra Leone's example reinforced the urgent need for an international criminal court. "We have to see to it that justice is done but also to deter such crimes in the future," he said.
Jessen-Petersen appealed to donors to respond generously to the appeal. "We have to do all in our power to help," he said.
WFP asks NATO for all-terrain vehicles
Meanwhile, WFP also asked NATO on Tuesday to provide all-terrain military vehicles to help distribute urgently needed humanitarian supplies to civilians displaced by the conflict in remote areas of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. WFP's regional manager Paul Ares asked NATO countries to donate or sell at least 30 lorries to supplement its current fleet of 17 lorries. "We have enough food to feed all the refugees in Guinea during the rainy season but due to limited trucking capacity, we have great difficulties keeping up with the demand," Ares said.
Arms dump discovered
The West African intervention force in Sierra Leone, ECOMOG, discovered a large weapons cache in the capital, Freetown, at the weekend, media reports said. According to Monrovia-based independent Star Radio, the haul included assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. The weapons were found during a search of OAU village and Wilberforce just outside Freetown, Star Radio said. The report did not say whether any arrested had been made.
NIGERIA: Foreign plot
An advisor to Nigerian Head of State General Sani Abacha has accused the European Union, the United States, South Africa and Ghana of supporting attempts by opposition groups to destabilise the country, media reports said on Monday. In statement released in the capital Abuja, Abacha's special advisor, Alhaji Wada Nas, said Nigerian human rights and pro-democracy groups had received financial and moral support for a range of actions from street protests to plans to destroy important government facilities. According to AFP, Nas said the strategy had been agreed at a meeting of opposition groups in a hotel in northern Ghana in May. "The meeting was organised by America while the trainers were from South Africa," Nas said.
But a spokesman for South African President Nelson Mandela denied on Tuesday that South Africa had attempted to undermine the Abacha government, AFP reported. "Our track-record shows that we would not co-operate with any non-African country to bring another African government into disrepute or destabilise it," the spokesman said, dismissing the accusation as an "electoral trick", which would be forgotten after Nigeria's August presidential elections. An official from Ghana's ministry of foreign affairs has also denied the charge, Ghanaian radio reported on Tuesday.
Abacha has been nominated as sole candidate by Nigeria's five officially recognised political parties, but has not yet announced if he will stand.
GUINEA BISSAU: Government appeals for election funds
Guinea Bissau's prime minister, Carlos Correia, appealed for outside help in financing the country's general election, AFP reported on Tuesday. According to the news agency, Correia asked a meeting of international donors and diplomats in the capital, Bissau, to help finance the US$ 5 million election costs.
National elections originally slated for July this year were earlier put back to November to allow an elections commission to supervise the ballot to be established. A US$ 2.5 million voter census will start this month, AFP reported.
Abidjan, 2 June 1998 18:15 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: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 18:25:49 +0000 (GMT) Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 220, 98.06.02 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980602182155.17397A-p://www.reliefweb.int/emergenc
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
| Previous Menu | Home Page | What's New | Search | Country Specific |