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IRIN-WA Update 232 of Events in West Africa, (Thusday) 18 June 1998
GUINEA BISSAU: More sporadic shelling, humanitarian disaster
The ICRC reported a further outbreak of sporadic shelling in the devastated capital of Guinea Bissau on Thursday despite efforts to mediate a ceasefire between forces loyal to the government and a general leading a military rebellion.
In one of the first independent accounts of the showdown between rebels led by the sacked former armed forces chief, Ansumane Mane, and Senegalese-backed forces loyal to President Joao Bernardo Vieira, Red Cross officials told IRIN that local volunteers had taken advantage of a lull in fighting during mediation efforts on Wednesday to evacuate wounded people, collect bodies and bury the dead. It also confirmed earlier reports by the Vatican's Missionary Service News Agency (MISNA) that more than 200,000 civilians had fled Bissau city.
"The town is empty," ICRC spokesman Michael Kleiner said. "This morning, just now, there were a few shells again." Since the fighting started on the the weekend of 7 June, the city's main hospital has been destroyed, along with the finance ministry, other key buildings and several foreign embassies. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it had been assessing the situation in Bissau and the countryside where people have sought refuge.
Cholera warning
The Red Cross also said it feared that a combination of water shortages and heat could trigger a cholera epidemic, and that it was also taking measures to provide cholera prevention kits and other emergency medical supplies for people displaced by the fighting. The Vatican news service said missionaries too feared a cholera outbreak.
"The situation in Guinea Bissau is no longer an emergency, but a catastrophe," said a MISNA dispatch on Thursday. It said a quarter of the country's population of about 1 million had now fled fighting and were cramming refugee camps "to an extreme".
WFP says emergency food "desperately" needed
In a separate assessment, the WFP concurred. It said heavy shelling had prevented aid workers reaching tens of thousands who had fled and an estimated 50,000 people still sheltering in Bissau. "The situation in Bissau is growing progressively desperate," said Sanda Maina, WFP representative in Guinea-Bissau. "Heavy shelling has prevented relief workers from reaching people. At present, only armed military vehicles are on the roads. We appeal to combatants to halt hostilities so that we can begin distributing emergency rations through humanitarian agencies both to the remaining residents of Bissau and to the escalating numbers of people in flight from the combat."
Meanwhile, conflicting news reports said government forces with Senegalese assistance had made some progress towards gaining control from rebel forces of the sprawling Bra military complex overlooking the city. But it was not clear how much success they had had. The Vatican and the two humanitarian reports said that the harbour remained the only point of outside access to the country because the airport was still in rebel hands.
Reuters, also reporting continued shelling on Thursday as Gambia's foreign minister, Lamine Sedat Jobe, prepared to meet Mane in his bid to seek a settlement between the two sides.
In related developments, news organisations also reported an increase in sporadic separatist and government clashes across the border in the Senegalese southern province of Casamance.
In New York, UN Spokesman Juan Carlos Brandt said on Thursday all UN staff and their dependents had been evacuated from Guinea Bissau earlier in the week.
NIGERIA: New leader meets party chiefs
Nigeria's new military leader, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, has been told by the leaders of four of the country's five officially registered political parties that the military government should remain in power for up to 12 months longer than currently planned so as to ensure a properly organised election and a smooth return to civilian democracy, news reports said Thursday.
After their second meeting with Abubakar, who has committed himself to a handover to civilian rule in October, only the United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP) opposed the move, saying he should abide by the October deadline.
The five parties had picked the late military strongman, General Sani Abacha, as their sole candidate, and the BBC said their call for continued military rule showed they were "grasping for a way to survive". A presidential statement quoted by AFP said the military, which has ruled Nigeria for most of its three decades of independence, would study the request for a delay before deciding the issue.
New opposition rally planned
Abubakar won cautious praise from critics at home and abroad on Tuesday for releasing nine key political prisoners earlier in the week. News organisations said on Thursday that the United States government had joined the chorus of opposition groups in Nigeria by also calling for the release of Moshood Abiola, the presumed winner of the annulled 1993 presidential election.
The coalition of 50 pro-democracy and human rights groups clamouring for the release of Abiola and other polictial prisoners have called for a "freedom day" protest rally next Tuesday, AFP reported. The idea, said the Joint Action Committee of Nigeria (JACON), was to hold a public reception for those already released. The 23 June date marks the fifth anniversary of the annulment of the 1993 elections.
Ex-detainee describes "hell" in prison
Meanwhile, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Thursday that Christine Anyanwu, publisher and editor-in-chief of the now-defunct 'The Sunday Magazine', was among those freed on 16 June. It quoted her as saying in an interview with the Lagos-based newspaper 'PM News' that prison conditions in Nigeria were worse than she could have imagined.
"Experiences in the prison, where human beings die almost on a daily basis due to ill treatment are confirmed to me. Nigerian prisons are a hell where one should thank her God if one eventually comes out alive," she said.
CPJ said Anyanwu had eyesight problems because she had not had proper medical treatment during her three years behind bars. In July 1995, a special military tribunal secretly tried Anyanwu and sentenced her to life imprisonment for treason. Later that year, the Provisional Ruling Council reduced the term to 15 years.
SIERRA LEONE: UK government restricted humanitarian aid, agency says
The London-based international charity, Action Aid, has told a British parliamentary select committee that the UK government restricted humanitarian aid to Sierra Leone earlier this year for its own political purposes.
Action Aid told IRIN on Thursday it informed Parliament the restoration of Sierra Leone's democratically elected government was undoubtedly in the country's long-term interests. But aid must be free from "political conditions", it said. Action Aid charged Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) with "de facto restricting aid" to Sierra Leone following last year's coup, when there was clearly a great need for humanitarian aid. "This was exacerbated by a rigorously imposed sanctions regime and failure to secure effective humanitarian exemption," Action Aid said.
The charity told IRIN it was concerned that whatever the justification, Britain used humanitarian aid to Sierra Leone as part of its wider political strategy to restore President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah to power. "This could set an alarming precedent," Action Aid said.
Situation was assessed
However, a DFID spokeswoman told IRIN aid to Sierra Leone's military regime would have been "inappropriate". DFID said it had carried out an assessment of the situation, but there was no humanitarian crisis. "We supported the democratically elected government of Sierra Leone, and we had a bilateral partnership with them," she said.
UN to organise conference
Meanwhile, a senior US official confirmed in Freetown on Wednesday that a UN-organised international conference on Sierra Leone would go ahead as planned later this month, AFP reported. Quoting US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Julia Taft, AFP said the New York meeting would bring together "authorities and concerned governments to focus attention" on Sierra Leone.
Speaking as leader of a 22-member humanitarian assessment team from the US, European and the World Bank, Taft added that donors should help with demobilising Sierra Leone's 7,000 forces. "But the biggest challenge remains the issue of forgiveness and reconciliation," she said.
Taft said the US would spend some US$ 53 million on assistance programmes in Sierra Leone this year. The majority of the money would go to USAID's Food for Peace programme, she added.
Kabbah rejects AFRC recruits
Kabbah announced on Wednesday that Sierra Leoneans would not tolerate former supporters of the ousted Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) in a new army, Sierra Leonean radio reported. Addressing the visiting commander of the Nigerian-led West African intervention force, ECOMOG, Kabbah said the people opposed the idea because of atrocities AFRC troops had committed while in power.
In reply, Major General Timothy Shelpidi assured Kabbah that ECOMOG would not integrate offenders. But the radio said he described the security situation in Sierra Leone as "precarious".
SENEGAL: Debt eased
The Club of Paris donor countries agreed on Wednesday to ease Senegal's foreign debt burden, AFP reported. Under the agreement, donors could cancel 67 percent of Senegal's outstanding debt, with the remainder being payable over 23 years. Alternatively donors were now able to ease interest rates to reduce repayments by a similar 67 percent over 33 years, the news agency reported.
Special Report
This update is accompanied by an IRIN special report looking at the background to the situation in Guinea Bissau. Subscribers who may not have received this report can request it by e-mail to irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci with "Guinea Bissau" in the subject line.
Abidhan, 18 June 1998, 19:30 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]
From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980618194015.4650A-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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