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IRIN-WA Update 248 of Events in West Africa, (Friday) 10 July 1998
NIGERIA: Abiola autopsy awaited
As Nigerians anxiously awaited the results of an independent post mortem examination into the death of the country's most prominent political prisoner, Chief Moshood Abiola, the military government took further steps on Friday to ease tension with the opposition.
Media reports said the government's announcements that it had commuted the death sentences passed earlier this year on alleged coup plotters and was now drawing up a list of all remaining political prisoners were measures aimed at preventing further civil disturbances following Abiola's death.
Abiola collapsed this week with an apparent heart attack while meeting a US delegation in Nigeria to discuss a transition to civilian rule. He later died in hospital sparking widespread rioting in the commercial capital, Lagos, and other southern towns amid rumours he was poisoned.
Nigeria's new leader, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, started introducing reforms towards democracy after the death a month ago of the country's last hardline military ruler, General Sani Abacha. Abiola's release was to have been a major step forward in the new reforms.
The announcement that the death sentences passed earlier this year on Abacha's No. 2, General Oladipo Diya, and other alleged coup plotters would be commuted to 25 years imprisonment, was made on Friday morning after a two-day meeting of the army's Provisional Ruling Council (PRC).
Earlier, Abubakar also met with South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, who pledged South Africa's support for the transition to democracy in Nigeria. News reports said it was Mbeki who had suggested in a telephone call to Abubakar earlier in the week that the autopsy be carried out by independent pathologists.
Renewed violence
Meanwhile, AFP reported on Friday that groups of Hausa-speaking youths from the north of the country had rampaged in the southwestern town of Ibadan setting fire to the homes of ethnic Yorubas. It said the attacks were apparently in retaliation for attacks on politically dominant Hausas by Abiola's Yoruba supporters in Lagos, Ibadan and Abiola's burthplace, Abeokuta, on Wednesday and Thursday. Youths and students had set up burning barricades and set fire to houses, AFP said.
GUINEA BISSAU: New ceasefire initiative
A commission representing all parties in Guinea Bissau's parliament has handed the country's two warring factions a memorandum with truce proposals in a new effort to secure a ceasefire in the five-week conflict, Portuguese Antena 1 radio reported on Friday.
It said the parliamentary commission had handed copies of the proposals to President Joao Bernardo Vieira's government and the army mutineers led by General Ansumane Mane. The rebellion started on 7 June when Mane, accused of running weapons to separatists in Senegal's troubled Casamance province across the border, was dismissed as army chief.
Antena 1 said the parliamentary memorandum included a proposal for a truce so that negotiations could start. The new initiative follows failed attempts to get the two sides talking undertaken by the regional body, ECOWAS, Portuguese-speaking nations, the Roman Catholic Church and The Gambia.
Although heavy fighting around the rebel-occupied Bra army headquarters north of the capital Bissau and the nearby international airport had died down on Friday to what the radio report described as sporadic shelling, it said the main concern now was "heavy rains which might bring cholera and malaria". Humanitarian organisations and the church have also expressed concern about an outbreak of disease and famine related ailments among an estimated 350,000 displaced people who have fled the fighting.
During a visit to Cuba, Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama, said on Thursday that the continued fighting between the Senegalese-backed government forces and Mane's rebels had made mediation efforts more and more difficult, Reuters reported.
In Paris, AFP reported an announcement that the French navy would be shipping 200 tonnes of emergency food to Guinea Bissau for the WFP this weekend. A foreign ministry statement said the consignment of food would be delivered to the ICRC for distribution.
SENEGAL: Opposition challenges intervention
In Dakar, Senegal's opposition parties called on President Abdou Diouf to give a full explanation of the role of the country's army in Guinea Bissau, media reports said on Thursday.
Radio France Internationale (RFI) quoted the five main opposition parties as saying the Senegalese intervention had turned into a "real war" and could affect the stability of Senegal itself.
Opposition leader Iba Der Thiam added the intervention was "totally unacceptable", as neither parliament, political parties or the public had been consulted. The matter was "disturbing" considering the loss of human life, he said.
GHANA: Rawlings meets Mandela
The Ghanaian leader, Jerry Rawlings, has been given a full ceremonial welcome in South African where he has held talks with President Nelson Mandela and other government leaders, news reports said Friday. Rawlings arrived in South Africa on a five-day state visit on Thursday.President Rawlings was also scheduled to hold talks with Mbeki covering peacekeeping on the continent and regional co-operation. He was also due to visit Robben Island, where Mandela was imprisoned during the apartheid era.
Abidjan, 10 July, 19:15 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: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 19:12:07 +0000 (GMT) Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 248, 98.7.10 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980710190712.26634A-tp://www.reliefweb.int/emergenc
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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