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Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa Tel: +225 21-73-54 Fax: +225 21-63-35 e-mail: irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci
IRIN-WA Update 271 of Events in West Africa, (Wednesday) 12 August 1998
NIGERIA: Further reforms
The Nigerian military government has taken further steps towards reform by scrapping major decrees banning trade union activity and inaugurating a new electoral commission to oversee the election of a civilian government, news organisations reported on Wednesday.
According to Nigerian Television, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, new Nigerian ruler, directed the electoral commission to draw up a firm timetable for elections, which would be announced within the next two weeks. Abubakar, in a speech to the newly sworn-in members of the electoral commission, said that handing over power in May 1999 to a civilian government was "sacrosanct" to the current administration and called on the electoral commission to ensure that the ballot was held in a free and fair atmosphere.
AFP quoted Abubakar as saying that the appointments of the members of the commission had been made on the basis of "individual integrity and personal merit" and "to ensure a credible and successful transition to democracy". The dispatch said he also urged the commission to invite foreign electoral observers to monitor its work and called on it to act with "transparency and fairness".
Abubakar also promised that his administration would provide the commission with the necessary legal, financial, logistical and moral support. Meanwhile, Justice Ephraim Akpata, chairman of the 14-member commission, called on Nigerians to cooperate fully with the commission. He added he would resign if there was any attempt by the authorities to influence his work. Akpata, a former supreme judge, is widely respected and has given the commission a degree of credibility, AFP noted.
Members of the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) were sworn in during a ceremony at the presidency in the capital, Abuja, on Tuesday.
In a related development, the Nigerian government established a committee of legal experts to study a secret draft constitution drawn up in 1995, AFP reported on Wednesday, quoting the independent daily 'Post Express'. The 1995 constitution was drawn up after a constitutional conference.
Military government lifts trade union ban
Meanwhile, Abubakar signed ten decrees overturning provisions set down by the previous regime, among them a 1994 order banning trade union activity. AFP recalled that key union leaders, including those of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) had been jailed by the late General Sani Abacha and replaced by state-approved administrators, who quelled strikes and banned political agitation. Abubakar, who replaced Abacha in June, has freed several of these union leaders.
The BBC said the government had taken significant steps towards ushering in a new democracy even though a number of tough military decrees, including a decree which allows for indefinite detention without trial, continued to remain in place.
Nigerian army chief criticises calls for splitting-up forces
The Nigerian chief of defence staff, Air Vice Marshal Amin Daggash, said the Nigerian army should remain a unit and not be split up into separate regional divisions, AFP reported.
He was responding to southwestern-based Yoruba leaders who have advocated the splitting the army into northern, eastern and southern zones. Daggash said "it was unrealistic to start thinking of having regional armies, as the consequences of such a decision can be very grave". The defence chief said Nigeria also needed a truly national army to continue to play its peacekeeping role in West Africa.
GUINEA BISSAU: Joint approach to peace talks
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) said on Wednesday that they had agreed to common approach aimed at resolving the conflict between the government of Guinea Bissau and army mutineers, media reports said.
After the meeting in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, the country's foreign minister, Amara Essy, said in a television broadcast: "There is no rivalry. We have have the same vision of how to solve the problem. We have agreed on a common approach." Reuters said, however, that neither Essy, nor Cape Verde Foreign Minister Jose Luis de Jesus, the CPLA spokesman, would elaborate. But de Jesus said that the Abidjan talks had produced "positive results".
The Abidjan meeting followed what officials described as successful talks in Bissau at the weekend in which ECOWAS negotiators, President Joao Bernardo Vieira of Guinea Bissau, and General Ansumane Mane, leader of the army revolt, had participated. The revolt started on 7 June after Vieira sacked Mane following accusations that senior army officers were smuggling arms to separatists in neighbouring Senegal's southern province of Casmance. A ceasefire was signed on 26 July.
LIBERIA: Taylor plays down Johnson crisis
President Charles Taylor of Liberia has played down fears that his government might try to arrest a key wartime rival and spark a standoff between former civil war fighters.
The issue involves the return home of Roosevelt Johnson, leader of the officially disbanded Krahn wing of the United Liberation Movement for Liberia (ULIMO-J). Humanitarian sources in the capital, Monrovia, told IRIN on Wednesday that Taylor's government had placed full page advertisements in local papers expressing alarm that Johnson had returned unexpectedly and without submitting to "normal immigration procedures". This could, the advertisements said, form the basis of an arrest warrant.
Monrovia's independent Star Radio reported Taylor had also called for an emergency session of the national legislature to discuss the issue. An attempt to arrest Johnson in April 1996 sparked intense fighting between pro-Johnson forces and Taylor's National Patriotic Front for Liberia (NPFL), backed by ULIMO's rival Mandingo wing (ULIMO-K).
Taylor later publicly assured a group of prominent Liberians that Johnson was not a security threat, an editor at Star Radio told IRIN. Star Radio said Johnson had in fact requested a meeting with Taylor: "Mr. Johnson said the meeting is intended to thank the president for government's assistance" towards his medical treatment abroad, Star Radio said.
Guinea denies Liberian allegations
In a separate development, AFP reported that Guinea has rejected an accusation by Liberia that Conakry was planning to destabilize its West African neighbour.
Guinean National Security Minister Gouryssi Conde was quoted in local media as saying: "Guinea has no plan to abort the brotherly relationship between the two countries." He made the remarks after leading a high-level delegation to deliver a message from Guinean President Lansana Conte to Taylor.
The visit was prompted by charges last week in which Liberian Defense Minister Daniel Chea alleged Guinea was training about 800 troops to overthrow Taylor's year-old government. AFP quoted newspapers as further quoting Liberian authorities as warning Monrovia would resort to military means to defend itself.
A source in Monrovia told IRIN that in the absence of more evidence Liberians appeared sceptical Guinea had tried to undermine Liberia. Nevertheless, Liberia's northern border with Guinea was known to be particularly unstable.
"Talk of coup plots in itself is unsettling," another source said. "Even if the opposition is not up to anything, the government may be. In the past, a rise in tension has been used as a reason for a security clampdown," he added.
SIERRA LEONE: UNHCR airlift starts
UNHCR has begun airlifting thousands of Sierra Leonean refugees home from camps in neighbouring Guinea. In a statement released in Geneva on Tuesday it two aircraft would shuttle at least 3,000 professional workers back to the capital, Freetown, in weekly cycles of 10 flights.
Some 115 refugees were accompanied on the first 50-minute ride by medical personnel and met by members of Sierra Leone's National Commission for Reconstruction, Resettlement and Reintegration. The air operation has been organised to avoid refugees having to return to Sierra Leone by boat, UNHCR said.
Earlier this month, a passenger ferry foundered in poor weather en route to Freetown from Guinea. Ongoing fighting in northern Sierra Leone between the Nigerian-led West African intervention force and rebels from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) had also cut off direct land access to Freetown, UNHCR added.
Many Sierra Leoneans had also returned from camps in Liberia unaided, reducing their numbers from 58,000 to some 39,000. But UNHCR was concerned about more than 15,000 Sierra Leonean refugees in Vahun in northern Liberia, which has been effectively cut off from re-supply during the rainy season, the statement said.
Abidjan, 12 August, 1998 19:00 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 or can be retrieved automatically by sending e-mail to <archive@ocha.unon..org> - mailing list: irin-wa-updates]
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 18:56:09 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN West-Africa Update 271, 98.8.12 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980812185027.31191A-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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