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IRIN-WA Update 282 of Events in West Africa, (Thursday) 27 August 1998
NIGERIA: New election guidelines announced
The Nigerian military government has said that only parties with broad-based national support will be allowed to contest the elections next year intended to return the country to democratic civilian rule, news organisations reported. A government decree on election guidelines yesterday (Wednesday) also stated that political parties should not use ethnic, religious or regional symbols, and party funding had to be strictly accounted for.
Nigeria's new military leader, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, has promised a presidential election next February and said that a democratically elected government will be sworn in on 29 May.
AFP said the guidelines reflected fears of historic regional divisions which led to the country's bloody 1967-70 civil war. Abubakar, who returned from a three-day visit to South Africa, pledged during the week that he himself had no intention of running for the presidency.
Justice Ephraim Akpata, a former Supreme Court judge who heads the 14-member Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), was quoted by AFP as saying the aim of the guidelines was "to encourage the formation of broad-based political parties open to all Nigerians, irrespective of their religion or ethnic origins".
The new Peoples Democratic Party formed
With 24 hours of Akpata's announcement, AFP reported today that a coalition of prominent Nigerian politicians joined forces with 65 small associations to form what they hope will become the leading political party. The politicians from a coalition known as the Group of 34 (G34), which emerged in March to challenge continuing military rule, announced the formation of the new Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). A former information minister, Professor Jerry Gana, one of the leading G34 figures, was named as the party secretary
GUINEA BISSAU: Talks to resume next month
After the signing of an accord yesterday reaffirming a ceasefire and paving the way for international peacekeepers, representatives of the government of Guinea Bissau and army mutineers will meet again for further peace talks on 11 September, news organisations reported.
AFP and the Portuguese news agency, Lusa, quoted Jose Luis de Jesus, foreign minister of Cape Verde, where the ceasefire accord was signed, as saying the fresh talks would be held in Abidjan, the economic capital of Cote d'Ivoire.
The new talks, expected to last at least two days, would prepare an agenda for negotiations and discuss the deployment of a military observation group. The talks are being conducted under the auspices of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Bishop hails the accord
Settimio Ferrazzeta, the bishop of Bissau, who frequently called for a halt to the conflict which started on 7 June, was quoted by the Portuguese daily, 'Diario de Noticias' as saying he was "very satisfied" with the new accord. He also called for a European "cooperation plan" to help rebuild the country. The accord was also hailed by Helder Vaz, parliamentary leader of the country's main opposition group, the Bafata Movement. In an interview with Portugal's Antena 1 radio station, he also called for the withdrawal of Senegalese troops deployed to help the government stop the rebellion.
SIERRA LEONE: Death sentences criticised
Britain yesterday appealed to President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of Sierra Leone to commute the death sentences of 16 civilians found guilty this week of collaborating with the ousted military junta, news reports said. They included a former spokesman for Sierra Leone's Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), Allieu Kamara, a former presenter on the BBC's Africa Service, Hilton Fyle, the former head of state radio, Gipu Felix-George, and Olivia Mensah, a woman broadcaster who gave birth in prison a month ago.
Foreign Office minister Tony Lloyd said he planned to appeal personally to Kabbah. Sentenced to death on Tuesday, the 16 are being held in a high security prison to await their hanging, AFP said. They have 21 days to appeal their sentences.
The international freedom of expression watchdog, Reporters sans Frontieres, also called for the sentences to be commuted and said it too would appeal to Kabbah.
Yesterday, sources in the capital, Freetown, told IRIN that the government, however, was under pressure to demonstrate a touch line against the AFRC and its allies in the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), who seized power in May last year until their ouster by the West African intervention force, ECOMOG in February this year.
Press rights group expresses disquiet
Article 19, the international centre against censorship, also expressed its disquiet over the death sentences of five journalists amongst the 16 found guilty of treason. Article 19's executive director, Frances D'Souza, said: "Based upon what we know of the evidence presented during the trial and the arguments presented in the judges' summing up, we are concerned that the line between treason and collaboration with the former military regime may have become blurred". She added: "the peaceful expression of opinions, however, obnoxious they may be to many people, should in no circumstances be construed as treason".
GABON: President's Swiss bank account frozen
Judicial authorities in Switzerland investigating the French oil giant, ELF, have frozen the bank account of Gabon's President Omar Bongo, AFP reported today.
The news agency said Judge Paul Perraudin ordered the seizure of the account, held in the name of one of Bongo's advisors, in May in connection with an alleged diversion of funds and money laundering by ELF.
However, Bongo had now identified himself as the real account holder, invoking his presidential immunity to stop the investigation, it said.
AFP said lawyers acting for Bongo, who included Jacques Verges, the Frenchman who defended the Nazi war crimes suspect Klaus Barbie, had petitioned the court in closed session on Wednesday to unfreeze the account and stop the investigation accessing certain bank records.
MALI: Bamako election shows way for presidential race
Elections for mayor of Mali's capital, Bamako, have set off an open struggle to succeed President Omar Alpha Konare within the ruling Alliance pour la democratie au Mali (ADEMA), AFP reported yesterday.
The news agency said the victory of ADEMA's secretary general, Ibrahim Ndiaye, over his rival, Boubacar Ba, was a defeat for the prime minister, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, whose clan supporters voted for Ba.
ADEMA had ruled only one man should stand.
AFP said Keita has widely been seen as ADEMA's natural successor to Konare, whose second and final mandate expires in 2002. But Ndiaye now would now hold the additional key post of the capital's governor during the elections, AFP said.
Abidjan, 27 August, 1998 18:00 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: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 18:11:39 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN West-Africa Update 282, 98.8.27 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980827180902.3943B-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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