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IRIN-WA Update 308 of Events in West Africa, (Friday) 2 October 1998
SIERRA LEONE: Freetown asks international community to remain
Sierra Leone yesterday (Thursday) urged the international community to remain in the country until it has a properly functioning new army. Speaking to delegates at the 53rd session of the UN General Assembly, Foreign Minister Sama Banya said: "In this regard, the Federal Republic of Nigeria has agreed to the secondment of Brigadier-General Maxwell Khobe, commander of the ECOMOG Task Force in Sierra Leone as our chief of defence staff."
Banya said prompt action by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had demonstrated "what a regional organisation could achieve if the determination and the leadership are there".
However, he said, despite ECOMOG's capacity to deliver, "it needs the tools which only the international community could provide". He said that although 90 percent of the country was "secure and safe", remnants of the ousted military junta and their allies in the east and the northeast of the country continued to operate "only because they have a safe haven in a neighbouring country, while one other country renders its support to them by remote control". He did not name either country.
"That notwithstanding, every effort is now being made by both ECOMOG and civil defence units to flush them out and finally put this whole tragedy behind us," he said.
Human rights protests "misguided"
Reacting to protests by human rights organisations over death sentences served last month on 16 people, including five journalists, convicted of treason, he said they had been tried fairly and that they had not been sentenced for the practice of journalism.
He said the law had to take its course and that those who lose their appeals could still apply for clemency. "Then, and only then, will the president step in and he has given that assurance."
UNICEF Director pleads for child soldiers
UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy ended a 24-hour visit to Sierra Leone today during which she held talks with President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and pleaded for the disarmament of child soldiers. UN officials in the capital, Freetown, told IRIN that she had visited camps for displaced persons in Kenema in the east and Bo in the south of the country.
AFP said she had expressed concern at the fact that some 2,500 children had been forced to fight in the ranks of the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a group allied to the ousted military junta which has been condemned by international rights organisations for a campaign of rape, mutilation and murder. Bellamy was quoted as saying: "It is essential that these young people, both the authors and the victims of violence, put down their arms and are demobilised".
RUF leader says he cannot afford a lawyer
The RUF leader, Foday Sankoh, on trial for treason, has told a Freetown court that he cannot afford a defence lawyer, the BBC reported.
Sankoh said in a brief court appearance yesterday that he had received payments from the Cote d'Ivoire government, the UN and other nations which supported the 1996 peace accord designed to end his rebellion. But when he was arrested in March that year, Nigerian security officials had taken the money. The hearing was adjourned after the judge ordered the court to raise the issue with the Nigerian authorities, the radio said.
LIBERIA: US patrol boat off coast
A United States Navy patrol boat, the USS Chinook, is off the Liberian coast for the evacuation of Americans if needs be from the capital, Monrovia, media reports said today.
"This boat carries some military personnel who have one purpose, and that is to protect Americans if necessary. That's their only purpose," AFP quoted Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon as saying.
The US said its embassy would remain closed until Liberia apologises for an incident two weeks ago in which government forces were accused of firing into the compound as the former faction leader, Roosevelt Johnson, sought refuge there after a government raid on his central Monrovia headquarters.
The US embassy last week flew Johnson out of the country.
House of Representatives concerned
Liberia's House of Representatives has said it will work to maintain friendly Liberia-US relations despite the current chill between the historical allies, independent Star Radio reported today.
It said House Speaker Nyudueh Morkonmana had been mandated to liaise with President Charles Taylor and the US embassy. Taylor has insisted that the shooting had taken place on Liberian soil. The lawmakers also said they wanted an official account of the conflict to help them seek an "amicable resolution".
Liberian police to remove street hawkers
Liberian police have said they will remove hawkers from Monrovia's streets, Star Radio reported. Police spokesman Singby Johnson told the radio that the month-long grace period given to the hawkers, many of them former combatants with no other means of earning a living, to relocate their businesses had expired yesterday. The hawkers said neither the police nor market officials had provided alternative sites.
Floods render 5,000 homeless
Some 5,000 people have now been made homeless after Lake Piso overflowed its banks in western Liberia, the BBC reported today. It said flooding in Grand Cape Mount County came "just as people displaced by the civil war were beginning to resettle in the region".
Star Radio reported on 16 September that torrential rains had submerged towns and villages after Lake Piso burst its banks. The BBC report said foreign aid had not been sent to the area.
GUINEA BISSAU: Senegal says intervention was for peace
Senegalese Foreign Minister Jacques Baudin told the 53rd session of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday that his country's military intervention in neighbouring Guinea Bissau fell under a bilateral defence treaty and was designed to secure peace in the country.
"I would like to recall that Senegal's engagement in Guinea Bissau is solely to help restore constitutional order," he said. Baudin said the intervention was also aimed at "ending the threat to public security and to foreigners, and contribute to reinforcing stability and security in the sub-region and in Africa".
The 16-member Economic Community of West African States and the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP), he added, had persuaded the Guinea Bissau government and its rebellious army, under General Ansumane Mane, to sign a ceasefire in first stage towards "normalisation" in the country.
Rebel negotiators still stranded in The Gambia
Meanwhile, seven Guinea Bissau rebel military officials remain stranded in Banjul, The Gambia, two weeks after returning from deadlocked peace negotiations in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, AFP reported today.
The agency quoted the chief of the rebel delegation, Lieutenant Colonel Emilio Costa, as saying that Senegal had granted them leave to return via Senegalese airspace. The Portuguese news agency, Lusa, according to AFP, said a new plan to fly them out using a French military helicopter was being considered.
GUINEA: President marks 40th independence anniversary
President Lansane Conte of Guinea marked the country's 40th anniversary of independence today, saying he "ardently" hoped the presidential election later this year would proceed peacefully and in strict compliance with the law, AFP reported.
Guinea, which gained independence from France in 1958, he added, had managed "to resist the forces of division" which had afflicted neighbouring nations. He urged the country to "reinforce national unity".
SAO TOME E PRINCIPE: Parliamentary elections
President Miguel Trovoada of Sao Tome e Principe has announced parliamentary elections for 8 November, AFP reported yesterday. In a dipatch quoting a government statement, it said a second round of voting would be scheduled if necessary. The incoming parliament will be the third since the adoption of a new constitution in 1990 and at least six parties are expected to contest the election, it said.
Abidjan, 2 October, 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 or can be retrieved automatically by sending e-mail to <archive@ocha.unon.org> - mailing list: irin-wa-updates]
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 19:37:39 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> To: irin-wa-updates@dha.unon.org Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 308, 98.10.02 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.981002193649.30851B-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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