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IRIN-WA Update 310 of Events in West Africa, (Tuesday) 6 October 1998
SIERRA LEONE: Rebel chief Sankoh pleads not guilty
Sierra Leone rebel chief Foday Sankoh pleaded not guilty yesterday (Monday) to nine counts of treason after a judge ruled he should stand trial despite the lack of a defence lawyer, news reports said. Reuters reported that when asked by Judge Samuel Ademusu whether he could defend himself, Sankoh said, "God will defend me but it is advisable for me to have legal representation from an overseas country."
Ademusu ruled that under Sierra Leone's Public Order Act on States of Emergency "the trial could and should go ahead", Reuters reported.
AFP said Sierra Leonean lawyers "have expressed unwillingness to defend Sankoh". The BBC said the nine charges against Sankoh include treason, murder and crimes against humanity. He faces the death penalty if convicted.
The reports said he had demonstrated considerable nonchalance in court, despite his role in a war that has left thousands of people dead or mutilated. Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) joined forces with the ousted military junta of Major Johnny Koroma, which was routed in February, by the Nigerian-led West African intervention force, ECOMOG.
Cholera epidemic abates
A cholera epidemic that has caused 55 deaths and affected at least 2,000 other people in northern Sierra Leone and in the capital, Freetown, is receding, AFP reported today quoting a state medical official.
Haroun Turay, the doctor charged with control of the disease nationwide, said yesterday on state television that the disease had been concentrated in areas around Freetown, Port Loko, 60 km north of the capital, and in Kambia, some 120 km north of Freetown.
NIGERIA: Minority group seeks Commonwealth help
The brother of the late Nigerian playwright and environmentalist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, has urged the Commonwealth Ministers Action Group (CMAG) to demand that his body be returned to the family for burial. A statement released by the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MSOP) said Owens Wiwa also called on the international community not to accept Nigeria back into their fold until the country's military leaders acknowledge the wrong done to his brother.
Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists were hanged and buried in unmarked graves in a Nigerian cemetery on 10 November, 1995, MOSOP said, "by agents of the Nigerian military dictatorship after they were wrongfully convicted in a sham trial".
The CMAG, comprising foreign ministers from eight countries, is scheduled to meet for two days in London beginning on Thursday. They are to review the Commonwealth sanctions against Nigeria, and its suspension form the group.
High-speed sell-off of state businesses launched
In a new step towards privatisation, Nigeria today started a search for buyers to take controlling shares in select state-owned businesses, AFP reported.
It said advertisements appeared in the media inviting national and international tenders to bid in companies such as the national telecommunications giant, NITEL, and the power company, NEPA.
The government has invited investors "to bid for a licence to build, own and operate a second national carrier" to compete with NITEL. In July, the military ruler General Abdulsalami Abubakar announced that he wanted to sell 60 per cent interest in major state-owned firms, with 40 per cent going to major buyers and 20 per cent to private Nigerian investors.
AFP reported that government would retain a 40 per cent minority interest in the concerns, under a programme to be completed in eight months' time when Abubakar leaves office and hands over to a democratically elected civilian government.
LIBERIA: Johnson in Sierra Leone
A dissident Liberian faction leader at the centre of a diplomatic row between Washington and Monrovia turned up unexpectedly in neighbouring Sierra Leone yesterday after Liberia and the United States had reportedly agreed Nigeria should accept him into protective custody. Media reports said Roosevelt Johnson had been seen limping around Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, apparently recovering from wounds sustained last month after forces loyal to Liberia's president, Charles Taylor, stormed Johnson's ethnic Krahn stronghold in central Monrovia.
Johnson reportedly escaped with his life on 19 September by taking refuge in the US embassy. One of his bodyguards was killed and two US security officers were wounded.
Liberia agreed to let the US fly Johnson to Nigeria, where he was to be placed in protective custody. The US has said its embassy in Monrovia would remain shut until Taylor apologised for the incident. Johnson's status in Sierra Leone was not clear, media reports said.
WEST AFRICA: Environmentalists protest oil pipeline plan
An environmental pressure group has asked the World Bank to withhold funds for a 1,000-km oil pipeline from Chad to the Cameroonian port of Kribi, the BBC reported today.
A spokeswoman for Friends of the Earth, Andrea Durbin, said the bank "should lead in promoting wind and solar energy instead of projects that threatened the environment". The BBC quoted bank officials as saying the pipeline would not harm the environment and that the project has not been finalised.
Abidjan, 6 October, 1998 17:00 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: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 16:58:02 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 310, 98.10.06 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.981006165638.23423B-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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