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IRIN-WA Update 311 of Events in West Africa, (Wednesday) 7 October 1998
NIGERIA: Oil installations seized, production curtailed
Armed youths in Nigeria's southern oil producing region have seized control of nearly a dozen oil installations since weekend bringing a fifth of the country's oil production to a stop, media reports said today (Wednesday). The BBC and AFP said the installations involved were mainly operated by the Anglo-Dutch oil giant, Shell, which operates in partnership with the Nigerian government, and the Italian oil company, ENI.
Meanwhile, AFP said today it had received a statement from community officials in Bayelsa State saying they had given the American oil company Texaco 72 hours notice to start negotiating compensation for a recent oil spill or leave the area.
A Shell spokesman was quoted as saying the youths had seized their installations to try to draw the government's attention to political grievances. He said the company had evacuated its staff from the installations affected. He said attacks on facilities in the Niger Delta had forced it to close 10 flow stations, stopping exports of 270,000 barrels per day (bpd). ENI said some of its pipelines had been sabotaged, forcing the company to cut flows of an estimated 120,000 bpd
The reports said the trouble started as a protest against local election plans in an area where the communities wanted a share of the vast oil wealth for themselves. "The youths are not fighting Shell specifically," the spokesman added. "They are only using us since we are engaged in oil, a sector vital to the government, to press their demands."
Since mid-September, two ethnic groups in Ondo State, in the western side of the Niger Delta, have been locked in a running battle for control of local government headquarters in which at least 50 people have been killed and thousands forced to flee their homes.
Kabila visits Abubakar
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Laurent Kabila began a second day of talks today with Nigerian officials to drum up diplomatic support as rebels sought to oust government forces from the strategic eastern DRC town of Kindu, media reports said. Kabila, who also met the country's military ruler, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, is on his first official trip to Nigeria.
However, officials in the Nigerian presidency would not say whether Nigeria which has one of the best-trained, equipped and tested armed forces in Africa, would help. AFP said Abubakar had, so far, taken a backseat in the DRC conflict after agreeing in a meeting with South African President Nelson Mandela to support a negotiated settlement to the crisis. Further details on Kabila's visit were not immediately disclosed.
Four leading Nigerian exiles return
Four of Nigeria's leading exiles were due to return home today after fleeing the regime of the late hardline military leader, General Sani Abacha, AFP reported. Citing a statement from the four received in Lagos, the agency named the exiles as Dan Suleiman, a leading figure of the opposition National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), former state governor John Oyegun and his former deputy, The Reverend Peter Obaban and a former member of parliament, Tokunboh Afikuyomji. They said they "will be returning to motherland Nigeria on Wednesday, 7 October".
It described the four as the most prominent exiles to be returning since Abacha's sudden death in June. However, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, perhaps the most celebrated of the exiles, told AFP he would return from the United States at a date still to be decided.
Abubakar names new advisors
In separate developments reported today, Abubakar has named a group of new advisors to replace eight key officials appointed during the Abacha regime, AFP reported. Mohammed Haruna, a former managing director of the state run 'New Nigerian' newspaper, was appointed press secretary replacing Abacha's man, David Attah whom, AFP said, was "unpopular with journalists".
Oil industry specialist Gary Aret Adams was named advisor on petroleum resources. He will oversee the repair and privatisation of the country's four refineries in a bid to end crippling domestic fuel shortages.
A former governor of Kaduna State, Abba Musa Rimi, became the special advisor on political affairs, while Charles Emeka Eze was named special advisor on drugs and financial crimes. AFP said other appointments included Theophilus Akingbola Shoeipo, chief of protocol, Abdullhi Gwari as protocol liaison officer, and Sadiq Mohmood as principal secretary.
GUINEA BISSAU: Lusophone group proposes new peace talks
The Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP) has recommended on Tuesday new peace talks to resolve the four-month stalemate between army rebels and the government in Guinea Bissau, the Portuguese news agency, Lusa, reported yesterday.
"The venue of the talks is not crucial, but we think that a place as close as possible to Guinea Bissau, such as for example Cape Verde or Banjul, Gambia, would be best," Cape Verde Foreign Minister Jose Luis de Jesus was quoted as saying.
The CPLP and ECOWAS adopted a joint strategy to mediate in the crisis, and the CPLP, it said, had now suggested new talks be held in Cape Verde 13-15 October between the two sides which ended three months of hostilities with a ceasefire on 25 August. De Jesus, who is coordinator for the CPLP, said he would "suggest an agreement" on an observation force in Guinea Bissau and a UN buffer force "to end the presence of Senegalese and Guinean troops in the country".
Senegal and Guinea sent troops to back President Joao Bernado Vieira against the rebellion leader, General Ansumane Mane.
Rebel negotiators cleared to return home
In a related development, Lusa said Mane's camp had accepted a deal allowing negotiators stranded in Banjul to return home three weeks after the last round of peace talks in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. The delegation had been unable to return because the Senegalese governments had denied them the right to overfly Senegalese territory. It said they would now leave for Bissau aboard a French aircraft with the protection of accompany French, Swedish and Portuguese diplomats.
Humanitarian developments
The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Sergio Vieira de Mello, has said he is encouraged by reports of the return of internally displaced people in Guinea Bissau. A statement by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said yesterday that preliminary information by a recent UN Inter-Agency Mission to Guinea-Bissau indicated that over 200,000 internally displaced people had already returned to their homes in Bissau city.
"United Nations humanitarian organisations on the ground are at present revising their projects to facilitate their reintegration and will also maintain emergency support for those who remain displaced," OCHA said. However, it said, Vieira de Mello "remains concerned" at recent reports of increased looting in Bissau. He called on warring parties to honour the ceasefire and "ensure that international humanitarian law and humanitarian principles are respected" .
LIBERIA: Government demands removal of US warship
Liberia's government demanded yesterday that the United States withdraw a patrol boat on stand-by in waters off the capital Monrovia, media reports said. AFP and Star Radio quoted a Liberian government statement urging Washington to remove the 'USS Chinook' "without any pre-condition".
"The unannounced arrival and the deployment of the US military vessel in the Liberian territorial waters is a violation of Liberia's territorial integrity and sovereignty," the statement said. The vessel was dispatched following a diplomatic row between the two countries which started on 18 September when government forces routed the stronghold in central Monrovia of the ethnic Krahn leader, Roosevelt Johnson. Johnson took refuge in the embassy and was subsequently flown out of the country.
Washington then said the embassy would remain closed for business until the Liberian authorities apologised for shots fired into the embassy compound when Johnson took refuge in the premises. Meanwhile, the Monrovia-based independent Star Radio quoted Liberia's foreign ministry as saying the government was now opening an investigation into the incident.
NIGER: Opposition party joins government
One of Niger's eight-party opposition coalition groups defected to the government yesterday after an aide to President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara became its leader, media reports said. State television reported that the Parti progressiste nigerien-Rassemblement democratique africaine {PPN-RDA) had quit the Front pour la restauration et defense de la democratie (FRDD), AFP said.
"The defection came two days after the election of Ide Oumarou, Mainassara's chief of staff and a former secretary-general of the OAU, as the party's head," the agency said. The defection brings to 16, the number of parties supporting Mainassara.
Oumarou succeeded Dan Dicko Dankoulodo, who died in Paris in July, after a power struggle between his supporters and those of Abdoulaye Diori, son of the late President Amani Diori.
Local and municipal elections scheduled for November have been postponed to 7 February. The polls are the last phased stage of a return to democracy after Mainassara's January 1996 coup against Mahamane Ousmane. AFP said that the FRDD, led by Ousmane, is one of two opposition coalitions in Niger. The other is the three-party Alliance of Democratic and Social Forces.
Government slashes university scholarships
Niger's higher education minister, Boube Oumarou, announced yesterday "a sharp reduction" in government grants for university students this year because of financial constraints, AFP reported. Students in Niamey, the Niger capital, will now receive 25,000 francs CFA (100 CFA = Ffr 1) a month rather than 35,000 CFA. Allocations for Niger students abroad were also to be reduced.
The scholarship allowance for Niger students doing bachelor degrees is now 35,000 CFA for those studying at home, 45,000 CFA for those elsewhere in Africa and 200,000 CFA for students in Europe and the United States.
WEST AFRICA: Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire pledge to fight border crime
Senior police and security officials from Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire have pledged to fight gun-running and drug-smuggling across their borders, the BBC reported yesterday. In a statement following a two-day meeting in the Guinean capital, Conakry, the two sides also pledged to curb money-laundering.
It said the two countries were expected to deploy more troops and customs officials along their common border.
Abidjan, 7 October, 1998, 1815 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, 7 Oct 1998 18:33:11 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 311, 98.10.07 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.981007183222.31027C-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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