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IRIN-WA Update 319 of Events in West Africa (Monday 19 October 1998)
SIERRA LEONE: Government executes 24 soldiers
A spokesman for Sierra Leone's government told IRIN that President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah had gone ahead today (Monday) with the execution of 24 soldiers convicted of treason earlier this month.
Regional analysts warned IRIN last week that time was running out for a total of 34 military personnel convicted by court martial this month for joining the former Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC), which governed Sierra Leone from May 1997 to February this year.
They said Kabbah would have little public support for clemency and so was likely to go ahead with sentences "very soon". But afterwards Kabbah could be in a stronger position to show leniency against another 16 civilians convicted of treason in August, they said.
Rights organisations express concern
However, human rights organisations told IRIN the trial had fallen short of international judicial standards because the soldiers had no legal right of appeal.
Amnesty International said today it was "very disappointed" sentence had been carried out. "These executions will contribute nothing to the process of reconciliation in Sierra Leone," a spokeswoman told IRIN.
Human Rights Watch added the sentences were doubly disappointing because of Sierra Leone's vocal support for the supremacy of international law. "Everyone is entitled to have such sentences reviewed by a higher court," Human Rights Watch said.
Nevertheless, Sierra Leonean sources in the capital, Freetown, said ordinary people had welcomed the executions. "People are calm, but we feel justice has been carried out," one source commented to IRIN.
Kabbah commuted the sentences of the remaining 10 military personnel to life imprisonment.
GUINEA BISSAU: Rebels edge closer to the presidential palace
Rebellious military forces battling the government of President Joao Bernardo Vierra tightened their grip today around the presidential palace as fighting raged for the second day running, diplomats in the capital, Bissau, told IRIN.
Media reports said there intensive salvoes of small and heavy arms fire around six a.m. local time (06:00 GMT). Quoting state radio, the Portuguese news agency Lusa said the rebels had tried to infiltrate a government-held area of the capital, ending an 11-week ceasefire after shooting broke out late yesterday (Sunday).
One source told IRIN the fighting began three days ago in Guinea Bissau's second largest town of Bafata with artillery fire from the Senegalese side of the border and said it now seemed as if the junta forces, which call themselves the "Military Council", were to encircle the government.
Last week, both sides said they were studying a peace
initiative which recommended demilitarising the frontline
over a 300-metre wide swathe.
NIGERIA: Death toll continues to rise in Nigerian oil
fire
At least 500 people are now believed to have died in a fire in southern Nigeria caused by a burst pipeline, according to media reports. "The casualty (toll) is bigger than initially thought and more are still dying," nurse Joy Aigbe was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Aigbe, who works in the oil town of Warri where many of the victims were taken, said most of the dead were women and children. "It took just a spark from the exhaust of a motor bike to set them ablaze," Reuters also quoted Dasfe Emutoru, a local government official, as saying.
The Reuters report said many of the dead were trapped in a ditch where a pool of petrol had collected from a burst pipeline belonging to the state-owned Pipeline and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). PPMC said the leak had been caused by sabotage.
The Associated Press (AP), citing reports from the 'Concord' newspaper, said holes had been punched in the pipeline near a concrete well and "up to 1,000 people were waiting to steal the fuel when the explosion occurred".
There has been no official comment on the incident.
Floods submerges 200 homes
Media reports said yesterday, the fast-running Osun River broke its banks after a blockage caused by refuse, submerging 200 homes at the weekend. Hundreds were made homeless and property worth tens of thousands of dollars was destroyed which followed heavy rains.
Meanwhile, floods hit some 70 villages last week and made an estimated 100,000 people homeless in the western state of Kwara.
CAMEROON: EU grants US $81,7 million for road construction
A European Union official in Yaounde told IRIN today that it had given a US $81.7 million grant to the government of Cameroon for the construction of a road linking eastern Cameroon to the north. He said the construction of the 250 km road from Bertoua in the east to the northern town of Garoua was part of a regional integration effort linking the seaport city of Douala in Cameroon to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR).
The new road is expected to bolster trade to and from CAR. Minister for Public Investment and National Development Justin Ndioro, quoted by AFP, highlighted Cameroon's role in the integration process which was largely due to its "strategic regional location".
The EU official added that this grant was the largest given to a single EU project in Africa. The EU has funded various feasibility studies on the construction of roads between Cameroon and Chad, and Cameroon and Gabon.
UNITED NATIONS: UN urged to check mercenary activity
Enrique Bernales Ballesteros, UN Special Rapporteur on the question of the use of mercenaries, has recommended that the General Assembly urge governments to outlaw the use of mercenaries and private special security firms. "Such companies are today the biggest and most sophisticated threat to the peace, sovereignty and self-determination of the people of many countries," he said in his report received by IRIN-WA today.
In the 15-page report, distributed to the 53rd session of the General Assembly in New York last week, he outlined as examples the use of mercenary and private security firms in Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone.
Ballesteros said private security firms viewed security as "just another commodity, subject to laws of the market". He said these firm had "no compunction" about replacing the State in its security and law and order functions, in exchange for juicy contracts and a share in economic, mining and petroleum operations. Whereas these companies do offer efficiency gains in the area of security, he said, "they definitely cannot replace the bodies which are responsible for protecting life and security as inherent obligations of the State".
Women are key to ending world hunger
Speaking on the occasion of World Food Day, Catherine Bertini, the WFP Executive Director, said that WFP had a "strong commitment to women because they are the key to feeding the more than 800 million people caught in the trap of lifelong poverty and hunger". She added that women were the people in each household "who were committed to ensuring that every member had access to food". She urged that donor funded programmes have a direct impact on women beneficiaries.
"Women Feed the World" was the 1998 theme of World Food Day and was celebrated on 16 October.
Abidjan 19 October 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: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 18:47:19 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 319 for 1998.10.19 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.981019184517.27769A-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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