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IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup of Main Events 40 in West Africa covering the period (Friday-Thursday) 13-19 March 1998
WEST AFRICA: ECOMOG to become armed wing of "monitoring body"
West African ministers agreed last Friday at Yamoussoukro,
Cote d'Ivoire, to make ECOMOG the backbone of a sub-regional
peace-keeping force as part of a "monitoring body"
to prevent conflict in the area, the media reported.
After two days of what AFP called "sometimes acrimonious"
talks, foreign, defence and interior ministers from
the 16 member countries of the Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS) agreed that they would
base their future joint peace-keeping force on ECOMOG.
The extent of the Nigerian-led force's future role
was a major bone of contention in the talks. Cote d'Ivoire
said it was ready to contribute troops. At the ministers'
request, experts will work on a number of issues: the
legal status of the force, the national or international
nature of the staff, training, structure of command,
financing, political supervision, conditions of deployment
and the handling of crises. Experts will put proposals
to a ministerial meeting ahead of the next ECOWAS summit
in July, AFP said.
The Nigerian-based ECOWAS secretariat was asked to work
out a wider mechanism based on ECOMOG as soon as possible.
Under the agreed plan, ECOMOG would operate as the
armed wing of a wider sub-regional scheme for the prevention
and management of conflicts. The new body would monitor,
analyse and deal with symptoms of a worsening situation
between or within member countries. Though the decision
only activates enabling clauses in an annex to the
1975 ECOWAS treaty, Cote d'Ivoire Foreign Minister
Amara Essy dubbed the move "a giant step"
for Africa. Preventive diplomacy, trans-border crime
and the circulation of arms were also discussed at
the ECOWAS meeting.
ECOMOG mandate extended
At Yamoussoukro, ECOWAS ministers also agreed to extend ECOMOG's mandate in Sierra Leone, news agencies reported. They said "general concerns over security in the country require sustained attention and continued monitoring". They praised ECOMOG and thanked Nigeria for its leading role in the force, which they called "a model of peace-keeping for the rest of Africa".
UN Secretary-General urges cooperation in stemming arms flow
In Geneva on Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for vigilance and cooperation to stem the proliferation of arms in West Africa. Speaking at the launch of a book on Mali, he said that the insecurity and violence which plagued that country in the early 1990s were fuelled in part by the spread of small arms.
SIERRA LEONE: ECOMOG advances towards rebel territory
ECOMOG was moving towards rebel-held territory in eastern Sierra Leone in a bid to quash the last remnants of rebel militias, its Commander, Major-General Timothy Shelpidi, told IRIN on Thursday. Shelpidi would not elaborate on ECOMOG movements. He noted that Monrovia, where the force has its headquarters, was a good base in terms of logistics, especially for eastern Sierra Leone, the 20 per cent portion of the country not yet under government control. The force had a base in Sierra Leone, but would relocate its headquarters there only upon instructions from ECOWAS, he said.
Shelpidi said Ghana and Guinea had promised to contribute troops to ECOMOG to facilitate the disarmament and demobilisation process in Sierra Leone.
On Monday, Shelpidi told AFP that ECOMOG had taken over 4,000 prisoners during an offensive in the north of the country. He added that Guinea was stationing a support company in Kambia, 80 km north of Freetown, to assist in "mop-up" operations in the border area. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that rebels in the diamond district of Kono, by the Guinean border, had executed more than 50 civilians and were holding more than 200 hostages.
Meanwhile, AFP reported on Tuesday that several hundred Sierra Leonean ECOMOG soldiers would leave Liberia at Sierra Leonean President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's request.
UN lifts oil embargo
Six days after the formal re-instatement of Sierra Leone's democratically-elected president, the UN Security Council on 16 March unanimously adopted a British resolution to lift the embargo on oil and oil product deliveries to Sierra Leone with immdiate effect. An arms embargo would remain pending further review. The embargo was imposed on 8 October 1997 as part of efforts to restore democracy after a military junta toppled Kabbah's government in May 1997. The Security Council also thanked humanitarian agencies and ECOMOG for their assistance to the war-torn country.
UNHCR worried over refugees
After a high-level meeting in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, on Tuesday to review the refugee situation in West Africa, UNCHR Director for West, Central and East Africa Albert-Alain Peters expressed concern at a press conference over the situation of some of Sierra Leone's 380,000 refugees in the area. By the preceding weekend more than 26,000 Sierra Leoneans had crossed the eastern border into Liberia as ECOMOG prepared to launch an attack against the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) strongholds of Koindu and Kailahun. More refugees were flooding in and they were not showing signs of being prepared to return soon, Peters said. Most were women and children, as rebel RUF militias had reportedly kept "thousands" of males as "hostages" to undertake various tasks, including carrying ammunition. The reports were confirmed to IRIN by the ECOMOG Commander.
On Wednesday, Peters said that following HCR's appeal for US$ 700,000 to assist Sierra Leonean refugees over the next three months, some donors had shown interest but no funds had been committed yet.
Food situation improves, says WFP
Meanwhile, the food situation in Sierra Leone was improving, if only slowly, WFP reported on Tuesday. On that day, WFP managed to deliver 65 mt of food to Bo and Kenema, two major towns in eastern Sierra Leone. This followed the delivery of 3,000 mt of food and 6,000 mt of rice into Freetown. Better security meant that vegetables and other commodities were now widely available in the capital.
Government strengthens control, holds over 1,500
Two days after he assumed sweeping powers and dismissed the government, President Kabbah on Wednesday declared a state of emergency to deal with the remnants of the junta, news services reported. A new government of only 15 ministers would be appointed "by 25 March", a presidential aide told Reuters and the BBC. The strengthened powers enable the government to restrict movements and requisition food. Under the state of emergency the authorities may detain suspects for up to 30 days without review. Unauthorised possession of arms and uniforms is banned, as is hoarding of food and oil.
On Tuesday, AFP said five prominent civilians, including a former junta minister and three broadcasters, were being questioned over alleged links with the toppled junta. On Thursday, AFP said 1,500 people, including former president Joseph Momoh, were being held for the same reason. AFP added that about 40 soldiers and other officials were being extradited from Guinea.
LIBERIA: Refugee repatriation slower than UNHCR expected
Despite international efforts towards secure and proper re-integration, repatriating Liberia's 480,000 refugees was the HCR's major challenge in West Africa and was taking longer than expected, HCR's Albert-Alain Peters told a press conference in Abidjan on Wednesday. He declined to describe the situation as either positive or negative. "Re-integration is not happening at the pace we would have liked," he said.
During his visit to Liberia last week, Peters told Star Radio that over the past few months, more than 70,000 Liberian refugees had returned home from Cote d'Ivoire and Guinea. Free distribution of agricultural tools and seeds to returnees was essential on the eve of the planting season, Peters stressed: "If refugees are disappointed for lack of tools or seeds, chances are they will leave again." A repatriation phase would last to the end of 1998, followed by re-integration through development projects in Liberia until December 1999. Peters told IRIN that apart from a US$ 1.3 million contribution from Japan, the US$ 38.2 million HCR had appealed for in favour of Liberian refugees in 1998 "was not there".
HCR was confident the Guinean authorities would re-open the border with Liberia on 23 March, as scheduled, allowing as many as 65,000 refugees to return home.
Nigeria to protest over journalists
Nigeria would lodge a protest to Liberia over the arrest of two Nigerian army journalists in Monrovia, independent Star Radio reported on Thursday. The two reportedly sustained injuries and had their money stolen when arrested by police last Saturday on unfounded allegations of espionage and possessing narcotics. Describing the incident as an act of provocation, ECOMOG Commander Major-General Shelpidi of Nigeria said his country's silence did not mean weakness and warned ECOMOG would not hesitate to defend itself in the future if a similar situation is repeated. He noted that anti-Nigerian sentiment was currently running high in Liberia, where ECOMOG has been stationed since the country's seven-year civil war started in 1990.
Reconciliation chief under threat
The chairman of Liberia's National Reconciliation Commission said on Sunday that keen as he was to contribute to the healing of the wounds, he was not prepared to return because he had been advised of plans to assassinate him, Star Radio reported. A long-time rival of President Charles Taylor, who appointed him to the reconciliation body, opposition politician Alhaji Kromah is currently in the USA.
NIGERIA: UN body, EU criticise human rights record
Only days ahead of Pope John Paul II's visit to Nigeria on 21 March, the country's human rights record came under critical focus in Geneva and London, news agencies reported last week. AFP said Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea were two West African countries on the agenda of the UN Human Rights Commission which opened its 54th annual session on Monday. In his opening speech UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told Africans they must view human rights not as "a rich man's luxury for which Africa is not ready" or as a "Western conspiracy", but as "the root" for a new "wave of peace".
In London last Friday, Tony Lloyd, Junior Minister at the British Foreign Office, told Parliament that Britain would use its current presidency of the European Union to press for a resolution on Nigeria during the Commission's session, Reuters reported.
In a related development, Information Minister Chief Ike Obasey Mokelu on Monday rebuked US warnings the previous week that a victory by "any military candidate" to the presidency would be "unacceptable" to the USA and might trigger further sanctions, Nigerian television reported. He said the warning was "an insult and subtle threat to Nigeria, a sovereign nation" which "cannot be tolerated".
CHAD: Government acknowledges 49 killed in south
Human rights and labour groups on Wednesday called for a two-day general strike to protest against fighting between the army and rebels in the oil-rich south, news reports said. Reuters reported Communications Minister and Government Spokesman Haroun Kabadi as saying that 49 people were killed in the Moundou area last weekend in clashes involving the army and rebels of the Forces Armees pour la Republique Federale (FARF). Kabadi said security forces had killed 31 rebels, one canton chief and two village heads, while rebels killed 15 civilians in raids. Thirty government troops had died in the same area at the beginning of March. According to AFP, Kabadi dismissed claims by human rights NGO Amnesty International (AI) that the army had summarily executed 100 people in the Moundou area earlier this month. "The toll is false. This organisation (AI) has no proof," he said. But he did admit that the army had killed 29 people in "excesses" and searches linked to the release of four French hostages in February. He added that 12 prisoners had been brought to N'Djamena for trial and that 32 people, including a member of Chad's human rights league, had been arrested in the southern town of Sarh.
On Gabon's Africa No. 1 radio, Kabadi said "in view of this serious situation and the widespread insecurity in the region created by FARF", the government had sent security forces to the region to restore peace and would remain there until they have done so.
Local sources alleged that government action in the area was aimed at eliminating opposition to Franco-American plans for a lucrative, 1,000-km-long oil pipeline between Doba, south of Moundou, and the Cameroonian port of Kribi.
GHANA: President slams Burkina Faso dam plan
President Jerry Rawlings criticised plans by Burkina Faso to build two hydro-electric dams on a major tributary of the Volta river, the Ghana News Agency reported on Wednesday. Burkina Faso had already built a dam for agricultural purposes and to build two power-generating units might affect the flow of the river to the Akosombo dam in Ghana, Rawlings said. Neighbouring Benin, Togo and Cote d'Ivoire also draw electricity from the dam. "We must think seriously about the common use of resources in the sub-region," Rawlings told visiting ministerial delegations from Benin and Togo. "If not, some countries will be in grave difficulty."
NIGER: Public sector strikes over late pay
Thousands of civil servants reportedly went on strike on Wednesday and Thursday to protest against five to seven months of unpaid wages, news agencies reported. According to AP, services in the capital, Niamey, and throughout the country were effectively paralysed as workers responded to a call for industrial action lauched by the trades union congress Union Syndicale des Travailleurs Nigeriens (USTN), which is predominant in the country and among its 40,000 civil servants. This was Niger's second such stoppage in three weeks. AFP said Revenue and Treasury employees launched their own two-day strike on Tuesday claiming two months' wage arrears. According to AP, they threatened to follow this through with a "go slow" protest. Strikers ignored the government's prior threat to take unspecified legal action against them.
In a related development, editorial staff with the government media threatened to go on an all-out strike over two months' unpaid wages.
The University of Niamey has been closed for nearly two weeks after students demonstrated over 21 months' unpaid grants. In February, unpaid soldiers along the eastern border with Chad and Nigeria staged a brief mutiny. UN agencies rank Niger as one of the world's poorest countries.
EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Government denies Amnesty claims
Equatorial Guinea's Deputy Prime Minister in charge of foreign affairs, Miguel Oyono, on Friday formally denied earlier claims by Amnesty International that five Bubi separatists had died of ill-treatment at the hands of the authorities, Radio France Internationale (RFI) reported. Oyono said one of the five alleged victims, Miguel Barboza, had died of malaria in hospital.
Abidjan, 20 March 1998, 15:45 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/emergenc or can be retrieved automatically by sending e-mail to archive@dha..unon.org. Mailing list: irin-wa-weekly]
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 15:48:35 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Weekly roundup 40, 98.3.20 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980320153522.24188A-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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