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IRIN-WA Update 321 of Events in West Africa (Wednesday) 21 October 1998
GUINEA BISSAU: WFP says food aid endangered by fighting
The United Nations World Food Programme warned yesterday (Tuesday) it might not be able to deliver aid to hundreds of thousands of people in Guinea Bissau because of the resurgence in fighting in the capital, Bissau, and the second city, Bafata.
The agency had evacuated all five of its officials to neighbouring Senegal because of fighting in the capital and rising tension in the rest of the country, Hiro Matsumura, WFP representative in Guinea Bissau, said. He warned that the renewed fighting would almost bring to a halt all WFP food deliveries to 350,000 people.
Security permitting, the agency plans to send 100 mt of rice to the town of Bubaque on the Bijagos islands and 300 mt of rice to Cacheu in the north of the country.
Tens of thousands of internally displaced people returned to Bissau following the ceasefire, but thousands fled again to the Bijagos islands and the interior since fighting resumed on Sunday. Prior to the latest flare-up, WFP had planned to distribute some 30,000 mt of food over the next four months in seven regions, to the internally displaced.
Government declares curfew over Bissau
The Guinea Bissau government has declared a curfew from 7.30 p.m. till sunrise in Bissau for security reasons, state radio announced yesterday. The government first declared a curfew shortly after the beginning of hostilities on 7 June. The curfew was lifted after a ceasefire was signed on 26 August in Cape Verde.
Lusophone community appeals for ceasefire
The Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP), in a communique received by IRIN today (Wednesday), has called on the government and rebels to cease hostilities "immediately" and hold their forces in the areas they occupied when they signed the ceasefire.
The communique issued yesterday by the office of Cape Verde Foreign Minister Jose Luis de Jesus, who heads the CPLP contact group on Guinea Bissau, also urged ECOWAS to "urgently" restart peace talks between the government and rebel forces led by General Ansumane Mane.
The 16-nation ECOWAS and the CPLP are co-mediators in the conflict. The last round of peace talks in September failed to reach a compromise to consolidate the July ceasefire.
Peace group's mediation attempts fail
Meanwhile, Reuters reported yesterday that the Committee For Goodwill, made up of Guinea Bissau church and political leaders, was also trying to end the fighting.
The bishop of Bissau, Settimio Ferrazzetta, a committee member, failed to set up a meeting with the rebel leader, General Ansumane Mane, on Monday, Reuters said. Loyalists said they could not guarantee to hold fire while Ferrazzetta was in rebel-held territory, it added.
SENEGAL: Land mine kills two soldiers, wounds several
Two soldiers were killed and several wounded when a Senegalese tank detonated a land mine in southern Casamance, Reuters reported.
The explosion occurred on Monday in the eastern outskirts of the provincial capital of Ziguinchor, Reuters said, quoting officials. It said there was a heavy exchange of fire lasting into the night with rebels of the separatist Mouvement des forces democratiques de Casamance (MFDC) targeting the village of Tanaff.
The army said it had been carrying out mopping-up operations against the separatists since Saturday. According to AFP, official sources said around 60 MFDC rebels had been killed in the operation and that "a vast network of rebel bases" along the border with Guinea Bissau and been "neutralised".
The army has been fighting the MFDC for 16 years.
Amnesty asks Diouf to end army's rights violations
In a related development, Amnesty International has called on President Abdou Diouf to halt the army's killing, torture and rape of civilians in Casamance. Amnesty also asked him to free all Casamance political detainees.
Amnesty also said there were more than 160 people suspected of belonging to the MFDC in detention without trial, some held since 1995.
Senegal dismissed as a fabrication Amnesty International's report on human rights violations in Casamance in February.
NIGERIA: Pipeline blaze toll rising
Emergency medical teams and a UN agency, UNICEF, have been battling to save survivors of the devastating fuel pipeline fire in a village near the southern town of Warri in Nigeria at the weekend, according to UN sources and news agencies. The death toll continues to rise and is estimated at between 700 and 1,000.
A Nigerian health official quoted by Reuters said more than 200 injured people had died in the past 24 hours according to reports from various hospitals in the area.
A UNICEF report said its team was visiting 10 hospitals in and around Warri which had admitted 200 to 300 badly burned patients. It added that a number of patients had discharged themselves against medical advice for fear of prosecution by authorities for alleged involvement in sabotaging pipelines.
UNICEF would be providing Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS), drugs, gauze bandages, hypodermic needles, plastic cups and spoons to the hospitals and health facilities in the area. The medical NGO, Medecins Sans Frontieres, also dispatched a team to Warri to provide first-hand medical support.
Officials said many of the dead were burned beyond recognition and the only way to dispose of them was mass burial. About 2,000 men, women and children were scavenging petrol with cans and buckets from a burst pipeline on Sunday when a fire erupted.
The Nigerian head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who visited the site of the disaster on Monday, promised to pay the medical bills but said there would be no compensation. He also called for an investigation in the matter.
Nigerian officials have blamed the disaster on a growing pattern of vandalisation of pipelines for theft or politically motivated sabotage by restive locals who feel deprived of the wealth pumped from their land, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka said the deaths were "a reflection of the general social malaise which we are all undergoing at the moment," AFP said. He called on the government to solve the fundamental problem of poverty.
Disaffected oil community group takes on government
Meanwhile, the Federated Niger Delta State Izon communities, a movement claiming to represent the Ijaw ethnic group in the oil-rich Delta region, announced it was taking on the Nigerian government and foreign oil companies in a battle over its demand for a local government, AFP reported yesterday.
Two weeks ago, members of the militant group reportedly seized some 20 oil flow stations owned by the Anglo-Dutch oil giant, Shell, and the US group, Chevron, in the Delta region stopping the flow of fuel to the port for export. According to AFP, the movement was still occupying the sites on Monday.
AFP quoted the movement's president, Dan Ekpedibe, as saying: "We have not vandalised anything and if the oil companies negotiate with us they can stay on our land. But currently we get nothing from their being here. But our people are not employed, we have no money, no schools, no electricity and our waters are so polluted so we cannot fish." Ekpedibe said he wanted to force the federal government to agree to set up a local authority.
In Nigeria, the local administration controls money and jobs, negotiates with the federal government and ensures that the voice of local communities is heard.
SIERRA LEONE: Court sentences 11 civilians to death
A high court in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, sentenced 11 civilians, including three women, to death today for their part in supporting the former Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) military government, bringing to 27 the number of people now awaiting execution, media reports said.
Those found guilty reportedly included the 75-year old former mayor of Freetown, Nancy Steele, former interior minister and retired general, Leslie Lymon, former justice minister Claude Campbell and a businessman, Bashiru Savage.
Some of the accused broke down in tears when Judge Bankole Rashid announced the sentences, AFP said.
Ten other civilians also accused of treason were sentenced to life imprisonment.
Earlier this week, 24 soldiers found guilty by a court martial of collaborating with the AFRC were executed, despite international appeals for clemency.
All those condemned today would have a right of appeal, Sierra Leonean legal sources told IRIN.
Meanwhile, another 21 people, including former head of state Joseph Momoh, and the leader of the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), Foday Sankoh, were also expected to receive similar sentences when their treason trials ended, the sources added.
"Based on the sentences handed down already, it seems Sankoh and most of the others will almost certainly face the firing squad," one source commented.
WEST AFRICA: Nigerian leader to urge ECOWAS members to pay dues
Nigeria will ask 12 of the 16 ECOWAS members to pay their dues when the ECOWAS summit is held on 30-31 October, Nigerian leader General Abdulsalami Abubakar told officials yesterday while visiting the community's headquarters in Abuja. Twelve member countries owe some US $40 million in arrears, AFP reported. It said the remaining four were up to date with payments.
Abidjan, 21 October 1998, 19:00 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: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 18:59:11 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 321, 98.10.21 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.981021185526.12091A-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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