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IRIN-WA Update 325 of Events in West Africa (Tuesday) 27 October 1998
GUINEA BISSAU: President and rebel leader fail to meet
The meeting between Guinea Bissau President Joao Bernardo Vieira and rebel leader Ansumane Mane failed to take place today (Tuesday) over disagreements over a venue, the BBC reported. The meeting would probably take place on "another date, perhaps abroad", it said.
Reuters reported that diplomats from Portugal, France and Switzerland were trying to broker a deal on an acceptable meeting place in West Africa or elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the missionary news agency, MISNA, said that attempts to find a solution to the disagreement over the venue had been complicated by Vieira's "changing attitude" on the war.
The agency quoted Vieira as saying over state radio
on Sunday that he would prosecute the war "until
the bitter end", after calling the truce and then
requesting direct talks.
The direct talks, arranged at the weekend with the participation
of Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama, was to have
been followed later by a meeting of government and
rebel military commanders.
Senegal says Portugal gave Guinea Bissau rebels, arms
The Senegalese army has confirmed media reports that it accused Portugal of supplying military equipment to Guinea Bissau.
The Senegalese state-owned 'Le Soleil' and the privately owned 'Sud Quotidien' alleged that 30 tonnes of military material had been unloaded in Bissau from the Hercules C-130 transport plane that brought Gama to the city on Saturday. "Everything in 'Le Soleil' is true," an army information official told IRIN. "It is the official government paper." He declined to give further details.
Portugal has dismissed the charge. "These accusations in the Senegalese press do not deserve comment," Reuters quoted Portuguese Foreign Ministry spokesman Horacio Cesar as saying.
An official Senegalese source quoted by Reuters also said the plane carrying Gama had received no flight authorisation and violated "airspace under the control of Senegalese forces". The source added the army had now warned that it would shoot down any plane flying over Guinea Bissau without authorisation.
However, Cesar said Gama had flown to Bissau at the invitation of the Bissau authorities and "with the prior knowledge of the rebels". Gama's flight into Bissau's Bissalanca airport was the first since the rebels seized it in June.
OAU chairman opposes intervention force
The chairman of the Organisation of Africa Unity, Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, said yesterday (Monday) the deployment of an African force in Guinea Bissau would only prolong the civil war, AFP reported.
Compaore was quoted as saying that only a "legal, constitutional solution" to the crisis would prevent the situation from worsening. He said intervention in the Liberian civil war "changed the situation on the ground and we saw seven years of civil war". It was an experience ECOWAS should learn from, he said.
He also said the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) fully supported the legitimate government of Guinea Bissau, but said member states should also take into account the concerns of rebel troops
The conflict is expected to feature high on the agenda of the two-day ECOWAS summit beginning on Friday.
WEST AFRICA: Foreign ministers to finalise conflict resolution treaty
Foreign ministers from the 16 ECOWAS member states met yesterday in Abuja to finalise a conflict resolution treaty to be signed by their heads of state at the summit on 30-31 October, media agencies said.
Adrienne Diop, the director of information of ECOWAS, quoted by AFP, said the draft treaty would allow the regional organisation to set up a permanent mechanism for managing conflict resolution and prevention in the region. She added: "It is very important now that our subregion is able to prevent conflicts and whenever they erupt, we are able to deal with them so that they would not move to other countries."
Meanwhile, the ECOWAS executive secretary, Lansana Kouyate, called yesterday for greater economic integration in West Africa and advocated the establishment of a single West African currency. Kouyate made the appeal at a meeting of ECOWAS central bank governors in Abuja.
Diop said other agenda items would be the introduction of an ECOWAS travellers' cheque, which would ease payments made in the region. Other issues are communications between countries, regulation of movement of people and illegal drug trafficking in the region.
ECOWAS was set up in 1976 to promote economic integration among West African states, but set up a regional West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, in 1990 in a bid to end a civil war in Liberia. ECOMOG later intervened in Sierra Leone. However, both interventions were ad hoc and essentially Nigerian-driven.
NIGERIA: Commonwealth electoral experts expected
A Commonwealth official told IRIN today that seven senior Commonwealth electoral experts were scheduled to arrive in Nigeria this week to provide technical assistance to the Nigerian electoral commission for the forthcoming local and national elections.
The electoral team would assist the Independent Nigerian Electoral Commission (INEC) in planning, managing and training their staff for the elections, which would be held in four stages between December and January.
The secretary-general of the Commonwealth, Emeka Anyaoku, said in a statement received by IRIN today that "this practical assistance will make a tangible contribution to the transition to democracy" and marked "an important step in the process of full normalisation of relations between the Commonwealth and Nigeria".
The experts are from Ghana, Britain, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, India, Canada and Zimbabwe.
Talks to end ethnic clashes
Leaders of two ethnic groups, the Ijaws and Itsekiris, engaged in violent clashes in Nigeria's oil region, met with government officials on Monday for talks to end the crisis, Reuters reported, quoting Nigerian state radio.
Radio Nigeria said the Delta state administrator, Walter Feghabor, had called for an end to clashes and reiterated that violence was not a solution to the conflict. He called on the two communities to engage in dialogue.
Reuters said at least 10 people and 85 houses had been burned down during the renewed clashes last week. The conflict between the Ijaws and the Itsekiris broke out last year after the government relocated a local council headquarters from an Itsekiri to an Ijaw area.
US plans anti-drug strategy with government
The United States announced it would work closely again with Nigeria to combat drug trafficking in the region and may decertify Nigeria next March, media organisations reported. The US assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Crime, Randy Beers, quoted by the BBC, said poor relations in recent years had made action against drug traffickers difficult, but he considered that period over. He said law enforcement was a vital area of cooperation for the two countries and Nigeria's "blacklisting by the United States belonged to the past".
Meanwhile, according to the independent Nigerian daily, 'The Guardian', the US said it may decertify Nigeria in March next year, a month after Nigerian presidential elections slated for February 1999. Matthew Coke, a US programme officer for Africa in charge of international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, said the level of cooperation with the Nigerian government was very positive. He added that the Nigerian anti-drug agents would receive broad-based training in detecting drug traffickers.
Nigeria is considered to be a hub for drug traffickers, according to regional experts.
LIBERIA: Liberian refugees in Cote d'Ivoire
UNHCR told IRIN today that a joint fact-finding mission carried out with the Cote d'Ivoire government and WFP had confirmed the presence of some 4,000 new Liberian refugees in the north of the country.
A UNHCR spokesman said the joint mission had visited Danane, Guiglo and Toulepleu prefectures to verify reports that several hundred Liberian refugees had crossed the border following a resurgence of fighting last month in Liberia's capital between forces loyal to President Charles Taylor and supporters of a former rival faction leader, Roosevelt Johnson.
The mission found that over 4,000 people had crossed into Cote d'Ivoire and were now being hosted by local communities.
Refugees interviewed by UNHCR said they were all from Johnson's ethnic Krahn group and had fled the Monrovia area following the fighting. However, some of their number had been unable to cross into Cote d'Ivoire after the border was closed to them on the Liberian side.
UNHCR told IRIN approximately 85 percent of those who had crossed were women and children. The agency added that the total number of new refugees could also be higher than the reported 4,000 as the assessment mission had been unable to visit some of remoter villages because of impassable roads.
UNHCR was now working with the Cote d'Ivoire authorities to find a more permanent location for the refugees, UNHCR said. The agency had also combined with WFP to provide a month's food rations and other relief items for the refugees immediately, UNHCR added.
Taylor denies press harassment
The Liberian president yesterday denied charges his government has harassed local media, Liberian press reports said.
Last week, the London-based human rights group Amnesty International criticised Taylor for his record on press freedom following a speech he made accusing Liberian human rights organisations and media of trying to destroy the country's image.
The Monrovia-based 'The News' quoted Taylor yesterday as saying he had never threatened the press. "I was just exercising my freedom (of) expression," he said. He said his criticism of the press did not in any way show a sign of "muffling and clamping down" on the press, the paper said.
Prominent Liberian human rights analysts have repeatedly told IRIN that they have been concerned about government hostility towards press and civil liberty organisations after they called for an inquiry into the fighting in Monrovia last month.
"It is getting harder and harder for local organisations to work in Liberia, just when the need for reconciliation is greatest," one human rights worker commented.
Press union says radio licence withdrawal "disturbing"
Meanwhile, the Press Union of Liberia (PUL) said the government's decision to withdraw the shortwave licence of Star Radio was "disturbing", the Monrovia-based 'The Inquirer' reported yesterday, quoting a press release.
PUL said the ministry's reasons were not convincing enough to warrant immediate withdrawal of the licence. It added that the fact that the action focused only on one broadcaster "seems to suggest that there may be other motives for the decision."
The union reiterated its call for the government to create an environment to allow the media to operate without fear of reprisals, intimidations and harassments. It also urged journalists to ensure that their publications and broadcasts were credible.
BURKINA FASO: Presidential campaign kicks off
Campaigning in Burkina Faso's presidential race began on Sunday, media reports said. The incumbent, Blaise Compaore, 47, will face opposition for the first time since coming to power in a coup 11 years ago.
Compaore's challengers in the 15 November elections are Ram Ouedraogo, 48, of the Green party and retired ambassador Frederic Guirma, 67, leader of le Front pour le refus du rassemblement democratique africain, media reports said. Guirma's party is a splinter of the Rassemblement democratique africain (RDA).
Meanwhile, AFP said Le Conseil superieur d'information, a state media body, has said each candidate will have equal access to public media. Each will have 15 minutes on national radio and 12 segments of 15 minutes each on national television.
Nine opposition parties calling themselves the Group
of 14 February are boycotting the polls, saying the
commission is controlled by the government. The boycotting
parties are led by a former minister, Joseph Ki-Zerbo.
Abidjan, 27 October 1998, 18:45 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 or can be retrieved automatically by sending e-mail to <archive@ocha.unon.org> - mailing list: irin-wa-updates]
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 18:52:40 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 325, 98.10.27 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.981027184830.23797A-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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