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IRIN-WA Update 326 of Events in West Africa (Wednesday) 28 October 1998
GUINEA BISSAU: President, rebel leader still not in Gambia for talks
President Joao Bernardo Vieira and rebel leader Ansumane Mane had still not arrived by mid-afternoon today (Wednesday) for peace talks in the Gambian capital, Banjul, a government official told IRIN.
The official said that transport difficulties had delayed Mane's arrival while Vieira was on standby in Bissau ready to come.
The Portuguese news agency, Lusa, quoted a rebel spokesman Zamora Induta as saying efforts were being made to get Portugal or Nigeria to provide aircraft to ferry Mane to Banjul.
Induta said the use of a rebel helicopter was "totally out of the question" for security reasons.
No details were given on the agenda for the talks due to be held at State House, Banjul, media reports said. However, the talks were generally expected to centre on ending the civil war and charting a new political course for Guinea Bissau.
Senegal says it backs Bissau peace talks
Meanwhile, Senegal Defence Minister Cheikh Hamidou Kane said yesterday (Tuesday) in Dakar his government supported the planned peace talks, Reuters reported.
Kane was quoted as saying the government would "encourage and push (both sides) to dialogue". The aim of the talks was "the re-establishment of security in the subregion by putting an end to the infiltration of Casamance rebels from Guinea Bissau's territory", he said.
"We think that this will be something fundamental which may help install a permanent climate of harmony and peace between our two countries," the agency quoted him as saying.
Senegal has some 3,000 troops in Guinea Bissau supporting Vieira's government against the rebellion. Last Friday, Senegal deployed more men and materiel to Guinea Bissau following the flare-up in fighting last week and in which the Senegalese army has reported mounting casualties, Reuters said.
Humanitarian situation
Senegalese and Guinea Bissau troops twice this week hindered the delivery of three trucks of food aid by WFP on Monday. The food assistance was part of a 300 mt consignment for distribution to destitute populations in Cumura and Prabis, near Bissau. The food assistance will cover the needs of about 70,000 displaced people for one week.
WFP will transport an additional 300 mt of rice from its warehouse in Bafata, some 110 km east of Bissau, to Prabis as soon as travel for WFP staff is authorised.
Food distribution elsewhere in the country has been suspended due to the security situation. It is expected to resume soon as the security situation allows in the Bafata and Gabu regions.
Meanwhile, humanitarian sources reported that flights resumed in rebel-held Bafata yesterday, as two planes arrived carrying journalists and an EU delegation.
Displaced heading for smaller islands
WFP said people fleeing the war had stopped going to the nearby island of Bubaque for fear that the fighting might soon reach the location. It said that people have been heading for other smaller islands of the Bijagos archipelago.
At the height of the fighting there were an estimated 12,000 displaced people in Bubaque. The current displaced population was estimated at 5,000.
NIGERIA: Government tells oil firms investment safe
The Nigerian government has told the chief executives of major multinational oil companies yesterday that their investments in the volatile oil-reach southeast were safe, Reuters said.
Rear Admiral Mike Akhigbe, deputy to military ruler Abdulsalami Abubakar, met the representatives of six major oil firms in the capital, Abuja. He told them the government had "taken adequate steps to protect lives and property".
The meeting also discussed government plans to restructure "the investment pattern" in the country's oil and gas industry, the report said, quoting state radio.
Nigeria holds a 57 percent stake in joint ventures with
the oil giants Shell, Mobil Corp, Chevron Corp, Elf
Aquataine, Texaco Inc and Agip SpA.
Recent seizures of oil installations by irate Ijaw youth
has slashed about one third of Nigeria's oil exports
of two millions barrels a day.
Governments airlifts troops to Warri
The Nigerian government has airlifted more troops to the southwestern oil town of Warri, where rival ethnic youths have been embroiled in bitter clashes, AP reported yesterday.
"Planeloads of troops" had been sent to the Delta town, 298 km southeast of Lagos, it said, quoting the state-owned News Agency of Nigeria. It gave no figures. The reinforcements join 200 troops and anti-riot police sent to Warri last week to stop fighting between Ijaws and Itsekiris.
The communities have been fighting each other since March 1997 over the relocation of a local government headquarters from an Itsekiri to Ijaw area. At least 10 people were killed and 85 houses burnt down during last week's clashes.
Tanker fire kills 15 in Ibadan
At least 15 people died on Tuesday in the southwestern city of Ibadan when a petrol tanker overturned and spilt its contents onto nearby fires, media reports said.
AFP quoted the 'Vanguard' newspaper as saying that nearby stalls and at least 20 houses and other property worth tens of thousands of dollars were destroyed. Several injured people were rushed to nearby hospitals.
The reports said the driver lost control at a junction in Ibadan, about 140 km north of Lagos.
LIBERIA: Government orders displaced camps closed
President Charles Taylor has ordered the Liberian government agency responsible for refugees to dismantle camps around the capital, Monrovia, housing persons internally displaced, local media reports said today.
'The Inquirer' quoted Taylor as instructing the Liberian Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission (LRRRC) to dismantle its camps by the end of the year and return internally displaced persons to their home counties.
"We cannot go on sitting in these camps eternally waiting for food aid," the paper quoted him as saying. "We want to be able to feed ourselves," he added.
Humanitarian agencies estimated in July 1997 that by the end of the civil war over 130,000 IDPs had crowded into areas around Monrovia protected by the West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG.
"But few have been able to go home as little if any infrastructure outside the capital has been repaired," one source told IRIN today.
"We would be very concerned at any move to force people to go home against their will," another source added.
THE GAMBIA: Coup plotters sentenced to death
The Gambia's supreme court sentenced three soldiers to death yesterday for their part in an attack in July 1997 on Kartong military base near The Gambia's southern border with Senegal, media reports said.
According to AFP, the three men were also convicted of plotting to overthrow the government of President Yahya Jammeh in 1995, murder and kidnapping.
The men pleaded not guilty at their trial saying that they had only attempted to steal weapons from the base to sell in Senegal.
The three were arrested as they tried to cross the border into Senegal's southern province of Casamance, where separatists have mounted a twenty-year campaign against the central government in Dakar.
A fourth member of the group is still wanted by Gambian security forces.
WEST AFRICA: Regional mining code to be drafted
West African ministers of mineral resources attending a regional monetary meeting yesterday in the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou, decided yesterday to start drafting a common mining code to harmonise related laws in member countries, AFP said.
Speaking at the Union economique monetaire Ouest-Africaine (UEMOA) gathering, the Cote d'Ivoire minister of mines and oil, Lamine Fadika, said a common mining code and the establishment of a standard mining contract would facilitate investment in the region. He added that the aim was to make UEMOA a more competitive and stable environment for commercial mining. The mining code is expected to be finalised in the next two years.
Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo are UEMOA members.
Abidjan, 28 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, 28 Oct 1998 19:04:14 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 326, 98.10.28 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.981028190043.31354A-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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