UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
IRIN-West Africa Update 392 for 1999.2.1

IRIN-West Africa Update 392 for 1999.2.1


U N I T E D N A T I O N S Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa

Tel: +225 21 73 54 Fax: +225 21 63 35 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org

IRIN-WA Update 392 of Events in West Africa (Monday 1 February)

GUINEA BISSAU: Fighting underway for second day

Artillery shells continued to rain on rebel positions for a second successive day in Bissau today (Monday), threatening to plunge the country back into full-scale civil war, news reports said. Yesterday's (Sunday) fighting started in the city's Bissaque/Ponte de Sibe zone where some Togolese ECOMOG units are deployed, the Portuguese news agency Lusa reported.

So far, it remains unclear who started this round of fighting which marked the first major violent incident since a peace accord on 1 November 1998 between rival government and military junta forces, the reports said.

The fighting comes as more troops of the West African intervention force (ECOMOG) are about to deploy in the Guinea Bissau capital. Delegations from the government, the junta and the Economic Community of West African states (ECOWAS) reached a draft agreement on Friday on the arrival of additional ECOMOG troops and a timetable for the withdrawal of Guinean and Senegalese soldiers. The withdrawal of these troops and the arrival of ECOMOG is envisaged under the peace agreement.

ECOMOG reinforcements offshore

A French warship, Le Siroco, with 300 Bissau-bound ECOMOG soldiers on board has been ordered to stay offshore because of the fighting in Bissau, news reports said. AFP, quoting naval officers, said the orders came from the French military command in Cape Verde islands, Guinea Bissau's former twin Potruguese colony off Senegal's coast.

The ship is carrying 146 soldiers from Niger and 145 from Benin. A return trip to Dakar, the Senegelase capital, was scheduled for Tuesday to bring 200 Gambian and Togolese troops.

Thousands of Bissau residents flee

Several thousand city residents fleeing the fighting are heading to the capital's port and elsewhere in the country, aid workers and media reports said. Bissau's port is controlled by Senegalese troops who, with those of Guinea, have been supporting loyalist forces since June 1998.

A World Food Programme spokesman told IRIN today that 80 percent of Bissau's population had fled. He said 300,000 IDPs had recently started returning to their homes in the city.

Lusa said that in a radio appeal today, the junta asked residents to leave the capital."The radio message was taken in Bissau as a warning that [junta leader, Ansumane] Mane's soldiers planned to return fire on the position of pro-[President Joao Bernardo] Vieira forces," Lusa said. AFP reported later that the junta declared a three-hour ceasefire at midday today to allow civilians time to leave.

All Roman Catholic parishes are overcrowd with civilians in Cumura, some 10 km from Bissau, following the outbreak of fighting, the missionary news agency MISNA reported today. At least 5,000 people are in the courtyard of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions (PIME). Another 2,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) have sought shelter in the Nossa Senora de Fatima parish, it said.

Appeals for end to fighting

Appeals for an end to the fighting have been made by ECOWAS chairman Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo and the Portuguese secretary of state for foreign affairs, Luis Amado. In a statement, Eyadema said respect for the ceasefire was indispensable to the deployment of ECOMOG, the withdrawal of Guinean and Senegalese troops and the functioning of the government of national unity - all of which are envisaged under a peace accord reached in 1998.

WFP worried about recent IDP returnees

A spokesman for WFP In Abidjan told IRIN today the UN food aid agency was worried about the 300,000 IDPs who recently started returning to their homes before the outbreak of fighting on Sunday. Bissau is now lacking water because of interrupted electricity supplies, the spokesman said.

"These people will have problems in coping," he added. He said they had no money and had not yet settled in after fleeing fighting at the start of hostilities in June 1998. Since that date, he said, WFP had given 8,000 mt of food to 300,000 people throughout the country, mostly IDPs.

A WFP survey in December 1998, he said, indicated that the country's food situation had improved except for some areas in the north and south due to a rice crop failure. December's harvest was good and most markets were stocked with sufficient food. "However, large sections of the population did not have enough cash to buy food," he added.

SIERRA LEONE: ECOMOG says rebels retreating

A spokesman for the West African intervention force ECOMOG has denied media reports of renewed fighting in the Sierra Leone capital Freetown. Lieutenant Colonel Chris Olukolade told IRIN today there had been some heavy weapons fire overnight aimed at driving out or capturing Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels hiding in the hills surrounding the city. He stressed the rebels were on the retreat and ECOMOG was ensuring Freetown was "free of their activities". The number of pockets of rebels still said to be hiding out in Freetown had "reduced drastically," he added. There was a simultaneous operation in the rest of the country to flush out the rebels, Olukolade said.

An AP report on Saturday said hundreds of people were attempting to flee the beleaguered city, despite appeals broadcast over state radio urging them to stay. Reports say residents are afraid that when the Nigerian contingent of ECOMOG withdraws by the announced date of 29 May, they will remain defenceless against rebel attack.

Death of rebel leader confirmed

Meanwhile, state radio has confirmed the death of a rebel leader Captain Solomon Musa, who served as prime minister in the military junta which seized power in 1997. The announcement confirmed rumours that Musa was killed during clashes at Benguema, near Freetown, last December.

Crisis is regional, not internal, Jonah says

Minister of Finance James Jonah said at a news conference at UN headquarters on Friday that the crisis in Sierra Leone was not an internal war but a regional conflict driven by outside forces. Jonah asked the international community and the UN Security Council for help in dealing with its "external aggressors", saying that his government was ready to begin "diplomatic moves to deal with the involvement of both Liberia and Burkina Faso and perhaps with Ukraine, about Ukrainian mercenaries," according to a UN press release. There was no need for fresh talks with the rebels, however, because the Abidjan Accord already existed, Jonah said.

Meanwhile, Italy was the latest country to have pledged assistance to the ECOMOG forces in Sierra Leone, the UN deputy spokesman said in New York on Friday. Other countries that have supported ECOMOG include the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, he said.

LIBERIA: Nigeria spearheading policy to "contain" Taylor

Nigeran Foreign Minister Ignatius Olisemeka has said his country is spearheading a sub-regional policy to "contain" Liberian President Charles Taylor, regarded as an "aggressor" in the Sierra Leone crisis, the independent Nigerian 'Guardian' daily reported today. He said that while member-countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) worked well together, "we have difficulties with Liberian Charles Taylor". "We are fashioning a policy to contain him," Olisemeka was quoted as saying. "We are fashioning a policy to contain the countries from where they [Liberia] get arms to kill innocent peacekeeping troops in Sierra Leone." He urged the international community to deploy a multinational force along the borders of Liberia and Sierra Leone to allow ECOMOG troops to return home. Liberia has denied accusations it is helping the rebels in Sierra Leone.

NIGERIA: Bayelsa election results

The People's Democratic Party (PDP) was declared winner of the delayed governorship elections held in the oil-producing Bayelsa state on Saturday, news agencies reported. "The PDP candidate, Chief Diepree Alamieyesieghe has been duly elected and has therefore been declared winner of the elections," Ebiowei Sokari, the spokesman of the electoral commission told Reuters on Sunday in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa state capital.

Less than 20 percent of the registered voters actually participated in the election contested by candidates of the three political parties - Alliance for Democracy (AD), All People's Party (AP) and PDP, the independent 'Guardian' said yesterday. According to Reuters, one reason for the low turnout was a boycott of the poll called by ethnic Ijaw groups in protest against tight security imposed after clashes with government troops over the New Year. The election was then postponed for three weeks. Officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) who monitored the election, expressed satisfaction with its smooth conduct, the 'Guardian' said.

Clashes in the Niger Delta near oil terminal

Clashes at the weekend beween youths and security forces near Royal Dutch/Shell's Forcados oil export terminal in southern Nigeri left up to 19 people dead, Reuters reported Nigerian newspapers as saying today. "About 19 people are feared dead while 10 others are said to be seriously injured," the independent newspaper 'National Concord' reported.

Local officials, who could only confirm five deaths, said troops exchanged fire with youths from the Ogulagha community, Reuters reported. They had gone to the terminal in Forcados, 250 km southeast of Lagos, to demand money and jobs. A senior Shell official in Lagos said workers had returned to the terminal on Monday after being pulled out over the weekend. He added that the oil terminal was operating normally and the next cargo export was scheduled for Tuesday.

In recent months, oil production at the terminal has dropped from 400,000 barrels per day to 250,000 because of community disturbances in the Niger Delta region where the oil is pumped, Reuters added.

AFRICA: Sexual violence against refugee women

The UN foundation set up to distribute funds provided by media magnate Ted Turner has donated US $1.65 million to UNHCR for a project to combat sexual violence against refugee women and girls in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Kenya and Tanzania, UNHCR said. A UNHCR project document received by IRIN said there was a "shocking escalation" in the use of rape as a weapon of war. Once they crossed an international border in search of safety, refugee women and girls remained at great risk of sexual and domestic violence, while conflict and the destruction of community protection mechanisms left them exposed to exploitation and abuse, the report said. The 18-month project, to benefit some 400,000 refugees, will, among other things, support the training of police and other authorities in refugee areas to help prevent sexual violence. It will also train local health workers and counsellors to respond effectively and compassionately to survivors of sexual violence and will build the capacity of local legal communities to bring perpetrators of these crimes to trial, UNHCR said.

POLIO: Worldwide eradication within two years, WHO says

WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland has said that with a "last, forceful campaign", polio can be wiped out worldwide within two years. According to a WHO news release, she told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the world was "on the brink of eradicating this crippling disease". An estimated US $370 million were needed to carry out the last essential vaccination campaign. Progress in polio eradication over the past 10 years had been remarkable and only three major areas of transmission remained: South Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, India); West Africa (mainly Nigeria) and Central Africa (mainly the Democratic Republic of Congo). The remaining campaign will focus on 14 countries and areas that have been hard to reach due to armed conflict or lack of central government infrastructure, Brundtland said. She noted truces had already been called in countries such as Afghanistan, Sudan and Tajikistan to enable vaccination campaigns to go ahead.

Abidjan, 1 February 1999, 16:35 gmt

[ENDS]

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 17:02:54 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.ocha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 392 for 1999.2.1

Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar

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