| UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER |
Tel: +225 21 73 54 Fax: +225 21 63 35 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org
IRIN-WA Update 433 of events in West Africa (Tuesday 30 March)
LIBERIA: Government wants Roosevelt Johnson extradited
Liberia's government plans to seek the extradition of former Rural Development Minister Roosevelt Johnson, a senior government official told IRIN today (Tuesday).
Reacting to reports that the government wanted Johnson - deemed a "fugitive" according to the independent Star radio - sent back to Liberia, Justice Minister Eddington Varmah told IRIN: "We have not yet commenced any extradition proceedings but we do intend to do so."
Asked about Johnson's whereabouts, Varmah said: "On his departure it was believed he went to Nigeria."
Johnson, a former faction leader, was accused by the Liberian government of recruiting dissident forces to overthrow it last September and charged with treason. He was later flown out of the country following negotiations between the Liberian and U.S. governments, according to Star.
Concern over condition of Liberian children
A child rights advocate has expressed concern about the condition of Liberian children, which he described as "appalling", and called for urgent action to address their problems, according to a report yesterday (Monday) by Star radio.
James Torh made his comments at a workshop on the rights of the child, held in Tubmanburg at the weekend and organised by FOCUS, a child rights group. Local officials attending the workshop cited increases in teenage pregnancy, wayward children and school drop-outs as problems which needed urgent action in order to safeguard the children's future, Star said.
Torh, who is the executive director of FOCUS, called on concerned people to take "appropriate steps" to solve the children's problems. The workshop discussed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and called for it to be respected and protected, Star reported.
More than 100 people from communities in Tubmanburg as well as representatives of government agencies attended.
SIERRA LEONE: Kamajors say they have recaptured key town
The Kamajors, a civilian militia force loyal to President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, have retaken a town in central Sierra Leone after five days of fighting, news organisations reported this week.
However, a spokesman for the West African peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone, ECOMOG, told IRIN he could not confirm the reports.
Reuters yesterday reported a Kamajor commander as saying that the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels had been using the town, Mile 91, as a base for raids throughout the central region. A Kamajor force "overpowered the rebels yesterday (Sunday) and took over the entire town", he said.
However, ECOMOG spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Chris Olukulade told IRIN today: "I know the Kamajors have said this, but I have not been able to confirm it."
Mile 91 is a key stop on the main road from Freetown to Bo, capital of the southern province.
MALI: Local elections postponed for the third time
Local elections originally set for January 1998 in rural communes in Mali have been postponed for the third time.
The polls will now be held on 2 May in the southern regions of Kayes, Koulikoro, Sikasso and Segou, and on 6 June in Mopti, Tombouctou, Gao and Kidal in the north.
The elections are being held at different times in the north and south to make it easier for the authorities to organise them in the country's 682 new rural municipalities, Souleymane Drabo, editor-in-chief of 'l'Essor' newspaper in Bamako, told IRIN. These were created as part of a process of decentralisation, he said.
The local elections were to have been held in January 1998, but faulty voters' lists led to a first postponement to May 1998. After the lists were redone, an opposition boycott led to a second postponement - to 18 April and 23 May in the south and north respectively.
Elections in Mali's 19 urban communes were held last
year.
The latest postponement was made at the request of a
group of 17 opposition parties which asked the government
on 20 March for more time to complete their campaigns,
Drabo said.
CAMEROON: Buea residents return home
People who had fled the Buea area after Mount Cameroon's eruption on Sunday have started returning to the town, an official of a relief agency told IRIN today from the West African nation.
According to the relief official, local radio reported that no one had died or been injured as a result of the eruption, but that around 20 families had lost their homes. However, 'Le Messager' newspaper reported that about 100 buildings had been destroyed and that there had been around 50 tremors on Sunday and Monday.
According to local radio, lava was still flowing on Monday but it was moving towards the sea, not towards population centres.
Asked whether there was any fear of a humanitarian disaster, the relief official said: "At this point, it does not look like it, but we're trying to keep an eye on it."
The eruption, Mount Cameroon's sixth, had sent people in and around the town of Buea, which lies close to the volcano, fleeing to Douala and the petroleum mining centre of Limbe to the south.
Buea, a town of around 250,000 people, is some 60 km west of Douala, Cameroon's commercial capital.
WEST AFRICA: Regional centre for space education
Four English-speaking African countries have agreed to set up a regional centre for space and technology education, PANA reported yesterday.
Officials from ministries of science and technology in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia initialled the agreement at the weekend in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, while a UN expert on space applications, Abiodun Adigun, signed for the United Nations, PANA reported.
The programme, aimed at developing space science and technology education in Africa, will be based in Ile-Ife.
Nigeria and Morocco were chosen in 1995 by UN Outer Space Affairs to host the regional space and technology education centres for Anglophone and Francophone African countries respectively, PANA said.
Correction
Please note that there are 83 seats in Benin's parliament and not 85 as reported in Update 432.
Abidjan, 30 March 1999, 19:05 GMT
[ENDS]
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 19:13:11 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@ocha.unon.org> Subject: WEST AFRICA: IRIN Update 433 for 30 March [19990331]
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
| Previous Menu | Home Page | What's New | Search | Country Specific |