| 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 437 of events in West Africa (Wednesday 7 April)
GUINEA BISSAU: Security Council calls for commitment to peace pact
The UN Security Council has called on the former warring parties in Guinea Bissau to fully implement a peace agreement they signed in Abuja on 1 November 1998, and whose provisions include the holding of national elections, according to a UN press release.
In a resolution passed on Tuesday, the Council called on the two sides to adopt and implement all measures needed to ensure the smooth functioning of the country's national unity government, including confidence-building measures and steps to encourage the early return of refugees and internally displaced persons.
The government of national unity is headed by Prime Minister Francisco Fadul. It was sworn in on 24 February under the Abuja agreement, which followed a civil war between supporters of President Joao Bernardo Vieira and a self-proclaimed military junta led by army chief General Ansumane Mane.
The Security Council called on the parties to agree
promptly on an election date and to hold polls that
are all inclusive, free and fair. It invited the United
Nations and others to consider providing any needed
electoral assistance.
The Security Council also asked the UN Secretary-General
to consider convening a meeting in New York with the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
to assess the needs of the ECOWAS Monitoring Observer
Group (ECOMOG), with a view to mobilizing and channelling
assistance for peacekeeping in Guinea-Bissau.
The Council welcomed a planned roundtable of donors on Guinea-Bissau, sponsored by the UNDP. That conference is to be held in Geneva on 4-5 May to mobilize assistance for the country's humanitarian needs, its socio-economic rehabilitation and peace-building.
Soldiers withdraw fron front line
LUSA news agency reported a spokesman for the Military Junta, Zamora Induta as announcing on Tuesday that soldiers had completed their withdrawal from the former "front line" in the capital on Monday and returned to their barracks.
He said the junta was awaiting confirmation of the operation by the ECOMOG peacekeepers stationed in Bissau, so that the disarmament process could begin in the interior, according to LUSA.
Parliament to look into arms trafficking
Guinea's national assembly is to hold an extraordinary
session on 12 April to discuss a report by a parliamentary
commission on the smuggling of weapons to secessionist
rebels in the Casamance region in southern Senegal,
AFP reported an official source in Bissau as saying.
Record cashew nut harvest expected
Meanwhile government officials predicted on Monday that
Guinea-Bissau will harvest a record 60,000 mt of cashew
nuts, worth some US $50 million, for export this year,
according to LUSA.
Assistant Secretary of State for Commerce Suleimane Djassi said the record crop was "vital" for relaunching the country's economy, largely paralysed by the civil war, LUSA added.
Guinea Bissau is the world's sixth largest cashew nut exporter. Its previous record was 45,000 mt in 1997.
LIBERIA: Villagers versus logging concerns
The independent Star Radio on Tuesday reported parliamentarians from Maryland County on Liberia's border with Cote d'Ivoire as saying that fighting there between local residents and two logging companies had killed two people and injured many others.
The clashes took place in the district of Barrobo and, according to the chairman of the Maryland County legislative caucus, Senator Lomax Cox, five villages were burnt, Star Radio said.
Cox said an investigation would be conducted into the matter. Officials of the logging companies and the Forestry Development Authority have been summoned by the caucus, which will review the companies' concession agreements, Star Radio reported Cox as saying.
According to the radio station, people in Barrobo are demanding that the two companies, the Liberia Lumber and Wood Processing Company and the Togba Timber Company, fulfil promises made to them.
They claimed the companies promised to rehabilitate roads, and build a guest house and an administrative building in Barrobo.
Making the constitution easier to understand
The Liberia Democracy Watch has launched a simple-English version of the Liberian constitution, Star Radio reported on Wednesday. An official of the pro-democracy organisation, which launched the book on Monday in Monrovia, said it intended to make the document accessible to many people, Star reported.
It quoted the official, Augustine Toure, as saying that people with little formal education would be able to read the simplified version, of which the Liberia Democracy Watch has printed an initial 2,000 copies.
The organization said it published the document with support from the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and funds from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Toure said his organisation intended to print about 20,000 copies to be given out free.
SIERRA LEONE: UN worried about human rights violation
The Commission on Human Rights has called on warring factions and forces in Sierra Leone to "respect human rights and abide by applicable international humanitarian law".
In a resolution reached in a private session and made public on Tuesday, the Commission said it would stop discussing the Sierra Leone situation in private and take it up in public under its agenda item "the question of the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms in any part of the world."
The resolution means that Sierra Leone will be on the
official agenda of the UN Commission on Human Rights
next year, Reuters reported a UN spokesman as saying.
Sierra Leone appeals to Liberia to help end war
Sierra Leone's new ambassador to Liberia, Kemoh Salia-Bao, appealed on Tuesday to Liberian President Charles Taylor to help end the civil war in his country, news organisations reported.
"Considering the economic, cultural and social ties between our two nations, Sierra Leoneans are convinced that with your personal intervention, the war can speedily come to an end," Reuters quoted Salia-Bao as saying at his accreditation ceremony. He added that Sierra Leone believed in "mutual respect and sovereignity."
According to Reuters, Salia-Bao did not mention the charge frequently levelled at Taylor by Sierra Leone and international organisations that he supports the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels, a charge Taylor has always denied.
Sankoh talks with rebel commanders
Meanwhile, over the past few days, Sankoh has talked by telephone with his military commanders and their spokesman, Reuters reported.
Omrie Golley, spokesman and lawyer of Sankoh's RUF said he had talked to Sankoh on Tuesday and said he was "looking forward to preliminary peace talks with his commanders in Togo on 18 April," according to Reuters.
Gollie added "he was very much supportive of trying to enter into sincere dialogue with the government."
Sankoh was sentenced to death on treason charges last October. Kabbah has agreed to let him travel to Togo to meet with his commanders prior to holding peace talks with the government.
Rebels attack and plunder traders' boats
Meanwhile rebels killed more than 50 people when they attacked two traders' boats in southern Sierra Leone, according to AFP.
An official of the Tissana Boatsmen Association said the attack happened on Saturday near Kigbla, some 70 km south of Freetown, AFP reported. The official said the rebels opened fire from the shore and then used canoes to loot the boats of kerosene and food supplies.
According to AFP, the traders were taking their supplies by boat for sale in the interior because roads are still closed by the conflict.
NIGERIA: Pipeline fire shuts 21 flow stations
Royal Dutch Shell said on Tuesday it had shut down 21 flow stations in southern Nigeria with a combined crude oil production of more than 100,000 barrels a day after a pipeline fire last Thursday, Reuters reported.
A spokesman told Reuters sabotage was suspected since a suspicious looking boat had been seen near the scene of the fire but had disappeared when further investigations were made.
Companies operating in the oil-rich Niger Delta region have faced an increase in violent disruptions by local people who want a share of the oil wealth pumped from their land. The BBC reported on Wednesday that the demands of local community groups, including the militant Ijaw Youth movement, include compensation for the pollution of their land.
Falae may not appeal to Supreme Court
Meanwhile Nigeria's president-elect, Olusegun Obasanjo,
said Wednesday that he had found "a huge stock
of goodwill abroad" on the first leg of his trip
to meet world leaders, news organisations reported.
Obasanjo returned home on Tuesday, a day after a constitutional
court dismissed a petition against his victory at February's
presidential polls that had been filed by unsuccessful
challenger Chief Olu Falae.
"The Guardian' newspaper in Nigeria reported on Wednesday that no firm decision had been taken on whether Falae would appeal against the decision. His lawyers had hinted that Falae was reluctant to approach the Supreme Court, and had said they were "not sure" whether an appeal would be made, 'The Guardian' said.
GHANA: Lower inflation
Ghana's inflation rate fell from 15.7 percent in December to 15 percent at the end of February, PANA reported Henry Kwampah, head of the research department of Bank of Ghana, as saying.
Opening a three-day seminar on financial and economic
reporting on Tuesday, he added that the money supply
increased by 16.8 percent in 1998 with the central
bank's net financial assets growing by US $100 million,
exceeding an original target of US $60 million.
Kwampah attributed the developments to a tight monetary
policy by the central bank
The money supply grew by 17.6 percent in December 1998,
and by 17.2 percent at the end of February 1999, according
to Kwampah.
He also said that the local currency, the cedi, depreciated by four percent in 1998 as against almost 23 percent in 1997.
ABIDJAN, 7 April 1999, 19:08 GMT
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 19:09:00 +0000 (GMT) From: IRIN
- English <editor@ocha.unon.org> Subject: WEST
AFRICA: IRIN Update 437 for 7 April [19990408]
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
| Previous Menu | Home Page | What's New | Search | Country Specific |