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IRIN-WA Update 444 of events in West Africa (Friday 16 April)
GUINEA BISSAU: A new humanitarian report
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)in Guinea Bissau said in a report this week that at least four people had been injured landmine accidents and by unexploded ordnance (UXOs) since the beginning of the month.
The report gave a detailed breakdown of humanitarian progress since Brigadier Ansumane Mane, the leader of an army rebellion, and President Joao Bernardo Vieira, signed a peace treaty at the end of the year. It said the border area near the separatist Senegalese province of Casamance remained the most tense area of the country.
It said most residents who had fled the capital Bissau during fighting between the government and army rebels last year had now returned home. Several thousand internally displaced people around the country were likely to settle in the areas to which they fled.
But the airport and banking facilites remained closed thus impeding the resumption of normal economic activity and hampering relief operations.
Donor funding
"Due to a limited response to the last UN Inter-Agency Consolidated Appeal, there is an urgent need for donor funding to implement humanitarian programmes, especially in the agriculture, food and health sectors," the OCHA report said.
Mines awareness campaign
UNICEF it said was coordinating a mine awareness campaign in cooperation with the West African peacekeeping force ECOMOG, local NGOs, Swedish Save the Children (Radda Barnen), International Rescue Committee (IRC). Holding weekly meetings, the group was also mapping the location of minefields and UXOs.
Health situation
It said the WHO and the Ministry of Health had reported 2,123 cases of meningitis by 4 April since the beginning of an epidemic in January. It said 500,000 doses of meningitis vaccine, 250,000 donated by Cooperation Francaise and 250,000 by MSF-Spain, were delivered on 10 April enabling a vaccination campaign to get underway.
Food for work project
WFP, in partnership with other organisations, was currently sponsoring a food-for-work project to repair irrigation channels and dams protecting rice fields. The project due for completion next month, was providing work for 1,251 households and indirect benefits to 11,773 people, more than half of them women.
ICRC tents provided
The ICRC had distributed 1,800 tents to Bissau residents whose homes were destroyed. ICRC distribution of food and non-food items was now being taken on by the national Red Cross, and NGO's.
The refugee situation
According to UNHCR figures, the country was currently providing asylum for 6,604 refugees. This figure included 5,415 Senegalese refugees dispersed in the northern frontier areas and approximately 750 grouped at the Jolmette refugee camp, some 200 km east of Bissau. Other refugees from Liberia and Sierra Leone were in urban areas of Bissau.
It also reported government figures stating that an estimated 8,500 citizens of Guinea Bissau were still out of the country, including 3,500 in Portugal and others in Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea and Senegal.
NIGERIA: Religious law and the new constitution
Nigeria's ruling council dismissed reports on Friday it was seriously divided over whether Islamic law should have a place in the new constitution, news organisations reported.
"There is no plan to impose Sharia law on the Nigerian populace," Rear-Admiral Taiwo Odedina told reporters after a four-day meeting of the Provisional Ruling Council (PRC) which ended on Friday without releasing the constitution.
Meanwhile Nigeria's transport minister, Rear Admiral Festus Porbeni, said on Thursday that the new constitution would not come into effect until 29 May, even if it was released earlier, the independent daily, 'The Guardian', reported.
Nigeria's military rulers are due to hand power to the civilian president-elect, General Olusegun Obasanjo on 29 May.
Hopes for end to strike
There were signs on Thursday that a central directive might order state governments to implement the new minimum wage of 3,000 naira (US$32) to end an indefinite strike by government workers which started this week.
A report in 'The Guardian' on Friday said the indication of the directive had been given by Sylvester Ogbeifun, chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
The NLC called for industrial action on Tuesday in 28 states where the governments had not implemented the minimum wage. An NLC official said the strike was being strongly supported in the east and southwest of Nigeria and gaining support in the north, AFP reported.
So far only eight states have agreed to pay the minimum wage. Others have cited inadequate revenue or said they were still negotiating terms.
Traders killed in clash with police
Several people were killed in a clash between police and market traders in the economic capital Lagos on Wednesday as officials demolished illegally constructed housing on the city outskirts, media reports said.
The traders were protesting against the demolition and the police reportedly opened fire killing at least six people.
SIERRA LEONE: ECOMOG to start phased withdrawal later this year
The Nigerian-led West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, will begin a phased withdrawal from Sierra Leone later this year, Nigeria's chief of defence staff, Air Marshal Al-Amin Daggash told a one-day meeting of regional chiefs of staff.
"As we look to the future," he said in a television broadcast monitored by the BBC, "we must build on planning, training, and developing the Armed Forces of Sierra Leone with a view to replacing the ECOMOG troops later in the year, when our phased withdrawal will have no alternative but to commence."
Daggash who chaired the meeting in the Nigerian capital Abuja, recalled that Nigeria with 11,000 soldiers involved in the operation, was not only the major contributor of men and materiel, but that it also bore much of the financial burden.
ECOMOG was set up in 1990 by ECOWAS and relocated to Freetown after the seven year civil war in Liberia. Other nations involved in the Sierra Leone operation are Ghana, Guinea, and Mali.
The broadcast quoted the ECOWAS executive secretary, Lansana Kouyate, as saying the international community had to help ECOMOG meet the logistical requirements of the peacekeeping force. He reiterated a warning by ECOMOG earlier in the week that it would only be able to contain the crisis in Sierra Leone with an additional 5,000 troops.
UN to escort rebel leader
The UN said on Friday it would provide transport and assistance to Foday Sankoh, the detained leader of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel movement when he travels to Togo for talks this weekend with his commanders.
A UN official in the capital, Freetown, told IRIN that it would provide military observers and a secretariat for the talks to be held in Kara, the home village of Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema. Sankoh, who has been in detention for two years and sentenced to death for treason last November, was granted authorisation by the government to meet with his men in "neutral" territory.
Officials said the talks were aimed at eventually paving the way for negotiations between the rebels and the government of President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.
Nine journalists killed since January
The international Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF), said on Friday that more journalists had been killed in Sierra Leone this year than any other country in the world.
"Eight were killed in a few days in January by soldiers of the RUF, and the ninth was executed at the beginning of February by ECOMOG troops," RSF said in a statement released to coincide with the Togo talks. "Never since the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 have journalists come under such attack"
It said journalists in Sierra Leone had been threatened, attacked and tortured and it cited the case of Mustapha Sesay of the 'Standard Times' whose right eye was gouged by RUF rebels.
NIGER: Rights group demands investigation into assassination
Niger's leading human rights group, the Niger Human Rights Association, has demanded an inquiry into the assassination last Friday of President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara, according to news reports.
"The association reiterates its demand for an inquiry to shed light on the circumstances of the death of Mainassara," it said in a statement. It also called on the new military junta to reduce the duration of its nine-month transition rule to avoid the economic cost to Niger of aid suspension by foreign donors, Reuters said.
Meanwhile officials of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) said the killing of Mainassara could cause instability and economic disruption throughout the region.
Mainassara was gunned down at Niamey airport last week by members of his presidential guard. The new military junta led by Major Daouda Mallam Wanke has described his death as "an unfortunate accident" saying there was thus no need for an investigation.
CAPE VERDE: Drug abuse and child prostitution
The main social problems facing Cape Verde are drug abuse and child prostitution, the Portuguese news agency LUSA reported in a dispatch quoting Ana Paula Almeida, the country's assistant secretary for public administration.
One of the causes was the country's growing dependence on tourism, Almeida added. Her remarks were made during a visit to Portugal where she signed a cooperation agreement for training social workers.
WEST AFRICA: New Sahel resolutions
Leaders of the Community of Sahel and Saharan States (COMESSA) meeting in Sirte, eastern Libya, this week signed protocols to enable the free movement of people and capital among their nations and the establishment of a regional development bank, according to a Jana Libyan news agency report monitored by the BBC.
The meeting which was chaired by the Libyan leader, Moammar Kadhafi, was attended by Presidents Alpha Omar Konare of Mali, Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, Alpha Omar Konare of Mali, Omar Bashir of Sudan and Idriss Derby of Chad with the presidents of Central African Republic and Eritrea present as observers.
Abidjan, 16 April 1999, 1600 GMT
[ENDS]
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 16:47:24 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.ocha.unon.org> Subject: WEST AFRICA: IRIN Update 444 for 16 April [19990417]
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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