UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
WEST AFRICA: IRIN Update 471 for 25 May [19990525]

WEST AFRICA: IRIN Update 471 for 25 May [19990525]


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 471 of events in West Africa (Tuesday 25 May)

WEST AFRICA: Bid to blacklist Niger fails

West African foreign ministers discussing regional insecurity issues have declined to back an earlier call by Benin, Mali and Sierra Leone to deny recognition to the new military administration in Niger led by Major Daouda Wanke, news reports said.

In their final communique, the 16 ministers of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, said on Tuesday there was "need for an independent committee of enquiry that would look into the death of President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara".

This was a milder version of an earlier draft that referred to Mainassara's death as an "assassination", AFP reported. Mainassara was shot dead by members of his presidential guard on 9 April.

The foreign ministers also agreed to recommend the withdrawal of ECOMOG peacekeepers from Guinea Bissau even though, according to AFP, that country's foreign minister, Hilia Gomes Barbes called for the maintenance of the troops.

Some 600 ECOMOG (ECOWAS Monitoring Group) troops from Gambia, Niger, Benin and Togo were sent to Guinea Bissau earlier this year to monitor a peace agreement between then president Joao Bernardo Vieira and a Military Junta comprising armed forces mutineers.

After the Military Junta overthrew Vieira on 7 May, critics began querying the need for ECOMOG troops in the country.

However, the agreement also provided for the deployment of ECOMOG troops along the border with Senegal to prevent any infiltrations into southern Senegal by separatist guerrillas that might be based in Guinea Bissau.

Sierra Leone peace talks start

Meanwhile, direct talks began on Tuesday in Lome between the Sierra Leone government and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under the auspices of ECOWAS.

The talks, aimed at ending an eight-year rebellion against successive governments, follow a peace deal signed on 18 May by Sierra Leonean President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and RUF leader Foday Sankoh.

Kabbah's five-member delegation is led by Solomon Berewa, Attorney-General and Minister of Justice. The 11-member RUF delegation is headed by Sankoh, whom Kabbah released from prison for RUF consultative talks that preluded this meeting.

A UNOMSIL spokesperson told IRIN that the start of the meeting of the ECOWAS Committee of Seven Foreign Ministers focusing directly on the crisis in Sierra Leone was delayed until late Tuesday.

The Group, chaired by Togolese Foreign Minister Joseph Koffigoh, includes ministers from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

The Group of Seven is to review peace proposals by the Sierra Leone government and the RUF respectively, and mediate between the two parties.

NIGERIA: Tough battle ahead for Obasanjo

Union, human rights and political leaders say they are closely watching the man who on 29 May will become Nigeria's first civilian president after 15 years of military rule.

Salihu Lukman, organising secretary for education research of the Nigerian Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers Union, told IRIN his union wanted Olusegun Obasanjo to shore up the poor purchasing power of the naira and raise duties on textile imports because cheap foreign goods attracted by the current low tariffs are killing local industries.

The executive director of Nigeria's Civil Liberties Organisation, Abdul Oroh, told Reuters recently that one major challenge will be for Obasanjo to restore a powerful military seen by the public as corrupt and oppressive.

Another major challenge awaiting the incoming Nigerian president is how to appease residents of the volatile Niger Delta region, where militant Ijaw youths have been seizing oil installations and kidnapping employees.

[See separate item: irin-english-891 headlined "Tough battle ahead for Obasanjo"]

Kafanchan under curfew

The government of Kaduna State on Monday imposed a curfew in the northern town of Kafanchan, where at least 150 people were estimated to have died in communal violence at the weekend, `The Guardian' newspaper reported on Tuesday.

An uneasy calm settled over the town on Monday as residents stayed indoors and armed police patrolled the city's precincts. The newspaper reported that scores of vehicles and public buildings were burnt down, including the emir's palace.

Saturday's fighting occurred when indigenes from southern Kaduna resisted the inauguration of the new emir of Jemma, near Kafanchan, by the Hausa ethnic group. The indigenes said the emirate was a Hausa cultural imposition on their community.

Bank employees strike

Bank employees in Lagos went on strike for better pay on Tuesday, four days before the inauguration of a civilian as president after 15 years of uninterrupted military rule.

Most banks were shut or staffed by skeletal crews, AFP said. It quoted the general secretary of the National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial institutions Employees (NUBIFIE) as saying that the call was for a nationwide stay-at-home.

The strike follows nationwide salary-related work stoppages by teachers and other public sector employees.

GUINEA: Refugees camps for safer zones

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) plans to move the Tassin refugee camp in Guinea away from the border following a cross-border raid last week by Sierra Leonean rebels.

A UNHCR official told IRIN on Tuesday that Tassin, located in the Forecariah prefecture, was one of seven camps due for relocation farther inland and that the move would involve 30,000 Sierra Leonean refugees.

In the eastern Guinean area of Gueckedou, some 10,000 of the 50,000 refugees living in vulnerable sites have already been transferred to safer locations away from the border. Together, Guinea and Liberia host at least 400,000 Sierra Leonean refugees.

Rebels attacked Tassin between Saturday night and Sunday, the eve of a ceasefire between rebels and the Freetown government. The UNHCR and media sources told IRIN that rebels killed 10 villagers and lost one of their number, a captain.

An official of state-controlled Radio Guinea said 13 wounded villagers were taken to an area hospital.

NIGER: Draft constitution worries members of minority groups

Members of minority groups in Niger have expressed concern about the proposed scrapping of a mechanism that has hitherto guaranteed their communities seats in parliament, a media source told IRIN from Niamey.

In a joint statement read out on Monday on a private radio station, members of the Toubou, Gourmantche and Arab communities said that abolishing eight special constituencies would prevent them from being adequately represented in parliament.

A technical committee set up by the government has proposed the abolition of the special constituencies. That proposal is contained in a draft electoral code the committee presented to the government, along with a new draft constitution, on 18 May.

[See separate item: irin-english-890 headlined "Draft constitution worries members of minority groups"]

LIBERIA: Bishops express concern about country's poor image

Liberian Catholic bishops have called on their government to come up with a "clearly defined" foreign policy in the face of Liberia's "gradual isolation" from the rest of the world, PANA reported on Monday.

"It is disturbing to note that up to now (since the inauguration of the elected government in 1997) there are only a handful of foreign missions accredited near this capital," Bishops Michael Francis, Boniface Dalieh and Benedict Sekey said in the letter, titled 'Liberia, the Third Millenium'.

The letter was published in local dailies on Monday, PANA reported.

The bishops said there was a need "to confront squarely and honestly, the moral, social, economic and political indiscipline which permeate the society".

"Inequitable distribution of the nation's natural resources, misguided economic policies, increasing human rights violations,dependency syndrome ... are salient factors that retard the progress and prosperity of our nation," said the bishops, who also expressed concern about indiscriminate logging.

Abidjan, 25 May 1999, 19:20 GMT

[ENDS]

[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]

Item: irin-english-892

[This item is delivered in the "irin-english" service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information or free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or fax: +254 2 622129 or Web: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999

Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar

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