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IRIN-WA Update 490 of events in West Africa (Monday 21 June)
SIERRA LEONE: Powering-sharing agreement imminent?
A source close to the Sierra Leone peace talks in Lome told IRIN on Monday that oustanding issues relating to RUF representation in a proposed government of national unity could be resolved soon.
"There is a process of dialogue which will be resolved in a few hours," the source said in reaction to reports that the talks had been bogged down over the issue of power-sharing.
The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels originally requested 11 cabinet positions, but the government was only prepared to offer two ministerial posts, the source said, adding: "We are now down to about eight. It is all part of the negotiating process."
Meanwhile, Kingsley Amaning, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Sierra Leone, told IRIN he was working closely with the two sides to resolve outstanding issues relating to humanitarian access.
"We are in the final stages of the setting up of the implementation committee and we are making steady progress on establishing mechanisms for providing access," he said.
UNOMSIL releases rebels
UN military observers have released 14 RUF rebels who had been captured by ECOMOG, a UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) source told IRIN on Monday.
Eleven rebels were returned to their base at Laia in the Okra Hills, about 35 km from Freetown, and three others were handed over to UNICEF because they were minors, the source said.
He added that ECOMOG handed over the rebels to UNOMSIL last week after they violated an 18 May ceasefire agreement by entering an area controlled by the peacekeepers.
[See Item irin-english-1065 titled "UNOMSIL releases rebels"]
NIGERIA: Bandits reportedly kill dozens of people
Heavily armed bandits suspected to have come from neighbouring Chad and Niger attacked four communities in the northern Nigerian state of Taraba over the weekend, killing dozens of people, a news source told IRIN.
The source quoted Taraba Governor Jolly Nyame as telling reporters that the "government will not fold its arms to allow such incidents to continue".
Armed men, reportedly guerrillas and former rebels from Chad and Niger, have been ambushing motorists along highways in northern Nigeria for money and attacking villages, stealing mainly cattle and food.
In the weekend attacks, the robbers raided the districts of Kareem-Lamido, Ardo-Kola, Gassol and Bali.
WEST AFRICA: Japan reschedules Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire debt
Japan has rescheduled the payment of Cameroon and Cote d'Ivoire's debts of some 3.28 billion yen (US $27.60 million), the Japanese news agency, Kyodo, reported at the weekend quoting a Japanese Foreign Ministry statement.
Cameroon will have until September 2011 to begin repaying some 604 million yen in 36 six-month installments. Cote d'Ivoire has until the April 2016 to repay 2.68 billion yen (US $22.52 million), in 48 half-yearly installments. The loans carry an annual interest of 1.8 percent.
The Ministry said the rescheduled payments fell in line with guidelines agreed by creditor nations at their 1997 and 1998 meetings on heavily indebted countries.
GUINEA BISSAU: TAP to resume flights to Bissau
Portugal's state-owned airline, TAP, has announced a planned resumption of flights to Guinea Bissau by the end of June, a TAP spokesman told Lusa in Lisbon at the weekend.
The flights, suspended at the outbreak of Guinea Bissau's military rebellion in June 1998, will be direct from Lisbon. Before the rebellion TAP flew to Bissau with a stopover in Dakar, Senegal.
In its report for the 18-31 May period, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) had reported that the continued closure of the airport to commercial traffic had prevented many aid workers from entering the country since there were not enough seats available on twice-weekly UN flights.
In its following report, covering 1-15 June, OCHA said international flights might resume on 23 June from Cape Verde with planes landing in the daytime. OCHA said a Portugese mission that went to Bissau on 1-4 June concluded that the airport might be ready to operate normally by the end of June.
BURKINA FASO: Three presidential guards arrested
Police have arrested three of President Blaise Compaore's bodyguards for their suspected involvement in the torture and killing of David Ouedraogo, a driver of the president's brother, according to news reports.
The three - Sergeant Marcel Kafando, deputy of the head of the president's bodyguards, and sergeants Edmond Koama and Ousseni Yaro - are accused of having killed Ouedraogo in January 1998. They are now being held at the Ouagadougou detention center, AFP reported.
A committee of elders mandated to review cases of crimes of impunity in Burkina Faso, urged police on Thursday to arrest the men, AFP reported quoting a statement from the committee.
The 16-member body, established earlier in June, includes three former heads of state, traditional and religious leaders. President Compaore set up the committee in response to several street demonstrations that followed the death in December 1998 of a popular investigative journalist, Norbert Zongo.
At the time of his death, Zongo had been campaigning vigorously for the arrest of the president's brother, Francois Compaore, whom Zongo wanted charged with Ouedraogo's murder, AFP said.
An independent commission investigating Zongo's death said, in May, he had been killed for political reasons and named six soldiers from the president's security detail as suspects.
NIGER: Parties reach consensus on constitutional arrangements
Niger's political parties have reached a compromise that balances the powers of the president, prime minister and parliament, media organisations reported at the weekend.
The compromise ended a deadlock between the parties on the type of political regime the country should have.
Under a draft constitution that had been handed to the junta on 3 June by a broad-based committee, power would have been shared between a president and a prime minister.
However, it was rejected by two of Niger's three main political parties, apparently because a similar constitution adopted in 1993 had led to a difficult "cohabitation", between rival parties, which had paralysed government.
In a meeting on Wednesday with representatives of all the parties, Major Daouda Mallam Wanke, chief of the ruling junta in Niger, gave them until Friday - later extended to Saturday - to agree on the country's constitution.
The Gabon-based Africa No. 1 radio station quotes Moumouni Adamou Djermakoye, head of the Alliance nigerienne pour la Democratie et le Progres, as saying that the parties had adopted "a constitutional regime which should eliminate the loopholes in standard presidential and semi-presidential regimes".
"Political parties have agreed to innovate in two areas," he added. "First, with the creation of a crisis prevention and resolution body within the political institutions" called the Consultative Assembly of the Republic.
"Second, with the formation of a national unity government to ensure participatory governance, including all political tendencies, during the next administration," he said.
According to AFP, the text of the agreement was handed over to Wanke at a ceremony on Saturday.
It is to be submitted to a national referendum on 11 July.
TOGO: Human rights activists freed
Four human rights activists who were jailed in May for their role in a report on the country by Amnesty International, have been released provisionally, media organisations have reported.
State radio in Lome said the men had been granted freedom pending police investigations into their role in the report, which claimed hundreds of opposition activists were killed in 1998 during and after the re-election of President Gnassingbe Eyadema.
The Togolese authorities have denied the allegations and are suing Amnesty International.
The four men are Tengué Apédoh-Messahn and Gayibo Kokou of the opposition Convention démocratique des peuples africains, Santana Brice of the Association pour la protection des libertés et la défense des droits humanitaires (a human rights group) and Nadjombé Koffi, a member of Amnesty's Togo chapter.
Abidjan, 21 June 1999; 17:38 GMT
[ENDS]
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Item: irin-english-1070
[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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