UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
IRIN-WA Update 493 for 24 June [19990625]

IRIN-WA Update 493 for 24 June [19990625]


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 493 of events in West Africa (Thursday 24 June 1999)

SIERRA LEONE: UN Humanitarian Coordinator meets rebels

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Sierra Leone, Kingsley Amaning, met rebel leader Foday Sankoh and his aides on Thursday in Lome, in an ongoing effort to work out mechanisms for access to RUF-held areas in the country.

"The purpose of the meeting was to work out concrete arrangements whereby collaboration in the field could be established," Amaning told IRIN.

He said the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) had confirmed that Josephine Tengbeh would be its representative on the Implementation Committee set up to ensure that humanitarian agencies have safe and unhindered access to all people in need. The Freetown government will be represented by Kanja Sesay.

The committee was set up on 3 June to implement the humanitarian element of the 18 May ceasefire accord between the RUF and the government.

In Freetown, discussions continued on the composition and timing of a planned humanitarian assessment mission to Pendembu, an RUF stronghold in Sierra Leone's eastern Kailahun district, a humanitarian source said.

Facilitation committee meet ECOWAS Chairman

Meanwhile, the Facilitation Committee to the Sierra Leonean peace talks briefed President Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo, current chairman of ECOWAS, on Wednesday following its one-day trip to Freetown and Monrovia, according to UNOMSIL.

In an interview given afterwards, Ambassador Francis G. Okelo, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sierra Leone, said much had been achieved during the dialogue for peace.

Speaking on behalf of the Facilitation Committee, he added that two issues still needed to be resolved: the post-conflict role of ECOMOG and the modality of participation of the RUF in the government.

UN Rights Commissioner visits

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, arrived on Thursday in Freetown via Conakry.

Robinson, who met with the heads of UN agencies in Sierra Leone and state officials, was scheduled to sign a human rights manifesto later Thursday afternoon, along with representatives of the government, local human rights groups and the UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL).

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued statements welcoming Robinson's visit to Sierra Leone and the opportunity it provided to ensure respect for human rights is included in any accord between the government and the RUF.

Both groups agreed there was need for the current negotiations to establish mechanisms to ensure that the perpetrators of the most serious abuses are tried and punished under national and international laws.

"We are concerned that the peace agreement under negotiation in Lome may, as in Abidjan in 1996, prevent those who have been overwhelmingly responsible for human rights abuses from being brought to justice," Amnesty International said in a statement. "The victims' right to truth, justice and reparation must be taken into account," Amnesty added.

In a 60-page report released on Thursday, HRW says Sierra Leone's rebels systematically murdered, mutilated and raped civilians during a January offensive. The report documents how the rebels made little distinction between civilian and military targets as they took control of part of Freetown.

The report says it is difficult to ascertain which level of RUF command ordered these human rights abuses but that some attacks were clearly premeditated.

The report also alleges that ECOMOG and government forces carried out serious abuses, although to a lesser extent, including over the summary execution of over 180 RUF rebels and suspected collaborators. While the victims were mostly young men, witnesses confirmed the execution of some women, and children as young as eight, the report said.

The report noted with concern the contrast between the rapid response by the international community to human rights abuses in Kosovo and the lack of international response to the atrocities committed in eight years of war in Sierra Leone.

NIGERIA: Senate approves 42 of 49 ministerial nominees

Nigeria's Senate approved on Wednesday 42 of the 49 ministerial nominees of President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA)

reported. The senators also approved 12 of the 15 special advisers he proposed.

Nominees who have failed to clear the Senate's hurdle include Theophilus Danjuma, tipped as defence minister, who served as Obasanjo's army chief when he was military ruler from 1976-1979.

A Lagos newspaper, `The Guardian', quoted sources as saying that Danjuma's fate, and that of Hassan Adamu from Adamawa State were yet to be decided.

"Definite reasons were not cited yesterday for the Senate's decision," the newspaper said on Thursday. It said, however, that it learnt that "geographical balancing played a part".

Anti-corruption bill presented to legislature

NTA also reported that Obasanjo on Wednesday presented his first bill, a draft anti-corruption act, to the National Assembly.

The bill, which he had promise to table after being sworn in as president on 29 May, spells out punishment for officials who are found to be corrupt.

Former minister wants ECOMOG to support democratic states

Former Nigerian foreign minister Bolaji Akinyemi suggested on Wednesday that the subregional peace monitoring force, ECOMOG, be used to defend democracy in West Africa.

In a speech at the start of a two-day conference on management of African security in the 21st century, he said Nigeria might soon promote an anti-coup pact in West Africa, `The Guardian' of Lagos reported.

Nigerian troops, he said, should be used only after meeting certain guidelines such as not propping up military or civilian dictatorships. Instead, the troops should be sent to defend democratic orders and to prevent non-West African powers from imposing themselves in the subregion.

In further support of democratic governments, he said the African Development Bank's Nigerian Special Development Fund should not provide assistance to undemocratic regimes.

Akinyemi also wants Nigeria to halt state visits to and from undemocratic nations or those that do not practice inclusive forms of government "except in very special circumstances of state security", the newspaper reported.

GUINEA BISSAU: Government frees POWs

Guinea Bissau freed 177 prisoners of war on Wednesday, in a measure it said was designed to move former civil war foes toward reconciliation, news reports said.

The prisoners, all of junior rank, were released at a ceremony in the Bissau headquarters of the former army mutineers who toppled President Joao Bernardo Vieira in May.

Quoting officials, Reuters said more prisoners would be released in a few days. These would not include senior officers loyal to Vieira, who are were being held far from the capital, Bissau. Originally 307 soldiers were reportedly due for release but the number was scaled down, the Portuguese news agency, Lusa, reported.

It did not say why.

GAMBIA: Cornerstone laid for African human rights centre

Gambia's Attorney General, Fatou Bensouda, laid the foundation stone of the African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS) on Tuesday in Banjul, PANA reported.

Bensouda, who is also secretary of state for justice, said she hoped Africa, with its religious, racial, and ethnic diversity, would unite to ensure the protection of human and peoples' rights through the promotion of democratic principles on the continent, PANA said.

A member of the ACDHRS governing council, Sidiki Kabba, said the purpose of the centre - whose estimated cost is about US $275,000 - was to promote human rights values and democratic principles in Africa, a continent where, he said, these values are often violated.

GHANA: IMF gold sales worry Accra

Ghana's government said on Wednesday that the decision by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to sell gold so that it can provide more aid to poor nations could have a crippling effect on gold-producing countries, PANA reported.

Minister of Energy and Mines Fred Ohene Kena said most gold producing economies were already reeling under a recent depreciation in gold prices and could not afford to experience another price fall.

An assurance by IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus that the fund would make every effort to ensure the sales do not unsettle the markets could not be guaranteed, PANA reported Kena as saying.

"The proposal must be stopped entirely. The IMF must look at some other means of supporting distressed countries that depend heavily on gold to fund their economies instead of selling gold, especially when the price of the commodity is already down," he added.

The IMF's plan to sell 10 percent of its gold stocks and use the money as debt relief for Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) has also been criticised by the World Gold Council (WGC), which blamed it for the fall in gold prices.

The price collapse has already caused developing nations to lose over US $150 million in annual export earnings, more than they stand to gain from the IMF's proposed sale, the WGC said.

Sub-Saharan Africa, which includes 33 of the 41 HIPCs, produces about 25 percent of the world's gold. The metal comprises about 7.8 percent of total exports, earning the region an estimated US $6.8 billion in 1997.

The continent's major gold producers include Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Namibia, Sudan, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

WESTERN SAHARA: WFP food for Sahrawi refugees

The World Food Programme (WFP) is to provide help for refugees from Western Sahara in south-western Algeria up to the end of March 2000 under a proposed Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation (PRRO).

One of the main aims of the operation, expected to cost just under US $3.5 million, is "to provide 80,000 vulnerable people among the refugee populations in camps in Tindouf with the basic food requirements to sustain them while awaiting their repatriation", according to WFP.

The PRRO also aims "to assist 11,000 anaemic women and 8,000 severely malnourished children within supplementary feeding schemes to be implemented by NGOs" and "promote female participation in food management".

Thousands of Sahrawi fled to Algeria after Morocco annexed the former Spanish colony in 1975. A UN-sponsored Settlement Plan provides for a referendum on self-determination and the repatriation of the refugees and their families to Western Sahara.

Abidjan, 24 June 1999, 18:03 GMT

[ENDS]

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Item: irin-english-1100

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

Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar

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