UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
IRIN-WA Update 494 for 25 June [19990625]

IRIN-WA Update 494 for 25 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 494 of events in West Africa (Friday 25 June 1999)

MALI: UNHCR wraps up its operations in the north

The UNHCR has ended its repatriation and resettlement programme for people who fled northern Mali after a Tuareg rebellion broke out in 1990, the UNHCR announced on Friday in Bamako.

The four-year programme, from which some 305,000 refugees and displaced persons benefited, cost more than 24 billion CFA francs (about US $240 million), according to Arnauld-Antoine Akodjenou, UNHCR's representative in Mali.

It included the establishment of 638 resettlement points in Gao, Kidal, Mopti, Segou and Timbuktu.

UNHCR's operations will now be limited to a liaison office that will cater mainly for the some 2,000 urban refugees in Mali. Most are from Sierra Leone and Liberia, while there are also a number of asylum-seekers from the Great Lakes region.

SIERRA LEONE: Urgent attention needed , Robinson says

Sierra Leone requires urgent international attention if it is to overcome its recent history of horrendous human rights abuses, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson said on Friday.

"Having seen the suffering of so many women and girls held as virtual sex slaves, of children and men young and old who have lost limbs as a result of a deliberate policy of amputation, I am more determined than ever to ensure that we focus international concern and attention on Sierra Leone," she said.

Ending a two-day visit to the war-torn country, Robinson said in Freetown she was "deeply shocked" by the extent and cruelty against civilians committed for the most part by members of the RUF during its January assault on the Sierra Leonean capital. Earlier, Robinson visited victims of that incursion and of other attacks carried out during the country's eight-year war.

She said that with peace talks in Lome at a crucial stage, international support to Sierra Leone was vital. Among the measures that could be taken in the short term, she said, were international help to document human rights violations in the country as a step towards establishing accountability, increasing the number of human rights monitors in the country, and working with the government and the society at large to create a "human rights infrastructure in the country".

Human rights manifesto

Robinson commended the stated intention of local authorities to build this infrastructure, as evidenced by the signing on Thursday yesterday of the "Human Rights Manifesto of Sierra Leone". This document reaffirms the government's commitment, and that of the country's civil society, "to the unwavering and non-discriminatory promotion of all human rights for present and future generations in Sierra Leone." It also contains provisions on the establishment of an independent national human rights institution and of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

In the manifesto the government reiterates its commitment to raise the age of recruitment into military service to 18 years and its intention to incorporate into national law the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Sierra Leone has received criticism for allowing the recruitment of children into the Kamajors, a militia of traditional hunters loyal to President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. Many children have also been forcibly recruited into the RUF whose members are accused of committing atrocities.

Robinson was accompanied by a high-level delegation of African and international personalities, including Ketumile Masire, the former President of Botswana.

Ex AFRC soldiers demobilised

Sierra Leone demobilised 254 former members of its former army on Thursday at the start of an internationally-backed disarmament plan in the war-torn country.

"You now have the right to live with your people and contribute to nation-building," Vice President Albert Demby, quoted by Reuters, said.

A humanitarian source told IRIN that the soldiers had been billeted in a former four-star hotel in the west of the city, called the Mamy Yoko. The veterans - former loyalists of a military junta which ruled in alliance with rebels for nine months after a coup in May 1997 - were each given an undisclosed amount of money and discharged.

The government is negotiating with the RUF rebels for a comprehensive accord that would lead to the disarmament of other armed groups in Sierra Leone.

LIBERIA: Sierra Leonean refugees to get identity cards

Sierra Leonean refugees will receive identity cards as soon as the Liberian government removes administrative bottlenecks delaying the process, an official of the Liberian Refugee, Repatriation and Resettlement Commission (LRRRC) told IRIN on Friday.

The documents are awaiting the signature of a official yet to be designated by the government, the source said. The former official responsible has been reassigned, the source added.

A representative of the Sierra Leonean welfare committee, Heixon Abdul, told independent Star radio in Sinje, Grand Cape Mount County, that without the document, refugees were being constantly harassed at checkpoints by security personnel.

However, the LRRRC official said most refugees were not harassed, "except in isolated cases". Refugees preferred identity documents, this official said, because these allowed them access into diamond fields. "Security is not an issue," the official added.

Nevertheless, the official said the documents - being issued by the government and the UNHCR - were valuable in instances such as accidents.

Sierra Leone's 100,000 refugees in Liberia are housed in four camps around Monrovia, two in Kalahun, Lofa County, one in Vahun, Lofa County, and one in Sinje. Among them, the LRRRC official said, are supporters of the RUF and Kamajors who are enemies in their country's civil war.

Africa: UN urged to do more for African refugees

A UN of the 21st Century could strive more to help countries in Africa that face economic and social disruptions in hosting large numbers of refugees, participants in a panel discussion at the African Regional Hearing on the Millennium Assembly have said.

Most refugees are being forced from their countries by internal and inter-state conflicts. Along with this is the growing phenomenon of xenophobia and the emergence of stringent asylum laws on the continent were proof that the legendary African hospitality had been stretched to the limit, participants said, according to the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

Participants in the panel, debating an approach to humanitarian and human rights issues within a global context, noted that the UN's response to the refugee crisis in Kosovo had far outweighed its work in helping Africa's refugees.

Inadequate political will, the participants said, meant that international standards were not employed in establishing refugees camps in Africa and the UN failed to give the required attention to human rights violations in camps. Instances cited included cases where refugee camps were attacked by the military, and where they served as recruitment posts for militias.

Obasanjo tour

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo started on Friday a one-day tour to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Togo, according to news organisations.

A humanitarian source in Freetown told IRIN that Obasanjo had already left the Sierra Leonean capital for Liberia to meet President Charles Taylor.

"The objectives of Obasanjo's mission are not clearly stated," the source said, "but we assume that it is to advance the peace process."

News reports said Obasanjo's discussions with his counterparts might focus on security matters such as ECOMOG, a mainly Nigerian peacekeeping force.

In an interview broadcast on Thursday on Gabon's Africa No 1 radio, Togolese Foreign Minister Joseph Koffigoh advised against a rapid ECOMOG withdrawal from Sierra Leone.

"The idea is that if ECOMOG should pull out hastily it would likely create a vacuum," he said.

Obasanjo nine names special advisers

President Olusegun Obasanjo named on Thursday nine special advisers and seven special assistants among whom figure veteran officials and campaign loyalists, news reports said, quoting an official statement.

Reuters reported that Nigeria's Senate, the upper chamber of the national assembly, authorised Obasanjo to appoint the advisers in addition to the 42 approved ministers.

Cholera outbreak kills up to 200 in north

Up to 200 people have died of cholera in the northern Nigerian state of Bauchi over the past two weeks, news reports say. In a report on Thursday the newspaper `This Day' said several people were in critical condition and that at least 15 people died in the northern city of Kano in April, according to AFP. Of the 20 councils in Bauchi, 12 have been affected by the epidemic.

GUINEA BISSAU: EU postpones debate on sanctions

The European Union has postponed debate of possible economic sanctions against Guinea Bissau and will resume consideration of the matter next week, a diplomatic source in Brussels has told Lusa, the Portuguese news agency.

During discussions on Thursday, most of the 15 EU member countries, led by France, favored sanctions. However, Portugal, the Netherlands and the European Commission were able to convince the EU's German presidency to allow the postponement, Lusa added..

At stake, it said, was community aid allotted to Guinea Bissau by the Lome Convention. Aid to the country has been suspended since June 1998, when a large part of the Guinea Bissau military revolted against President Joao Nino Vieira, ousted in May 1999.

Troops of the Military Junta attacked the French Embassy and cultural centre in their final push to evict Vieira.

COTE D'IVOIRE: Plays on the rules of war

A series of plays organised by The International Committee of the red Cross (ICRC), and its Ivorian counterpart, has been launched at Ky-yi village on the outskirts of Abidjan, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war.

"The objective of the worldwide campaign is to advise people there are rules about war," Christian Frutiger of the ICRC in Abidjan told IRIN on Friday.

Under the theme "Even wars have limits," the play by a theatre group gave its first performance on 19 June at the village, which serves as a centre for the rehabilitation of Abidjan's street children. ICRC's campaign in the Cote d'Ivoire that provides for cultural events, debates on international humanitarian law on the conduct of war. The play was the first in a series in the city on rules of war and has proved highly popular, the ICRC said.

The ICRC is conducting a series of consultations with people who have suffered from wars. These meetings have been taking place in 12 countries, among them Somalia, South Africa, and Nigeria where consultations are currently taking place.

Abidjan, 25 June 1999, 17:55GMT

[ENDS]

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Item: irin-english-1108

[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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