UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
IRIN-WA Update 548 for 10 September [19990910]

IRIN-WA Update 548 for 10 September [19990910]


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 548 of events in West Africa (Friday 10 September 1999)

REFUGEES: Thirtieth anniversary of OAU convention

The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Friday marked the 30th anniversary of the OAU Convention on Refugees with an appeal on behalf of the eight million people forced from their homes in Africa.

OAU Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim and High Commissioner Sadako Ogata noted in a joint statement that Africa accounted for four million refugees and as many people displaced within their countries by human rights abuses, civil war and other conflicts. They urged African nations "to create conditions conducive to the respect of refugee-protection norms".

While there were still many flash points on the continent, they said, it was heartening to see that thousands of refugees had already returned home in countries such as Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique and South Africa.

The Convention took effect on 20 June 1974 after being adopted by OAU leaders on 10 September 1969.

WEST AFRICA: Telecommunications ministers meet

West African telecommunications ministers met on Friday in Bamako, Mali, to consider ways to improve direct connection among the 16 member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), an official of the regional body told IRIN.

They examined issues related to the future of the Special Telecommunication Fund set up to improve direct connections in the subregion. The ministers also reviewed progress in implementing the Intelcom II Programme.

Intelcom II is to provide ECOWAS with a modern, reliable telecommunications network able to handle all services, including multimedia operations. To this end, ECOWAS has signed a US $222,000 deal with the International Telecommunication Union.

This amount, to be provided by the ITU, is 67.6 percent of the project cost. ECOWAS says it expects to provide the remainder - US $106,400. ECOWAS is made up of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

LIBERIA: Rights body says Koroma's presence a menace

A human rights body says the presence in Liberia of Sierra Leone's ex-military junta leader, Johnny Paul Koroma, could have a destabilising effect on Liberia, AFP reported on Thursday.

The Liberia Council and Human Rights Alliance fears that Koroma, who purportedly leads the former soldiers of the Sierra Leonean Army (ex-SLA), could use Liberia as a command post to attack his erstwhile ally, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). The RUF and the ex-SLA are estranged because the former soldiers say the RUF neglected them in negotiating a power-sharing deal with the government of Sierra Leone.

Liberian politician Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf told IRIN on Friday that if Koroma and the RUF failed to resolve their differences and both sides resorted to fighting the Liberia government would likely be forced to take sides, an act that would put Liberia and Liberians at risk.

"Koroma has to stop being afraid of going home," she said.

Ealier the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, appealed to Koroma and RUF leader Foday Sankoh to return home. Doing so and taking bold and concrete measures to implement the accord, Otunnu said, would "demonstrate their commitment to peace".

That task of prodding them in that direction has fallen on the UN Special Representative in Sierra Leone, Francis Okelo. He visited Liberia on Wednesday to see Koroma, and was in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, on Friday to persuade Sankoh to return to Freetown.

SIERRA LEONE: Otunnu urges Agenda for Action for children

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict has proposed a special "Agenda for Action for the Children of Sierra Leone", after completing a six-day mission to Sierra Leone and Guinea on 4 September.

"Apart from the imperative of re-establishing credible security and peace, the crisis of the children is the most important challenge facing Sierra Leonean society today," Olara Otunno said.

The Agenda proposes the establishment of a national commission for children to ensure that their rights and welfare are a central concern in the aftermath of the war in Sierra Leone and that their needs are reflected in national priority-setting, policy-making and resource allocation.

Special programmes are needed to rehabilitate persons without limbs and to provide trauma counselling to sexually abused girls, according to the Agenda.

Otunnu also called on the government, the Civil Defence Force and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) to observe their commitment not to recruit people under 18 years into armed groups. He said there was an urgent need for ex-child soldiers to be disarmed, demobilised and reintegrated under the guidance of a Joint Task Force established in May 1998 for that purpose.

The Agenda calls on the RUF leadership to give humanitarian agencies access to abducted children held behind their lines as a first step to their early release.

It proposes radio stations and programmes devoted to children's needs as a means of promoting reconciliation and satisfying children's hunger for information, recreation and entertainment.

Otunnu said services such as educational and medical facilities for children should be given high priority and he called on the international community to provide more resources to consolidate peace for the benefit of women and children.

He also called on the leaders of the RUF and Sierra Leone's former military junta to "acknowledge fully their role in the horrific atrocities committed during the war, most of them directed against children and women".

GHANA: Border bridge collapses

More than 100 trucks have been delayed in northeast Ghana by the collapse of a bridge damaged during recent floods at Kulungungu on the border with Burkina Faso, the BBC reported on Thursday.

The bridge, which had reportedly been weakened by vandals stealing parts, forms an important link to landlocked Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, which depend on Ghanaian sea ports for their external trade, according to the BBC.

WESTERN SAHARA: Extension of MINURSO's mandate recommended

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday recommended a three-month extension to 14 December of the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).

The extension, on which the Security Council will decide early next week, is aimed at enabling the United Nations to finish registering voters, processing appeals and repatriating refugees ahead of the referendum, scheduled for the year 2000.

MINURSO was set up under a 1988 Settlement Plan to monitor a ceasefire between the Moroccan army and guerrillas of the Polisario Front fighting for independence for the former Spanish colony annexed by Morocco in 1975. As at 6 September, 230 MINURSO military observers and troops from 24 countries were involved in monitoring the ceasefire, Annan said in his report.

MINURSO's tasks also include identifying and registering eligible voters. Annan said 80 civilian police observers were assisting the Identification Commission at identification and appeals centres.

Next year's referendum will determine whether Western Sahara is to gain full independence or become part of Morocco. A provisional list of eligible voters was issued on 15 July 1999.

Annan said the Identification Commission expected to finish identifying applicants by year's end, but reviewing the 47,796 appeals would require more time and staff than originally envisaged.

As at 3 September, some 40,440 persons had appealed against their exclusion from the provisional list. The other 7,356 appeals were from people challenging the inclusion of others on the list.

UNITED NATIONS: Annan calls for shift to prevention

Natural disasters have increased in recent years and there were more wars in 1998 than before, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Thursday, urging the international community to shift from reaction to prevention.

Last year's increase in armed conflicts is particularly worrisome because the incidence of warfare had been on the decline since 1992, Annan added in a report released in New York on Thursday.

In a bid to draw attention to these issues, part of the report has been published as an essay titled 'Facing the Humanitarian Challenge - Towards a Culture of Prevention'.

In his report, Annan deplores the fact that "our political and organizational cultures and practices remain oriented far more towards reaction than prevention".

[See separate item titled 'Secretary-General calls for shift to prevention']

GUINEA-BISSAU: PAIGC chooses new chairman, expels Vieira

Guinea-Bissau's main political party, the PAIGC, elected lawyer Francisco Benante as its new chairman on Thursday, the last day of its congress in Bissau, news reports said.

Benante, 45, headed the reform wing within the Partido Africano da Independencia da Guine e Capo Verde (PAIGC), AFP said, and is the only civilian in the self-styled Military Junta that overthrew President Joao Bernardo Vieira this year.

The congress also expelled Vieira from the party for "treasonable offences, support and incitement to warfare, and practices incompatible with the statutes of the party", AFP said. He was party chairman. Also sacked on similar grounds is former prime minister Carlos Correia and five other members of the ousted government..

Abidjan, 10 September 1999; 19:38 GMT

[ENDS]

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

Item: irin-english-1586

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

Subscriber: afriweb@sas.upenn.edu Keyword: IRIN

Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar

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