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IRIN-WA Update 554 of events in West Africa (Monday 20 September 1999)
SIERRA LEONE: UNHCR urges start to disarmament and demobilisation
Half a million Sierra Leonean refugees will have to wait until the disarmament and demobilisation of rival forces is close to completion and security assured before the UNHCR can help them to return home, United Nations Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees Soren Jessen-Petersen said on Monday.
"There is a void in Sierra Leone. Everyone is waiting," he said at a news conference in Abidjan. The time was right, he said, to "seize the moment" and implement the Lome peace accord between the government and the RUF rebels.
An important aspect of this agreement, signed in July, calls for the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of former combatants. Jessen-Petersen, who arrived in Cote d'Ivoire after a visit to Sierra Leone on Friday, said the government in Freetown appeared to be waiting for some six battalions (about 4,800) international peacekeeping troops and the full complement of 210 UNOMSIL military observers to arrive to ensure that there was a secure environment for the start of disarmament.
Just 40 percent of needs at hand
He said the UNHCR had received just 40 percent of what it needed to provide humanitarian help to help Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees. In Guinea the decision to move refugees away from the border, where they have been victims of attacks by armed groups from Sierra Leone, has been hampered by the lack of funds.
Jessen-Petersen is in Cote d'Ivoire for a meeting of UNHCR representatives from West and Central Africa to review the organisation's activities in these regions. He told reporters participants had discussed the possibility of establishing a "regional pact" that would create an environment for economic and political stability and deal with humanitarian issues.
He decried the little money available to African governments like Liberia saying that the country's annual budget was US $70 million, one-fifth of the UNHCR budget for Africa.
"That is a reason why we want this pact," he said.
New plans
In order to attract more money for its cause, he said, the UNHCR would mobilise donors of "moral and strategic" importance to help Africa. The agency will also try to show donors it can manage their contributions efficiently. However, he said, Africa must put its house in order to make this task easier.
LIBERIA: Weapons destruction to be completed soon
The destruction of weapons belonging to former warring factions is expected to be completed in the next two to three weeks in Tubmanburg, Bomi County, an official of the United Nations Peace-building Support Office in Liberia (UNOL) told IRIN on Monday.
"ECOMOG, military and government officials and UNOL are working every day in Tubmanburg to finish the exercise," the source told IRIN.
The weapons destruction came to a standstill in August due to a delay in bringing the necessary equipment to Tubmanburg but resumed in September, the Liberian Ministry of Defence has said.
An official involved with the weapons destruction, Masiamba Tafirenyika, is quoted by independent Star radio on Friday as saying over 18,000 "pieces of arms" ( mainly small arms and assault rifles) had been destroyed. He added that a 105 mm howitzer and an anti-tank gun were destroyed earlier in the week. The metal parts of the guns will be used to manufacture agricultural tools, Tafirenyika said.
Office for former combatants set up
Liberia has established a special office to meet the needs of ex-combatants following protests from former fighters that their concerns were being ignored, news organisations reported.
The office will operate under the Social Welfare Division at the Health Ministry, Jonathan Taylor, minister of state for presidential affairs reportedly said in a statement. He said the office would be charged with compiling a database for all former fighters.
Between 150 and 200 war veterans demonstrated outside the UNOL Office in Monrovia in July demanding resettlement assistance from the international community.
Taylor blames rebel incursions on Liberians in USA
President Charles Taylor has blamed Liberians resident in the United States for supporting the recent rebel incursions into Liberia's Upper Lofa County, Radio Nigeria-Kaduna reported.
It said that at a news conference in Abuja on Saturday Taylor accused some of the 250,000 Liberians in the United States of sponsoring dissidents to escalate the conflict, to convince the US government that Liberia was unsafe for their return home.
Presidents Taylor and Lansana Conte of Guinea signed an agreement on Thursday aimed at easing tension between the two countries. This came after weeks of trading accusations of supporting insurgents fighting each other's governments.
Taylor visited Burkina Faso, his traditional ally, on
Sunday for talks with President Blaise Compaore on
peace efforts in the region, Reuters reported.
SAO TOME/PRINCIPE: Looking for help from the IMF
A World Bank/IMF team found that a preliminary agreement with Sao Tome and Principe was going well but that more work needed to be done on reforms before a proposed adjustment programme could qualify for financing, a humanitarian source told IRIN.
The team, which ended a two-week visit to Sao Tome and Principe at the weekend, said the government would have to adjust its spending to bring it in line with levels agreed in a referential programme concluded with the two Bretton Woods institutions.
It will also have to press ahead with administrative reform and formally announce the privatisation of state companies, the team found.
[See separate Item: entitled ' Sao Tome/Principe: Looking for help from the IMF']
NIGERIA: Government enlists FBI in search of US $2.2 billion loot
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has formally asked his United States counterpart, Bill Clinton, for help in the recovery of over US $2.20 billion allegedly stolen form the Central Bank of Nigeria by the late military ruler, General Sani Abacha and his family.
"It was not clear whether a trip to the United States at the weekend by the National Security Adviser, Lieutenant General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, was connected with the Federal Government's request to the US authorities," said `The Guardian', a leading Lagos newspaper, on Monday.
It said "it was believed" that agents from the Nigerian Police Special Fraud Unit and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had initiated an enquiry. Clinton's promise to help Nigeria recovery the money had strengthened the on-going investigations, it said quoting presidential sources.
Obasanjo has also written to "the highest authorities" in Belgium, Britain, France and Switzerland, the paper quoting the official as saying, to pursue charges of "criminal conspiracy, large-scale misappropriation of public funds, corrupt enrichment and stealing involving the sum of $111 million belonging to the Federal Government."
Army warns warring communities
Representatives of warring Ilaje and Ijaw communities in Edugugba, in the southern Nigerian state of Ondo, have been told to restrain their people from shooting at soldiers sent to bring order to the area, state owned Radio Nigeria reported at the weekend.
The general officer commanding the 2 Mechanized Division ordered his troops to shoot if attacked but also to resist any influence to subvert the relative peace that has returned to the area.
The division was sent to the riverine community when fighting broke out early August between the two communities. The conflict originated in September 1998 over control of land, following rumours that Western oil companies were interested in the area. In Nigeria, land ownership often leads to substantial financial compensation to the communities.
Ijaw youths warn Ondo State over oil field
In another potentially explosive situation, `The Guardian' Egbema Ijaw youths warned the Ondo State government on Sunday to steer clear of the Opuoma oil field because, they said, it belonged to Delta State to which a proposed five billion naira royalty was to be paid.
Under the banner of the Egbema Youth Vanguard, `The Guardian' reported on Monday, the Ijaws said during a news conference in Lagos that the oil fields were located within the Warri division of the Delta State and not in Ondo.
"It is on record that Tsekelewu and Opuama are both Ijaw communities on the western end of Warri North Local government, sharing a common boundary with the Ilaje-Ugbo of Ondo State," Joel Bisma, the group's president, said.
He added that the instrument which established the old Warri Divisional council in 1955 listed Egbema Local Council as one of seven in the Warri division. The newspaper reported that on 16 August, the Ondo State government urged the Federal government to pay the oil royalty as a share of the oil revenue that accrued from the field. Bisma warned that unless there was intervention the dispute could degenerate into another crisis in the periodically volatile area. area.
NIGER: Government sacks senior finance ministry officials
President Alpha Oumar Konare's government has sacked all the finance ministry's national directors, a statement issued after Wednesday's cabinet meeting reportedly said.
The government announced the removal of senior officials responsible for customs, taxation, government finances, the budget and public debt but gave no reasons for their departure.
However, Reuters has quoted commentators, government sources and newspapers as linking the move to Konare's campaign to smash corruption as well as speculating that a cabinet reshuffle was imminent.
"Konare has made up his mind to hit where it hurts most and nothing will stop him," the pro-government newspaper Les Echos reportedly said..
Abidjan, 20 September 1999; 18:54 GMT
[ENDS]
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Item: irin-english-1646
[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, free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org 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
Subscriber: afriweb@sas.upenn.edu Keyword: IRIN
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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