UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
IRIN-WA Update 562 for West Africa [19991001]

IRIN-WA Update 562 for West Africa [19991001]


UNITED NATIONS 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 562 for West Africa (Thursday 30 September 1999)

SIERRA LEONE: Rebel heads urged to brief troops on peace process

The ECOMOG force commander in Sierra Leone, Major General Gabriel Kpamber, has ordered all commanders and representatives of the rebel RUF and the former Armed Forces Revolutionary Front (AFRC) junta to return immediately to their bases in the bush.

They have been instructed to inform their rank and file of the details of Sierra Leone's peace process and disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programme.

"It is going to be a litmus test of their credibility, their commitment to the peace process," Kpamber said on Thursday on the BBC.

The RUF (Revolutionary United Front) and AFRC commanders, ECOMOG said, should return to Freetown in a week's time and be prepared to "furnish the Joint Monitoring Commission (JMC) with information on their strength, locations".

They should also give the Commission information on the positions and descriptions of all known and unexploded ordnance, minefields, booby traps, wire entanglements and other physical or military hazards as demanded by Article 19 of the Lome Peace Agreement signed on 7 July, ECOMOG said in a statement dated 28 September.

The JMC was established in the Lome accord, signed by the government and the RUF in July, to investigate and take appropriate action on reports of cease-fire violations. Chaired by UNOMSIL it includes representatives from the government, RUF, Civil Defence Force (militias) and ECOMOG.

Kpamber denied that a week was insufficient time for the rebel commanders to provide answers to these questions.

"A week is not a short time because the boys in the bush keep complaining that they are not aware of what is going on in the city," he said.. "They are not fully educated and we feel that their going back to the bush will create a positive impact on the boys," he added.

Kpamber also called on the rebel representatives to give free access to humanitarian agencies and to the DDR technical teams who need to put "essential infrastructure" in place for the DDR programme to start.

He also called on them to release "all POWs or detainees who are still in their camps".

In a report released on Monday UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that the RUF and the AFRC were believed to be holding several thousand civilians, including at least 3,000 children reported missing after the attack on Freetown in January.

The government, ECOMOG and the CDF had assured UNOMSIL that they had released all persons held by them, Annan said.

LIBERIA: Archbishop wins rights award

A Liberian human rights activist, Catholic Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis, has won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for 1999, PANA reported.

"For more than twenty years, often at grave personal risk, the archbishop has repeatedly raised his voice to preach justice, peace and reconciliation," Judge Rose Styron of the RFK Human Rights award noted in a citation.

Francis is the archbishop of Monrovia and the founder of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission (JPC) in 1991, regarded by local observers as one of the foremost human rights organisations in Liberia.

"The JPC postulates the Christian principles of love, justice and freedom, and addresses itself to issues regarding social, economic, political and religious justice as well as respect for human rights," the JPC says in its mission statement.

Francis has also reportedly founded many schools, churches and health centres throughout Liberia and initiated efforts to rehabilitate individuals.

Human rights organisations have continued to report abuses since the election of Charles Taylor to the presidency in July 1997. Taylor has been critical of their efforts to draw attention to these problems.

Education officer deplores state of schools

Learning conditions in Grand Bassa County, some 50 km southeast of Monrovia are still poor two years after the end of Liberia's nine-year civil war, Star radio quoted the county's education Officer, Bismarck Diggs as saying.

Most schools lack chairs and educational materials, Diggs said. He added that efforts to supervise schools were difficult due to a lack of vehicles and that businessmen were charging up to 20 percent to cash teachers' pay cheques.

GUINEA-BISSAU: President appeals for help

Guinea-Bissau's president, Malam Bacai Sanha, appealed on Wednesday at the UN General Assembly for support in his country's efforts to return to constitutional rule.

He said ineffective state authority, bad governance, human rights violations, corruption, the deterioration of living conditions, frustration and despair led to the crisis that erupted in his country in June 1998, when a section of the military rebelled against then president Joao Bernardo Vieira.

Vieira was eventually overthrown by a Military Junta on 7 May 1999 and replaced by a transitional government headed by Sanha.

Sanha said the crisis had deeply shaken his people, led to massive flows of refugees and devastated the economic and social structures of the country. The people now wished to live in peace, fully enjoying their fundamental rights, he said.

Sanha said Guinea-Bissau wanted to promote peace and national reconciliation on the basis of democracy and the rule of law. Presidential and legislative elections have been scheduled for 28 November.

Deadline for parliamentary nominations extended

A humanitarian source in Bissau told IRIN on Thursday that Guinea-Bissau's national assembly agreed on Tuesday to extend the deadline for legislative nominations by 10 days in response to a request by political parties.

The parties had asked parliament to reduce the time which, by law, should elapse between the closure of nominations and the election date from 60 to 50 days, the source said.

GUINEA: Speaker wants troops abroad to come home

The Speaker of Guinea's parliament,Boubacar Biro Diallo, has called on the government to recall Guinean troops serving abroad, Radio France Internationale (RFI) reported on Wednesday.

Diallo called on the government to reconsider its policy on deploying troops abroad and demanded that parliament be consulted before decisions to that effect are made.

Guinean troops are deployed in Sierra Leone under the umbrella of the Economic Community of West African States Cease-Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) and were also sent last year to Guinea-Bissau, from where they were withdrawn in mid-1999.

ABIDJAN, 30 September 1999; 17:20 GMT

[ENDS]

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

Item: irin-english-1692

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

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Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar

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