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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Update 584 (Monday 1 November 1999)
CONTENTS:
SIERRA LEONE: Clashes in the north SIERRA LEONE: Trouble
in the north interrupts food deliveries SIERRA LEONE:
Momoh's health deteriorating SIERRA LEONE: WFP/WVI
mission to Daru and Kailahun LIBERIA: WFP scales down
school-feeding programme LIBERIA: Farmers get help
to attain self-sufficiency COTE D'IVOIRE: US Worried
about arrests COTE D'IVOIRE: Burkina Faso concerned
about political situation CAMEROON: UN Committee looks
at freedom of expression
SIERRA LEONE: Clashes in the north
Clashes between two rebel factions in the northern towns of Makeni and Lunsar have now ended, ECOMOG spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Chris Olukolade told IRIN on Monday.
"There has been recent fighting between rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the (ex-)Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) but it has now subsided," Olukolade said. He described the fighting last week in Lunsar as a "backlash" by the ex-AFRC after its forces were expelled by the RUF from Makeni nearly two week ago.
He said both sides had suffered casualties during the clashes, but there were no further details.
According to Olukolade, the RUF now control Makeni but it was not clear which side had the upper hand in Lunsar. Hundreds of civilians have been displaced by the fighting, he said, adding that ECOMOG had also received reports of looting by rebel forces.
SIERRA LEONE: Trouble in the north interrupts food deliveries
During fighting between rebel factions last week in northern Sierra Leone, ECOMOG could not grant road security clearance for the World Food Programme (WFP) to deliver 60 mt of food from Freetown to Lungi via Rogberi and Port Loko, WFP said in its emergency report last Thursday.
It also put on hold a planned needs assessment mission to Kambia District in the north, but as soon as security improves WFP will go ahead with the mission, the report said.
The fighting broke out less than a month after RUF leader Foday Sankoh and ex-AFRC head Johnny Paul Koroma promised, on returning to Freetown on 3 October, to work together to implement a peace pact the government and the RUF signed on 7 July in Lome, Togo.
Each side has blamed the other for the renewed fighting, Reuters reported.
SIERRA LEONE: Momoh's health deteriorating
Former President Joseph Momoh, who escaped from prison
in January this year following the rebel attack on
Freetown, is being held hostage by rebels and is in
poor health, AFP reported his lawyer Serry Kamal as
saying on Friday.
Kamal told journalists that he had received letters
from Momoh complaining of "slowly losing his eyesight
and suffering from swollen feet", according to
AFP. Lieutenant Colonel Chris Olukolade told IRIN on
Monday that ECOMOG had been trying to secure Momoh's
release from the RUF since the ceasefire was signed
between the government and rebel forces.
Momoh was in Freetown's Pademba Road Prison on conspiracy charges for his part in the May 1997 military coup which ousted President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and brought Major Johnny Paul Koroma, head of the AFRC, to power.
ECOMOG forces drove the AFRC out of Freetown and into the bush in February 1998, thus restoring Kabbah to power.
Momoh had succeeded Siaka Stevens as leader of the ruling All People's Congress in 1986 but failed to stop the country's economic and political decline, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
According to the EIU, growing dissatisfaction with his government led the RUF to launch its rebellion in the southeast of the country and in April 1992, Momoh was ousted by a military coup.
SIERRA LEONE: WFP/WVI mission to Daru and Kailahun
A team of WFP and World Vision International (WVI) officials is to start food-for-work projects in the next two days on the road to Daru in Kailahun District, Eastern Province, once security clearances have been obtained, WFP told IRIN from Freetown on Monday. The mission will also address the needs of vulnerable people between Kenema and Daru, WFP said.
LIBERIA: WFP scales down school-feeding programme
The World Food Programme (WFP) has had to cut back on the number of children on a school-feeding programme it runs in Liberia because of insufficient funding.
Only 20 percent of the resources the WFP needs to implement its Protracted Relief and Rehabilitation Programme - which also covers Benin, Ghana, Guinea and Sierra Leone - has been provided by donors, according to the WFP's Liberia office.
The programme has been going on in Liberia since 1990, except for 1996, when the civil war intensified. In 1998-1999, it provided meals for 510,000 children in 1,734 schools in Liberia, while around 30,000 teachers received food for work. In 1999-2000, however, the number of beneficiaries has been cut to 240,000 children and 12,500 teachers in 956 schools.
The Liberian component of the regional programme is estimated at US $15 million, WFP-Liberia said.
LIBERIA: Farmers get help to attain self-sufficiency
US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Lutheran World Service (LWS)have launched a project to increase the yields of farmers in Liberia's Bomi, Lower Lofa and Nimba counties, LWS Project Manager Yarsiah Weedor told IRIN on Monday.
The project, which began on 1 October, aims to help farmers in the target area to become self-sufficient, Weedor said.
He said the project was being first being implemented in the Tappita District of Nimba County. "Presently, we cannot go into Lower and Upper Lofa county because of the security situation," he said.
The project has four components: a seed-multiplication initiative in rice, roots, tubers and vegetables; producing cocoa and coffee nursery seedlings; building and repairing bridges and roads, and producing farming simple implements; livestock farming.
Farmers will be given goats, sheep and chicken. The farmers will then be expected to pass on the offspring of these animals to other communities, which will continue the process. Weedor said 30,000 farm families were to be covered by the project. LWS is contributing US $189,590 of the US $1.27 million-project and USAID the rest.
COTE D'IVOIRE: US Worried about arrests
The United States is "very concerned" about the arrest of opposition party leaders in Cote d'Ivoire, State Department Spokesman James Rubin said on Friday.
The arrests "appear to be aimed at stifling the
opposition", Rubin said. "We call on the
Ivoirian government to release immediately the 10 leaders
of the Republican Rally party (RDR) who were arrested
on Wednesday, October 27," he added. "We
urge all political parties and their leaders in Cote
d'Ivoire to express, and to be allowed to express,
their views through non-violent means in an inclusive
process."
Secretary-General Henriette Diabate and 19 other RDR
leaders and militants were arrested on 27 October under
an anti-vandalism law after a protest the party had
organised was marred by violence. The detainees are
scheduled to appear in court for the second time on
4 November.
On Tuesday, a judge in the central town of Dimbokro invalidated the certificate of citizenship of former World Bank official Alassane Dramane Ouattara, thus reducing his chances of running for president in elections to be held late next year.
Rubin said that "if the electoral process is opaque,
unfair and/or exclusive, it could provoke civil unrest,
with consequences for the country's political stability,
foreign assistance, trade and investment."
COTE D'IVOIRE: Burkina Faso concerned about political
situation
Burkina Faso is worried about the potential effects of political developments in neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire, government spokesman Tertius Zongo said on Radio France International (RFI) at the weekend.
"When there is minor unrest in Cote d'Ivoire, when there are some economic difficulties in Cote d'Ivoire, the repercussions on the state of Burkina Faso's economy are immediate," Zongo said on RFI. "We have to pray for peace to prevail in Cote d'Ivoire because there is a very strong link between the economies of both countries."
The Burkina Faso government therefore wishes to see
Cote d'Ivoire resolve the prevailing problems, Zongo
said. "Cote d'Ivoire is a sovereign state, but
we want rapid solutions to be found, I mean solutions
that could help Cote d'Ivoire to remain the driving
force of the subregion's economy...," he said.
CAMEROON: UN Committee looks at freedom of expression
The UN Human Rights Committee is concerned by the situation of freedom of expression in Cameroon, according to the committee's chairperson, Cecelia Medina Quiroga.
The state's power to seize and confiscate publications amounts to censorship, Quiroga said as the committee concluded, on Friday, its consideration of the Cameroon government's fourth periodic report on its implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Criminalising views expressed by journalists should be considered as "death to freedom of expression, death to democracy," Quiroga said.
A delegation representing Cameroon's government said journalists had not been arrested or convicted for opinions they had expressed or published although, like any other persons, they could be indicted for crimes related to defamation.
A Committee expert also said that military courts were disturbing elements in a democratic society and that trying civilians in military courts was against the principles of democratic thought.
Earlier this month, a military court sentenced dozens of people to jail terms, including three who were given life imprisonment - in connection with attacks in 1997 against state property in northwest Cameroon.
The attacks were blamed on a group that wants English-speaking western and south-western Cameroon to become a separate state.
//CORRECTION// Attention subscribers, Please note that
the name of the executive director of the Liberia Refugee
Repatriation and Resettlement Commission is Alexander
Kulue and NOT Kunu as erroneously stated in `LIBERIA:
IDPs return home to the southeast' published on 28
October in IRIN-WA Update 582.//
Abidjan, 1 November 1999; 18:36 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1894
[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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