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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Update 585 (Tuesday 2 November 1999)
CONTENTS:
SIERRA LEONE: Lunsar and Makeni in RUF hands SIERRA LEONE: US and Norway announce aid for war victims NIGERIA: Lagos government imposes curfew on Ajegunle NIGERIA: Obasanjo on the imposition of the Shar'ia in Zamfara AFRICA: Proposed US budget cut would hurt African peacekeeping EQUATORIAL GUINEA: AI calls for release of political prisoners
SIERRA LEONE: Lunsar and Makeni in RUF hands
Rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) have gained control of the northern towns of Lunsar and Makeni, according to news reports that quoted RUF leader Foday Sankoh.
Sankoh said he gave his fighters instructions to overrun the towns as some of the former Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) soldiers did not want to give peace a chance, news organisations said.
ECOMOG spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Olukolade told IRIN on Tuesday that he did not dispute the claim and had not heard reports to the contrary, whether from the AFRC or other sources.
"There are indications that Lunsar is calm and the stage is set to continue disarmament," Olukolade added.
SIERRA LEONE: New demob centres to open on Thursday
At an emergency session of the National Committee for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration on Monday, it was agreed that four new demobilisation centres would open this week, a reliable UN source told IRIN on Tuesday.
The centres, to open on Thursday, include two in Port Loko - one for ex-Sierra Leonean Army combatants (SLA) and one for RUF rebels, one in Kenema for Civil Defence Forces (CDF) and one in Daru for RUF fighters. At the meeting, Sankoh and Johnny Paul Koroma, head of the ex-AFRC, both agreed to tell their combatants to hand over their weapons at the centres.
The meeting, chaired by President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, was also attended by UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) officials including Francis Okelo, Special Representative of the Secretary General and Brigadier Joshi, Chief Military Officer.
ECOMOG representatives, government officials and US Ambassador Joseph Melrose were also at the meeting, the UN source said.
Meanwhile AFP reported on Monday that some 100 ex-AFRC soldiers had surrendered to the RUF in Makeni last Friday. ECOMOG was unable to confirm this.
SIERRA LEONE: US and Norway announce aid for war victims
US President Bill Clinton and Norweigan Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, announced on Monday a joint initiative to provide prosthetic devices and rehabilitation services for victims of the war in Sierra Leone.
Both countries plan to grant up to US$1 million each to support the work of non-governmental and other organisations working with disabled people in Sierra Leone, the US Information Agency (USIA) reported on Monday.
Civilians in Sierra Leone have been subjected to a campaign of terror by rebel militia, including the deliberate amputation of limbs, in recent years.
NIGERIA: Lagos government imposes curfew on Ajegunle
Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu on Monday imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on Ajegunle, in Lagos' Ajaremo/Ifelodun council area, to halt fighting between suspected Ijaw youths and the members of the Oodua People's Congress (OPC), a largely Yoruba interest group.
"We cannot continue to tolerate the breakdown of law and order," Tinubu said.
In a statement published in the `The Guardian' newspaper
of Lagos on Tuesday, he said the curfew would run from
8 p.m. to 6 a.m. and until further notice. He also
ordered anti-riot police to patrol all creeks and riverine
areas of the state as the crisis threatens to spill
beyond Lagos, a city of some seven million people.
This directive came as the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC)
issued a statement threatening "to attack persons
of Yoruba origin whenever they are found". Nevertheless
Tinubu appealed for calm, saying he urged "all
community leaders, traditional rulers, religious leaders
and other opinion leaders in the affected areas and
all over the state to help preach the message of peace".
Fighting broke out on Saturday when bands of young men
allegedly attacked some Ijaw youths at a funeral for
one of their members. In retaliation, `The Guardian'
said, quoting witnesses, Ijaw youths set fire to the
OPC headquarters, prompting other OPC youths to attack
more Ijaws.
Figures for the number of dead are unknown. Lagos Police Commissioner Mike Okiro said five people had died, but the newspaper quoted independent sources as saying those were only the bodies seen. Others, they said, had been burnt beyond recognition.
NIGERIA: Obasanjo on the imposition of the Shar'ia in Zamfara
Islamic laws, collectively known as the Shari'a, contradict Nigeria's federal constitution and its application in Zamfara State is likely to fail, President Olusegun Obasanjo told an audience last weekend at Harvard University in Boston, United States.
"People have their own way of doing things. But I don't think it will last: and people should not hit their heads against the wall," he said.
The governmet of Zamfara last week imposed the Shari'a in the northern Nigerian state.
Just days later, the House of Assembly of the southern state of Cross River said it might declare itself a "Christian state" if Obasanjo failed to halt the implementation of the Shari'a. In a resolution passed on Monday, the legislators said the federal government should ensure that oil resources of the Delta states are not used to implement the Shari'a in Zamfara.
AFRICA: Proposed US budget cut would hurt African peacekeeping
A 40-percent reduction proposed by the US Congress of the voluntary peacekeeping funds that support the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI) "would undercut our effort to assist Africans to deal with problems on their own," State Department Spokesman James Rubin said on Friday.
The US Information Agency (USIA) quoted Rubin as saying that one of the main objectives of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's recent tour of six sub-Saharan African nations was "to develop regional partners with the United States to deal with some of the terrible crises that Africa has faced."
He described the proposed cut as "unconscionable" as many of the same members of Congress who opposed the funding said that the US should not be involved in African conflicts. "If we're not going to get involved," Rubin said, "we have to at least assist Africans in resolving these problems themselves, through their own capabilities".
The United States proposed the ACRI several years ago to help increase the continent's capacity to end conflicts and conduct peacekeeping missions, USIA reported.
Its long-term objective is to build in Africa a corps of some 12,000 military personnel trained in peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance.
In West Africa, Benin, Ghana and Senegal have already taken part in various training exercises, USIA said. Members of the armed forces of Cote d'Ivoire are to begin undergoing training soon in areas such as convoying, security for relief workers and liaising with civil and non-governmental authorities.
Under ACRI, some US $55 million has been spent on training in Africa, USIA said.
EQUATORIAL GUINEA: AI calls for release of political prisoners
Amnesty International (AI) on Tuesday urged the government of Equatorial Guinea to release all prisoners of conscience.
In the meantime, AI called on the government in Malabo to improve the detainees' prison conditions and allow international humanitarian organizations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, access to them.
AI said political opponents of the government of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo in Equatorial Guinea were still being subjected to widespread harassment.
Three activists of the not-yet-legalized Fuerza Demócrata Republicana (FDR - Republican Democratic Force)- Mariano Oyono Ndong, Carmelo Biko Ngua and Antonio Engonga Bibang - who were arrested in June remain in Bata prison without charge or trial following a crackdown on peaceful political activists, AI said.
They were detained in the town of Mongomo, apparently for holding an unauthorised meeting, and are among at least 90 opposition party activists who have been held for short periods since the beginning of the year, it added.
Amnesty also said it was "very concerned about the appalling prison conditions in which 80 members of the Bubi ethnic group continue to be held after being sentenced in June 1998 by a military court after an unfair trial".
Abidjan, 2 November 1999; 17:45 GMT
[ENDS]
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Item: irin-english-1902
[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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