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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Update 589 (Monday 8 November 1999)
CONTENTS:
SIERRA LEONE: 600 former combatants hand over weapons
SIERRA LEONE: Obasanjo addresses parliament SIERRA
LEONE: US concerned over ceasefire violations SIERRA
LEONE: Donor team meets Kabbah LIBERIA: Opposition
leader calls for political reform NIGERIA: Ijaw youths
abduct policemen NIGERIA: US to help recovery efforts
COTE D'IVOIRE: PDCI wise men express support for government
CAMEROON: UN Committee worried about treatment of women
SIERRA LEONE: 600 former combatants hand over weapons
Some 600 ex-fighters out of an estimated 45,000 handed in their weapons in the last five days in Sierra Leone, a UN source told IRIN on Monday.
Some 285 members of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), 270 from the Civil Defence Forces (CDF) and 54 from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) have reported to demobilisation centres, the official said.
The RUF and AFRC were allies in Sierra Leone's civil war, while the CDF was made up of pro-government militias.
The demobilisation is provided for in a peace agreement
signed on 7 July in Lome by the RUF and Sierra Leone's
government.
SIERRA LEONE: Obasanjo addresses parliament
The President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, said there was a need for peace, security, reconciliation and disarmament in Sierra Leone when he addressed that country's parliament on Friday during a one-day official visit, news organisations reported.
Obasanjo, who received an enthusiastic welcome from thousands of Sierra Leoneans when he arrived in Freetown, also had a meeting with his counterpart, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.
Nigeria is withdrawing troops it deployed in Sierra Leone over the past few years as part of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) and which will be replaced by a new UN peacekeeping force.
SIERRA LEONE: US concerned over ceasefire violations
The US has expressed concern about recent fighting in Makeni and reports of renewed atrocities there, the US Information Agency (USIA) reported on Friday.
"Any violation of the ceasefire or the commission of atrocities is unacceptable and demonstrates a lack of commitment to the peace process," James Rubin, State Department spokesman, said in a statement on Thursday. He said the fighting must stop so that the peace and disarmament process can move forward, USIA reported.
SIERRA LEONE: Donor team meets Kabbah
A high-level team of aid donors led by the Deputy UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Carolyn McAskie, met President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah on Monday at the beginning of a four-day visit to Sierra Leone.
The team is in the country to "further demonstrate the commitment of the international donor community to support Sierra Leone's recovery from eight years of civil war," the UN Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Unit (HACU) said.
It is scheduled to remain in Sierra Leone until 11 November.
LIBERIA: Opposition leader calls for political reform
Liberian opposition leader Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf called for a "rebalancing of power between the presidency and the people", at a conference on the Liberian economy held on 4-6 November in Monrovia.
"An imperial presidency which has the power of
life or death, wealth or poverty, success or failure
for everyone in its hands is an obstruction for progress,"
Johnson Sirleaf said.
Consideration should be given to the creation of a "rotational
system which provides opportunity for all political
subdivisions to have a chance at top leadership of
the country," she told the conference, funded
by the US Agency for International Development (USAID)
through the Carter Centre. This, she said, would "prevent
monopolisation of power by any individual or ethnic
group."
Johnson-Sirleaf, who was a candidate in the July 1997 presidential election, won by Charles Taylor, said the electoral system needed to be revised, starting with the creation of an independent electoral oversight body.
The conference, chaired by Amos Sawyer, chairman of the Center for Democratic Empowerment (CEDE), was attended by representatives of the government, opposition parties, civil society and the private sector.
Conmany Wesseh, the executive director of CEDE, told IRIN that conference participants would issue later this week a "final declaration" that could be useful to an international team of aid donors due to arrive in Monrovia on 15 November to assess Liberia's development needs.
NIGERIA: Ijaw youths abduct policemen
Militant Ijaw youths in Odi, a village in Bayelsa State, have kidnapped seven policemen, news reports said.
The hostages, from the Yoruba ethnic group, include two senior officers, the reports said.
Reuters quoted a leader of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) as saying the youths were retaliating against clashes last week in a Lagos neighbourhood between migrant Ijaws and local Yorubas in which at least 12 people died.
A Lagos daily, `The Guardian' said the hostages were taken "to ensure that Afenifere (a pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group) and Egbe Omo Yoruba (another ethnic organisation) stopped attacks against (the) Ijaw in Lagos."
The newspaper quoted an IYC source as saying at the weekend that the release of the policemen "would depend on whether or not the Afenifere and Egbe Omo Yoruba said something".
Since the death in 1998 of military strongman General Sani Abacha, militant youth groups in the troubled Delta region have been kidnapping employees of transnational oil companies operating in the area. This is the first reported abduction of ranking police officers.
NIGERIA: US to help recovery efforts
Nigeria deserves US help in fighting crime, improving domestic socio-political and economic conditions as well as making democracy a hallmark of its body politic, a senior US official told senators at the weekend.
"Nigeria needs and deserves our assistance as it undertakes these difficult tasks," Thomas Pickering, undersecretary for political affairs, told the US lawmakers on Thursday.
Pickering, a former US ambassador to Nigeria, was giving the Senate Foreign Relations Committee an assessment of measures taken by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, since he took office in May, to fight crime and corruption, end human rights abuses, restore political legitimacy and ensure economic reforms.
Pickering, whose briefing came in the wake of Obasanjo's recent visit to the US, said over the next 18 months US engagement with Nigeria would consisting of consolidating civilian rule after years of military rule, helping it to reform the military and building partnerships in other areas of mutual concern, from the environment to transnational crime.
He said the United States was now inaugurating a Joint Economic Partnership Committee with Nigeria as a vehicle for permanent dialogue on economic reform, investment and trade. Nigeria supplies nearly 8 percent of crude oil to the US.
COTE D'IVOIRE: PDCI wise men express support for government
A committee from the ruling Parti Democratique de la Cote d'Ivoire-Rassemblement democratique africain (PDCI-RDA) has expressed support for the government's action amid criticism of the detention of 19 members of the opposition Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR).
The PDCI-RDA Comite des Sages (Committee of Wise Men) said in a statement published on Monday in the official 'Fraternite Matin' daily that it "hails the serenity and firmness with which the president and his government are treating the problem" - a reference to the socio-political situation in the country.
It expressed confidence that the country's judiciary and administration would "complete all the legal and administrative procedures that are underway".
The 19 opposition members, including RDR Secretary-General Henriette Diabate and parliamentarian Yaya Fofana, head of a local transporters union, have been in detention since 27 October. They were arrested in connection with an RDR protest that was marred by the destruction of buses and other state property. On 3 November, they appeared before a judge who adjourned their case to 10 November and denied them bail.
Fofana's Syndicat national des transporteurs terrestres de Cote d'Ivoire (SYNTT-CI) has announced a work stoppage for Tuesday and Wednesday to press for his release.
A group of trade unions and opposition parties, including the RDR, called at the weekend for the "immediate and unconditional release of the detainees.
CAMEROON: UN Committee worried about treatment of women
The UN Human Rights Committee said on Friday in Geneva
that it was concerned about the duality of statutory
law and customary law in Cameroon, which has sometimes
resulted in unequal treatment of men and women.
It also said, on concluding its 67th session, that it was worried by the continuing existence of polygamy in the West African nation.
Other sources of concern for the committee included the high rate of illiteracy among Cameroonian women, the absence of a specific law prohibiting female genital mutilation (FGM) and the fact that FGM was still being practised in certain parts of the country.
However, it welcomed a commitment made by Cameroon's government to promote gender equality through a Ministry of Women Affairs, and the establishment of a National Committee on Human Rights and Freedoms, empowered to oversee all relevant Cameroonian authorities.
Abidjan, 8 November 1999; 17:45 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1939
[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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