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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Update 593 (Friday 12 November 1999)
CONTENTS
SIERRA LEONE: Mission urges speedy implementation of
peace pact LIBERIA: Recommendations from economic conference
finalised NIGERIA: Security heightened as police death
toll rises to 12 NIGERIA: Senate calls for money for
oil states COTE D'IVOIRE: Opposition politicians jailed
for two years
SIERRA LEONE: Mission urges speedy implementation of
peace pact
Visiting UN and donor-country officials said they were encouraged by the commitment of the signatories of the Lome Accord to the peace process in Sierra Leone and, in particular, the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programme, a UN source told IRIN on Friday.
However, they urged all parties to speed up the implementation of the peace process.
Speaking at a news conference in Freetown on Thursday, the mission's leader, Deputy UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Carolyn McAskie, said peace could not be imposed from the outside.
She said Sierra Leoneans had to take responsibility for their own destiny, a source from the UN Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Unit (HACU) told IRIN.
McAskie added that she was optimistic that programmes outlined in the Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal for Sierra Leone would be well funded for the year 2000 if the peace process held, given the level of donor interest expressed to date, according to HACU.
The Appeal is seeking just under US $71 million to implement 34 projects next year.
The US representative on the mission reportedly said that the level of support provided by the United States would be influenced by the extent to which the DDR programme was successfully implemented.
Reuters quoted McAskie as saying: "Our understanding
as donors is that the security situation is still uncertain".
However, the HACU source said that the donor team was
inspired by the impact of humanitarian work being carried
out in areas which were accessible.
The team, which includes representatives of Britain,
Canada, Finland, Ireland, Japan, Norway, Sweden and
the United States, later travelled to Guinea. Its mission
ends on Saturday night.
LIBERIA: Recommendations from economic conference finalised
Liberia's security forces need to be reorganised to ensure greater professionalism, and a comprehensive national policy on reconciliation should be drawn up, participants in a conference held in Monrovia on the national economy said in a statement released on Thursday.
The statement summarised the findings of the 4-6 November conference in the areas of governance, economic and financial management and human resource development.
Other recommendations relate to strengthening the independence and integrity of the judiciary, doing more to enhance transparency and accountability in all domains of governance, greater empowerment of women, and the formulation of a comprehensive policy on youth and children.
The conference was organised by the Center for Democratic Empowerment (CEDE) with the support of the Carter Centre. It brought together representatives of the government, private sector, civil society and the international community.
Participants also made several recommendations relating to economic and financial management. They called, for example, for the preparation of an updated reconstruction programme with rigorous safeguards to protect resource allocation.
The civil service should also be restructured to rationalise the number of independent ministries and agencies, they added in their final statement.
Steps should be taken to reverse the brain drain and enhance the capacity of Liberia's education system to develop its human resources, the participants urged.
NIGERIA: Security heightened as police death toll rises to 12
The number of policemen murdered last week by armed youths in Odi, a town in the south-eastern state of Bayelsa, has risen to 12, 'The Guardian' newspaper in Lagos quotes Bayelsa Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha as saying on Thursday.
There was a strong police presence on the road between the state capital, Yenagoa, and the main south-eastern town, Port Harcourt, as well as the main road approaching Odi, a media source in Lagos told IRIN on Friday.
The source quoted newspaper reports as saying that the
police had not yet entered Odi as they wanted to avoid
direct confrontation with local people if possible.
In a state-wide radio broadcast, Alamieyeseigha said
that seven police officers who were on an oficial mission
to Odi were killed last week by "criminals"
who later murdered another five law enforcers. Security
agents, he said, had been ordered to mount a 24-hour
search for the criminals and to use "all means
possible to track them down."
The governor warned members of the public against hiding any of the youths as they would then be treated as accomplices, 'The Guardian' said. He announced that a commission of enquiry would be formed to determine the circumstances surrounding the killings.
NIGERIA: Senate calls for money for oil states
Nigeria's Senate on Thursday passed a motion asking President Olusegun Obasanjo to release immediately money intended for oil-producing states, 'The Guardian' reported.
A three-percent derivation fund for the Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) should be made available since the Finance Minister had said it was being set aside, the newspaper reported Senator Udoma Udo Udoma as saying.
The motion also noted that the unrest in the Niger Delta was not an isolated phenomenon but part of a widespread community problem which has become so severe it is frightening away investors. It advised the Senate committees on the Niger Delta, Petroleum and Finance, and Appropriations to study the problems of the Delta and other oil-producing communities and put forward recommendations to address the situation there.
Meanwhile the US Deputy Secretary of Commerce, Robert Mallett, told the US-Nigerian Joint Economic Partnership Commission on 5 November that despite contributing over US$20 million annually to community development projects in the Niger Delta, US companies were still suffering from violence, sabotage and supply disruptions, the US Information Agency reported.
He said the US Embassy had reported that Nigeria was losing some 200,000 barrels of oil per day to vandalism and closures.
COTE D'IVOIRE: Opposition politicians jailed for two years
Leading members of the opposition Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR) received prison terms of up to two years on Friday after being convicted under a law that holds the organisers of demonstrations responsible for violence that accompanies them.
An Abidjan court sentenced RDR Secretary-General Henriette Diabate and 10 other senior members of the party to two years in prison and a fine of 300,000 CFA francs (about US $500) each. Five others received one-year prison terms. Their lawyers said they would appeal against the convictions.
Another four accused were released.
The 20 (19 RDR politicians and a journalist with a newspaper close to the party) were arrested on 27 October following an RDR protest that was accompanied by the destruction of buses and damage to the premises of a pro-government newspaper. They were charged under a vandalism law that holds the organisers of a protest responsible if it turns violent.
The sentences came less than a month after a court ruled that documents produced as evidence that RDR leader Alassane Dramane Ouattara is an Ivoirian were invalid.
Ouattara, who was prime minister of Cote d'Ivoire from
1990 to 1993, is the RDR's candidate for presidential
elections to be held late next year. However, the government
contends that he is ineligible because he does not
satisfy a constitutional requirement that presidential
candidates must be Ivoirian citizens of Ivoirian parentage.
Abidjan, 12 November 1999; 17:15 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1966
[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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