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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Update 595 (Tuesday 16 November 1999)
CONTENTS
LIBERIA: Multi-donor team start assessment mission LIBERIA: Inter-school rights group evolves from workshop GUINEA: ICRC gains access to prisons NIGER: Military quell mutiny NIGER: Calm restored following feud between farmers and herdsmen NIGERIA: Niger State to receive relief aid Wednesday NIGERIA: Lagos police repulse armed attack NIGERIA: Niger Delta women call for talks
LIBERIA: Multi-donor team start assessment mission
A multi-donor team is in Liberia on a four-day mission to see how best to respond to its reconstruction and development needs, UN sources in Monrovia told IRIN on Tuesday.
The mission includes representatives of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, USAID, EU, Economic Commission for Africa, Dutch government and the UN Development Programme. Its agenda includes meetings with President Charles Taylor and officials of several ministries including Commerce, Health, Education, Justice, Finance and Planning as well as field visits outside Monrovia, the sources said.
Sources said the findings of the mission, which leaves
Monrovia on Friday, will inform donors on how best
to deliver on pledges made at a conference in Paris
in April 1998 at which 11 countries agreed to provide
Liberia with US $220 million in the first phase of
a two-year national reconstruction programme.
LIBERIA: Inter-school rights group evolves from workshop
An inter-high school human rights advocacy group has been set up in Liberia, the acting executive director of the Movement for the Defence of Human Rights (MODHAR) told IRIN on Tuesday.
The group's establishment - at a one-day workshop on human rights on Saturday - is an attempt to address what is seen as "urban exclusivity" and give rural students an opportunity to participate in the debate surrounding human rights issues, Aloysious Toe of MODHAR told IRIN on Tuesday.
"They want to become active participants in advocating human rights," he said.
The group aims to set up listening and discussion groups, roundtable discussions and other activities in high schools throughout Liberia.
Saturday's workshop, Toe said, trained some 200 students from schools human rights clubs who, under the guidance of 50 teachers, will train other students in Liberian schools.
Speakers at the workshop - at which the teachers were also trained - included Steven Wilson, executive director of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission and Frederick Jayweh, president of the Civil Rights Association of Liberian Lawyers.
GUINEA: ICRC gains access to prisons
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been granted access to prisons in Guinea under an agreement it signed with the Guinean government on 9 November.
"This agreement will enable us to assess the conditions of all detained persons," Marc Bouvier, ICRC representative in Guinea, told IRIN this week. "Any issues arising from these visits will be discussed confidentially with the government."
The agreement was signed by ICRC's vice president, and
the Guinean ministers of justice and security.
NIGER: Military quell mutiny
Loyal government troops in Niger have crushed an army uprising in the Madawela garrison near the northern town of Arlit and at Agadez, some 800 km northeast of Niamey, an official spokesman told IRIN on Tuesday.
The spokesman of the ruling Conseil de reconciliation nationale, Major Djibrilla Hima, said the mutineers alleged that the army owed them bonuses so as to have a pretext for their action but "the bonuses had already been paid".
There was also unrest in Agadez, some 800 km northeast of Niamey, where a group of soldiers tried to free two of their colleagues arrested by local paramilitary police on suspicion of rape.
Order was restored in both locations on Sunday.
Hima said that the same group of soldiers had been revolting over the past nine years and that the Madawela garrison incident, which occurred on Thursday, was instigated by political parties opposed to the second round of presidential elections due on 24 November.
Since the holding of a national political conference, he said, the mutineers were never punished. They were simply rotated into other units and continued to act with impunity. This time, however, they have been dismissed from the army.
AFP quoted army Chief of Staff Colonel Boureima Moumouni as saying: "Henceforth, any solder who breaches military regulations will be dealt with vigorously."
NIGER: Calm restored following feud between farmers and herdsmen
Gendarmes restored order on Sunday in a village in Kirtatchi Commune just east of Niamey following fighting between nomadic herdsmen and farmers.
Major Djibrilla Hima, spokesman of the ruling Conseil de reconciliation nationale, said an inquiry was underway to determine the cause of the violence in which five people died and 15 were wounded.
Fights, often leading to deaths, are common among farmers and herdsmen in West Africa. The trouble often occurs when the herdsmen graze their animals on planted fields.
NIGERIA: Niger State to receive flood relief
Flood victims in the northwest Nigerian state of Niger will begin receiving relief supplies on Wednesday, the director-general of Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency told IRIN.
The official, Oluremi Olewu, said on Tuesday that up to 12 heavy trucks stocked with household items such as mosquito nets, blankets, food, medicines and wax prints for clothing would be delivered for over 80,000 people made homeless in October's floods.
Already, she said, the agency had sent aid to some 15 states affected either by flood or communal violence, and flood-ravaged Rivers State, was next in line for federal help.
The agency, formed in March, has relied on available national resources to aid victims. Olewu said plans were being made for future use of the military in times of disaster. So far, she said, Nigeria had been able to cope without outside help because the disasters had not occurred all at once, but rather piecemeal.
NIGERIA: Lagos police repulse armed attack
An armed gang that tried to overrun the Lagos Police Command Headquarters at the weekend were driven back under a hail of bullets, `The Guardian', a Lagos daily, reported on Tuesday.
The daily said police suspected the attackers belonged to a militant group in Lagos State. It reported neither casualties nor arrests.
The nocturnal attack followed fighting two weeks ago between members of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), a Yoruba pressure group, and Ijaw youths in Ajegunle, a Lagos slum.
NIGERIA: Niger Delta women call for talks
The Niger Delta Women for Justice has called on Nigeria's government to arrange talks with restive youths rather than use the army to quell ongoing violence in the oil-rich area, `The Guardian' reported on Tuesday.
"The Niger Delta Women for Justice is concerned that military force rather than dialogue is now being employed as a solution to the issues of neglect, poverty, environmental degradation and social justice in the Niger Delta," Jennifer Pere, the organisation's director, said.
Niger Delta Women for Justice says it also wants the government to make Nigeria a "true federation".
Another group, the Ijaw Protection Organisation, blamed the unrest in Bayelsa State, which includes the Delta, on years of neglect, `The Guardian' said. Bayelsa, the group said in a statement, was the only state in the federation not linked to the national electricity grid.
`The Guardian' reported the organisation as saying the state had no post-secondary education institution and no pipe-borne water. Bayelsa, it added, had only one federal road 22 km long and a run-down primary and secondary school system.
Abidjan, 16 November 1999; 18:25 GMT
[ENDS]
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Item: irin-english-1981
[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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