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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Update 599 (Monday 22 November 1999)
CONTENTS:
SIERRA LEONE: RUF to become a political party SIERRA LEONE: Robbers attack bus passengers SIERRA LEONE: UN Security Council voices concern at peace accord violations NIGERIA: Troops exchange fire with Delta youth GABON: Gulf of Guinea states form conflict resolution commission LIBERIA: Police officers charged with manslaughter LIBERIA: Priest urges authorities to talk less and do more GUINEA-BISSAU: Epidemiological unit sustains heavy damage GUINEA-BISSAU: Seed distribution yields mixed results GUINEA-BISSAU: Roads improved through food for work projects
SIERRA LEONE: RUF to become a political party
The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) started on Monday the process of transforming itself from a guerrilla force into a political party known as the RUF Party (RUFP), ECOMOG spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Olukolade told IRIN on Monday.
Shortly after midday, the country's Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) granted RUF provisional registration as a party. Afterwards, party leader Foday Sankoh spoke to political supporters at a rally in Victoria Park, central Freetown. Security at this venue, attended by over 10,000 people, was ensured by ECOMOG troops, Olukolade said.
The transformation of RUF to a political party is in line with a provision in the Lome Peace Accord signed on 7 July by the government and rebels. Presidential spokesman Septimus Kaikai told IRIN on Monday that the government had ensured the legal requirements necessary for the change.
SIERRA LEONE: Robbers attack bus passengers
Some 30 armed men robbed a passenger bus in Kambia District on Friday before being driven back under fire from ECOMOG troops, the spokesman for the West African peacekeeping force, Lieutenant Colonel Chris Olukolade, told IRIN on Monday.
"It was just fortunate that our troops were on patrol in the area at the time, they returned fire on the attackers who then escaped into the bush with their loot," Olukolade said.
"It was probably carried out by ex-Sierra Leone army forces, judging from descriptions given to me by witnesses," he said.
The bus was on its way to Pamalap just across the Guinean border when it was ambushed near the Mange bridge, some 60 km north of Freetown. Seven unhurt passengers were brought back to Freetown by ECOMOG. The exact number of passengers is unknown, Olukolade said, and some may have continued to their destinations because there had been no confirmed reports of any abductions.
SIERRA LEONE: UN Security Council voices concern at
peace accord violations
Members of the Security Council expressed continuing
concern about the violations of the Lome peace accord,
UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said on Friday.
They urged former fighters, especially those loyal to RUF, to lay down their weapons and enter disarmament camps, according to a statement by Council president Danilo Turk. He added that the international community's ability to help was limited without the "wholehearted commitment of all parties to the disarmament,demobilisation and reintegration programme".
Rebel leaders were also reminded of their commitments to allow humanitarian organisations freedom of movement, it said.
NIGERIA: Troops exchange fire with Delta youth
Troops sent to the troubled oil state of Bayelsa exchanged
gunfire at the weekend with suspected Ijaw youths as
the government sought to reassert law and order to
the restive area, news reports said.
Official casualty figures were not immediately available but the Lagos daily newspaper with a presence in the southeastern state, `The Guardian', quoted an unidentified doctor at Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital as saying wounded soldiers had been admitted to the facility.
News reports quoted witnesses who said that soldiers along the east-west highway between Mbiama and Bomadi turned back travellers on Sunday. The deployment of troops in the Delta gives more teeth to the warning by President Olusegun Obasanjo on 10 November that he might impose a state of emergency in the area.
During Friday's summit of Gulf of Guinea states, in Gabon, on conflict resolution Obasanjo said that demands by the people of the Delta had been "perverted from that of development to that of criminality", state owned Nigerian Television Authority reported at the weekend. He promised tough action.
"Anybody who has contributed in any way to the unrest in the Niger Delta area will not go unpunished," `The Guardian' quoted Obasanjo as saying in a statement issued by his special assistant, Tunde Olusunle.
Trouble in Bayelsa State began on 4 November in the village of Odi when rampaging youths kidnapped and executed seven policemen. Since then, the daily said, the youths had killed other policemen, soldiers and randomly attacked motorists.
GABON: Gulf of Guinea states form conflict resolution commission
A summit of sub-Sahara Africa's biggest oil producers
has set up a commission to resolve conflicts linked
to the economic exploitation of natural resources within
their territorial limits.
"The Gulf of Guinea countries have agreed to create
a consultation framework for the cooperation and the
development as well as for the prevention, management
and the resolution of conflicts that might affect them,"
the leaders said on Friday in a final communique read
by Gabonese Foreign Minister Jean Ping.
Gabonese President Omar Bongo said that the countries present at the meeting had a shared interest in the Gulf of Guinea, which he described as full of oil and fish.
"The exploitation (of these waters) and all consultations stemming from that must be the object of permanent consultation at our level," he told his fellow leaders.
The summit in Libreville, Gabon, was initiated by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. Other participants included hosts Gabon, Angola, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo and Equatorial Guinea, Reuters reported.
Another summit will be held next year in Libreville and, the leaders said, other countries in the region were welcome to join the commission.
LIBERIA: Police officers charged with manslaughter
The Liberian National Police has arrested six of its members on a charge of the manslaughter of a businessman in Paynesville, a suburb of Monrovia, news organisations reported on Friday.
The businessman, James Bestman, died on Monday of massive internal bleeding after he was arrested and allegedly beaten by six policemen on suspicion of theft. Police Director Paul Mulbah told a news conference that Bestman resisted arrest and an autopsy on his body revealed injuries consistent with being kicked and beaten. The policemen are due to appear in court, Mulbah added.
LIBERIA: Priest urges authorities to talk less and do more
The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Liberia, Archbishop Michael Francis, has urged the authorities to talk less and do more as Liberia is facing massive problems, the BBC reported on Monday.
He said the national culture of silence born out of fear also had to be changed if human rights were to be improved. The Movement for the Defence of Human Rights in Liberia, (MODHAR) said the government could start to improve its human rights record by establishing a fully functional Liberian Commission for Human Rights. The body, set up in 1997, so far has just two of the six government-appointed commissioners at their posts.
MODHAR told IRIN that the government could also begin to crush the culture of impunity in Liberia by arresting and charging those perpetrators of human rights violations, as well as by retraining security forces on human rights. The security forces are accused of these violations.
GUINEA-BISSAU: Epidemiological unit sustains heavy damage
The Ministry of Health's epidemiological unit sustained heavy damage during the war, losing essential equipment and databases, OCHA quotes the first monthly bulletin produced by the Ministry of Health as saying.
An early detection system against epidemics was set up in June 1999 but only 8 percent of health clinics nationwide have used the forms designed to notify the unit of outbreaks of disease. Lack of transport to send laboratory samples has also been identified as a "major problem", OCHA says.
The French government has provided computers valued at 15 million francs CFA (US $23,571) to support the unit.
GUINEA-BISSAU: Seed distribution yields mixed results
Emergency seed distribution in the eastern regions of Bafata and Gabu has yielded mixed results, according to a preliminary evaluation of the harvest by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).
"FAO discovered that peanut and rice were producing good results, less so for beans and corn, and poor results were noted for sorghum and millet," UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in it most recent humanitarian situation report of 1-15 November.
The poor results could be because the seeds imported from Senegal and Guinea are more appropriate for the Sahel region or due to the effects of transportation.
GUINEA-BISSAU: Roads improved through food for work projects
Travel time on a 55-km stretch of dirt road linking Sao Domingos and Varela near the Senegalese border in north-west Guinea-Bissau has been reduced from two-and-a-half hours to one hour, following the completion of a WFP-supported road repair project, OCHA reported in its most recent humanitarian situation report of 1-15 November.
The project, which was implemented with the help of a national partner, recruited 50 persons in 11 different villages for 90 days of work, meaning that a total of 550 people received food in exchange for their labour.
Likewise, a 2.5-km road running through low lying swamps near the Cacheu river in north-west Guinea-Bissau is being reinforced with seashells carried to the area by women in canoes, OCHA said.
During an inter-agency visit on 6 November over 250
women and 50 canoes were at work, OCHA said.
Abidjan, 22 November 1999; 21:05 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-2011
[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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