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IRIN-WA Update 96-97 of Events in West Africa, (Wednesday) 3 December 1997
[As a supplement to its weekly round-ups of main events in West Africa, IRIN-WA will produce a daily synopsis of reports on the region. IRIN issues these reports for the benefit of the humanitarian community but accepts no responsibility as to the accuracy of the original source.]
LIBERIA: Fears for opposition figure Dokie
As the Liberian government pledged to do all it could to resolve the mysterious disappearance at the weekend of opposition leader Samuel Dokie, there was growing concern that he had been murdered by abductors.An AFP dispatch quoted Victoria Maxs as saying her father Samuel, a key political rival of President Charles Taylor, had been "arrested" by "security men" in Gbarnga, some 70 km northeast of the capital Monrovia on Saturday. The AFP report said he had been held with his wife Janet, a bodyguard, and two other relatives on the orders of Special Security Services chief Benjamin Yeatean.
Peter Jallah, the justice minister, and Dokie's family, later confirmed that they had been missing since Saturday.Earlier in the day, a presidential statement carried by news agencies denied he had been arrested. It said the ministers of justice, defence, national security and the police had been told to use "any and all available means necessary with the assistance from human rights groups to provide information on the whereabouts" of Dokie. The statement also expressed Taylor's "shock and dismay at the apparent abduction".Dokie's disappearance came on the eve of a West African tour by Taylor to discuss the Sierra Leone crisis.
SIERRA LEONE: Naval build-up denied
A senior commander of the West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, insisted in an interview with IRIN on Wednesday that only one warship was anchored off the Sierra Leone coast to maintain ECOWAS sanctions and the UN's oil and arms embargo.Reacting to media reports of charges by the military authorities in Sierra Leone that three Nigerian warships were in fact deployed off the coast, General J A Kwateng, ECOMOG's deputy force commander, said: "This is rubbish. We have only one ship there." The military government in Freetown had reiterated its view that Nigeria was disregarding the Conakry accords for the restoration of civilian rule. The sanctions were imposed following the overthrow of the civilian president, Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, in May.But Kwateng added: "We are mandated to enforce the embargo against Sierra Leone. We are not there to fight anybody, just to make sure sanctions are not broken."
Controversy over government funds
In a separate controversy, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) secretary general, Colonel Abdul Sesay, was quoted by AFP as saying that US$ 8 million had gone missing from a frozen Sierra Leone government account in the United States to which Kabbah had access - an allegation later denied by American diplomats in West Africa, according to the BBC. A US government source in Washington told IRIN that there had been no change of policy on Sierra Leone and said that Washington still recognised Kabbah and not the AFRC which ousted him.The source added: "Life-saving humanitarian asssistance has always continued to victims of the conflict in Sierra Leone." But he stressed only development aid had been suspended.
Schools closed since May could reopen.
AFP reported that teachers in the country who have boycotted classes since the overthrow of the government would be ready to resume work in January. The Sierra Leone Teacher's Union said schools would reopen if all armed personnel were disarmed under the terms of the Conakry accords and once armed men occupying school premises were evacuated.
NIGERIA: Abacha assurances on transition to civilian rule
The Nigerian leader, General Sani Abacha, reiterated his pledge that the transition to civilian rule would go ahead on schedule, Nigeria's Radio Kaduna reported. He told a transition conference in Abuja that all elections for the return to civilian rule would go ahead as planned.His military government's three-year transition programme is due to culminate next October with presidential elections. He was further quoted by the Pan African News Agency as saying: "Resolution of conflict, normalisation of relationships after crisis, preference for harmony, forgiveness, compromise and dialogue" were preferable to "discord, hatred, violence and war."
SENEGAL: Red Cross delegates visit jailed Casamance separatists
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that it had started a series of jail visits on Wednesday to separatists of southern Senegal's Mouvement des Forces Democratiques de Casamance (MFDC) held in the capital Dakar, the southern provincial capital, Ziguinchor, and Kolda in the southeast. The Red Cross teams, comprising a regional ICRC delegate and a doctor, had been conducting the visits in private as part of a regular programme which started last year. It also delivered medical and surgical supplies to the Ziguinchor hospital for people wounded in clashes between the Senegalese army and the separatists.In what it described as humanitarian action undertaken since the increase in hostilities over the past year, the ICRC said it was also providing emergency food supplies for 7,000 displaced people, allocating each family a 25 kg packet of rice and cooking oil.
MAURITANIA: Opposition election boycott gathers steam
As the Front of Opposition Parties in Mauritania pushed harder in recent days for a boycott of the presidential election scheduled 12 December, news reports on Wednesday said that President Maaouya Ould Taya would face an uphill struggle to win a second term. Amid opposition charges that Taya had made improper use of government cars and aircraft in his campaign, the boycott call, however, did not deter the only black candidates running for the presidency, Moulaye Hassan Ould Jiyed and Ahmadou Moctar Kane, from conducting campaign tours around the capital Nouakchott. Both sought to convince people of the legitimacy of their electoral plans.
Abidjan, 3 December 1997
[ends]
[The material contained in this communication comes to you via IRIN West Africa, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. UN IRIN-WA Tel: +225 21 73 66 Fax: +225 21 63 35 e-mail: irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci for more information or subscription. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this report, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. IRIN reports are archived on the Web at: http://www.reliefweb.int/emergenc or can be retrieved automatically by sending e-mail to archive@dha.unon.org . Mailing list: irin-wa-updates]
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 01:00:44 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN - West Africa Update 96-97 97.12.3 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.971204005456.11549A-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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