| UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER |
WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 39 covering the period 25 September-1 October
UNITED NATIONS Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa
Tel: +225 21 73 54 Fax: +225 21 63 35 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org
SIERRA LEONE: Security deteriorates in Freetown, improves elsewhere
Security has deteriorated in Freetown during the past week but has continued to improve elsewhere in Sierra Leone, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports.
Five security incidents of varying significance occurred in the capital in the past few days, OCHA quotes UNOMSIL as saying. These include attempts at armed robbery and the harassment of international and local staff of UN agencies and NGOs by unidentified youths, some of whom have been described as ex-combatants.
The situation continues to improve in other parts of the country, OCHA says. In the east, residents of previously insecure areas such as Segbwema, Tongo Fields and Daru have now resumed commercial activities.
Possible abductee sites located by human rights committee
Several sites have been noted as likely to contain significant numbers of abductees, the Sierra Leone Human Rights Committee (SLHRC) noted in a bulletin on 27 September. The sites are Lunsar, Makeni, Magburaka and Matatoka in the Northern Province and Kailahun in the Eastern Province
The SLHRC, a group of local and international organisations committed to the promotion of human rights, adopted at the end of July a mechanism to keep track of the human rights provisions of the Lome peace accord, signed by the government and the RUF on 7 July. Its findings are published in a monthly bulletin.
Rebel heads urged to brief troops on peace process
The ECOMOG force commander in Sierra Leone, Major General Gabriel Kpamber, this week ordered rebel commanders and representatives to return to their bases in the bush and inform their rank and file of the details of Sierra Leone's peace process and disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programme.
"It is going to be a litmus test of their credibility, their commitment to the peace process," Kpamber said on Thursday on the BBC.
ECOMOG said in a statement that the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) commanders should return to Freetown in a week's time and be prepared to "furnish the Joint Monitoring Commission (JMC) with information on their strength and locations".
They should also give the JMC information on the positions and descriptions of all known and unexploded ordnance, minefields, booby traps, wire entanglements and other physical or military hazards as demanded by Article 19 of the Lome accord, ECOMOG said.
The JMC was established under the Lome accord to investigate and take action on reports of cease-fire violations. Chaired by UNOMSIL it includes representatives of the government, RUF, Civil Defence Force (militias) and ECOMOG.
Kpamber also called on the rebel leaders to give free access to humanitarian agencies and DDR technical teams, who need to put "essential infrastructure" in place for the DDR programme to start, and to release "all POWs or detainees who are still in their camps".
In a report released on Monday UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the RUF and the AFRC were believed to be holding several thousand civilians, including at least 3,000 children reported missing after the rebels attacked Freetown in January.
The government, ECOMOG and pro-government militias have assured UNOMSIL that they have released all persons they held, Annan said.
Food distributed in Masiaka
A total of 115 mt of food has been distributed to 6,400 vulnerable people in the Masiaka area, some 60 km east of Freetown, by WFP, Action Contre la Faim and ADRA, WFP reported on 24 September.
Distributions were delayed three times due to insecurity in the Occra Hills, some 10 km west of Masiaka, WFP said. Former Sierra Leone Army (ex-SLA) soldiers in the Occra Hills have been responsible for a spate of kidnappings in recent weeks.
Three ministries created
Sierra Leone's government will create three new cabinet ministries in keeping with the Lome accord. The new portfolios are local government and rural development, public safety and labour and social security, Presidential spokesman Septimus Kaikai told IRIN.
Sankoh questions deployment of UN peacekeepers
A proposal to deploy UN peacekeepers in Sierra Leone has been welcomed by the country's government but not - news reports say - by RUF leader Foday Sankoh.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan recommended in a report on Monday that the UN Security Council authorise the deployment of 6,000 peacekeepers to disarm and demobilise some 45,000 ex-combatants and to help implement the peace process.
Presidential spokesman Septimus Kaikai told IRIN Sierra Leone's government was pleased with the recommendations in the report, which "has put the responsibility for helping Sierra Leone bring about security on the doorstep of the international community".
However, Sankoh told Reuters the deployment of UN peacekeepers would violate the peace agreement. "The UN proposal is not in the peace accord," Sankoh said. "We never asked the United Nations for a peacekeeping force."
Article 16 of the Lome Peace Agreement, signed by President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and Sankoh, states: "A neutral peacekeeping force comprising UNOMSIL and ECOMOG shall disarm all combatants of the RUF/SL, CDF, SLA and paramilitary groups."
"UNOMSIL shall be present in all disarmament and demobilisation locations to monitor the process and provide security guarantees to all ex-combatants," it adds.
Article 14 of the agreement requests the Security Council
"to amend the mandate of UNOMSIL to enable it
to undertake the various provisions outlined in the
present agreement".
GUINEA-BISSAU: President appeals for help
Guinea-Bissau's president, Malam Bacai Sanha, appealed on Wednesday at the UN General Assembly for support for his country's efforts to return to constitutional rule.
He said ineffective state authority, bad governance, human rights violations, corruption, the deterioration of living conditions, frustration and despair led to the crisis that erupted in his country in June 1998, when a section of the military rebelled against then president Joao Bernardo Vieira.
Vieira was eventually overthrown on 7 May 1999 and replaced by a transitional government headed by Sanha.
Deadline for parliamentary nominations extended
A humanitarian source in Bissau told IRIN on Thursday that Guinea-Bissau's national assembly agreed on Tuesday to extend the deadline for legislative nominations by 10 days in response to a request by political parties.
The parties had asked parliament to reduce from 60 days to 50 the time which, by law, should elapse between the closure of nominations and the election date, the source said.
Presidential and legislative polls are to be held on 28 November.
GUINEA: Speaker wants troops abroad to come home
The speaker of Guinea's parliament, Boubacar Biro Diallo, has called on the government to recall Guinean troops serving abroad, Radio France Internationale (RFI) reported on Wednesday.
Diallo called on the government to reconsider its policy on deploying troops abroad and demanded that parliament be consulted before decisions to that effect are made.
Guinean troops are deployed in Sierra Leone under the umbrella of the Economic Community of West African States Cease-Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) and were also sent last year to Guinea-Bissau, from where they were withdrawn in mid-1999.
Guinea denies taking census of foreigners
Guinea has not started a census of all foreigners as a means towards curbing violent crime as reported by news organisations, an official of the Interior Ministry told IRIN on Wednesday.
"There has been neither police, gendarme nor army
troops counting foreigners," the official said.
Only neighbourhood leaders have been verifying the
documents of residents in their areas, he added.
Guinean authorities have often accused rebels from neighbouring
countries of taking advantage of the influx of hundreds
of thousands of refugees from Guinea-Bissau, Liberia
and Sierra Leone to infiltrate Guinea and raid villages
there.
Development hindered by refugee burden
President Lansana Conte told the United Nations General Assembly on 24 September that the large number of refugees in Guinea has placed an enormous burden and severely slowed down the country's development.
"The presence of hundreds of thousands of refugees has had serious consequences for Guinea's economy, its environment and its national security," he said.
Guinea hosts some 500,000 refugees - 400,000 from Sierra Leone and about 100,000 from Liberia. This amounts to 10 percent of the country's population and "makes Guinea the country hosting the largest number of refugees in Africa," a UNHCR spokesman in Abidjan told IRIN.
LIBERIA: Archbishop wins rights award
A Liberian human rights activist, Catholic Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis, has won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for 1999, PANA reported.
"For more than twenty years, often at grave personal risk, the archbishop has repeatedly raised his voice to preach justice, peace and reconciliation," Judge Rose Styron of the RFK Human Rights award noted in a citation.
Francis, archbishop of Monrovia, founded the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission (JPC) in 1991.
Reprieve for refugees in the United States
US President Bill Clifton has issued a one-year reprieve from deportation for Liberian refugees in the United States, according to a White House statement.
In a memorandum to the attorney general and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Clinton said there were compelling foreign policy reasons not to deport the Liberians at this time.
"In particular, I am concerned that a decision by our government to deport Liberians who have enjoyed the protection of our country for many years could cause governments in West Africa to deport many thousands of Liberians in their own countries," he said.
A complementary measure to the deferral allows the Liberians to work for one year from 29 September, the day on which they were to have been deported.
CAMEROON: Dam under pressure
A major dam in the extreme north of Cameroon is under
threat as a result of heavy rains which have increased
the amount of water it holds, the official 'Cameroon
Tribune' newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The rains have swelled the Mayo Danay river and, according
to the paper, the dam over the river could cave in
if the water pressure remains high.
According to AFP, the dam covers 37,000 ha and has over 35 million m3 of water. More than 200,000 people could be affected if it were to cave in, the news agency said.
The government has allocated 100 million CFA francs (about US $160,000) for maintenance work on the dam, according to 'Cameroon Tribune'.
US provides funds for de-gassing poison lakes
The United States has given Cameroon US $450,000 to help it remove toxic gases from two waterways in the northwest, Lake Nyos, where 1,800 villagers died from carbon dioxide poisoning in 1986, and Lake Monoun, state radio reported.
GHANA: 144,000 displaced by floods in north
Floods in northern Ghana in late August and September have displaced nearly 144,000 people and destroyed some 13,000 houses, the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) - the state agency responsible for disaster relief - reported.
The floods, which now threaten the south of the country, also swamped 68,000 acres of farmland, according to an 18-member team that assessed the area from 15-25 September, and which included navy and air force personnel, engineers and health, construction and hydrometeorological specialists.
"Nearly 120,000 are displaced in the Northern Region, some 15,000 in Upper West Region and just over 9,000 in Upper East Region," team leader Kofi Portuphy, NADMO's National Coordinator, told IRIN. "Many farms and homes are still underwater."
Portuphy said initial news reports of more than 320,000 being made homeless referred to those who were "under threat" but the assessment revealed that they were not all subsequently displaced.
Thirteen people drowned or were killed when their homes collapsed and 43 died from cholera, according to NADMO's report.
Portuphy said that aid agencies were providing medical assistance, food and non-food aid to affected populations in the north.
In addition to providing emergency relief to those affected
by the flooding, NADMO has recommended that farmers
be resettled. Damaged dams, roads and bridges should
be rebuilt and the resurgence of blackflies - aphids
which infest beans, sugar beet and other plants - should
be checked.
The Black Volta River in the Brong-Ahafo region in central Ghana is now in flood and this is a cause for concern, Portuphy added. "Standby teams are in place to evacuate those living on the banks of Lake Volta," he said.
COTE d'IVOIRE: Thousands of opposition supporters demonstrate
About 10,000 supporters of Ivorian opposition leader Alassane Ouattara marched across Abidjan and two of its suburbs on Monday in support of their leader's bid for official recognition of his Ivorian nationality and his right to run in presidential elections next year.
Ouattara, leader of the Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR), is being investigated by the state on suspicion of providing false documents proving his Ivorian nationality. The government claims he is a Burkinabe and thus ineligible to run for president.
Ouattara, who resigned this year from the World Bank to return to politics, was prime minister of Cote d'Ivoire under the late president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny.
NIGER: Presidential electoral campaign starts
Niger's military ruler, Major Daouda Mallam Wanke, has officially launched the campaign for presidential polls to be held on 17 October, news reports said last weekend.
There are seven candidates, including Niger's first democratically elected leader, Mahamane Ousmane, overthrown in January 1996 by Ibrahim Bare Mainassara. Wanke came to power after soldiers under his command assassinated Mainassara on 9 April.
Parliamentary elections are due on 24 November.
Niamey has been receiving funds from abroad to help it organise the polls, the state election commission has reported.
According to the Commission electorale nationale independante (CENI), the latest contributions include donations from Cote d'Ivoire (100 million CFA francs), the People's Republic of China, (30 million CFA) and Libya, (180 million CFA).
(US $1 is equivalent to roughly 600 CFA.)
Prime Minister calls for help for Africa's poorest
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki urged the international community on Thursday to increase financial aid to Africa, particularly its poorest countries. In a speech at the UN General Assembly, he noted that public aid to his country had dropped to its lowest in 50 years.
Niger is among the world's least developed countries: 80 percent of its people are illiterate, 63 percent live below the official poverty line, and life expectancy is 47 years.
WEST AFRICA: Six states sign Volta Basin management deal
An agreement for the joint management of the Volta River Basin was signed on 24 September in Accra by six countries which share the river's resources, an official of Ghana's Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology told IRIN.
"The Volta River is very important to us," Edwin Barnes, chief director of the ministry, told IRIN on Monday. "We are happy to have cooperation with our neighbours on the management of this resource."
The agreement was signed by Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote
d'Ivoire, Ghana, Mali and Togo.
NIGERIA: Many die as water spilled from dam sweeps away
settlements
Many people are reported to have died in northern Nigeria
after water spilled from hydroelectric dams flooded
- and in some cases swept away - villages this week,
news organisations reported.
The disaster occurred when the National Electric Power
Authority (NEPA) opened the floodgates at hydroelectric
dams along the Niger River and a tributary of the Kaduna
River following exceptionally heavy rains. The states
of Koji, Niger, Kaduna and Kwara, are reportedly affected,
a media source told IRIN.
NEPA had warned two weeks ago that it would be releasing water from the Shiroro, Kainji and Jebba reservoirs to ease the pressure on their dams. Many people apparently did not hear the warnings partly because the state radio has been plagued by problems and partly because not everyone in the fishing and farming hamlets in the affected areas has radios, the media source said.
Reuters reported that the official death toll stood at 39 on Wednesday, with more than 210 settlements submerged or washed away since the gates were opened last week, and thousands have been left homeless.
The source said a food deficit was expected in heavily agricultural areas since the flood waters have washed away farmers' harvests.
France agrees to help Abuja trace stolen funds
France has joined Britain and the United States in promising to help Nigeria's democratic government recover billions of dollars of public money stolen under past military regimes, the French news agency, AFP, reported on Friday.
French Ambassador Phillppe Peltier told reporters in Abuja on Friday that Paris would help trace money that may have been transferred illegally to accounts in France, AFP said. "We are open and we will do our best to help," he said, after a meeting with Nigerian Deputy Foreign Minister Dubem Oniya.
Obasanjo alerts community to threat to the economy
President Olusegun Obasanjo warned restive youths and their elders in Bonny, Rivers State, that their continued disruption of a Liquefied Natural Gas plant would seriously affect foreign investment in the country.
`The Guardian' newspaper reported that Obasanjo - who was speaking at a meeting - also asked for time to implement development plans in the area.
A siege by youths in Bonny forced the US $3.8-billion LNG plant to shut down on 23 September, less than two weeks after beginning operations.
Obasanjo promised them that his government would try to improve technical skills training in the Delta. This, he said, would increase job opportunities for the area's youths when the economy regained its buoyancy.
Universal basic education reintroduced
Nigeria officially reintroduced on Thursday a Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme granting free education to all children up to the third year of secondary school.
The symbolic relaunch of the programme was done in the northern state of Sokoto, which has one of the lowest literacy rates in this country of at least 108 million people.
The UBE had been introduced years ago but lapsed under past regimes. It is expected to benefit from a grant of US $500,000 which UNESCO Director General Federico Mayor pledged earlier this month for all sectors in Nigeria that fall within UNESCO's area of competence.
A Nigerian newspaper, `The Post Express', quoted Federal
Minister of Education Tunde Adeniran as saying that
the government would use the relaunch of the UBE to
revamp primary and junior secondary schools in the
north of the country.
Round-the-clock police patrols
The federal government has approved 2.52 billion naira (US $26.6 million dollars) for the police and ordered the force to begin 24-hour patrols in Abuja and Lagos. The money will go toward buying vehicles and communication and security equipment, the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) announced on Wednesday. Government took the measure in response to an increase in violent crime since Obasanjo's inauguration on 29 May.
Sharia in Zamfara
The government of Zamfara has introduced the Shar'ia (Islamic law) in the northern state, but Governor Ahmed Sani Yerima said the existing legal system would continue to operate, NTA reported on Tuesday. Yerima assured non-Muslims that the state would continue to provide protection and social welfare programmes.
Government warns groups against terrorising others
Government said on Tuesday that it would match with equal force any militant ethnic association trying to terrorise other citizens of the country. It was reacting to reports of recent killings allegedly carried out by members of the Oodua People's Congress.
Free health care
Osun State Governor Adebisi Akande said on Wednesday that his administration would initiate a free health care programme costing more than 1.93 billion naira ($20.4 million). Speaking at the official launch of the health policy, he said over 40 million naira ($422,000) had been earmarked for recurrent expenditure, drugs and consumables on a monthly basis.
SENEGAL: Venezuela to help mine oil
Venezuela signed an agreement with Senegal on Monday
to help it mine some one billion mt of heavy crude
oil off its southern coast. Senegal had put off the
exploitation of its oil for years as world prices hovered
around US $10 a barrel. Energy Minister Magued Diouf
said it was now economical to mine oil because prices
had risen to around US $24 per barrel.
US $3 grant for education
The United States has given Senegal US $3 million for the education of girls and women working in the informal sector, the government announced on Thursday. It said the grant was part of an initiative to aid education, development and democracy, launched by President Bill Clinton during his Africa visit in March 1998.
Abidjan, 1 October 1999; 19:39 GMT
[ENDS]
[ UN IRIN-WA Tel: +225 21 73 66 Fax: +225 21 63 35 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1704
[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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