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IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup of Main Events 51 in West Africa covering the period (Friday-Thursday) 29 May - 04 June 1998
NIGERIA: American diplomatic visit cancelled
The United States has cancelled a planned diplomatic mission to Nigeria aimed at promoting the transition to democracy and civilian government which was scheduled for mid-June, news organisations reported on Thursday. The reason, said a State Department spokesman, was that Nigerian authorities had set unacceptable preconditions.
These included a demand for the lifting of visa restrictions imposed by Washington on senior officials of Nigeria's military government. The State Department said delegation had wanted to discuss the decision by the country's five approved political parties which nominated the country's leader, General Sani Abacha, as the sole presidential candidate for the 1 August presidential election.
South Africa, US, Europe accused of plotting against Abacha
Earlier in the week, an advisor to Abacha accused the European Union, the United States, South Africa and Ghana of seeking to destabilise the country, media reports said. The adviser, Alhaji Wada Nas, said Nigerian rights and pro-democracy groups had received financial and moral support for a range of actions from street protests to plans to destroy important government facilities.
According to AFP, Nas said the strategy had been agreed at a meeting of opposition groups in a hotel in northern Ghana in May. "The meeting was organised by America while the trainers were from South Africa," Nas said.
But a spokesman for South African President Nelson Mandela denied on Tuesday that South Africa had attempted to undermine the Abacha government, AFP reported. "Our track-record shows that we would not co-operate with any non-African country to bring another African government into disrepute or destabilise it," the spokesman said. The other counties also denied the allegations.
Abacha cancels Lagos visit
Meanwhile, citing "unforeseen circumstances", Abacha cancelled a highly publicised visit to the economic capital, Lagos, on Wednesday, hours before he was due depart, news reports said. The decision reportedly embarrassed city officials, who had encouraged residents to welcome Abacha's first appearance in Lagos since he moved Nigeria's capital to Abuja in 1994.
Protest planned
The cancellation coincided, according to AFP, with the announcement by opposition groups that they planned demonstrations in Lagos to mark the second anniversary on Thursday of the murder of Kudiratu Abiola, wife of gaoled opposition leader Moshood Abiola.
It quoted opposition spokesmen as saying the military government had assassinated Mrs Abiola in 1996 after she intensified efforts to release her husband. Abiola is widely believed to have won 1993 elections annulled by Abacha. Inquiries into the killing were never concluded, AFP said.
According to AFP, a dozen opposition supporters have been killed in clashes with police in recent weeks while some 50 others have also been detained.
Oil hostages freed
Eight employees of an American oil engineering company held hostage for nearly week were released at the weekend, AFP reported on Monday. Their release was announced by a spokesman for the US oil giant Chevron. The eight, two of them expatriate staff, were among 200 oil workers who had been held on a coastal barge. The hostages were all employees of McDermott, a Chevron subcontractor.
Nigerian press reports said that local Ilaje people had sought compensation from Chevron for alleged environmental damage in their region. The incident marked the fifth occasion since December 1996 in which oil company employees have been taken hostage by local residents in southern Nigeria.
SIERRA LEONE: Rebels offered amnesty
Rebels loyal to the ousted military junta in Sierra Leone have been offered an amnesty by the government if they surrender within the next two weeks, news organisations reported. The offer, broadcast by Interior Minister Charles Margai, said he would personally guarantee the safety of any rebel soldier who surrendered in the next two weeks.
The rebels have continued fighting in the east of the country since the West African intervention force, ECOMOG, drove the regime from power in March. The BBC said the amnesty offer came as casualty figures were mounting with more than 300 maimed civilians being treated in the past month at hospitals in the capital Freetown and Makeni in central Sierra Leone.
Amnesty International has described the mutilations committed by rebel fighters as "the worst of their kind in Africa".
Rebels terrorise diamond district
The amnesty offer followed news agency reports that marauding rebel soldiers were inflicting "terror and havoc" on towns in the diamond-rich Kono area in the east of the country. AFP quoted Dominic Musa, a former housing minister who had fled the area, as saying rebels had been attacking the towns as Tombodu, Sukudu, Yomandu and Kayima, 250 km east of the capital Freetown.
He also said rebels were "not only mining illegally for diamonds but also vandalising and ferrying personal belongings left behind by Kono residents as well as generators and mining equipment to towns in the north.
UNHCR asks US$ 7.3 million for refugees
UNHCR issued an urgent appeal on Tuesday for US$ 7.3 million to help refugees fleeing fighters on the rampage in the north of the country. According to UNHCR, some 182,000 refugees have fled to neighbouring Guinea this year while a further 55,000 also escaped to Liberia swelling the total caseload from the seven-year civil war in both countries to 530,000.
UNHCR's Assistant High Commissioner, Soren Jessen-Petersen, who visited camps in Guinea at the weekend, said he too was appalled by evidence of killings, mutilations and rapes committed by the rebels of the ousted Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and its allies from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Jessen-Petersen said Sierra Leone's example reinforced the urgent need for an international criminal court. "We have to see to it that justice is done but also to deter such crimes in the future," he said.
Jessen-Petersen appealed to donors to respond generously to the appeal. "We have to do all in our power to help," he said.
WFP asks NATO for all-terrain vehicles
Meanwhile, WFP also asked NATO this week to provide all-terrain military vehicles to help distribute urgently needed humanitarian supplies to civilians displaced by the conflict in remote areas of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. WFP's regional manager Paul Ares asked NATO countries to donate or sell at least 30 lorries to supplement its current fleet of 17 lorries. "We have enough food to feed all the refugees in Guinea during the rainy season but due to limited trucking capacity, we have great difficulties keeping up with the demand," Ares said.
SENEGAL: Official election results
Senegal's ruling Parti Socialiste (PS) won the country's 24 May parliamentary election taking 93 of 140 seats in the national assembly, according to official results announced this week. Media reports said the results, published by the Dakar Appeal Court, gave 23 seats to the main opposition Parti Democratique Senegalaise (PDS) of Abdoulaye Wade and 11 to new PS breakaway party, Renouveau Democratique (RD), led by former foreign minister Djibo Ka.
Two other opposition groups, And Jeff, led by Landing Savane, and the Ligue Democratique of Abdoulaye Bathily, won four and three seats respectively, while six other minor parties took one seat each. AFP noted that the PS's share of the vote, at 50.12 percent, was lower than in 1988 and 1993. The PDS lost four seats.
Diouf may offer coalition
AFP on Sunday quoted PS first secretary Ousmane Tanor Dieng as saying President Abdou Diouf, despite his "comfortable majority", might offer a power-sharing deal to the opposition parties.
Although the PS felt this unnecessary, Diouf, he added, would have the last word. The opposition parties last week demanded the annulment of the vote in several constituencies citing fraud. The RD said even if offered any posts in government it would turn them down.
NIGER: Army quells weekend mutiny
Army troops stormed the headquarters of Niger's paramilitary Garde Republicaine in the capital Niamey late on Saturday to free a deputy commander held hostage in a pay dispute. Media reports said that as calm returned to Niamey on Sunday, troops also seeking back pay briefly seized a regional administrator in Agadez, 900 km to the northeast.
There were similar mutinies in three other remote towns. AFP said a presidential aide had interrupted regular television programmes to tell viewers that the army had moved in after a standoff lasting several hours in Niamey. "After the release of the second-in-command by elements of the army," said the aide Colonel Amadou Mousaa Gros, "the other members of the Garde Republicaine agreed to obey the orders of their superiors."
He gave no indication of any casualties. Last February, army troops in outlying districts staged similar protests to press for the payment of salary arrears.
Democracy rally
Despite the army intervention late on Saturday, by Sunday morning an estimated 5,000 people staged a peaceful pro-democracy rally in the capital, Reuters reported. The rally was sponsored by the eight-party Front pour la Restauration et la Defense de la Democratie (FRDD) and three smaller groups once allied to President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara. Reuters said speakers called for the release of about 40 political activists detained after protests in April.
European Union protests rights violations
The European union (EU) has called on the Mainassara government to release political detainees and lift restrictions on press freedom, media reports said at the weekend. In a communique, Brussels said it "deplored" the continued detention of several political opponents and journalists. Three days later, media reports said the authorities had "provisionally" rleased 29 opposition activists detained during anti-government demonstrations in recent weeks.
Former president's son gets one year
Meanwhile international news agencies reported this week that Abdoulaye Diori, son of Niger's first president, Hamani Diori, was given a one-year suspended sentence for assaulting a Court of Appeals judge on 22 May. The incident occurred after the judge made his ruling in a suit by Diori to regain control of his father's party from Ide Oumarou, Mainassara's cabinet director.
EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Fifteen sentenced to death
A military tribunal in Equatorial Guinea this week sentenced 15 people to death for separatist attacks last January. News reports said several of the defendants showed signs of having been tortured when they appeared in court.
In a series of international protests that ensured during the week, Amnesty International said it was concerned that the 15 might be executed "imminently".
In a statement calling on the government not carry out the death sentences, Amnesty said: "It is usual that people sentenced to death in Equatorial Guinea are executed very quickly. There is no right of appeal against convictions and sentences imposed by military courts. These courts are neither independent nor impartial and use 'most summary procedures, severely curtailing the right to an adequate defence."
Officials said the defendants were convicted of terrorism, treason and illegal possession of weapons. Of the 113 tried last week, more than 50 defendants were served prison terms ranging from six to 24 years. The others were acquitted.
The attacks in January occurred in Equatorial Guinea's main island of Bioko, where the indigenous Bubi minority has been seeking self-determination. Meanwhile, AFP reported on Wednesday that President Omar Bongo had sent his personal representative, Michel Essonghe, to Equatorial Guinea with a plea for clemency.
LIBERIA: Church seeks human rights investigation
The Catholic Justice and Peace Commission (JPC) of Liberia this week asked the government to conduct an urgent investigation of alleged human rights abuses by an ex-soldier and former ally of President Charles Taylor, news organisations reported. Independent Star Radio and AFP cited reports that "general" Coocoo Dennis, commanding a group of 200 armed men in the Grand Gedeh District, had been systematically robbing, beating and detaining returning refugees and other local civilians. Dennis was a member of Taylor's faction during the Liberian civil war.
Saying that he be brought to account, the JPC said, "Liberians could not afford to entertain the impression that the justice system has collapsed."
CAMEROON: Newspaper editor detained
Aime Mathurin Moussi, editor of an independent weekly, 'La Plume du Jour' was arrested by security police and summoned to appear with other members of his staff at the country's political police headquarters in the capital Yaounde, the press watchdog, Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) said on Monday. In a letter of protest to President Paul Biya, RSF said it had no further details of why the action had been taken. But it recalled that the newspaper has been banned since September last year for running articles criticising the government and the state prisons system.
GUINEA BISSAU: Government appeals for election funds
Guinea Bissau's prime minister, Carlos Correia, this week appealed for outside help in financing the country's general election in November, AFP reported. According to the news agency, Correia asked a meeting of international donors and diplomats in the capital, Bissau, to help finance the US$ 5 million election costs.
Abidjan, 5 June 1998 0930 gmt
[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-weekly]
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 09:30:15 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Weekly Roundup 51, 98.6.05 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980605092821.4479A-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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