U N I T E D N A T I O N S Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa Tel: +225 22-40-4440 Fax: +225 22-41-9339 e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ciWEST AFRICA IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 43 21-28 October 2000
CONTENTS: COTE D'IVOIRE: Tense calm reigns in Ivorian capital LIBERIA: Warning against ethnic unrest CAMEROON: Health workers end strike SIERRA LEONE: Jordan to withdraw from UNAMSIL SIERRA LEONE: UNICEF provides materials for school SIERRA LEONE: Communications training SIERRA LEONE: Call for punishment of recruiters of child soldiers SIERRA LEONE: WFP food for Daru SIERRA LEONE: Returnees continue to receive WFP aid SIERRA LEONE: Refugee agency appeals for help GUINEA: Food distribution expanded GUINEA: Six camp sites proposed for refugees GUINEA: US servicemen train local soldiers NIGERIA: Competition to bridge divisions between communities NIGERIA: Protection of Nigerians in Gabon urged NIGERIA: Nigerians recount abuses NIGERIA: Cameroonian gendarmes attack villages - state government says NIGERIA: Rehabilitation of federal highways underway NIGERIA: Police arrest 54 suspected OPC members SENEGAL: Hundreds to get anti-AIDS drugs SENEGAL: Election timetable set SENEGAL: Sewage pollution CHAD: World Bank loan for roads WESTERN SAHARA: No progress on settlement plan WEST AFRICA: Regional court of justice COTE D'IVOIRE: Tense calm reigns in Ivorian capital Truckloads of heavily armed police and gendarmes continued to patrol Abidjan on Friday after three days of unrest in the Ivorian commercial capital and other major towns. The unrest began when junta leader General Robert Guei declared himself winner of Sunday's presidential election. Thousands of people took to the streets on Tuesday and Wednesday in a mass movement that culminated in Guei's departure, and in which about 60 people died, mainly at the hands of the security forces. The country's new president, Laurent Gbagbo, was inaugurated on Thursday after the Supreme Court confirmed that he had won 59.4 percent of the vote to Guei's 32.7 percent. Gbagbo's campaign director, Affi N'Guessan, was appointed prime minister on Friday. N'Guessan had been minister of industry and tourism in Guei's government, which had included representatives of some political parties. About 63 percent of the electorate stayed away from the poll after the former ruling Parti democratique de Cote d'Ivoire (PDCI) and the Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR) called for a boycott to protest the disqualification of their presidential candidates. LIBERIA: Warning against ethnic unrest Liberia's vice-president, Moses Blah, this week described as "disturbing" an increase in ethnic unrest in the northern county of Nimba, where clashes between groups of Manos and Mandingos were reported on 10 October by newspapers. Blah headed a presidential committee that visited Nimba last weekend to investigate the clashes which, some observers say, are rooted in a land dispute. CAMEROON: Health workers end strike Public health workers in Cameroon resumed work on Thursday after a three-day strike aimed at pressuring the government to improve their salaries and working conditions. The Syndicate of Medical and Sanitary Professionals had called for the "dead hospitals" campaign after their pleas to the ministry of public health went unanswered. Workers resumed their duties after President Paul Biya assured them that their needs would be addressed, AFP reported on Thursday. SIERRA LEONE: Jordan to withdraw from UNAMSIL Jordan has informed the UN it will withdraw its 1,830 men from the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) by 31 December. India has already announced it will withdraw its 3,000 men, a measure which would punch a sizable hole in the 12,443-member UN force. That factor and the effort by the UN to raise UNAMSIL's authorised troop strength to 20,500, have prompted the world body to seek new troop contributing countries. Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Wednesday he would "in the next few days" name a new military commander for UNAMSIL, which is led by Indian General Vijay Jetley. SIERRA LEONE: UNICEF provides materials for school UNICEF has provided construction materials to an Indian Battalion of the UN Mission in Sierra Leone for the rehabilitation of five schools in Mile 91, some 115 km east of Freetown. This will enable 4,000 children, of whom at least 40 percent are internally displaced, to attend classes. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Youth, Education and Sports has sent textbooks to the area to complement the teaching/learning materials already provided by UNICEF, the UN agency said in its situation report for 3-16 October. The Ministry has also agreed to provide materials to schools that will enrol former child soldiers. UNICEF said nine schools had been identified in four provinces to pilot the project. SIERRA LEONE: Communications training UNICEF, working with district information education and communication teams, conducted training on 10 and 11 October for 80 radio promoters and community animators in the southern towns of Bo and Pujehun. The objective was to help them develop skills necessary to stimulate discussion among radio listening groups. Participants also learned how to take note of their observations and concerns, and how to make messages clearer. SIERRA LEONE: Call for punishment of recruiters of child soldiers The independent Special Court for Sierra Leone should prosecute all recruiters of child soldiers during the country's nine-year civil war because such recruitments remain "a crime under international law", Amnesty International said on 20 October. Thousands of children were abducted and forced to fight for either anti-government or pro-government forces, Amnesty International said. Those taken by the anti-government Revolutionary United Front (RUF) were often brutalised into committing heinous crimes. "Child soldiers who were abducted, drugged or forced under threat of death to commit atrocities are unlikely to be prosecuted because they acted under duress," Amnesty International said. However, it added, "there were many cases" where child soldiers aged 15 to 18 years were in control of their actions and committed crimes without coercion or duress. "It may be appropriate for them to be held accountable for these crimes," it said. SIERRA LEONE: WFP food for Daru The World Food Programme (WFP) last week made its first delivery in three months to the eastern Sierra Leonean town of Daru, officials said. "We did not find any glaring cases of malnutrition," a WFP official in Freetown told IRIN on Monday. SIERRA LEONE: Returnees continue to receive WFP aid Returning refugees from Guinea and people who fled fighting in Sierra Leone's Kambia District have continued to receive food aid in Lungi, just north of Freetown, the World Food Programme said in its report of 20 October. The UN agency said 30 mt of food was distributed to 19,989 returning refugees and 27 mt to vulnerable IDPs. So far, it said, total food distribution nationwide was 1,270 mt to 116,358 beneficiaries during the week. During the same period, WFP distributed food to 9,529 people in Bo, most of whom were school children. SIERRA LEONE: Refugee agency appeals for help Sierra Leone's National Commission for Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Resettlement has appealed for humanitarian services to hundreds of returnees in southern districts of Kenema and Bo, UNICEF said in its situation report 17-23 October. At least 10,000 people had arrived in these two districts up to the period of the report, it said. Plans were underway, it added, to prepare for "the looming humanitarian crisis". Child protection A third batch of 200 officers and men of the Sierra Leonean army begin training next week on child rights issues, UNICEF said in its report. Training is being undertaken at the Benguema Barracks and involves 800 soldiers. The effort is being undertaken by Child Protection UNICEF, Child Protection Network and the Ministry of Defence. Children often bore the brunt of human right violations during the Revolutionary United Front's campaign of terror aimed at submitting the nation to its rule. GUINEA: Food distribution expanded Security has improved sufficiently in some areas along Guinea's borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia to allow the resumption of food distributions to tens of thousands of refugees, a UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman said on Friday. "A technical mission to Kissidougou and Guekedou last week found that there was less harassment at checkpoints by young vigilantes and there had been few incidents in the camps themselves, despite continuing rumours of possible attacks in the Guekedou area," spokesman Ron Redmond said in Geneva. GUINEA: Six campsites proposed for refugees Guinea has proposed six sites for new camps to shelter some 125,000 vulnerable refugees from Sierra Leone and Liberia camped on border areas. Cross-border attacks by armed men from their countries and local resentment toward them because of the violence has endangered the refugees. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is conducting feasibility studies on the proposed new camp sites, agency spokesman Ron Redmond said Friday in Geneva. Guinea hosts 460,000 refugees from Liberia and Sierra Leone. GUINEA: US servicemen train local soldiers A team of 10 US soldiers this week began training about 60 members of the Guinean armed forces. The US troops arrived a week ago and are to provide "basic military training skills" for the next month, a Western diplomat in the capital, Conakry, told IRIN on Tuesday. The diplomat said the exercise was not linked to the situation on the border with Liberia but had been planned beforehand. NIGERIA: Competition to bridge divisions between communities Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka says he will award US $500 and a baton each year to a Nigerian aged 25 years or younger who is committed to bridging divisions between the country's ethnic and religious groups, 'The Guardian' of Lagos reported on Thursday. The prize is to be awarded on the anniversary of the execution of minority rights activist and environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa, hanged in 1995 by the regime of late General Sani Abacha. NIGERIA: Protection of Nigerians in Gabon urged Nigeria's Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) has called on its government to take steps to protect its nationals in Gabon after one of five Nigerians arrested for fraud in February died in a Gabonese jail. Others face torture and death, it said. The CLO said it had sought help from the Nigerian justice minister, alerting authorities of recent arrests in Gabon, but adequate redress was not taken, 'The Guardian' newspaper of Lagos reported on Thursday. NIGERIA: Nigerians recount abuses Nigerians who have suffered rights abuses have been telling a panel modeled on South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission about their experiences. The panel, which was set up by President Olusegun Obasanjo after he assumed office in May 1999, began hearing testimony on Tuesday in the capital, Abuja. It is chaired by retired judge Chukwudifu Oputa. "It will promote forgiveness, restore harmony to the polity, foster unity and growth and proffer lasting solutions that will address the history of events in the last 30 years of draconian laws," PANA quoted Oputa as saying. NIGERIA: Cameroonian gendarmes attack villages - state government says A border dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria over the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula threatens to flare again following allegation of armed attacks by Cameroonian gendarmes on Nigerians living in the area, according to news reports. PANA quoted a legislative official of the southeastern state of Cross River, Cletus Obun, as telling reporters that an unspecified number of villagers in the area were killed and property worth millions of naira stolen by the gendarmes. Obun's constituency covers the Boki local government area of the state. Villages in the area have a common boundary with Cameroon, to the east. Obun said the villages came under intense gunfire as the gendarmes moved into the area at the weekend. He has appealed to the federal government for help. NIGERIA: Rehabilitation of federal highways underway All federal highways linking Nigeria's 36 states to the capital, Abuja, will be resurfaced or built in two years, Minister of Works and Housing Tony Anenih has said. He told reporters in Yola, Adamawa State, last weekend that there was already at least one rehabilitation project taking place in each of the 36 states and Abuja. More roads will be repaired by next year, 'The Guardian' newspaper reported. NIGERIA: Police arrest 54 suspected OPC members Police in Ibadan have arrested 54 suspected members of the militant Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), the Nigerian Television Authority reported on 21 October. It said police made the arrests following a tip-off on the group's vigilante activities in the city's Oje neighbourhood. The federal government has banned the group and ordered the arrest of its leaders following recent bloody clashes with Hausas in the city of Lagos. SENEGAL: Hundreds to get anti-AIDS drugs At least 820 Senegalese living with HIV/AIDS will get antiretroviral treatment by 2003, PANA reported the state-owned 'Le Soleil' daily newspaper as saying. The drugs will be bought with money from the government, the International Therapeutic Contingency Fund and other partners. The paper said a wider antiretroviral programme was envisaged after five pharmaceutical companies agreed with the government this week to lower the prices for their drugs. The measure would reduce death rates among people living with HIV/AIDS by 65-70 percent. SENEGAL: Election timetable set Senegalese are to vote in early January in a referendum on a new constitution, followed by legislative elections in March, President Abdoulaye Wade said last weekend in France. 'Le Soleil', the official daily in Senegal, quoted Wade as saying that work on the new constitution began after his election into office. "We are going to add freedoms for rural women, especially access to property and against forced marriages, to the traditional public liberties," he said. The constitution will also improve the rights of opposition parties, he said. The referendum, originally scheduled for 27 November, has been postponed twice, first to 10 December and now to an unspecified date in January. SENEGAL: Sewage pollution Some 200,000 m3 of untreated liquid waste flows into the sea, sewage canals or streets in Dakar each year, Senegal's Minister of Hydraulics, Abdoulaye Bathily, was quoted as saying at a news conference on Sunday. He was speaking after clashes on Thursday in the Dakar suburb of Cambarene between the police and villagers who had protested the pollution of their environment by blocking open-air canals into which liquid waste from Dakar flows, AFP reported. The police had accompanied sanitation workers who went to Cambarene to unblock the canals. CHAD: World Bank loan for roads Chad is to receive a US $67-million loan approved on Thursday by the World Bank to strengthen national food security by revamping the country's road network. The World Bank said the money would come from its soft loan arm, the International Development Association. The money, repayable in 40 years with a 10-year grace period, will support the government's National Transport Programme. WESTERN SAHARA: No progress on settlement plan Morocco will have to transfer "some governmental authority" to the Polisario Front in Western Sahara, if Rabat's desire for a political solution to the dispute over sovereignty is to stand a chance of success, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said. In his latest report to the Security Council on the Berlin talks between Polisario and Morocco that ended on 28 September, Annan said Morocco had proposed direct talks with Polisario as a way out of the present negotiation impasse. Discussions have been stuck over an appeals process for people disqualified from voting in a referendum that would determine whether or not the territory would be integrated with Morocco or be independent. Annan has recommended the Security Council's decision to extend MINURSO's mandate, set to expire on 31 October, till 28 February 2001 to allow time to decide on future action. WEST AFRICA: Regional court of justice Ministers from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have met in Mali and adopted a list of 14 regional personalities, among whom seven will be chosen as judges for the community's Court of Justice. Twenty-two proposals were made to ECOWAS justice ministers for the court, which is to be set up by next January, PANA reported on Thursday. The 14 candidates are from nine regional countries. The ECOWAS Court of Justice is different from the special court on Sierra Leone that is being set up with the assistance of the United Nations. Abidjan, 27 October 2000; 18:07 GMT [IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 22-40-4440; Fax (Admin): +225 22-40-4435; Fax (Editorial Desk): +225-22-41-9339; e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci] [This item is delivered in the "africa-english" service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. 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