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

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WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 65
24-30 March 2001

                                
CONTENTS: 

SIERRA LEONE: RUF forms body to resume peace process
SIERRA LEONE: Next US training of African peacekeepers in May
SIERRA LEONE: EC allocates 11 million euros in humanitarian aid
SIERRA LEONE: Over 3,000 refugees registered in March
SIERRA LEONE: Government won't condemn Guinean attacks
SIERRA LEONE: Ambassador to Liberia returns home
GHANA: Refugees attack police post at UNHCR facility
GUINEA: Army arrest, then release hundreds of refugees
GUINEA: WFP unable to deliver food to tens of thousands
GUINEA: 52 missing in boat mishap
LIBERIA: Cameroonian to head UN panel on Liberia
LIBERIA: University panel to probe police brutality
SENEGAL: NGO give 55 million francs CFA of medical aid
CAMEROON: NGOs set up inquiry commission
TOGO: Opposition against resumption of EU aid
GUINEA-BISSAU: Opposition against new government
BENIN: Kerekou re-elected

SIERRA LEONE: RUF forms body to resume peace process

The High Command of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) endorsed on Friday
in Makeni all six members of the RUF's newly-formed Political and Peace
Council, Omrie Golley told Sierra Leone Web, an Internet-based news
provider. 

Golley said the objective of the Political and Peace Council he chairs was
to start "formal dialogue" with the government and the international
community to resume the peace process ruptured in May 2000 when the RUF
detained over 500 UN troops.

According to Sierra Leone Web, the council's other members are Pastor Moses
Alpha, an evangelical preacher; Agnes Mannie, a civil society leader; Andrew
Kanu, an elections specialist; Colonel Jonathan Kposowa, the RUF's Chief of
Administration; and Colonel Patrick Beinda, described as a veteran combatant
and senior military advisor. 

Golley was the RUF's legal representative during negotiations with the
government that lead to the 1999 Lome peace deal. However, he soon split
with the now imprisoned RUF leader, Foday Sankoh, when the latter accused
him of duping the organisation, AFP reported.

SIERRA LEONE: Next US training of African peacekeepers in May

Phase two of 'Operation Focus Relief', a US partnership with West African
armies to support UN operations in Sierra Leone, is due to begin in late
May,
'Washington File', a publication of the State Department, reported on
Tuesday. 

It quoted the regional director for West Africa in the Department of
Defence's Office of African Affairs, Charles Ikins, as saying on 21 March
that the groundwork had been completed for training to begin.

Light infantry weapons will be issued to the two Ghanaian and Senegalese
battalions participating in this training cycle. The first phase, initiated
in late last year, involved two Nigerian battalions (about 1,5000 men) and
the third segment will involve three more. "All seven West African
battalions will come under the command of UNAMSIL and will operate according
to its UN mandate and rules of engagement," he said. 

SIERRA LEONE: EC allocates 11 million euros in humanitarian aid

The European Commission has allocated some 11 million euros (approx US $10
million) for aid programmes in Sierra Leone, its humanitarian office, ECHO,
said on Thursday.

The humanitarian intervention plan has three main strands. Firstly an
estimated 6.6 million euros will go towards integrated assistance for
internally displaced persons (IDPs) to help cover basic needs such as water,
sanitation, health care, nutrition and the supply of relief items. Secondly
some two million euros will provide special support for women and children
affected by the war as well as amputees. 

A third tranche of 1.4 million euros will go towards coordination and
operational assistance for humanitarian organisations working in the
country. This will include logistical support for emergency interventions in
remote areas. A reserve of one million euros will be kept for evolving
humanitarian projects. 

SIERRA LEONE: Over 3,000 refugees registered in March

UNHCR has registered 3,418 refugees who arrived in eastern Sierra Leone
after fleeing fighting in the 'Parrot's Beak' region of southwestern Guinea,
the refugee agency said in its 20-23 March update. 

SIERRA LEONE: Government won't condemn Guinean attacks

Sierra Leone will not condemn Guinea's recent cross-border pursuits of rebel
forces even though there have been civilian casualties, Information Minister
Julius Spencer told IRIN on Tuesday. 

He said Freetown did "not want to jeopardize the relationship between Guinea
and Sierra Leone", which have a long-standing alliance.

SIERRA LEONE: Ambassador to Liberia returns home

Sierra Leone's ambassador returned to Freetown on Monday following his
expulsion from Liberia, Information Minister Julius Spencer told IRIN on
Tuesday. On 19 March the Sierra Leonean envoy, Kemoh Salia-Bao and his
Guinean counterpart, Baba Soare, were told to leave Liberia because of what
the government said were "acts incompatible with their status". 

GHANA: Refugees attack police post at UNHCR facility

Police fired tear gas and warning shots on Saturday to disperse Liberian
refugees who attacked their post at a UNHCR office at Bunduburam near the
central city of Kumasi, the Ghana News Agency reported. 

The refugees were angry that the police had refused to hand over a man
suspected of slashing another refugee, Thomas Davies, in the abdomen. Davies
was treated at a military hospital in the area and discharged. 

The head of the Liberian Welfare Council at the camp, Joseph Myers, blamed
Saturday's rioting on "undisciplined, new refugees". The refugees damaged
the camp's police post and living quarters, the offices of the National
Mobilisation Programme, and the Ghana National Fire Service. 

Police also restrained residents of Kasoa and Wutu who rushed to the
Bunduburam refugee camp to retaliate.

GUINEA: Army arrest, then release hundreds of refugees

UNHCR obtained the release on Wednesday of 499 refugees arrested on
suspicion that insurgents might have infiltrated the group at a camp in
southern Guinea, a UNHCR official told IRIN.

Guinean troops arrested the refugees on Monday amidst persistent rumours of
an impending rebel attack on Kissidougou, 392 km east of Conakry. The UNHCR
said the refugees have been returned to their camp at Massakoundou, nine
kilometres west of Kissidougou. Four refugees were taken into custody. 

GUINEA: WFP unable to deliver food to tens of thousands

The UN World Food Programme said on Friday it had been unable to deliver
food to thousands of refugees in the south of Guinea because of fighting in
the 
so-called Parrot's Beak over the last three weeks.

"WFP is extremely concerned about the fate of tens of thousands of mostly
Sierra Leonean refugees, previously sheltered in refugee camps in the
area," Ramin Rafirasme, the WFP regional spokesman in Cote d'Ivoire, said. 

On 8 March, he said, insurgents attacked the town of Nongoa, killing 39
people and looting 190 mt of WFP food. Prior to recent armed incursions, the
area sheltered up to 140,000 refugees in different camps. A recent security
mission to the area found about 30,000 refugees in the Kolomba camp, near
the Sierra Leonean border, but the whereabouts of a large number of others
remain uncertain, Rafirasme said.

GUINEA: 52 missing in boat mishap

At least 52 Sierra Leonean refugees were reported missing after an
overloaded passenger boat sank off the coast of Guinea on Sunday, news
sources in Conakry told IRIN.

One source said another 51 passengers on the makeshift craft were rescued by
a South Korean fishing trawler. 

The Sierra Leonean refugees had set sail for Freetown from Conakry's Port de
Boussoura. Since February, thousands of refugees have been repatriated
safely on ships chartered by the International Organization for Migration.  

LIBERIA: Cameroonian to head UN panel on Liberia

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan named Martin Chungong Ayafor of Cameroon on
23 March as head of a five-member panel to monitor Liberia's compliance with
Security Council measures aimed at ending Monrovia's support for rebels in
Sierra Leone. 

Other panel members are Atabou Bodian of Senegal, from the International
Civil Aviation Organization; Johan Peleman, an expert on arms and
transportation from Belgium; Interpol official Harjit Singh Sandhu of India;
and Alex Vines, a diamond expert from the United Kingdom. 

The panel will sit for six months during which it will investigate
violations of the sanctions, as well as links between the exploitation of
natural resources and the fuelling of the conflict in the region, the UN
reported. 

LIBERIA: University panel to probe police brutality

Officials at the University of Liberia have appointed an eight-member panel
of inquiry, headed by Professor Momolu Getweh, into the beatings security
forces inflicted on students and
faculty on campus last week, PANA reported on Tuesday, citing the University
Senate. 
The committee has two weeks to deliver its report.

Police and elite forces invaded the campus on 21 March to break up a
peaceful student meeting called to raise funds for the legal fees of four
detained journalists charged with spying. 

Liberia's leading rights watchdog, the Catholic Justice and Peace
Commission, has asked the government to punish all state security agents and
their commanders who assaulted unarmed students.

At Monday's meeting, the faculty demanded that the police and the
Anti-Terrorist Unit, which carried out the assault, apologise in public.
Faculty also demanded that University President Ben Roberts, who invited the
police on campus, apologise, and petitioned the University Board of Trustees
to fire him.  

SENEGAL: NGO gives 55 million francs CFA of medical aid

A US NGO, World Vision, has donated some 55 million francs CFA francs (US
$74,000) worth of medicines to regional health districts in the Kolda region
of
Casamance, southern Senegal, the state-owned 'Le Soleil' daily reported on
Thursday.

The items comprise pain-killers, surgical products and drugs to treat
worms and other ailments. Some 10 billion francs will go to the Velingara
District where World Vision is operational. The remaining 45 million francs
will be distributed to other districts in the region, the newspaper said.

CAMEROON: NGOs set up inquiry commission

Political activists and human rights advocates, including Cameroon's Roman
Catholic clergy, have created an independent commission to investigate the
disappearance of nine youths who are now feared dead. The commission of
inquiry is headed by opposition party leader Albert Dzongang, a Cameroonian
political analyst told IRIN on Thursday.

It was created because the group does not have faith in a commission set up
on 20 March by President Paul Biya to investigate the case, he said. Three
previous government-appointed panels have failed to solve the murders of
three clergymen and a lawyer. 

The nine youths, from Douala, have not been seen since 28 January, five days
after soldiers of the Commandement Operationel, an army unit created to
fight rising crime in the city, arrested them for stealing a gas canister. 

A Cameroonian organisation known as l'Action des chretiens contre la torture
said on 2 March that the youths were killed with acid, along with 41 others.

TOGO: Opposition against resumption of EU aid

The main Togolese opposition parties refused on Tuesday to sign an
appeal for the European Union to resume aid to Togo, AFP reported. The
appeal was proposed by the ruling Rassemblement du peuple Togolais (RPT)
within the framework of a July 1999 agreement it signed with the opposition.

The paritary agreement was concluded in response to a political crisis which
had developed in mid-1998 after the opposition contested the result of
presidential election which it said was rigged. The accord, which includes
several points, is said to contain a pledge by President Gnassingbe Eyadema
to forego another run for the presidency at the end of his current term in
2003.

GUINEA-BISSAU: Opposition against new government

Guinea-Bissau's main opposition parties said on Monday they would not
cooperate with the new government because it did not represent all
political forces in the country, Lusa reported. 

Their statement came a few hours after the newly appointed prime minister,
Faustino Imbali, announced his new team of 14 ministers and eight state
secretaries. Imbali, appointed on 21 March to replace Caetano Intchama, has
promised to concentrate on resolving the instability in the country. 

BENIN: Kerekou re-elected

President Mathieu Kerekou won 84 percent of the vote at the second round of
Benin's presidential elections, held on 22 March, media organisations
reported. He ran against the candidate who had placed fourth at the first
round on 4 March. The second- and third-place candidates boycotted the
runoff because of alleged fraud.

Abidjan, 30 March 2001; 18:11 GMT


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