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 67
7 to 13 April 2001


CONTENTS:

WEST AFRICA: ECOWAS extraordinary summit
GUINEA: New restriction as relocation efforts continue
GUINEA: ICRC support for IDPs
SIERRA LEONE: UNAMSIL chief meets RUF leader
SIERRA LEONE: International community urged to get tough on RUF
LIBERIA: Former deputy information minister disappears
LIBERIA: SCF worried about vulnerable IDPs 
LIBERIA: More than 1,500 IDPs return to the southeast
BURKINA FASO: EC funds meningitis campaigns in Chad, Burkina Faso
NIGERIA: Update on communal and other clashes 
NIGERIA: Call for end to mining
SENEGAL: UN General Assembly grants LDC status  
SENEGAL: Habre ordered to leave
MAURITANIA: Opposition leader arrested
MALI: Development authority established for the north
MALI: Government signs up for cheaper AIDS drugs
CHAD: Cabinet reshuffle
CAMEROON: Opposition leader out of hospital
EQUATORIAL GUINEA: French funds for development
WEST AFRICA: NGOs, politicians fight FGM in Benin, Nigeria
AFRICA: Parliamentarians come out in support of children

WEST AFRICA: ECOWAS extraordinary summit

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) leaders discussed the
situation along Guinea's borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia at a
one-day extraordinary summit on Wednesday in Abuja, Nigeria.

The leaders expressed concern at the tension along the three borders,
urged the United Nations to help the deployment of regional troops there,
and called on the three governments "to take individual and collective
measures to curb the activities of armed rebel groups operating on their
respective territories".

The meeting also decided that a mission of the ECOWAS Mediation and
Security Council would travel to Liberia on 18 April to monitor the
implementation of measures the Liberian government has been required to
take under a UN Security Council resolution. The mission will comprise
Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Togo and the ECOWAS executive
secretariat, the ECOWAS leaders said in their final communique.

Security Council Resolution 1343 of 7 March 2001 on sanctions against
Liberia seeks to ensure that Monrovia stops supporting Revolutionary
United Front (RUF) rebels in Sierra Leone. It was passed after UN and
other reports accused the Liberian government of backing the RUF and
illegally trading guns for diamonds with the rebels.
 
Other countries discussed on Wednesday included Cote d'Ivoire and
Guinea-Bissau.

The ECOWAS leaders praised "the spirit of concord displayed during the
recent municipal elections in Cote d'Ivoire", held on 25 March and called
on the Ivorian authorities to "continue to promote national reconciliation
among the country's sons and daughters".

They called on the authorities in Guinea-Bissau to take the measures
needed to strengthen social cohesion and stability and urged the
international community to help the country in that regard so that it can
take steps to improve its economic situation.

GUINEA: New restriction as relocation efforts continue

The district commissioner of Kissidougou, southern Guinea, has told
humanitarian agencies to apply for permission each week to enter refugee
camps. He cited ongoing insecurity in the area as the reason for the
measure, which he said would be lifted by the end of April.

The measure came as UNHCR continued to relocate refugees from areas close
to Guinea's border with Sierra Leone, including the camp of Massakoundou,
near Kissidougou. The Guinean authorities have repeatedly insisted on the
closure of Massakoundou, citing security concerns. Two weeks ago, hundreds
of refugees were arrested there on suspicion of being rebels. On
Wednesday, UNHCR said all but two had been released.

The relocation sites are situated farther north. The first, in Kountaya,
has reached its holding capacity. By Wednesday, it had 26,000 refugees,
while a new site opened on 4 April, Boreah, had about 1,500. Two other
camps are under construction.

UNHCR also reported that a transit centre in Conakry for refugees bound
for Sierra Leone was now overcrowded, with more than 3,000 refugees. The
refugee agency said a new one with a capacity of 1,000 people was being
built about 100 km north of the Guinean capital. So far some 53,000 former
refugees have been helped to return to their home areas, resettled in host
communities or accomodated in temporary settlement sites in Sierra Leone,
UNHCR reported.

The World Food Programme is seeking additional funds to the sum of US $10
million to US $15 million for returnees in Sierra Leone as well as
relocated refugees in Guinea, WFP spokesman Ramin Rafirasme told IRIN on
Monday. He said an appeal to this effect was made on Sunday by WFP
Director for Africa Manuel da Silva, who left Guinea on Monday after a
three-day visit.
 
GUINEA: ICRC support for IDPs

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has given non-food
items such as sheets and tools to 96,000 IDPs in southern Guinea, Kindia,
Forécariah and Haute-Guinée since September during the first phase of a
distribution exercise. Phase II will target tens of thousands of
vulnerable IDPs in southern Guinea, according to the ICRC.

SIERRA LEONE: UNAMSIL chief meets RUF leader

The force commander of the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) met with
Revolutionary United Front (RUF) interim leader General Issa Sesay on
Thursday in the northern town of Makeni, UNAMSIL spokewoman Margaret
Novicki told IRIN. Lieutenant-General Daniel Opande and Sesay discussed
planned UN deployments to the RUF-held towns of Makeni and Magburaka next
week in keeping with a ceasefire agreement signed in November 2000 in
Abuja, Nigeria, Novicki said on Friday.
 
SIERRA LEONE: International community urged to get tough on RUF

The international community should stop negotiating with Sierra Leone's
Revolutionary United Front (RUF) except to achieve the complete
disarmament and demobilisation of the rebel group, the International
Crisis Group (ICG) said on Wednesday. RUF rebels who refuse to demobilise
should be defeated militarily, it said in a report titled 'Sierra Leone:
Time for a New Military and Political Strategy'.

The ICG called on the international community to help Sierra Leone take
decisive military action against the RUF and to harmonise the "divergent
approaches" of the British government and the UN Mission in Sierra Leone
(UNAMSIL). Britain is "arming, retraining and re-equipping the Sierra
Leone Army (SLA) for a serious campaign", while UNAMSIL "is still trying
to implement the compromise provisions of the Lomé agreement", the peace
pact signed in 1999 by the Sierra Leone government and the RUF, the
private multinational organisation said.

LIBERIA: Former deputy information minister disappears

The whereabouts of Liberia's former deputy minister of information, Milton
Teahjay, remained a mystery this week following his disappearance on
Friday 6 April, according to media and humanitarian sources.

One of a number of opposition politicians President Charles Taylor had
drafted into his cabinet, Teahjay lost his post last year. He was then
appointed media consultant to the president, but was dismissed after
organising protests against the activities of logging companies in his
home area, the southern county of Sinoe.

Teahjay tried to leave Liberia last week but was turned back at border
posts. He disappeared after returning to Monrovia, according to news
reports.

LIBERIA: SCF worried about vulnerable IDPs

Save the Children Fund (SCF) has expressed concern over the fate of
vulnerable people displaced by recent fighting in northern Liberia. "The
status of mothers and children on the road is particularly bad," SCF said
in a news release on 6 April. It said the fighting between government
forces and armed dissidents, formerly concentrated in areas near the
border with Guinea, had spread southward towards the localities of Tarvey
and Gelmah.

SCF said there was "great concern for those who fled back into the bush
and those in the forest on their way to Tarvey". It said the number of
displaced people in the affected area was close to 6,000 and that some of
them urgently needed clean water, food and shelter.
 
LIBERIA: More than 1,500 IDPs return to the southeast

More than 1,500 internally displaced persons (IDPs) who had fled to
Monrovia from southeastern Liberia during a civil war in the 1990s were
taken back to the area between 27 February and 28 March, the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported on Thursday. The operation was
organised by the ICRC in cooperation with the Liberian Red Cross and the
Liberian Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Committee, ICRC said.

BURKINA FASO: EC funds meningitis campaigns in Chad, Burkina Faso

The European Commission is to commit 1.6 million euros (US $1.42 million)
to the fight against meningitis in Burkina Faso and Chad, the EC's
humanitarian assistance office, ECHO, reported on Thursday. The epidemic
started in January in each country. On Wednesday, Burkina Faso's Health
Ministry said the disease had infected 9,623 persons and killed 1,379
people this year. ECHO said Chad's health authorities had reported 4,117
cases between mid-January and 8 April, including 393 deaths.
  
NIGERIA: Update on communal and other clashes

Unrelated acts of violence in three Nigerian states on Tuesday left up to
25 people dead, 'The Guardian' daily newspaper reported.

In Maidiguri, capital of the northern state of Borno, up to 20 people died
after more than 50 people from Niger and Chad clashed with police over the
attempted arrest of some of their kinsmen, 'The Guardian' reported. In
Lagos, an exchange of fire between police and the Yoruba Oodua People's
Congress (OPC) led to the death of two OPC members, State Police
Commissioner Mike Okiro told reporters. In southeast Nigeria, a clash
between two communities in Forcados, Delta State, claimed three lives.

Last week, up to 10 people died and dozens of houses were razed in three
days of clashes between members of the Tiv and Kwala ethnic groups in
Plateau and Nasarawa states, central Nigeria.

NIGERIA: Call for end to mining

The governors of the 19 states in northern Nigeria asked the federal
government on Monday to suspend mining in their region and revoke all such
licenses because of damage to the environment, AFP reported. The call came
at a meeting they organised in the northern town of Kaduna to work out a
common position on a lawsuit before the Supreme Court over control of
Nigeria's oil and gas wealth. The case, filed by the federal government
against the country's 36 states, was adjourned until May after southern
states, who are demanding a share of the oil and gas revenue, challenged
the court's jurisdiction, AFP said. The Kaduna meeting argued that if the
southern states could try to control their region's wealth, the north
should protect its mineral resources, AFP said.

SENEGAL: UN General Assembly grants LDC status

The UN General Assembly on Thursday added Senegal to its list of least
developed countries (LDCs), bringing the total to 49, UN News reported.
According to the UN Committee for Development Policy, which reviews the
status of LDCs, Senegal meets the three criteria for inclusion: per capita
annual GDP of less than US $800, weak human resources, and a low level of
economic diversification.

About 610.5 million people - 10.5 percent of the world's population - live
in the 49 LDCs, which receive particular attention in UN development
efforts since their needs are greater than those of other countries, UN
News reported. The Third UN Conference on Least Developed Countries will
be hosted by the European Union from 14 to 20 May in Brussels, UN News
said.

SENEGAL: Habre ordered to leave

President Abdoulaye Wade has asked Chad's exiled former president, Hissene
Habre, to leave Senegal within 30 days, media organisations reported. Wade
announced his decision on radio on 7 April, less than a month after
Senegal's highest appeal court ruled that local courts could not try Habre
for acts committed outside Senegal.

Habre, who became president in 1982, has been living in the capital,
Dakar, since 1990, when he was overthrown by a military coup. In February
2000, he was placed under house arrest after a Senegalese judge indicted
him of torture and other abuses perpetrated during his reign. The case was
filed by a coalition of torture victims and human rights organisations.
  
MAURITANIA: Opposition leader arrested

The leader of the opposition Front populaire Mauritanien (FPM), Shbih Ould
Cheick Melainine, was charged this week with being an accessory to
conspiracy against the state. He had been arrested on Sunday on suspicion
of being involved with alleged terrorist groups, AFP reported Mauritania's
director of state security as saying. The FPM protested against the arrest
of its leader, who was a minister in the government of President Maaouya
Ould Taya from 1993 to 1996 and ran against him in presidential polls in
1997.
 
MALI: Development authority established for troubled northern region

A state body mandated to coordinate development efforts in northern Mali,
the Autorité pour le développement intégré du nord-Mali (ADIN), was
inaugurated on Tuesday in Bamako, AFP reported. Northern Mali has been
plagued by insecurity for over a decade. A rebel war displaced thousands
of people in the early and mid-1990s. Most of them returned in the late
1990s, following peace pacts. However, in the past two years, banditry has
rendered parts of the north unsafe. Travellers have been killed, vehicles
have been hijacked and people have been abducted, including soldiers.
 
MALI: Government signs up for cheaper AIDS drugs

The Malian government has signed an agreement with four international
pharmaceutical companies to drastically reduce the cost of drugs which
suppress the growth of HIV, AFP reported.
 
A treatment which used to cost some US $480 per patient each month will
now cost between $60 and $110 monthly, Malian Health Minister Traore
Fatoumata Nafo told reporters on Saturday. The companies that signed the
deal are Boehringer-Ingelheim from Germany, GlaxoSmithKline from Britain
and US firms, Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb.
 
CHAD: Cabinet reshuffle

Chadian President Idriss Deby on Sunday dropped all ministers from the
Union nationale pour le developpement et le renouveau (UNDR) from his
coalition government, AFP reported. The move followed a decision by the
UNDR to endorse the second most influential member of the cabinet,
Agricultural Minister Saleh Kebzabo, as its candidate for presidential
polls on 20 May.
 
CAMEROON: Opposition leader out of hospital

Cameroon's main opposition leader, John Fru Ndi, was released from
hospital on Monday, after being treated for injuries sustained when
security forces used water hoses to disperse marchers in the economic
capital, Douala, AFP reported. Some activists of Fru Ndi's Social
Democratic Front (SDF) and other protesters were detained, AFP reported a
party official as saying.

Monday's march was part of a series of twice-weekly protests staged since
February by rights advocates, opposition leaders and family members to
press the government into solving the case of nine boys who have been
missing since 28 January. The boys had been arrested - for allegedly
stealing a gas canister - by the Operational Command, a military
crime-fighting unit widely accused of human rights abuses, including
extra-judicial killings.

President Paul Biya has since transferred the head of the Operational
Command and launched an inquiry into the disappearances. NGOs are
conducting a separate investigation. Cameroon radio reported that the
ruling party had expressed regret over the youths disappearance on
Thursday.
  
EQUATORIAL GUINEA: French funds for development
   
France will provide a total of 740 million CFA francs (about one million
US dollars) for three projects in Equatorial Guinea under agreements
signed on Wednesday in Malabo, the French news agency, AFP, reported. Some
400 million FCFA will go towards the establishment and development of a
technical and legal service within the agriculture ministry to support the
establishment of farmers' cooperatives. A project to rehabilitate and
modernise public buildings is to receive 300 million FCFA, while 40
million FCFA will be spent on providing computer-related equipment in four
schools, AFP said.
 
WEST AFRICA: NGOs, politicians fight FGM in Benin, Nigeria

Seventy-five women in northern Benin vowed last weekend to give up female
genital mutilation (FGM) following an awareness campaign initiated by a
group of NGOs, AFP reported on Tuesday. This brought to 200 the number of
women who have given up the practice in Benin since the campaign was
launched last year. In return, the NGOs have offered alternative means of
income to the women, who used to earn up to US $3 per operation.

Meanwhile, the 'Vanguard', a Nigerian daily, reported on Wednesday that
Delta State in southern Nigeria had now banned the practice. Under a law
voted on Tuesday, perpetrators of FGM will be fined and imprisoned in
Delta State. FGM, also called female circumcision, is rampant in parts of
Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

AFRICA: Parliamentarians come out in support of children

Parliamentarians from North, West and Central Africa capped a
UNICEF-organised conference on 7-9 April in Nouakchott, Mauritania, with a
call for governments and the international community to support, respect
and promote children's rights.

The 'Nouakchott Appeal' urges governments to protect children by ratifying
and implementing international agreements, including the UN Convention on
Human Rights and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the
Child. The legislators also called on governments to adopt new political
and budgetary measures so that children's basic needs in areas such as
education, health care and nutrition are met.
   

Abidjan, 13 April 2001; 13:20 GMT

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