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 70
28 April to 4 May 2001


CONTENTS:   

GUINEA: UNHCR relocating Parrot's Beak refugees 
GUINEA: US $82 million for poverty reduction 
LIBERIA: Government reins in media as instability continues 
SIERRA LEONE: Human right office to open in Bo
SIERRA LEONE: UN Force Commander tours former rebel strongholds
SIERRA LEONE: IDPs go back home 
SIERRA LEONE: RUF, Government to meet in Abuja 
SIERRA LEONE: Emergency shelter programme launched 
COTE D'IVOIRE: Opposition members released 
GUINEA-BISSAU: Opposition drops no-confidence motion 
NIGER: Food aid from Luxembourg 
CHAD: World Vision to distribute food
WEST AFRICA: US $4.3 million to fight child trafficking 
WEST AFRICA: Groups from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, on US terrorist list 
WEST AFRICA: US $4.3 million to fight child trafficking 
AFRICA: African Union to take effect  
AFRICA: Money for sleeping sickness; cheaper malaria drug 
AFRICA: International medical conference 

GUINEA: UNHCR relocating Parrot's Beak refugees 
 
UNHCR began relocating 30,000 to 50,000 refugees from the Parrot's Beak,
southern Guinea, on Wednesday with the evacuation of 315 people from
Kolomba, in the farthest corner of the Beak, to Katkama camp, 120 km to
the northeast.

The Parrot's Beak is an isolated area that juts into Sierra Leone.
 
Those evacuated were among 600 who had registered for relocation on
Tuesday evening. Many more were reluctant to leave but the agency said it
was continuing to inform them on the reasons for the relocation, which
include safety and easier access for aid agencies: refugees in the Beak
had been cut off from humanitarian aid for months by fighting along the
borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Katkama is being used as a transit point for the relocation operation.
>From there, the refugees are being taken to new sites in Albadaria and
Dabola districts, 200 km north of the Parrot's Beak. UNHCR hopes to
complete the operation by the end of the month, as the approaching rainy
season could severely hamper it, the agency said.

GUINEA: US $82 million for poverty reduction
 
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved on Wednesday a three-year
financial package worth US $82 million for Guinea. The money is aimed at
helping Guinea's government implement poverty-reduction measures, increase
economic growth and lower inflation by the year 2004. IMF First Deputy
Managing Director Stanley Fisher urged the international community to help
Guinea which, he said, "has been adversely affected by an ongoing border
conflict that has had severe humanitarian costs which the government has
been helping to offset". He added: "This conflict could endanger economic
and social progress and jeopardize implementation of Guinea's poverty
reduction strategy."

LIBERIA: Government reins in media as instability continues

Liberia's government has instructed the media that all information about
fighting in the northern county of Lofa needs to be cleared by the
authorities before it can be published. The measure came as pro- and
anti-government forces continued to fight in the county, and journalists
feared it might lead to censorship.

On 29 April, National security Adviser Lewis Brown blamed Liberian
dissidents and Kamajors, a pro-government militia from Sierra Leone, for
the fighting. He also accused Guinea of bombarding Liberian positions. The
fighting was reported to have reached Salayea district, some 80 km from
the town of Gbarnga in neighbouring Bong County, the BBC reported.  Brown
cited a UN arms embargo against Liberia as a factor for recent government
losses in the fighting and suggested that Monrovia would not respect it.

On Monday, Amnesty International published a report accusing the
government of torturing and killing civilians suspected of supporting the
dissidents. In the report, titled 'Liberia: War in Lofa County does not
justify killing, torture and abduction', AI called on the government and
armed opposition groups based in Guinea to stop abducting women, children
and other civilians immediately.

While Liberia accuses Guinea of helping its dissidents, the international
community has accused Liberia of supporting Sierra Leone's Revolutionary
United Front (RUF) rebels. Monrovia faces another embargo if it fails to
prove to the Security Council by 7 May that it has complied with a Council
resolution requiring it to expel the RUF, stop giving the rebels financial
and military support, stop importing uncertified Sierra Leonean diamonds,
and take other measures such as freezing RUF bank accounts.

The Liberian government has been conducting a media campaign in a bid to
avert the sanctions. The campaign's aim is to "sensitise and mobilise
local and international public opinion against the negative impact of UN
sanctions, arms embargo and dissident attacks on Lofa County," the
Ministry of Information said on 29 April.

The instability has displaced thousands of people. UNHCR said that in
April, more than 10,000 refugees arrived in Daru and Kenema, eastern
Sierra Leone, with 90 percent of them coming in from Liberia. More than
400 Liberia asylum seekers and 17 Guinean civilians have also fled to
eastern Sierra Leone, UNHCR said on Tuesday. Sierra Leone has agreed to
provide asylum to Liberian refugees.

SIERRA LEONE: Human right office to open in Bo

The UN mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) is to open its next human rights
office in the southern town of Bo, UNAMSIL's human rights chief, Rodolfo
Mattarollo, said on Wednesday.

Mattarollo was speaking in the eastern town of Kenema at the opening of
the first human rights office outside Freetown. He said the office would
help promote the work of Sierra Leone's Truth and Reconiliation Commission
and encourage a culture of human rights in the country, a UNAMSIL news
release said on Thursday.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a mechanism agreed under
the Lome Peace Agreement, will create an impartial historical record of
violations of human rights and humanitarian law from the beginning of the
Sierra Leonean conflict - in 1991 - to the signing of the accord, the news
release said. Its mandate also includes addressing the question of
impunity, promoting healing and reconciliation and preventing further
abuses. The TRC, which has yet to be set up, will have seven members -
four nationals and three internationals - selected for their integrity and
ability to promote truth and reconciliation, Mattarollo said.

The government of Sierra Leone and the Revolutionary United Front
(RUF)signed the Lome Peace Accord in July 1999. It was broken in May 2000
when RUF rebels took some 500 UN peacekeepers hostage in eastern Sierra
Leone. The two parties met in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on 2 May to
review a ceasefire accord signed in November 2000 and to advance the peace
process.

SIERRA LEONE: UN Force Commander tours former rebel strongholds

The head of the UN peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone on Wednesday visited
three former rebel strongholds in the northern of the country - Lunsar,
Makeni and Magburaka. UNAMSIL Force Commander Lt-Gen Daniel Opande visited
UN troops who are now fully deployed in the three areas, a UNAMSIL
information officer told IRIN on Friday. Since the deployment, which began
last month, more people are returning to the towns and commercial
activities are resuming, the UN said.

SIERRA LEONE: IDPs go back home

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday that it
had helped over 7,000 internally displaced Sierra Leoneans to return home
in the past two weeks, while another 12,000 were waiting to be taken to
their areas. IOM uses buses and trucks to drop off most of the IDPs at, or
within 15 kms of, their homes. There are nine drop-off points in the
Southern Province, five in the North, and one in Eastern province.  
Meanwhile, IOM said the number of registered IDPs living in "precarious
conditions" in and around the capital had dropped from 48,000 to 30,000.

SIERRA LEONE: RUF, Government to meet in Abuja
 
Representatives of Sierra Leone's government and Revolutionary United
Front (RUF) are to meet in Freetown on 15 May to set a timetable for the
implementation of the country's disarmament, demobilisation and
reintegration (DDR) programme, the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS) reported on Thursday.

This was decided at a meeting on 2-3 May in Abuja, Nigeria, between the
ECOWAS Mediation and Security Council's Committee of Six, the United
Nations, the Sierra Leone government and the RUF. The Committee of Six
comprises Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria and Togo.  The meeting
reviewed the implementation of a peace agreement Sierra Leone's government
and the RUF signed on 10 November 2000 in Abuja. It agreed on a
simultaneous disarmament of combatants of the Civil Defence Forces (CDF),
a militia loyal to the Sierra Leonean government, ECOWAS said in a
communique.


SIERRA LEONE: Emergency shelter programme launched

An emergency project designed to provide some 500 temporary housing units
for returnees in eastern Sierra Leone has been launched, the Sierra Leone
News Agency reported on Wednesday. The project, sponsored by the Canadian
government and implemented by a local NGO, the Organisation for Research
and Extension of Intermediate Technology (ORIENT), targets homeless war
victims returning to Koya Chiefdom in the eastern district of Kenema. More
than 200 villages were burnt down in the chiefdom during the 10-year civil
war, the executive director of ORIENT, Bernard Conteh-Barratt, said at the
launching ceremony. He appealed for more help for those still without
shelter.
 
COTE D'IVOIRE: Opposition members released
 
Three members of Cote d'Ivoire's main opposition Rassemblement des
republicains (RDR), were released on Wednesday after five months in
detention, local media reported. They include Jean-Philippe Kabore, the
son of RDR Secretary-General Henriette Diabate.

The three were arrested in early December after a party demonstration
escalated into two days of clashes with security forces, leaving more than
20 people dead. The rally had been organised to protest against the
exclusion of party leader Alassane Ouattara from parliamentary elections.

Three other detainees, including the party's spokesman and national
organising secretary, were released last weekend. The daily 'Le Patriote'
said on Thursday that some 60 people were still being held in detention
centres across the country.
 
GUINEA-BISSAU: Opposition drops no-confidence motion

Guinea-Bissau's opposition has dropped a no-confidence motion it had filed
against the six-week-old government of Prime Minister Faustino Imbali, a
humanitarian source told IRIN on Wednesday. The opposition suspended its
motion after parliamentarians decided to give Imbali two weeks to propose
a government plan and form a broad-based government, among other measures.
If these demands are not satisfied, the opposition could revive its
motion, the source said. The opposition has a majority in parliament.

NIGER: Food aid from Luxembourg

Luxembourg has donated 420 mt of millet to Niger's government for
distribution to 53 villages suffering from famine, the Panafrican News
Agency (PANA) reported. The food relief is in response to an appeal in
late March by Niger's government, which had said that about one million
people were threatened with famine, PANA reported.

CHAD: World Vision to distribute food

An international aid agency, World Vision, in agreement with the World
Food Programme, will soon begin distributing food to five famine-stricken
regions in Chad, World Vision said in statement. Over the next six months,
10,726 mt of cereal are to be distributed to 150,000 people in five
southeastern regions, the aid agency said. The total cost is estimated at
US $2 million.

The aid is in response to an appeal made by Chad's government which had
estimated that some 1.3 million people risked famine as a result of a food
production deficit.

WEST AFRICA: US $4.3 million to fight child trafficking
 
The US Labour Department will provide US $4.3 million to fund
rehabilitation and prevention activities to help fight child trafficking
in West and Central Africa, the International Labour Organisation stated.
The money will help some 27,000 children who have been, or risk being,
victims.

The case of the 'Etinero', a ship that docked at Cotonou, Benin, on 17
April carrying 43 children and adolescents from several West African
countries, has heightened awareness of the child trafficking issue. Some
200,000 children are trafficked every year in West and Central Africa,
according to UNICEF. Meanwhile, Authorities in Burkina Faso have detained
four persons on suspicion of child trafficking, PANA quoted the official
daily "Sidwaya" as reporting. At the time of their arrest, they were
traveling with nine children, all under 10 years of age. They reportedly
told authorities that they were on their way to The Gambia to meet the
children's parents, PANA reported.

WEST AFRICA: Groups from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, on US terrorist list

The US has included rebel groups from Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Niger on
its list of terrorist organisations in a report released on Monday. The US
State Department's annual 'Global Patterns on Terrorism' report, includes
Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels from Sierra Leone and youths from
southern Nigeria's oil producing Niger Delta on its list. It says the RUF
used "guerilla, criminal, and "terror tactics" in its fight against the
Sierra Leonean government. In Nigeria, it says, armed youths continued to
kidnap local and foreign aid workers in an attempt to acquire a greater
share of Nigeria's oil wealth.

AFRICA: African Union to take effect

The African Union will enter into force on 26 May following its
ratification by the required two-thirds of Organisation of African Unity
(OAU) member states, the OAU reported. According to the OAU, Nigeria
became on Thursday the 36th country to ratify the union treaty. The idea
of an African union was introduced by late Ghanaian president Kwame
Nkrumah in the 1960s. It was revived in 1999 during an OAU summit in
Sirte, Libya. The union treaty is aimed at continental integration. It
includes the creation of a common market, a common currency and a central
bank.

AFRICA: Money for sleeping sickness; cheaper malaria drug

The international pharmaceutical company, Aventis, is to contribute US $25
million to combat sleeping sickness, the World Health Organisation said in
a statement on Thursday. The money is to be disbursed over the next five
years to support drug donations, and surveillance and control activities
in the most affected countries. The funding is also to be used to invest
in new research into the disease.

Another pharmaceutical giant, Bristol-Myers Squibb has agreed to support,
for about one year, the production of Eflornithine, a drug essential in
treating sleeping sickness.

A Swiss drug-maker, Novartis, has said that it will reduce the price of
its malaria drug, known as Co-Artem. It will now be sold at cost price -
US $2. Co-Artem has proven effective in fighting various strands of
malaria that have become resistant to older drugs.

AFRICA: International medical conference

The medical relief agency, Medecins sans frontieres, and the London School
of Economics and Political Science are to organise a medical conference on
14-15 June to evaluate and promote research on "neglected diseases"such as
malaria, sleeping sickness and tuberculosis. The aim of the conference is
also to strengthen the partnership between public and private entities so
as to increase research on and the development of affordable drugs for
these diseases, MSF said in statement.

Abidjan, 4 May 2001; 19:15 GMT

 
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