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WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 72
12-18 May 2001


CONTENTS:   

SIERRA LEONE: Rivals agree to stop fighting 
SIERRA LEONE: Japan provides US-$196,325 grant
SIERRA LEONE-GUINEA: ECHO head visits
GUINEA: UNHCR urges Conakry to let refugees in 
LIBERIA: Government complains to UN about Lofa invasion
LIBERIA: FAO, Monrovia sign forestry deal
CHAD: Presidential polls 
BURKINA FASO: Child traffickers arrested
SENEGAL: NGO donates medicine
MAURITANIA: Opposition decries political climate
NIGER: Perpetrators of FGM to be jailed
NIGERIA: Government funds environmental projects
TOGO: Mixed record on economic, social and cultural rights
AFRICA: FAO, Sahel-Saharan states sign cooperation deal 

SIERRA LEONE: Rivals agree to stop fighting

Rivals in Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war agreed on Tuesday to stop
fighting and restart the process of disarming, demobilising and
reintegrating their fighters into society, UNAMSIL reported.

The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the pro-government Civil Defence
Force (CDF) militia agreed in Freetown to start simultaneous disarmament
on Friday in the districts of Kambia and Port Loko, north and northeast of
Freetown, and end it by 28 May. By the end of May, a joint Technical
Committee will decide on the next districts that will implement the
nationwide DDR programme.

An ad-hoc DDR Committee, including the government, RUF and UNAMSIL, will
monitor the implementation of the programe. Previously, none of the
fighters were involved. Joint CDF/RUF teams will travel nationwide to
inform combatants of the present decision. They will also witness the
disarmament, starting with the Kambia operation.

Government and RUF have proposed the establishment of a trust fund, with
backing from the international community, to support the reintegration of
ex-combatants into civil society. They have also agreed to open all
government positions - including the army and police - to ex-fighters who
qualify.

While not insisting on this as a precondition for complying with its
undertaking, RUF asked the government to free its members in prison, which
the authorities agreed to consider.
 
"Government will find it very difficult to implement," Zainab Bangura,
head of the Freetown NGO Good Governance, told IRIN. She said this was
because of very strong public sentiment against the RUF and the fact that
the request was being made in an election year. Yet, she added, you can't
keep people in jail for two years without trial.

Pressure on government could ease if RUF continues to demonstrate
goodwill. It has started delivering on an undertaking to begin releasing
abducted children and child soldiers by 25 May, freeing 115 in the
northern town of Makeni on Tuesday, according to UNAMSIL.

The meeting leading to the agreement was chaired by Oluyemi Adeniji, the
Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General. The government
delegation was led by Justice Minister Solomon Berewa while the chairman
of the RUF Peace and Political Council, Omrie Golley, headed the RUF team.

SIERRA LEONE: Japan provides US-$196,325 grant

Japan has approved US $196,325 for projects in Sierra Leone to support war
victims and help reintegrate former fighters into civilian life, Japan's
Permanent Mission to the UN reported. Some of the projects deal with
training trainers in the delivery of psycho-social care delivery,
sensitising combatants, and peace and reconciliation efforts. Others focus
on skills training for former child soldiers, disadvantaged youths, and
girls who were sexually abused or abducted, rehabilitation of
ex-combatants and building primary schools for returning refugee children.

SIERRA LEONE-GUINEA: ECHO head visits

The director of the European Commission's humanitarian aid office, ECHO,
Costanza Adinolfi, visited Guinea and Sierra Leone to look at efforts
being made by international NGOs and UN humanitarian agencies to help
refugees, displaced persons and host communities, ECHO reported. Adinolfi
began her one-week visit in Guinea on Saturday and travelled to Sierra
Leone on Tuesday.

[See separate story titled 'WEST AFRICA: ECHO director visits Guinea,
Sierra Leone']

GUINEA: UNHCR urges Guinea to let refugees in as Lofa instability
continues

UNHCR said on Thursday it was "deeply disturbed" by Guinea's continued
closure of its southern border with Liberia and its refusal to allow
Liberian asylum seekers to enter the country.

It said residents of the towns of Yomou and Macenta told a UNHCR team last
weekend that scores of Liberians fleeing fighting in Lofa County had been
refused entry into Guinea, and hundreds were waiting to be let through.
UNHCR said its staff had not been able to visit these areas regularly
because of the delicate security situation. It said Guinean authorities
had classified the border as a military operation zone, and travellers to
the area need authorisations.

UNHCR said it was caring for over 80,000 Liberian refugees in Guinea, most
of them in areas close to the border, and that it was arranging for their
transfer to a new site 36 km northeast of the town of Nzerekore. The
agency is also looking after thousands of Sierra Leonean refugees. This
week its efforts to move them from the border shifted to the eastern area
of Forecariah. Nearly 10,000 refugees are to be helped to return to Sierra
Leone or relocated to a new site in Dabola, central Guinea, UNHCR
spokesman Kris Janowski said on Tuesday.

The relocation of refugees from the Parrot's Beak is expected to be
completed by the end of this month, Janowski said.

WFP this week completed the distribution of food to about 44,000 refugees
in the Parrot's Beak. It has been providing food for some 47,000 already
relocated to safer camps in the north, and for internally displaced
persons, who number about 180,000.
 
LIBERIA: Government complains to UN about Lofa invasion

Liberia has called on the United Nations to investigate ongoing attacks on
its soil by Guinea-based insurgents, saying it has a right to defend
itself despite a UN arms embargo.

In a 10 May letter to the UN Secretary-General, Foreign Minister Monie
Captan said the embargo had impaired Liberia's ability to defend itself.
He said Guinea was "openly, blatantly and with impunity" allowing Liberian
dissidents to invade the northern county of Lofa in an effort to unseat
the government of President Charles Taylor. He accused the Guinean army of
supporting the dissidents.

The war in Lofa, he said, had displaced thousands and destroyed
infrastructure such as schools and hospitals that had been rehabilitated
after Liberia's seven-year civil war. Captan said Sierra Leonean Kamajors
were also fighting in Lofa. The Kamajors are a pro-government militia that
supported Sierra Leone's army against Revolutionary United Front (RUF)
rebels, whom Freetown accuses Monrovia of aiding.

Meanwhile, WFP said a decision by Liberia's government to restrict
diplomats and representatives of intergovernmental organisations to within
60 km of the capital, has been hampering the work of relief agencies. "Our
operations are already affected by the recent restrictions," WFP spokesman
Ramine Rafirasme told IRIN.

In a letter dated 30 April to representatives of the international
community, Liberia's government said the move was meant to protect the
officials from the insurgency in Lofa. Anyone wanting to go further away
from Monrovia has to apply for permission from the Foreign Ministry.

WFP provides food for about 285,000 people in Liberia.

LIBERIA: FAO, Monrovia sign forestry deal

Liberia and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization have signed a US
$263,000 agreement to improve the country's Forestry Development Authority
and national forestry programme. Under the programme, signed on the
weekend of 12 May, FAO will help train staff of, and provide institutional
support for the authority's offices in the towns of Sanniquellie, Zwedru,
Tubmanburg and Greenville. The agreement was signed by Agriculture
Minister Roland Massaquoi and FAO Representative Castro Camarada.

CHAD: Presidential polls

Chadians decide on Sunday which of seven presidential candidates will run
their country for the next five years. Incumbent President Idriss Deby,
who seized power in 1990, won elections in 1996 against most of the
candidates now running against him.

The foremost challenger is the current speaker of the National Assembly,
General Wadal Abdelkader Kamougue, who won 30 percent of the votes in the
1996 run-off. Other 1996 contenders also in the race are former
agriculture minister Saleh Kebzabo and Kassire Koumakoye, who served as
Deby's prime minister in the early 1990's. All six opposition candidates
have agreed that if the second round is a fight between one of their
number and Deby, they will back the challenger.

BURKINA FASO: Child traffickers arrested

Gendarmes in Fada n'Gourma, 222 km east of Ouagadougou, arrested seven
suspected child traffickers on 13 May on their way to neighbouring Benin
with 23 children aged 11 to 14 years. The traffickers, who are awaiting
trial, told the gendarmes they were taking the children to work in
cottonfields.

Captain Djibril Lalle, commander of the gendarmes in Fada, told IRIN the
children said they were each promised a bicycle and the equivalent of US
$90 at the end of the cotton season. Most came from the departments of
Tambarga and Mondjoari, located in the mountainous areas on the border
with Benin, Lalle said. They have been reunited with their parents.

[See separate item titled 'BURKINA FASO: Child traffickers arrested']

SENEGAL: NGO donates medicine

A France-based NGO, Association Enfance et Partage-Europe, has donated a
consignment of medical equipment worth more than one billion CFA francs
(US $1.3 million) to the hospital of Touba, 170 km east of the capital
Dakar, the pro-government daily 'Le Soleil' reported on Monday. The
equipment was provided by various humanitarian organizations, including
the international NGO "Pharmacies sans frontieres". It includes beds,
wheelchairs, surgical equipment and medicines.

MAURITANIA: Opposition decries political climate

Eight of Mauritania's opposition parties, in a letter addressed on Tuesday
to visiting Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, decried Mauritania's lack
of civil liberties and called upon Wade to press for more freedom,
including on the political plane, AFP reported on Tuesday. The parties
cited human rights abuses, press censorship, the banning of political
parties and the unlawful arrests of opposition leaders as some of the
violations of the regime.

Since the last quarter of last year, Mauritania has been plagued by
political instability, including the arrest of several opposition members
and leaders and the dissolution of the Union des forces democratiques-Ere
Nouvelle. The leader of the Front populaire, Mohamed Lemine ould Cheikh
Melaïnine, is currently on trial on charges of "criminal conspiracy" to
commit acts of terrorism and sabotage in collusion with Libya.

NIGER: Perpetrators of FGM to be jailed

Niger's criminal code has been amended to include penalties ranging from
six months to three years for perpetrators of female genital mutilation
(FGM), and of 10 to 20 years when such operations result in death, PANA
reported. Maximum penalties are to be applied if the perpetrators are
health professionals. Formerly the law did not punish practitioners of
FGM.

NIGERIA: Government funds environmental projects

Nigeria's government approved about 8.9 billion naira (US $78.5 million)
on Tuesday for efforts to fight erosion, floods and other environmental
problems that have continually battered the country, the Lagos-based
'Guardian' reported. The funds will go to areas such as rehabilitating the
Lagos shoreline, fighting drought and desertification, and sanitation.
 
TOGO: Mixed record on economic, social and cultural rights

Togo has undertaken steps towards respecting some economic, social and
cultural rights but it needs to improve on others, the UN Committee on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights said on 11 May at the end of its 25th
session. The committee commended the government for establishing a
national human rights commission, creating a human rights ministry, and
fighting child trafficking and female genital mutilation.

It said, however, that it was concerned about the general deterioration of
human rights, especially since presidential elections in 1998. Over the
past three years there have been widespread reports of rapes,
extrajudicial killings and house bombings. The government should also make
a greater effort to promote children's rights, the committee said.

AFRICA: FAO, Sahel-Saharan states in cooperation deal

The Community of Sahel-Saharian States (CEN-SAD) and the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) have signed a cooperation agreement under
the agency's special programme to enhance food security, FAO reported on
Thursday.

Areas covered under the agreement include assessment of natural resources
with a view to promoting food security, rural development, desertification
control and environmental protection, FAO reported. The agreement also
emphasises the importance of information exchange, particularly on
techniques to control desertification and partnerships for staff training.

CEN-SAD comprises Burkina Faso, Chad, Central African Republic, Djibouti,
Egypt, Eritrea, The Gambia, Libya, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal,
Somalia, Sudan and Tunisia. It was established in the Libyan capital,
Tripoli, on 4 February 1998 for the promotion of peace and for the rural,
social and economic development of the region.

The Special Programme for Food Security, set up by FAO in 1994, operates
in 62 member countries.

Abidjan, 18 May 2001; 18:50 GMT


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