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 58
3 - 9 February 2001


CONTENTS:

GUINEA: More fighting in Guekedou 
GUINEA: UN agency relocates thousands of refugees
GUINEA: Justice minister vows to continue executions
GUINEA: Washington grants US $5m for refugees
LIBERIA: Armed forces, dissidents clash 
SIERRA LEONE: President urges rebels to cooperate
SIERRA LEONE: Council backs Annan on trial of youths over 15
GUINEA-BISSAU: MFDC says army killed civilians
GUINEA-BISSAU: New naval chief appointed
GUINEA-BISSAU: Delayed trials blamed on lack of resources
GUINEA-BISSAU: Ruling PRS turns to opposition party for help
NIGERIA: Bandits from Niger, Chad kill two
NIGERIA: Police rescue 30 missing children
NIGERIA: Police crack down on separatist group
NIGERIA: Kerosene explosion injures 60
NIGERIA: Senate approves new ministers
WEST AFRICA: Germany gives US $250,000 for ECOMOG
GHANA: Interior ministry wants weapons returned
BURKINA FASO: Ex-guardsman charged with journalist's murder
COTE D'IVOIRE: Generals charged with embezzlement
COTE D'IVOIRE: Insecurity in the north
NIGER: Special committee set up on border dispute
CAMEROON: Hospitals to screen women for cancer

GUINEA: Guekedou recaptured

Thousands of refugees fled the Guekedou area on Friday following fresh
fighting in the southern town, UNHCR reported.

The Guinean military had recaptured the border town about a week ago from
insurgents who, the government claims, invaded the country from Sierra Leone
and Liberia. At the time there were reports of heavy losses among the
insurgents. An RUF fighter who surrendered to UNAMSIL troops in Sierra
Leone, said only 20 of 365 fighters mobilised to fight in Guinea survived
last week's battle, UNAMSIL reported. 
  
Since Tuesday, UNHCR had been relocating tens of thousands of refugees from
Nyaedou camp near Guekedou to a new facility in Albadaria, 200 km to the
north, that is capable of holding about 60,000 people.
 
GUINEA: Justice minister vows to continue executions

Guinea's justice minister, Abou Camara, has said that he is intent on using
capital punishment to stamp out crime. Reacting to the execution  
on Monday of five persons convicted of murder in 1995, Camara told the BBC
the sentence was carried out "with the exclusive aim of guaranteeing peace".
He said he was "not prepared to stop" and that "anyone who commits a severe
crime in this country will be shot".

GUINEA: Washington grants US $5m for refugees

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Wednesday that his
government had given an additional US $5 million in emergency aid to
refugees and internally displaced persons in Guinea.

Of this, $3.5 million will support the UNHCR's ongoing relocation of
refugees to safe sites within Guinea, Boucher said. He added that $1.25
million would enable the World Food Programme to feed the refugees and the
remaining $250,000 would go to the International Organization for Migration
to help in the voluntary repatriation of Sierra Leonean refugees. 

LIBERIA: Fighting with dissidents on northern border

Heavy fighting has broken out between the Liberian army and dissident forces
in the northern county of Lofa, which borders on Sierra Leone and Guinea,
media organisations reported.

A diplomatic source in Monrovia said he had heard the reports. However, he
told IRIN: "News about fighting along the border with Guinea has become
almost routine to the point that most people are now indifferent." He said
many Liberians perceived the frequent reports of fighting as "a government
pretext ... to justify the diversion of resources into security and not
development".

Local newspapers quoted by AFP reported Defence Minister Daniel Chea as
saying that some of the worst fighting had taken place in three villages
near Voinjama, capital of Lofa County. Voinjama is 260 km north of Monrovia.
 
SIERRA LEONE: President urges rebels to cooperate
	
Sierra Leone President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah warned the Revolutionary United
Front (RUF) on 2 February to implement a peace accord concluded last year or
face tough action from the government. "If anyone takes our patience for
granted, we will react," he told over 7,000 people in Yele, a town just 10
km from RUF territory that has at least 20,000 IDPs. 

A political analyst in Freetown, who asked that his name be withheld, told
IRIN the government had recently been displaying greater self assuredness in
dealing with the RUF. The analyst attributed this to the retraining of
Sierra Leone's 8,000-member army by British instructors and the small
British military contingent standing by to support UN operations in the
country.  

SIERRA LEONE: Council backs Annan on trial of youths over 15

Juvenile offenders below 15 years are unlikely to face prosecution in a
proposed war crimes court for Sierra Leone, the UN Security Council said on
Friday in New York. However, the Council agreed that suspects aged 15 to 18
years could appear before the court. It also supported a recommendation by
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that the court be set up only when money was
available to guarantee its functioning for one year and enough pledges were
received to cover the next two years.

GUINEA-BISSAU: MFDC says army killed civilians

An armed group fighting for the independence of Casamance, an area in
southern Senegal, charged on Friday that 30 people killed by Guinea-Bissau's
army during border operations late in January were civilians and not
guerrillas, Lusa reported. Lusa quoted Ansoumana Badji, a Lisbon-based
spokesman for the Mouvement des forces democratiques de Casamance (MFDC), as
saying that the troops had killed "30 defenceless refugees" along the border
on 27 January. Badji said Bissau´s involvement in the 19-year Senegalese
conflict threatened "to destabilize the whole subregion", Lusa reported. 

GUINEA-BISSAU: New naval chief appointed

President Kumba Yala of Guinea-Bissau has appointed Quirino Spencer as the
new chief of staff of the navy with the rank of commodore, Portuguese radio
reported on 2 February. Radiodifusao portugesa (RDP) said Spencer, who was
hitherto deputy chief of staff, had replaced Lamine Sanha, imprisoned
following an aborted attempt to seize control of the military that cost
former strongman Ansumane Mane his life in November 2000.

GUINEA-BISSAU: Delayed trials blamed on lack of resources

About 100 people arrested following an unsuccessful bid in November 2000 by
ex-strongman General Ansumane Mane to seize control of the military are
still awaiting trial and Guinea-Bissau's government has blamed the delay on
a lack of resources, a humanitarian source told IRIN. 

About two weeks ago it appealed to the United Nations for material
assistance, the source said. "Guinea-Bissau does not have resources," the
source told IRIN. "The conditions do not exist for a proper dispensation of
justice." 

Basic supplies such as paper are lacking and the three magistrates working
on the preliminary investigation into the cases of the detainees share one
typewriter, the source said, adding that legal staff are poorly paid when
they are not owed salaries, and are often poorly motivated.

GUINEA-BISSAU: Ruling PRS turns to opposition party for help

Guinea-Bissau's governing Partido da Renovacao Social (PRS) has been
discussing the possibility of forming an alliance with the opposition
Partido Africano para a Independenca da Guine e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) following
the collapse of the former ruling coalition, sources in Bissau told IRIN.
 
PAIGC leader Francisco Benantes has already said his party will back a
programme and budget the PRS is scheduled to present in parliament soon.
This support is crucial for the PRS since, without the backing of the
PAIGC's 24 parliamentarians, it would fall short of the majority it needs to
obtain parliamentary approval, the source said.

The PRS has 38 seats in the 102-member parliament and depended on the 29
legislators from its junior partner, the Resistencia da Guine-Movimento
Bafata (RGB) to obtain a majority. However, the RGB withdrew its ministers
from the coalition last month following a dispute over a cabinet reshuffle.
 
NIGERIA: Bandits from Niger, Chad kill two

A group of about 20 suspected rebels and former insurgents from neighbouring
countries recently killed two people and wounded many others when they fired
on a bus in northeastern Nigeria. In recent years Nigeria's security
authorities have reported several incursions by armed groups from Niger and
Chad.  

NIGERIA: Police rescue 30 missing children

Police in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, rescued 30 children from the
home of a suspected kidnapper, 'The Comet' newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The Lagos daily said detectives acting on a tip-off raided the house, where
the children aged between nine years and 16 years had been kept by a woman,
who escaped arrest. 
 
NIGERIA: Police crack down on separatist group

Nigerian police on Wednesday destroyed the headquarters of MASSOB, a
separatist movement in the southeastern town of Okigwe, arrested several of
its members - including its leader - and killed at least six people, area
residents and media organisations said. 

MASSOB - Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra -
is campaigning for the resuscitation of the defunct Republic of Biafra,
whose declaration in 1967 led to a three-year civil war in which more than
one million people died. 

NIGERIA: Kerosene explosion injures 60

At least 60 people have been injured in recent weeks in explosions caused by
adulterated kerosene in Nigeria's mid-western state of Edo, 'The Guardian'
daily in Lagos reported on Thursday.

The newspaper quoted Red Cross officials as saying that a number of
victims had been refused admission to some hospitals because they could not
pay the fees. Many of the victims were taken to the University Teaching
Hospital in Benin City, the Edo State capital, but there are not enough beds
for the new victims being brought in daily.

NIGERIA: Senate approves new ministers

Ten new ministers were sworn in in Nigeria on Thursday. They were approved
on the previous day by the Senate to which President Olusegun Obasanjo had
submitted their nominations following a cabinet reshuffle in January,
the first major one since Obasanjo became president in May 1999. Reuters
said the prompt approval of the nominees was a sign that Obasanjo's
previously difficult relations with the legislature had improved
significantly.  
 
WEST AFRICA: Germany gives US $250,000 for ECOMOG

Germany agreed on Monday to provide US $250,000 to airlift West African
troops due to be deployed on the border between Guinea, Liberia and Sierra
Leone, the Economic Community West African States (ECOWAS) reported.

The agreement was signed in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, by German
Ambassador Karlfried Bergner and ECOMOG military liaison officer Colonel
Dixon Dikio. Bergner also presented ECOWAS with a second set of five
satellite telephones to support its efforts to bring about peace and
security in the subregion. Germany had pledged the 10 telephones last year.

Some 1,700 troops from Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal are to protect the
Guinea-Liberia-Sierra Leone border, facilitate the free movement of persons
and ensure the safety of humanitarian agencies serving the tens of thousands
of refugees trapped in the areas of conflict.  

GHANA: Interior ministry wants weapons returned

Ghana's government has given people two weeks to hand in unlicensed weapons
or face prosecution, Joy FM radio reported on its online web site on
Tuesday. The private Ghanaian broadcaster said Interior Minister Malik
Al-Hassan Yakubu announced the ultimatum during a news conference at which
he outlined measures to combat crime.  

BURKINA FASO: Ex-guardsman charged with journalist's murder

A former presidential guard was indicted on 2 February for the murder of
journalist Norbert Zongo, who was killed in 1998 while investigating the
suspicious death of a driver of the brother of Burkina Faso's president,
Blaise Compaore.

Marcel Kafando was among a group of six persons whom an Independent
Investigation Commission had termed "serious suspects" in Zongo's death.
Kafando has been serving a 20-year jail term since last August for the
murder of Francois Compaore's driver. Another "serious suspect" who was also
serving a 20-year term for the driver's murder died in prison last month.

COTE D'IVOIRE: Generals charged with embezzlement

Two former members of Cote d'Ivoire's ousted military junta, generals
Lansana Palenfo and Abdoulaye Coulibaly, were charged on Monday by a
military court with embezzling the equivalent of about US $3.5 million from
the state, their lawyer, Ibrahim Doumbia, told IRIN on Tuesday.

Palenfo was also charged with stealing arms and ammunitions, Doumbia said.
He described the new charges as a ploy to enable the state to keep the two
men in custody. They are due back in court on Tuesday to answer an earlier
charge of attempted murder and threatening national security in connection
with an attack in September 2000 on the home of former military ruler
General Robert Guei.
 
COTE D'IVOIRE: Insecurity in the north

One security officer was killed and two were wounded - one of them fatally -
in two separate attacks in the town of Ouangolodougou, some 700 km north of
Abidjan, an official source told IRIN on Thursday.

The chief of staff of Ferkessedougou, the district that includes
Ouangolodougou, said the first incident occurred on 2 February. An off-duty
gendarme wounded in that attack died on Tuesday. In the second raid, on
Sunday, one police officer died and a gendarme was critically wounded, the
source said. The official said he could not say whether there was any link
between recent political unrest in Cote d'Ivoire and the attacks.
  
NIGER: Special committee set up on border dispute

Niger has set up a special ad-hoc committee to prepare for a border dispute
with neighbouring Benin that is being adjudicated by the International Court
of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, PANA reported on Tuesday. PANA said the
committee was divided into political and technical sub-committees with
"highly qualified" people who have "in-depth knowledge" of issues concerning
the 60-sq. km. Lete islands in the River Niger. The dispute over the islands
dates back to the early 1960s. 

CAMEROON: Ten hospitals to screen women for cancer

Ten hospitals in Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, have been selected as
screening centres for breast and cervical cancers, the Panafrican News
Agency (PANA) reported on Wednesday. These are the two most common forms of
cancer. In Cameroon, breast cancer has accounted for 40 percent of
cancer-related deaths while 22 percent are due to cervical cancer, PANA
quoted a recent medical study as saying.
 
Abidjan, 9 February 2001; 19:00 GMT


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