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 98
10 - 16 November 2001


CONTENTS:

GUINEA-BISSAU: Judiciary, media under fire
SIERRA LEONE: Talks focus on elections as disarmament progresses
GUINEA: Constitution approved
COTE D'IVOIRE: Presidents past and present address reconciliation forum
NIGERIA: Curfew reduced in Benue State
WEST AFRICA: Food needed urgently - WFP
GHANA: US $26.3 million in development support from WFP, IFAD
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE: Project targets 40 percent of population

GUINEA-BISSAU: Judiciary, media under fire

The detention of two judges and two journalists by the authorities in
Guinea-Bissau this week led to a chorus of condemnations from opposition
parties and human rights watchdogs, with Amnesty International and
Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) accusing the government of President Kumba
Yala of attacking the independence of the media and the judiciary.

Amnesty said it was very concerned about the arrests of former Supreme
Court President Emiliano Nosolini dos Reis and his former deputy, Venāncio
Martins, two months after President Kumba Yala dismissed them from their
posts. In a report on Thursday, Amnesty said the independence of the
judiciary in Guinea-Bissau had come increasingly under threat from Yala's
government. It said the September dismissal of Dos Reis, Martins and two
other judges, "may have been carried out for political reasons" and
undermine the judiciary's authority and the rule of law in Guinea-Bissau.

RSF (Reporters without Borders) condemned the arrest of the director of
the Diario de Bissau newspaper, Joao de Barros, and a member of his staff,
Althizar Mendes. RSF Secretary-General Robert Menard said on Friday that
press freedom was constantly deteriorating in the country. The two
journalists were arrested on the order of Attorney General Caetano
Intchama. "The Attorney General systematically attacks the country's
independent press whose existence today is seriously threatened," Menard
said in a letter to Intchama, whom he urged to release them.

The government's relations with parliament have also been fraught with
conflict.

An opposition source told IRIN opposition parties had contacted
representatives of the international community to alert them to the
situation and planned to stage a protest on Wednesday next.

[See also 'GUINEA-BISSAU: Focus on continuing instability' and
GUINEA-BISSAU: Independence of judiciary, media under attack, watchdogs
say']

SIERRA LEONE: Talks focus on elections as disarmament progresses

With ongoing disarmament paving the way for the restoration of the
authority of the state in former rebel areas, Sierra Leonean politicians,
ex-rebels and civil society representatives met in Freetown on 13-15
November to discuss presidential and parliamentary elections billed for
May 2002.

They agreed that the polls would be held under a new dispensation
replacing the proportional representation system used at the last
election, in 1996. Each legislator would be elected within the district
he/she plans to represent under the new system approved at the National
Consultative Conference, organised by the National Committee for Democracy
and Human Rights. According to Sierra Leone Web, an online information
service, participants also called on all parties concerned to accelerate
the disarmament process and ensure that Sierra Leone is arms-free before
the elections.

UN spokesperson Margaret Novicki said on Tuesday that over 7,600 arms had
been collected. Some were to have been destroyed at a ceremony in Freetown
on Monday, but the event was postponed, Novicki said. Some 31,581
ex-combatants had disarmed up to 12 November, including 20,111 from
pro-government militias and 10,976 former rebels.

The latest district to disarm was Tonkolili in the centre of the country,
where more than 2,000 former fighters gave up their weapons between 1 and
15 November. Next on the list is Kailahun, also in the east.

Other areas in the east that have already disarmed include Kono and, at a
meeting in Freetown on 9 November, donors pledged to provide
post-disarmament support in the diamond-rich district. UNDP promised
funding to make district recovery committees effective and to provide
capacity support to government officials; Britain pledged support to help
restore paramount chiefs and shelter returnees; the European Union said it
would fund road rehabilitation and resettlement plans in agriculture,
education and health.

GUINEA: Constitution approved

Some 98 percent of voters at a referendum on Sunday supported the
amendment of Guinea's constitution, while 1.64 percent said "no",
according to the official result. The participation rate reported by the
government was 87 percent, but opposition sources put it at less than 20
percent. The amendments enable presidents to run for election as often as
they wish and give the head of state the power to nominate local
government officials, who have hitherto been elected.

A diplomat said this could have a negative impact on Guinea's relations
with institutions like the World Bank and the IMF because decentralisation
has become an important criteria in their evaluation of financial aid.

COTE D'IVOIRE: Presidents past and present address reconciliation forum

Former Ivorian president Henri Konan Bedie and current head of state
Laurent Gbagbo on Tuesday addressed a forum aimed at achieving national
reconstruction in Cote d'Ivoire. It was Bedie's first public speech since
his return to Abidjan from exile in France in mid-October. Two other
leading politicians, General Robert Guei - Bedie's immediate successor -
and opposition leader Alassane Ouattara, declined invitations to address
the forum. Both cited concern for their security among their reasons.

NIGERIA: Curfew reduced in Benue State

A curfew imposed in mid-October in Benue State, central Nigeria, was
reduced on Tuesday by the state's authorities, who deemed that the
situation had improved. ThisDay, a Nigerian newspaper, reported that the
original dusk-to-dawn curfew, which covers the capital, Makurdi, and the
area of Gboko, now runs from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Originally lasting from 6
p.m to 6 a.m, it was reduced once before to run from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.

The curfew was imposed to pre-empt further insecurity following reprisal
attacks by soldiers on local communities. In late October, federal
soldiers seeking to avenge the killing of 19 of their colleagues by a Tiv
militia ravaged four villages of the Tiv community, killing over 200
people and displacing another 300,000 people. The 19 had been on a
peacekeeping mission to end fighting between Tivs and neighbouring Jukuns.

The soldiers' action drew attention to the issue of the deployment of the
military to contain civil unrest, which has also led to disaster in other
parts of the country. Since May 1999, the military has been sent to quell
communal unrest in 13 of Nigeria's 36 states.

[For more information see
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=14590&SelectRegion=West_Africa
]

Some of the unrest has been caused by the imposition of Islamic law in
northern states or plans to that effect, which have been opposed by
non-Muslim groups. However, in the western state of Kwara, an Islamic
organisation has said that it will oppose a proposal to introduce the
Sharia in the state. The Kwara Yoruba Moslem Association (KYMA) said
implementing Sharia could disrupt the peaceful co-existence between the
state's inhabitants, The Guardian newspaper in Lagos reported.

WEST AFRICA: Food needed urgently - WFP

The World Food Programme (WFP) appealed to donors this week to pledge
contributions to its food pipeline so as to avoid a break in its
operations to help feed destitute and vulnerable people in West Africa.
Manuel da Silva, Regional Director for West Africa, said on Wednesday in
Dakar that WFP needed 100,000 mt of food for its operations in the
subregion. "Given lengthy procurement processes, donors need to pledge
their contributions urgently to cover the amount of food aid required for
the region," he said. WFP's largest emergency operation in West Africa is
in the Mano River countries - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where an
estimated one million beneficiaries depend on WFP food rations for their
survival. Any interruption in supplies would have an almost immediate
impact, da Silva said. Other countries where WFP has emergency operations
include Senegal and Guinea-Bissau. WFP's Regional Office for West Africa,
which opened on Wednesday in Dakar, also covers seven other countries:
Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Mali, Mauritania and
Niger.

GHANA: US $26.3 million in development support from WFP, IFAD

The World Food Programme (WFP) is to provide 482,000 people with food aid
through 2005 to support efforts to reduce poverty in Ghana, the UN agency
announced on Wednesday. WFP's Ghana Country Programme will supply
beneficiaries with 35,000 mt of food over the next four years. It covers
community health and nutrition education, girls' education and savannah
resource management and is budgeted at US $15.3 million. Another US $4.7
million will be requested for HIV/AIDS programmes, WFP said.

Meanwhile, the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
will lend Ghana US $11 million for a rural financial services project,
IFAD reported. An estimated 3.7 million rural people, mainly smallholders,
women, and households headed by women will benefit from the loan, IFAD
said. The project also targets micro, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs
who have little or no access to mainstream financial services. It will
seek to establish a network of rural banks, IFAD said, in addition to
restructuring and strengthening existing rural banks. The loan agreement
was signed last month.

SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE: Project targets 58,000 people

Some 58,000 people stand to benefit from a US $13.45-million programme to
help develop small-scale farming and fishing in Sao Tome and Principe,
according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD),
which is providing a loan of US $9.97 million for the programme. The
targeted beneficiaries are some 8,000 farming and 3,000 fishing
households, whose annual per capita incomes are between US $162 and US
$200. The loan agreement was signed on 9 November at IFAD's headquarters
in Rome. The archipelago's government will contribute US $1.18 million
while the beneficiaries will provide the equivalent of US $840,000.
Another US $1.45 million is expected to come from the French Development
Agency and France's Foreign Ministry, IFAD said.


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001


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