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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e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci 


WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 81
14-20 July 2001

 
CONTENTS:  

SIERRA LEONE: Kono disarmament resumes following new agreement
LIBERIA: Pressure mounts
LIBERIA-COTE D'IVOIRE: Update on refugee influx
COTE D'IVOIRE: RDR members acquitted
GUINEA: Rights group opposes third term for Conte 
GUINEA: ICRC helps hospitals
CHAD: Update on political situation
CHAD: Red Cross responds to cholera threat
GHANA: Police set up task force on armed robbery
SENEGAL: Child-protection project launched
THE GAMBIA: Political temperature mounts ahead of October polls
SAO TOME E PRINCIPE: Presidential polls
MAURITANIA: Legislative, municipal elections for 19 October
NIGERIA: Former Abacha minister to run for president 
NIGERIA: Oil spills 
NIGERIA: Police say at least 100 died in Nasarawa crisis  
NIGERIA: Vigilantes in the spotlight
MALI: Project aims to enable villagers to grow enough food
GABON: Congolese refugees to receive food from WFP 

SIERRA LEONE: Kono disarmament resumed following new agreement

The disarmament of former rebels and pro-government militias resumed this
week in Sierra Leone after being stalled by mutual suspicion sparked by
alleged attacks against the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) by Civil
Defence Forces (CDF) militiamen. A UN source in Sierra Leone reported that
67 RUF and 16 CDF handed in their weapons as at Thursday in the eastern
district of Kono, where disarmament began on 2 July.

An agreement to resume the disarmament was made on 17 July in the southern
town of Bo at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Disarmament and
Demobilisation, which comprises representatives of the government, CDF and
the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL). It is expected to end on 31
July. The parties also agreed to a moratorium on mining in diamond-rich
Kono and on the removal of RUF and CDF checkpoints from the district's
roads.

Meanwhile, the RUF released 107 children on Monday in the northern town of
Makeni, bringing to 1,170 the number of minors it has handed over to
UNAMSIL since 25 May. Those who regained their freedom on Monday included
62 girls, whereas most of those released earlier were boys.

The RUF abducted and forcibly recruited thousands of children during its
10-year war against the state. The rebels also abused many girls and
women. "As a result of the war, rape has become more generalised" in
Sierra Leone, psychiatrist Edward Nahim told IRIN this week. He and other
sources said there had been an increase in reported rape cases in the
country.

Concerned NGOs have formed a Women's Help Line to document violence and
abuse against women and take action against the perpetrators, one of the
network's founding members, Gladys Brima, told IRIN. Rape was not a big
problem in Sierra Leone before the war but now, even though the war is
over, it is continuing, she said.

Other atrocities committed during the war included the murder of civilians
and the chopping off of people's limbs by the RUF. People suspected of
committing war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian
law are to be tried by a special court proposed in October 2000 by UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Annan said this week that he had received
pledges of US $35 million for the first three years of the court. He had
initially asked for donations to the sum of US $114.6 million but later
scaled his request down to US $57 million.

Some 100 RUF were being held by the Sierra Leonean authorities but 33 were
released this week.

LIBERIA: Pressure mounts

A Danish company, the DLH Group, has decided to stop importing Liberian
timber in reaction to a public call by three non-governmental
organisations that it stop dealing with Liberian logging companies
implicated in arms trafficking.

DLH imported logs from the Liberia-based Oriental Timber Company and Royal
Timber Corporation into Europe. Greenpeace, Global Witness and Nepenthes
called on it to stop doing so because a UN panel had found last year that
the Liberian logging industry was helping arms trafficking. Logging
companies have also been accused of stripping Liberia's forests while
providing few benefits to host communities.

DLH Group's CEO, Jorgen Rasmussen, said on Tuesday that he would stop
buying timber from Liberian companies until the United Nations or the
European Union had certified that the situation had been normalised.

Some governments and NGOs had campaigned unsuccessfully this year for the
inclusion of timber in sanctions the UN Security Council imposed on
Liberia for allegedly trading weapons for diamonds with, and otherwise
supporting, Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front (RUF).

The sanctions, which entered into effect on 7 May, include a ban on trade
in diamonds with Liberia. They also prohibit top Liberian government
officials, their spouses and their associates from travelling, and
reconduct an existing arms embargo until Monrovia proves that it has
severed all ties with the RUF. On Monday, Canada announced that it had
joined the list of countries implementing the sanctions because, Foreign
Minister John Manley said, Monrovia had not complied with the Security
Council's demands.
 
However, in a letter to the Council dated 28 June, Liberian Foreign
Minister Monie Captan said his government had cut off all links to the RUF
because its contacts with the rebels and other parties to Sierra Leone's
conflict had been misunderstood. Captan said these contacts had been
opened and maintained under the mandate of the Economic Community of West
African States with the "sole objective of promoting regional peace and
stability".

He said that Liberia's government had closed its land border with Sierra
Leone since March 2001, and that security personnel were patrolling it
daily. He also said Monrovia had asked the United Nations and ECOWAS to
patrol and monitor its border.

LIBERIA-COTE D'IVOIRE: Update on refugee influx

A steady flow of Liberian refugees into western Cote d'Ivoire that began
in early May after fighting broke out in Lofa County, northern Liberia,
continued this week, UNHCR reported. The UNHCR sub-office in Danane, one
of two towns which make up Cote d'Ivoire's Zone d'accueil des refugies
(Refugee reception zone), recorded 4,076 new Liberians between 3 May and
19 July. They included 434 who arrived between 16 and 19 July.

Most of the newcomers are from Lofa, Bong and Grand Gedeh counties, and
from Monrovia, while there was a slight increase in Liberians coming from
Guinea, the sub-office said its 13-19 July situation report.

Women between 18 and 59 years old make up the bulk of the arrivals -
2,306.

Guiglo, which is located 170 km south of Danane, is the other town in the
reception zone.
  
COTE D'IVOIRE: RDR members acquitted

An Abidjan court on Friday acquitted two leading members of the opposition
Rassemblement des republicains (RDR) of charges linked to unrest that
preceded parliamentary elections in December 2000. RDR spokesman Aly
Coulibaly and another party official, Camara Karamoko, had been accused of
"complicity in the destruction of private and public property and
disrupting public order".

Several RDR members were arrested after 4-5 December clashes between
demonstrators and security forces over the exclusion of RDR leader
Alassane Dramane Ouattara from the 10 December legislative elections. Some
have been released since April.

Presidential elections on 22 October had been followed by even worse
violence. The bodies of some 57 young men were discovered on 27 October in
a forest in the Abidjan suburb of Yopougon following days of clashes
involving supporters of rival political parties, gendarmes and police in
which 169 people are reported to have died.
 
Government Commissioner Ange Bernard Kessy announced on 12 July that eight
gendarmes charged with murder in connection with October's unrest would go
before a military tribunal on 24 July, according to the state-run
'Fraternite Matin' daily.
 
Talks between President Laurent Gbagbo and other political leaders, aimed
at achieving stability in Cote d'Ivoire, were launched in April. They were
to have culminated on 9 July in a National Forum on Reconciliation which
was, however, postponed because it clashed with an OAU Summit in Lusaka.
Gbagbo announced last week that the Forum would take place in August,
according to 'Fraternite Matin'.

GUINEA: Rights group opposes third term for Conte

Guinea's human rights watchdog, l'Organisation guinéenne de défense des
droits de l'homme et du citoyen (OGDH) called this week on all "republican
institutions" to oppose any manipulation of the constitution, media
organisations reported. The OGDH's call was made on Tuesday in reaction to
statements by officials of the ruling Parti de l'unite et du progres in
favour of an amendment of the constitution to allow President Lansana
Conte to seek a third term. Guinea's main opposition parties have also
criticised the move.

GUINEA: ICRC helps hospitals

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) last week delivered
medical supplies, including medicines, worth 161,000 Swiss francs (about
US $93,000) to five hospitals and surgeries in Kissidougou, Lola, Yomou
and Sanoyha in southeastern Guinea, the ICRC reported on Thursday.
 
CHAD: Update on political situation

Chad's government is currently being challenged on two fronts and, if the
situation is not well managed, the country could be destabilised, an NGO
source in the capital, N'djamena, told IRIN on Thursday.

The first challenge comes from six opposition leaders who announced on
Wednesday that they were planning a civil disobedience campaign against
the government of President Idriss Deby, Jess Ramadjingar of the Comite
d'information et de liaison des ONGs (CILONG) said. The six politicians,
who all lost to Deby during elections held in May, have been claiming that
the polls were rigged. They say they have made numerous appeals and
propositions to Deby's government to improve the current climate but it
has taken no concrete steps. "We are on stand-by", Ramadjingar said.

A conflict between the army and the Mouvement pour la democratie et la
justice au Tchad (MDJT), which has been going on since 1998 in northern
Chad's Tibesti region, is the second obstacle to stability. "Civil
society, the opposition and NGOs are preparing for the civil disobedience
campaign, but the war in the north is the biggest worry," Ramadjingar
said.

MDJT's stated objective is to end Deby's government. It claimed last
weekend that it captured the strategic northeastern town of Fada, which
lies on the routes to Sudan and Libya, and killed 86 government soldiers.
However, the government denied the rebels' version of the event.

The BBC reported the government as saying that armed men attacked Fada on
the night of the 15-16 July and were beaten back after a few exchanges of
gunfire. Ndjamena said the attackers could not be MDJT because the rebels
did not have the capacity to stage an attack over 500 km from their base
in the northwest.

Round-table discussions between the government and the MDJT - slated for
the coming weeks - are in jeopardy because the violence has escalated. "We
are inevitably heading towards war," Ramadjingar said. "We cannot count on
the good faith of the government."

"The real resolution is national and international pressure for a real
reconciliation," Ramadjingar said. He also said that the idea of an armed
uprising was not far-fetched.

CHAD: Red Cross responds to cholera threat

The Red Cross has treated community wells in the Chadian capital,
N'djamena, following a cholera alert there, the International Federation
of the Red Cross (IFRC) reported this week.

Early warnings of cholera in the areas of Amrikebe and Farcha mobilised
more than 40 local Red Cross volunteers to treat the water supply and stop
the spread of the disease to other parts of the city. Tents were set up at
the Farcha and Chagoua hospitals to cope with an expected increase in the
number of patients, the IFRC said in its latest news bulletin. The Health
Ministry is using radio and television to inform the local population of
steps to be taken to avoid infection and to seek medical attention as soon
as an individual is diagnosed with diarrhoea.

The ministry has not yet officially stated the number of known cases, the
IFRC said.

Cases have also been registered recently in Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Togo,
while Burkina Faso was put under cholera alert last week, media sources
reported. Cholera is endemic in much of coastal West Africa and the
incidence of the disease increases during the rainy season which begins in
May.

GHANA: Police set up task force on armed robbery

Ghana's police have deployed a 500-member task force to curb armed
robberies in Accra, which are now being carried out in broad daylight,
news organisations reported. The force has been instructed to deal "most
ruthlessly" with the armed robbers, a police superintendent was reported
as saying by Joy FM radio and the 'Daily Graphic' newspaper. Such
robberies have been linked to factors such as the proliferation of small
arms in Ghana and other West African nations.

SENEGAL: Child-protection project launched

A two-year project aimed at protecting children from "the worst forms of
child labour" was officially launched on Monday in Senegal's capital
Dakar, a UNICEF official told IRIN. The project aims to prevent children
from being placed in abusive situations such as hard labour and sexual
exploitation, and to rehabilitate those who are already victims of such
practices.
 
The launch coincided with the release by UNICEF, the ILO and other
agencies of statistics covering the period 1993-2000, which reveal that
some 400,000 minors aged between six years and 18 years are in "vulnerable
and risky situations" in Senegal. They include 34,000 young girls who work
as domestics for between US $3 and US $6 per month, 100,000 minors
employed in farming and fishing, and children displaced by fighting in the
southern area of Casamance.

Italy's development agency, Cooperazione Italiana, is the project's main
donor, contributing US $1.5 million to it.

THE GAMBIA: Political temperature mounts ahead of October polls

With just over three months to go before October's presidential polls in
The Gambia, there have been increased demands for the repeal of a decree
banning some politicians from seeking election.

The politicians have petitioned President Yahya Jammeh to lift the
prohibition immediately and allow them to exercise their fundamental
rights as citizens, 'The Point' newspaper reported. The Banjul daily
quoted unnamed State House sources as saying that the politicians reminded
Jammeh of his promise to the Commonwealth and the international community
to repeal the decree before the polls. Decree 89 was imposed after
Jammeh's coup in 1994.

The sources said the petition was signed by leaders of the National
Convention Party, the Gambia People's Party and the People's Progressive
Party, all of which are banned.
 
SAO TOME E PRINCIPE: Presidential polls

Observers see ex-president Manuel Pinto da Costa of the ruling Movimento
de Libertacao de Sao Tome e Principe (MLSTP) and the candidate of the
Accao Democratica Independente party, Fradique de Menezes, as the
frontrunners in presidential polls to be held on 29 July in Sao Tome and
Principe, AFP reported.

Other candidates are army Captain Victor Monteiro, National Assembly
Speaker Francisco Fortunato Pires, and Carlos Tiny, a former minister.
President Miguel Trovoada is ineligible, having served two five-year
terms. The Supreme Court has ruled that each candidate can have five
minutes of air time a day on radio and on television.

The archipelago gained independence from Portugal in 1975 but did not hold
its first multiparty elections until 20 January 1991, when the MLSTP lost
to the Partido de Convergencia Democratica Grupo de Reflexao. The MLSTP
returned to power after winning legislative elections in 1994.
 
MAURITANIA: Legislative, municipal elections due 19 October

Legislative and municipal elections will be held in Mauritania on 19
October, Information Minister Rachid Ould Saleh told reporters on
Wednesday. If necessary, a second round will be held on 26 October.
Campaigning will be from 3 to 18 October. Independent candidates will not
be allowed to run, Saleh was quoted as saying.

NIGERIA: Former minister under Abacha to run for president

A former minister in the government of late military ruler General Sani
Abacha became, on 14 July, the first politician to declare his candidacy
for the 2003 presidential polls in Nigeria, AFP reported. Abubakar Rimi
belongs to President Olusegun Obasanjo's People's Democratic Party, but
has publicly criticised Obasanjo on a number of occasions. Obasanjo is
expected to seek a second term in 2003.
 
NIGERIA: Oil spills

Communities affected by recent oil spills in the southern Nigerian state
of Abia have asked for help from the state and federal governments,
especially for clean drinking water, 'The Vanguard' newspaper reported
this week. The Umuagu-Unuhu and Ihite-Ude Ofeme communities suffered oil
spills from vandalised and burnt pipelines between October and May, the
daily reported. The chief of Ihite-Ude Ofome said the community had to
switch to rainwater after more than 10 people who drank from an
oil-polluted river suffered stomach problems, including diarrhoea.

Meanwhile, a ruptured pipeline in southeastern Nigeria that caused the
spillage of 10,000 barrels of crude oil and forced two major refineries to
shut down temporarily has been repaired despite opposition by affected
communities, the Nigerian National petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said on
Tuesday.

The pipeline, which exploded last week at Kpokpo Creek, near the Escravos
crude export terminal operated by US transnational Chevron Corp, disrupted
supplies to the NNPC's refineries at nearby Warri and the northern city of
Kaduna. The pipeline had been repaired by Monday, IRIN learnt from a
spokesman of the NNPC, which blamed the incident on sabotage. The official
said threats by people in the affected community to block the repairs
unless paid compensation for the environmental damage caused by the spill
did not materialise.

NIGERIA: Police say at least 100 died in Nasarawa crisis

No fewer than 100 people died in ethnic unrest over the past five weeks in
the central Nigerian state of Nasarawa, media organisations quoted police
spokesman Peter Audu as saying in the state capital, Lafia. 'This Day'
newspaper said on Wednesday that this was the first official death toll
for the conflict, sparked by the killing on 12 July of five people,
including an Azara chief, which the Azaras blamed on the minority Tivs.

NIGERIA: Vigilantes in the spotlight

Nigeria's police chiefs have vowed to stamp out the execution of suspected
robbers by vigilante groups such as the Bakassi Boys in the southeast and
the banned Oodua People's Congress (OPC) in Lagos, BBC reported. Human
rights organisations also oppose the groups' actions. Meanwhile,
traditional chiefs in Ilorin in the western state of Kwara have called on
residents to resist an attempt by the OPC to impose a traditional ruler in
the town. The OPC was created in 1995 to fight for the interests of the
Yoruba people. It was banned in 2000 following riots in 1999 and 2000 in
which hundreds of people died.

MALI: Project aims to enable villagers to grow enough food

A five-year project aimed at helping thousands of people in one of Mali's
poorest areas to attain food security was launched on 14 July, the
project's director said.

The Projet de developpement integral de l'aval de Manantali (PDIAM)
includes the irrigation of 1,653 ha of land on the River Senegal
downstream of the Manantali Dam, which would be used for growing rice and
other crops, PDIAM's Abdoulaye Dembele told IRIN. He said beneficiaries
included some of the 20,000 people displaced by the construction of the
dam, located some 500 km northwest of Bamako. The dam was completed in
1987.
  
The US $26-million project is financed by the Islamic Development Bank,
the Kuwaiti Development Fund, the OPEC Development Fund and the Saudi
Development Fund. It started in January 2000 but its main component -
irrigated agriculture- is expected to take off in April or May 2002.

GABON: Congolese refugees to receive food from WFP
 
The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) has committed US $280,000 towards a
six-month programme to provide a minimum of food security for some 12,000
Congolese refugees in Gabon, WFP's Giancarlo Cirri told IRIN on Wednesday.
However, the programme still faces a shortfall of US $340,000. He said a
total of US $620,000 was needed to buy 950 mt of food for the six months,
and that WFP was "waiting for new contributions to cover the remaining
four months."

Abidjan, 20 July 2001; 20:00 GMT
  

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