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

Tel: +225 22-40-4440
Fax: +225 22-41-9339
e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci


WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 116
23 - 29 March 2002


CONTENTS:

GHANA: Two ministers resign over fighting in north
LIBERIA: Five rights workers detained
SIERRA LEONE: Sankoh barred from presidential elections
MANO RIVER UNION: Meeting calls for peace dialogue
NIGERIA: Islamic court frees woman from death by stoning
CAPE VERDE: International forum links desertification to poverty
COTE D'IVOIRE: Trial of alleged coup plotters postponed
TOGO: Government and opposition resume talks
CAMEROON: Government launches anti-HIV programme
BURKINA FASO: EU gives US $310.8 million to fight poverty
AFRICA: Leaders say African ownership vital in NEPAD

GHANA: Two ministers resign over fighting in north

Two ministers have resigned over the feud for power in Ghana's Northern
Region where the paramount chief of the Dagomba Traditional Area, the
Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II, has been confirmed killed, the Ghana News Agency
(GNA) reported.

The minister of information and presidential affairs, Jake
Obetsebi-Lamptey, announced on Friday that Northern Region Minister Prince
Imoru Andandi and Interior Minister Malik Al-Hassan Yakubu had resigned.
President John Kufuor has accepted the resignations "with regret and
without prejudice", GNA reported. Both men denied involvement in the
clashes in Yendi, which pitted two rival camps in the Dagomba chieftaincy
dispute.

The Andani group had called on Wednesday for Yakubu's resignation, the
dismissal of Yendi District chief executive Mohammed Habibu Tijani, and
for the detention of Accra businessman Aminu Amadu, for their alleged
roles in the crisis. Yakubu, who is also the MP for the Dagombo area, said
he resigned to avoid being seen as "an impediment to any government
investigations" into the events.

It remains unclear what sparked Monday's fighting in which the chief and
several other people were killed. There had been conflicting reports of
the chief's death; with the counsel for the Andani camp in the crisis,
Ibrahim Mahama, telling the GNA that Andani was still alive. Mahama had
said hired assassins had mistakenly beheaded the wrong man.

However, the government said on Friday that Andani was dead. President
John Kufuor has imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the conflict area and
ordered a full-scale operation to arrest the perpetrators of the killings.
He warned individuals or groups against taking advantage of the situation,
saying they would be "swiftly and decisively dealt with under the full
rigours of the law".

LIBERIA: Five rights workers detained`

Liberian police detained five staff members of the National Human Rights
Centre on Thursday but gave no reason for their arrest, the organisation
reported.

Aloysius Toe, project officer; Tunny Zeogar, administrative secretary;
Peter Nickoson, office assistant; John Okai, dispatcher; and Field Monitor
Sam Nimely were arrested at the organisation's offices in the capital,
Monrovia.

Toe, who is currently acting executive director of the Movement for the
Defence of Human Rights, a member of the National Human Rights Centre,
condemned on Wednesday the arrest without charge of opposition politician,
Nigba Wiaplah.

Wiaplah, the acting national chairman of the New Deal Movement party, was
arrested because of a recent statement he made to a Monrovia newspaper,
The News, in which he allegedly said that "arrogance" was the reason for
the present war between rebels and the Liberian government.

Anti-government forces, known as Liberians United for Reconciliation and
Democracy, have been fighting to overthrow the government of President
Charles Taylor since 1998. The government declared a state of emergency on
8 February and since then, journalists; rights activists and opposition
leaders have been under increased pressure from the authorities resulting
in arrests and detention without charge, Amnesty International reported.

SIERRA LEONE: Sankoh barred from presidential elections

Imprisoned former rebel leader Foday Sankoh will not be allowed to stand
as a presidential candidate for the newly registered Revolutionary United
Front Party (RUFP) in forthcoming elections, news organisations reported
Sierra Leone's National Electoral Commission (NEC) as saying on Thursday.

Chief Electoral Commissioner, Walter Nicol, told reporters that Sankoh was
not registered to vote, and was therefore, under Sierra Leone's electoral
laws, ineligible to stand as a candidate. The RUFP received its
registration certificate, allowing it to participate in May's presidential
and parliamentary elections, earlier this week.

Sankoh told a court in the capital, Freetown, on Monday that he had no
case to answer in murder charges levelled against him, news organisations
reported. The case has been adjourned again until 2 April. It is the third
time that Sankoh, along with dozens of other former rebels, has appeared
in court since he was charged with murder and related offences on 4 March.
The charges relate to an incident on 8 May 2000 when a peaceful
demonstration outside Sankoh's home in Freetown turned violent, and at
least 20 people died. He was detained shortly after the incident and has
been kept in an undisclosed location ever since.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council announced on Thursday that it was
extending the mandate of the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) by six
months until 30 September.

Council said it was important that UNAMSIL support the government in
consolidating peace and security beyond the presidential and parliamentary
elections due on 14 May. UNAMSIL has established, within the mission, an
electoral component and recruited 30 additional civilian police advisers
to support the government and the police in preparation for the polls.

Five Bangladeshi UN peacekeepers died following a road accident last week
outside the capital, Freetown, UNAMSIL said on Monday. No other vehicle
was involved in the incident that took place on Thursday afternoon at
Waterloo, some 25 km southeast of Freetown. The cause of the accident was
still being investigated, the UN said. Bangladesh contributes some 4,200
soldiers to UNAMSIL, which currently stands at over 17,000 making it the
largest UN peacekeeping operation in the world.

The World Bank said this week that it had agreed to allocate over US $140
million over the next two years to support reconstruction and development
efforts and to fight against HIV/AIDS in Sierra Leone.

MANO RIVER UNION: Meeting calls for peace dialogue

Representatives from several UN agencies and the Mano River Union (MRU)
have called on the international community to encourage dialogue among the
leaders of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in an effort to bring peace to
the subregion, the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) reported on
Monday.

Participants in last week's two-day meeting in the Sierra Leonean capital,
Freetown, called for intensified efforts to "translate the spirit of the
recent MRU summit in Rabat, Morocco, into positive momentum for peace in
the subregion", UNAMSIL said.

Meeting under the umbrella of the UN Inter-Agency Working Group, a forum
that brings together UN agencies operating in MRU member states, delegates
recommended several "fast-track" projects to be carried out by UN agencies
in the subregion. These include the revitalisation of the MRU secretariat
so that it can resume normal activities within member states and several
others that support civil society organisations in the subregion,
including the Mano River Women's Peace Network.

The UN Department of Political Affairs and the UN Economic Commission for
Africa convened the 21-22 March meeting.

NIGERIA: Islamic court frees woman from death by stoning

An Islamic court of appeal in Nigeria's northern Sokoto State freed on
Monday a 35-year-old woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.

Safiya Huseini Tunga-Tudu, who has been at the centre of the controversial
case that has drawn international outrage from rights advocates and raised
religious tension in Nigeria, was acquitted by the Sharia Court of Appeal
in the city of Sokoto on procedural grounds.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, of 120 million people, is almost
evenly divided between a largely Muslim north and a predominantly
Christian south. The country has witnessed outbursts of sectarian violence
since the application of strict Sharia began in a number of northern
states. At least 2000 people were killed in the northern city of Kaduna
early in 2000, in clashes between Christians and Muslims over plans to
introduce Sharia in the state.

CAPE VERDE: International forum links desertification to poverty

Environmentalists and government officials have produced a unified
position among countries most affected by desertification following a
recent four-day international forum in Cape Verde's capital, Praia, the UN
Development Programme (UNDP) reported on Monday.

The 'Praia Declaration', which will be presented at the World Summit on
Sustainable Development to be held in August in Johannesburg, South
Africa, says, "The poverty nexus is tied with desertification and drought
in a vicious circle characterised by land degradation and loss of
resources."

The declaration recommends that the summit consider fighting
desertification and promoting natural resources management as a main
strategy to reduce poverty. It also urges more cooperation at subregional
and regional levels to ensure cross-border sharing of skills and resources
in the management of arid ecosystems.

Environmentalist and government officials from some 60 countries attended
the 5-8 March meeting.

COTE D'IVOIRE: Trial of alleged coup plotters postponed

The trial on Wednesday of 31 people accused of participating in last
year's failed coup has been postponed until 13 May because the state needs
to update its jury list, Cote d'Ivoire's Justice Ministry announced.

The coup suspects - civilians and soldiers - have been charged with
"threatening state authority and belonging to an armed gang". The charges
relate to an armed attack on 8 January 2001 on the national TV station in
Abidjan, President Laurent Gbagbo's home, and the country's largest
gendarmerie base.

TOGO: Government and opposition resume talks

A national commission set up to resolve Togo's political crisis that
followed the 1998 presidential elections resumed its work on Tuesday after
months of inactivity.

The commission, known as the Comite Paritaire de Suivi (the Joint
Follow-up Commission), comprises a coalition of the country's five leading
opposition parties and another of parties supporting the ruling Rally for
the Togolese People (Rassemblement du peuple Togolais). It met in the
capital, Lome, to organise legislative elections, which have been delayed
because of disagreement within the commission.

New legislative polls are due to replace those of 1999 that the opposition
boycotted on grounds that presidential polls, the previous year, were
rigged. The lingering political rift led to the adoption of the Lome
Framework Agreement that created and mandated the follow-up commission to
solve the crisis.

CAMEROON: Government launches anti-HIV programme

The Cameroon government has unveiled a three-year programme against
HIV-AIDS with the objective of lowering the national prevalence rate to
less than 10 percent.

Drawn up by the National Committee against AIDS (Comite national de lutte
contre le sida), the programme will focus on providing educational
information on prevention and treatment to young people who are hardest
hit by the disease. Official statistics put the current prevalence rate at
11 percent with some 600 people infected each day. At least 12 percent of
20-24-year-olds are HIV positive, and some 10 percent of 25 to
29-year-olds, the committee said.

Meanwhile, the police in Cameroon have been accused of abusing the rights
of innocent people in their bid to fight rising crime. Operation
Harmattan, launched by the police just over two weeks ago, aims to rid
Cameroon's main cities - Yaounde, its capital, and Douala, its commercial
hub - of bandits, the authorities said.  However some sources accuse the
police of subjecting people to arbitrary arrests and humiliation during
sudden police raids, security and identity checks. Just fewer than 3,000
people have been questioned and at least two people have been killed since
the operation began, the authorities said.

BURKINA FASO: EU gives US $310.8 million to fight poverty

The European Union announced on 22 March that it would give Burkina Faso
the equivalent of some US $310.8 million - from 2002-2007 - to support the
government's anti-poverty drive. The aid will be ploughed into rural
development and food security, basic education, health, economic reform
and road building.

AFRICA: Leaders say African ownership vital in NEPAD

African leaders who held a daylong summit on Tuesday on the implementation
of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) resolved that the
initiative must be "owned" by Africans.

"African ownership is central to the NEPAD process, which must be retained
and strongly promoted so as to meet the legitimate aspirations of the
African peoples," leaders said in the final communiqué at the end of the
meeting in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

The summit identified key areas requiring priority attention to achieve
accelerated development in Africa. These include peace and security,
agriculture and market access, infrastructure, capital flows and human
development.

The meeting brought together heads of state and representatives of 13
countries that form the implementation committee of NEPAD. Also in
attendance were top officials of the Organisation of African Unity, the
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the Food and Agriculture
Organisation.

Meanwhile, a four-day meeting to articulate policies to reduce poverty
among women and stimulate their participation in development in West
Africa opened on Monday, also in Abuja. The meeting was jointly organised
by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the United
Nations Economic Commission for Africa and drew delegates from ECOWAS
states as well as international governmental and non-governmental
organisations.

Discussions were also aimed at aligning regional development programmes to
the objectives of NEPAD, an ECOWAS official told IRIN.


IRIN-WA
Tel: +225 22-40-4440
Fax: +225 22-41-9339
Email: IRIN-WA@irin.ci

[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to
change your keywords, contact e-mail: Irin@ocha.unon.org or Web:
http://www.irinnews.org . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this
item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial
sites requires written IRIN permission.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2002


distributed by
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International Disaster Information
Volunteers in Technical Assistance
                                          web: www.cidi.org
                                     listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
West Africa                      www.cidi.org/humanitarian/irin/wafrica