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


WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 121
27 April - 03 May 2002


CONTENTS:

MALI: Candidates fail to get majority, second round 12 May
LIBERIA: Rights lawyer released
SIERRA LEONE: Liberian refugees relocated
NIGERIA: At least 20 killed in political violence
NIGERIA: Muslim group adopts Sharia in southern state
BURKINA FASO: Using date palms to hold back the desert
SENEGAL: Continue efforts against impunity, AI tells government
WESTERN SAHARA: Security Council extends mandate of its mission
WEST AFRICA: Child labour to be combated in cocoa regions
WEST AFRICA: Technical assistance centre to be established
WEST AFRICA: Small arms recycling rampant
WORLD: Women, children suffer most in war, NGO says


MALI: Candidates fail to get majority, second round 12 May

Malians are expected to return to the polls on 12 May in the second round
of the presidential polls, official provisional results showed on Friday.
None of the 24 presidential candidates were able to win a majority vote in
the 28 April polls.

Independent candidate Amadou Toumani Toure, a retired army general who led
a 14-month transition government from 1991-1992, and former minister,
Soumaila Cisse of the ruling ADEMA, will battle it out on 12 May. They
respectively won 27.98 percent and 22.74 percent of the vote in the first
round, Ismael Dicko, spokesman at Mali's ministry of territorial
administration, which was in charge of the elections, told IRIN on Friday.

Of some 5.7 million eligible voters, 38.58 percent cast a ballot, Dicko
said.

The polls were marred by allegations by all parties, including ADEMA, of
fraud, insufficient election materials, delayed opening of voting
stations, and omissions from voting lists. Officials at the ministry of
territorial administration admitted there "some minor mistakes", but
attributed these to the fact that organising elections is a very difficult
task.

Outgoing President Alpha Oumar Konare has been in office since 1992.



LIBERIA: Rights lawyer released

President Charles Taylor's government came under scrutiny this week from
international and local human rights organisations over its detention and
alleged ill-treatment of a prominent lawyer.

Liberian police arrested human rights lawyer Tiawan Gongloe on 24 April
without charge and reportedly beat him while in detention. He was admitted
to hospital for treatment and allowed to leave on Wednesday. After his
release Gongloe told humanitarian workers that police disguised as
inmates, one of whom he recognised, beat him in his cell. The government
claims inmates attacked Gongloe in an attempt to extract unofficial
"prison fees".

The Liberian Bar Association and other groups filed a writ of habeas
corpus this week to ascertain the legality of his detention.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported recently that Gongloe appeared to have
been arrested because of a speech he gave at a March 2002 conference in
Guinea, on peace in the Mano River Union. In it, Gongloe condemned the use
of violence as a means to achieving state power.

The speech is available on: http://www.newdemocrat.org

Since a state of emergency was imposed in February, following the reported
advance of armed opposition fighters towards Monrovia, international and
local rights groups have criticised the Liberian government for actions
such as detentions without charge and the forced closure of newspapers.

This week, Taylor ordered a suspension of all mass political gatherings
nationwide saying anyone defying the ban would be arrested.

Meanwhile in a new report published on Wednesday, 'Back to the Brink: War
Crimes by the Liberian Government and Rebels, A Call for Greater
International Attention to Liberia and the Subregion', HRW urged the
United Nations Security Council to extend its arms embargo against
Liberia, saying the army had committed war crimes. These atrocities, HRW
said, included the execution of scores of civilians, widespread rape of
women and girls and systematic burning of villages. A similar embargo
should be imposed on the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy
(LURD) who have also perpetrated abuses such as summary executions, rape
and forced recruitment since July 2000, the rights body said.

On 6 May the UN is due to review sanctions imposed in 2001 because of
Liberian support to Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front rebels.

The report also warned that Sierra Leone could easily be destabilised by
renewed war in Liberia and expressed concern at what it called, "the
destabilising role Guinea is playing in providing logistic and military
support to the LURD (Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy).
HRW urged the United States, due to give some US $3 million in military
assistance to Guinea in May, to condition this on an end to support for
rebel activity in Liberia.

The HRW report is available at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/liberia.


SIERRA LEONE: Liberian refugees relocated

The number of Liberian refugees presenting themselves for relocation
within Sierra Leone has increased recently following a mass information
campaign by UNHCR, the UN refugee agency reported on Wednesday.

Last week alone, UNHCR said, it relocated 1,400 Liberians from Kailahun
District in eastern Sierra Leone to camps in Bo District in the south of
the country. This number represented a sharp rise from the previous count
of between 400 and 800 per week, the UN agency added.

UNHCR has aided nearly 14,000 Liberian refugees since the emergency
relocation programme began in Sierra Leone in late December 2001. The
refugees were fleeing recent clashes between Liberian government troops
and armed dissidents.

Refugees International, a Washington-based advocacy organisation, said on
Monday that the plight of Liberian refugees in Sierra Leone required an
"urgent response" from the international community.

More than 250,000 Liberians sought refuge in west and central African
countries when the Liberian civil war broke out in 1989. Factions involved
in the war officially disbanded in early 1997 and Charles Taylor, a former
warlord, was elected president later the same year.


NIGERIA: At least 20 killed in political violence

At least 20 people died on Wednesday after violence erupted between
factions of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), in Jos, Plateau
State, witnesses and hospital sources said.

The deaths occurred when the election of ward delegates for the congress
of the party in the Nasarawa area degenerated into violence. The chaos
spread to several other areas of the state capital as bands of youths
armed with clubs, machetes and bottles fought each other.

Police said on Friday at least 40 people were arrested in connection with
the violence but the situation was under control. The army is also
reported to be on high alert in Jos to prevent a repeat of the widespread
ethnic and religious violence that broke out in the city in September
2001, claiming more than 500 lives.


NIGERIA: Muslim group adopts Sharia in southern state

A Muslim group in Nigeria's southern state of Oyo said it was adopting the
Islamic legal code of Sharia after the state government ignored their
demands to implement the legal system.

Ishaq Sanni, who heads the National Council of Muslim Youths, told
reporters on Wednesday in the Oyo capital, Ibadan, that the Sharia code
would be limited to civil law and matters including marriage, divorce,
succession and inheritance disputes. But he acknowledged that without
state government backing, the legal code would lack the force of law.

In the past two years, at least a dozen states in northern Nigeria have
extended the application of Sharia from civil to criminal matters over the
period. It prescribes, among other things, amputation of limbs for
stealing, stoning to death for adultery and flogging for drinking alcohol.

This has heightened tension between the two main religious groups, Muslims
and Christians, in Africa's most populous country, leading to frequent
outbreaks of ethno-religious violence in which thousands of people have
died.


BURKINA FASO: Using date palms to hold back the desert

Burkina Faso is encouraging farmers to grow date palms to stop the advance
of the desert under a two-year UN Food and Agriculture Organisation
supported programme(FAO).

At least 200 peasant farmers are to be trained to plant and maintain the
trees, which are best suited to stop the sand dunes because of their
height, the head of the programme, Pooda Nazaire, told IRIN. The programme
will cover the northern provinces of Seno, Soum, Oudalan and Yahga, and
employ 30 experts. Local people in the target area were also expected to
benefit from the programme by making baskets from palm leaves and selling
palm fruit.

Only 13 percent of Burkina Faso's territory is suitable for farming,
whereas 83 percent of its 11 million people live in rural areas, the FAO
said.


SENEGAL: Continue efforts against impunity, Amnesty tells government

Amnesty International (AI) urged Senegal on Tuesday to continue efforts
recently undertaken to end impunity in the country.

Since its election in March 2000, President Abdoulaye Wade's government
has shown signs that it is willing to fight human rights violations and to
bring those responsible to justice, AI reported. The rights body cited the
sacking of a police auxiliary who killed a university student in 2001, the
government's willingness to extradite former Chadian leader Hissene Habre,
and orders not to attack civilians in Casamance as some of the
"encouraging signs of a new approach by the Senegalese authorities".

In the last 20 years, it added, most violations have been committed in the
context of the conflict between state security forces and the Mouvement
des forces democratiques de Casamance (MFDC). The MFDC, has been fighting
since 1992 for independence for Casamance, the southern region of Senegal.

[For more details, please go to http://www.amnesty.org]


WESTERN SAHARA: Security Council extends mandate of its mission

The United Nations Security Council extended on Tuesday the mandate of the
UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) until 31 July,
to allow more time to examine Secretary-General Kofi Annan's proposals to
break the impasse over the territory's future, UN News reported.

The Council set up MINURSO in 1991 to implement a settlement plan between
Morocco and the POLISARIO Front, which has been fighting for the
independence of the former Spanish colony. The settlement plan aims at
allowing the people of Western Sahara to decide through a referendum
whether the territory should become independent or remain part of Morocco.
Despite extensive preparations, the conditions for holding the referendum,
including who is eligible to vote, have not yet been met.


WEST AFRICA: Child labour to be combated in cocoa regions

Pilot programmes to help end abusive child labour practices in West
Africa's cocoa industry are to be launched in the region in September
following this week's signing in Washington DC of a memorandum of
cooperation by several stakeholders in the cocoa/chocolate industry.

The programmes will focus on areas including workplace conditions,
trafficking and migration, social protection and education, Larry Graham,
president of the Chocolate Manufacturer's Association, one of the
signatories to the memorandum, said.

Save the Children-Canada estimated in 2000 that 15,000 Malian children
worked in "virtual slavery" on plantations in Cote d'Ivoire.

Other initiatives have already been launched or are in the pipeline to
combat child labour in the cocoa industry in West Africa. Cote d'Ivoire
and Mali signed a protocol in 2000, and a regional convention against the
practice is planned in 2004.

West Africa produces nearly 70 percent of the world's cocoa. Cote
d'Ivoire is the world largest producer followed by Ghana. Other key
producers are Nigeria and Cameroon.


WEST AFRICA: Technical assistance centre to be established

President Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d'Ivoire and Horst Kohler, Managing
Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), signed an agreement on
Tuesday to establish an African Regional Technical Assistance Centre
(AFRITAC) in the Ivoirian economic capital, Abidjan.

The decision to establish the AFRITAC follows a request in 2001 from
African heads of state for greater IMF support in capacity building. The
Abidjan centre, which will offer assistance including in-country
workshops, professional training and regional training workshops, aims to
help countries in West Africa train personnel for economic and financial
management, the IMF reported.


WEST AFRICA: Small arms recycling rampant

Most small arms trafficking in West Africa involves "recycling" where
dealers move the same weapons from one place to another, a regional expert
said. Several countries have become either providers or recipients of such
arms.

The region has about eight million illegal arms in the hands of "non-state
actors", Napoleon Abdulai of the United Nations project against illicit
arms trafficking in West Africa, based in Mali's capital, Bamako, told
IRIN. These actors include rebel groups, militias, vigilante groups and
bandits. Weapons are recycled between Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone,
Abdulai said, and among belligerents in other conflicts such as in
Casamance, southern Senegal. Guinea-Bissau, which is estimated to have
tens of thousands of weapons, is a regional source while recycling, from
Ghana to Nigeria, also exists.

West African countries, Abdulai said, needed to focus on local
manufacturing of small arms and insist on proper labelling in order to
facilitate tracking. Gunrunning, he added, persisted in spite of a 1998
regional moratorium to tackle it, mainly because of porous borders,
insufficient financial and institutional capacity and the ability of
dealers to hide the weapons easily.


WORLD: Women, children suffer most in war, NGO says

Women and children face increasing brutality in modern conflicts, Save the
Children USA, reported on Thursday. In countries at war women and children
had increasingly become casualties of deliberate, systematic violence and
were more defenceless against hunger, injury, disease, forced military
servitude and sexual exploitation, it added.

In its third "State of the World's Mothers 2002: Mothers and Children in
War" report, Save the Children said that in a survey of 105 countries, 33
out of 50 that ranked lowest in mothers' and childrens' wellbeing had
experienced recent conflict or hosted large refugee populations.

The bottom 10 countries included Niger (105), Burkina Faso (104), Guinea-
Bissau ( 103), Mali (100), Ethiopia (100), Guinea (98), The Gambia (98),
and Benin (96). Of these, five had experienced conflict. Top were
Switzerland, Canada, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.

The report is available at http://www.savethechildren.org/mothers


Meanwhile, a consortium of key humanitarian agencies recently adopted a
policy statement designed to prevent sexual abuse and exploitation in
humanitarian crises throughout the world. Members of the Inter-Agency
Standing Committee promised to ensure that their staff and implementing
partners do not abuse their power and influence to exploit and harm
victims of conflict, particularly women and children.

In February, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged that allegations of
sexual abuse of refugee children in West Africa be thoroughly investigated
and remedial action taken to strengthen the protection of women and
children.


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