Weekly Round-Up - IRINWA-155: 03-Jan-03
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 155
28 December 2002 - 03 January 2003
CONTENTS:
COTE D'IVOIRE: Civilians reported killed in attack denied by army
TOGO: Amendment allows president to seek reelection
GUINEA-BISSAU: Legislative elections in April
NIGERIA: Tackling the cross-border traffic in arms
GHANA-LIBERIA: Stranded Liberians repatriated
WEST AFRICA: IOM assists displaced migrants
BURKINA FASO: Help requested against meningitis
COTE D'IVOIRE: Civilians reported killed in attack denied by army
The spokesman of a French force monitoring a ceasefire in Cote d'Ivoire
accused the Ivorian army of killing 12 civilians in a helicopter attack on
Tuesday on a hinterland location held by rebels. The village, Minankro, is
50 km north of the ceasefire line between government forces and Patriotic
Movement of Cote d'Ivoire (MPCI) rebels who control most of northern Cote
d'Ivoire.
The attack was reported by Lt Col Ange-Antoine Leccia, spokesman of the
French force. However, the spokesman of Cote d'Ivoire's armed forces, Lt
Col Jules Yao Yao, denied on Thursday that the military had killed
civilians in the raid, which was condemned by the French government.
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin arrived in Cote
d'Ivoire on Friday for talks with government and other officials.
[For IRIN stories on Cote d'Ivoire, please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Cote_d_Ivoire]
TOGO: Amendment allows president to seek reelection
Togo's parliament approved on 30 December a number of constitutional
amendments including one which lifts the restrictions on the number of
times a president can seek reelection. The 1992 constitution limited heads
of state to a maximum of two terms in office. The amendments have been
criticised by the opposition. The head of the African People's Democratic
Convention, Leopold Gnininvi, said the constitutional reform was "a crime
against the Togolese people" and that it "signals dark days ahead" for the
country.
[For IRIN stories on Togo, please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Togo]
GUINEA-BISSAU: Legislative elections in April
Guinea-Bissau President Kumba Yala announced on Monday that legislative
elections would be held on 20 April. RDP-Africa, a Portuguese radio
station, reported that the heads of the main opposition parties had said
they agreed with the date.
On 15 November, Yala had dissolved the legislature, which he accused of
subversion. Two days later, he also dismissed the Social Renovation Party
(PRS) cabinet, accusing it of corruption, and replaced it with a caretaker
administration. Both moves came after opposition parties demanded Yala's
resignation, blaming him for Guinea-Bissau's economic crisis and political
instability.
Guinea-Bissau has been wracked by crises over the past four years,
including an 11-month mutiny that ended with the overthrow of then
President Joao Bernardo Vieira in May 1999 by a military junta.
Presidential elections held in December 1999 and January 2000 were won by
Yala, who secured 72 percent of the votes in the second round.
However, his PRS failed to obtain a majority in parliament. It had 38 out
of 102 seats, while the opposition Resistencia da Guine-Movimento Bafata
had 28 and the former ruling Partido Africano da Independencia de Guine e
Cabo Verde had 24.
Tension between the former military junta and the Yala government
continued throughout 2000. It came to a head with a rebellion by members
of the former military junta in November 2000. In December 2001, a coup
attempt was reported by the government. And several ministers were
dismissed in 2002.
[For IRIN stories on Guinea-Bissau, please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Guinea_Bissau]
NIGERIA: Tackling the cross-border traffic in arms
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said on Saturday his government had
adopted new measures to stop the smuggling of arms into Nigeria from
neighbouring countries. He said the measures included improving border
patrols, consulting with arms manufacturers and plans to deploy Nigerian
customs officials in neighbouring countries with the consent of their
governments.
Significant amounts of weapons had been impounded in recent months by
Nigerian security officials on the borders with Benin, Cameroon, Chad and
Niger. Obasanjo said weapons were not only delivered to criminals, but
also used to arm people involved in ethnic and religious violence.
Meanwhile, on 1 January, Obasanjo apologised for raids by the military
against communities in the central state of Benue in retaliation for the
killing of 19 soldiers by militiamen from the Tiv ethnic group. Some 200
civilians were killed in the reprisal raids.
Obasanjo's apology was issued in the Benue capital, Makurdi, where he
attended a reconciliation forum organised by the Benue branch of the
Christian Association of Nigeria. It came four days before the primaries
in Abuja of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). Obasanjo and four
other contenders are expected to compete for nomination as the party's
presidential candidate in elections this year.
Another group has already selected its candidate. The All Progressive
Grand Alliance (APGA), based mainly in the southeast of the country,
announced on 27 December that it had chosen the former leader of the
short-lived breakaway republic of Biafra, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, as its
presidential hopeful.
In 1967, Ojukwu - then an army colonel - had declared southeastern Nigeria
an independent republic called Biafra after a year of political crisis
during which thousands of people from the southeast were subjected to
pogroms in the north of the country. The civil war that followed ended
with Biafra's surrender in 1970.
[For IRIN stories on Nigeria, please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Nigeria]
GHANA-LIBERIA: Stranded Liberians repatriated
Some 117 people who had been stranded at the Ghanaian port of Tema were
repatriated by air on Thursday to Monrovia, Liberia, with the help of
Ghana's government, a humanitarian source in Accra confirmed to IRIN on
Friday. They travelled on board a Ghana Airways airplane chartered by
Ghana's Interior and Defence ministries, the source said.
The group included people who had fled fighting in western Cote d'Ivoire
between loyalist and rebel forces. They had paid a middleman for tickets
for the three-day journey to the Liberian capital, but he disappeared.
The ship's captain had refused to transport them, saying that the ship was
not equipped to carry many passengers. An official of the shipping line
that owns the vessel said his company had been made to believe that it had
been chartered to transport rice.
[For IRIN stories on Liberia, please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Liberia]
WEST AFRICA: IOM assists displaced migrants
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has continued its
assistance to Guineans and other West Africans stranded in southeastern
Guinea after fleeing western Cote d'Ivoire.
At a briefing on Friday, IOM spokesman Jean-Philippe Chauzy said an IOM
convoy transporting some 393 Burkinabe arrived safely in Bobo Dioulasso,
Burkina Faso, on 1 January after a six-day bus journey across eastern
Guinea and southern Mali.
On 31 December, another IOM convoy transporting 122 Malian nationals
arrived in Mali, he said. A third group of 21 Senegalese left Lola,
southeastern Guinea, with IOM assistance on 27 December and arrived in the
Senegalese capital, Dakar on 31 December.
Chauzy said his organisation helped 24 Guineans to go from Nzerekore -
also in southeastern Guinea - to their homes in Siguiri province in the
northeast, and transported 469 others to the Guinean capital, Conakry, on
28 December. The return operations, he said, were made possible by
contributions from the Finnish government.
BURKINA FASO: Help requested against meningitis
Burkina Faso's government has asked the World Health Organisation (WHO)
for vaccines against a new strain of meningitis.
At a news conference on 27 December, Minister of Health Alain Yoda called
on WHO to provide Burkina Faso as soon as possible with one million doses
of vaccines against W135 meningitis. He said 500,000 doses ordered by the
government had not yet arrived.
The Ministry of Health said 123 cases of meningitis, 16 of them fatal,
were reported by in the country from 9 to 15 December. Yoda said analyses
of the first cases revealed the persistence of the W135 strain, which
killed 1,474 out of 12,794 persons infected between February and May 2002.
Meningitis appears each year in the Sahelian belt (the countries just
south of the Sahara) at the onset of the dry season - December/January.
[For IRIN stories on Burkina Faso, please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Burkina_Faso]
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