U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
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Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa

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WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 176
16 - 23 May 2003


CONTENTS:

LIBERIA: Stop the violence, US government tells Liberians
COTE D'IVOIRE: Peacekeepers move into troubled west
BURKINA FASO: Water shortage reaches critical levels 
NIGERIA: Obasanjo dissolves government, plans leaner cabinet

LIBERIA: Stop the violence, US government tells Liberians

The US government has expressed concern about an intensification of the
civil war in Liberia, where rebels are advancing towards the port of
Buchanan as they prepare for peace were talks with the government in Ghana
on June 4.

Relief workers in Monrovia said on Friday that rebel fighters, who
captured the timber export ports of Greenville and Harper earlier this
month, were now advancing towards Buchanan, Liberia's second largest town,
120 km southeast of the capital.

They told IRIN that a large number of displaced people had arrived in
Monrovia to escape the rebel advance. Fresh clashes between the rebels and
government forces had been reported at Cestos, 53 km southeast of
Buchanan, they added.

On Thursday Washington urged all armed Liberians to stop their campaigns
of violence, spare lives of innocent people and allow access for relief
workers to mitigate against growing hunger and disease.

The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) on Thursday said the number of
people who had fled across the border to Tabou in western Cote d'Ivoire
had risen to 15,000. Some 70 aid workers from various organisations had
also arrived in Tabou from Harper southeastern Liberia, it added.

In a related development, the International Organisation for Migration
(IOM) said on Friday it had already started organising the voluntary
repatriation of Third Country Nationals who had fled from Harper to Tabou.
At least 350 Guineans and 231 Burkinabe had been identified, it said.

The IOM had earlier registered 1,038 people in Harper from eight West
African countries who were seeking repatriation. But it suspended
operations in the Liberian port due to fighting. Forces loyal to Liberian
President Charles Taylor commandeered two cargo ships at the port of
Harper, which fell to rebels at the weekend of 10-11 May, and used them to
evacuate about 3,500 people, relief workers told IRIN on Wednesday.

The Croatian freighter MV Benty was diverted to the capital Monrovia with
about 1,500 refugees from the fighting on board, while the
Ghanaian-registered MV Sandra was diverted to the government-held port of
Buchanan carrying about 2,000 people, they added. IOM had been planning to
charter the MV Sandra to repatriate 1,000 West Africans trapped by civil
war in Harper.

Meanwhile, the start of peace talks between the Liberian government and
rebels will be delayed by two days and the venue shifted from the Ghanaian
capital Accra to Akosombo, a town 96 km to the northeast, Ghana's
ambassador to Liberia Kwame Amoah-Awuo, who co-chairs a local
International Contact Group on Liberia, told reporters in the capital,
Monrovia, on Thursday.

The talks that were initially scheduled to start on 2 June, would now
begin two days later on 4 June. The venue had been shifted to Akosombo
because one party to the talks, which he declined to identify, had voiced
concerns about security in Accra. The rebel movement Liberians United for
Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), which controls large parts of
northern and central Liberia, had earlier objected to Accra on security
grounds. LURD had wanted the talks shifted to the Senegalese capital
Dakar, but diplomats said it had eventually agreed to go to Ghana.

For IRIN coverage on Liberia see
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Liberia

COTE D'IVOIRE: Peacekeepers move into troubled west

French and West African peacekeeping forces moved into the lawless "Wild
West" of Cote d'Ivoire on Friday following an agreement with both
government and rebel forces that they should help to restore security in
the region.

Col. Philippe Perret, the spokesman for France's 4,000 strong military
contingent in Cote d'Ivoire, said they had been deployed in two convoys on
either side of the ceasefire line that separates government and rebel
forces. He said the peacekeepers would create a "zone of confidence" in
the region which has suffered from continuing attacks by armed men against
the civilian population.

Diplomats and relief workers said many of these acts of violence had been
perpetrated by poorly disciplined Liberian fighters hired as auxilliaries
by both sides in the eight-month old civil war. Last week there was even
fighting in the rebel-controlled town of Man. This apparently involved
rival factions of the small Movement for Justice and Peace (MJP) rebel
movement which has its main base in Man.

Perret told IRIN that the peacekeepers would mount regular patrols in an
area bounded by the towns of Duekuoe, Man, Danane and Toulepleu "to ensure
the protection of the (civilian) population, allow humanitarian agencies
and NGO's to operate and in the long term to permit the return of
government administrators."

He declined to say how many peacekeepers had been deployed in the west,
where continuing violence has threatened to destabilise a ceasefire that
has been holding well in other parts of the country. However, diplomatic
sources said up to 900 French troops and around 60 from the 1,300 strong
West African peacekeeping force would be sent there initially.

In a related development, Cote d'Ivoire's government of national
reconciliation held a ground-breaking cabinet meeting in the rebel-held
city of Bouake on Thursday as the first freight train for eight months
left Abidjan carrying cement and fertilizer to the rebel-held north of the
country.

Radical youth groups opposed to appeasement of the rebels ripped off a
small section of the track in central Abidjan on Thursday morning to try
and prevent the train from leaving. Railway officials said it eventually
departed at night with a military escort after the line had been repaired.

The cabinet meeting in Bouake, which had been delayed several times over
fears about the security of pro-Gbagbo ministers was presided over by
Prime Minister Seydou Diarra. The ministers flew up to Bouake, where their
security was guaranteed by peacekeeping troops from France and the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and returned a few
hours later.

Meanwhile, military and security chiefs from Cote d'Ivoire and Burkina
Faso will meet in the Burkinabe capital, Ouagadougou, on 28-29 May to
discuss reopening the border which has been officially closed for eight
months as a result of the Ivorian civil war, officials from the two
countries said in a joint statement.

The proposed meeting of security chiefs will be to "define modalities for
reopening the border as soon as possible" and support "the political will
of the [Burkina and Ivorian] governments to resume economic and commercial
activities" it was announced at the end of his talks in Ouagadougou. The
joint statement said the security chiefs would discuss reopening the
railway from Abidjan to Ouagadougou as soon as possible.

However, railway officials on Friday hinted at a further delay to the
resumption of international services between the two countries. Thiam
Aziz, the chief executive of the French-owned railway company SITARAIL,
said the Burkinabe authorities would have to sort out a series of
administrative matters, including tax issues, before traffic could resume,
even though the track was in good condition and security concerns were
well on the way to being resolved.

For IRIN coverage of Cote d'Ivoire see
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Cote_d_Ivoire

BURKINA FASO: Water shortage reaches critical levels

Acute water shortage in the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou, reached
critical levels this week forcing the government to announce more
stringent measures on Thursday to conserve the commodity.

With daytime temperatures rising to 44 degrees Centigrade, the capital's
main reservoirs had started to dry up, aggravating chronic water shortages
in the city of nearly 1.2 million, the government said in a statement.

It imposed a new ban on using tanker lorries to collect water from nearby
dams for non-domestic use, a move that tightened up a water rationing
system introduced in March. Tankers would now be used to supply some areas
of Ouagadougou which had been without piped water for up to three days, a
ministry statement said.

The price of water purchased from private tankers had soared up 10-fold as
a result of the shortage. Water sellers in some areas have increased the
price of a 200 litre delivery from 200 CFA francs to 1,500 and sometimes
as much as 2,000 (US $3.50).

Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34267&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=BURKINA_FASO

NIGERIA: Obasanjo dissolves government, plans leaner cabinet

Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo was expected to drop a majority of
his ministers and appoint a leaner team as he forms a new government for
his second term in office, officials said on Thursday.

Obasanjo had on Wednesday dissolved his 49-member cabinet and indicated
that his new line-up would comprise several Nigerian technocrats. He would
also limit his appointments to one minister from each Nigerian state, he
said, indicating a number not higher than 36. Obasanjo, who was re-elected
last month, will be sworn in on 29 May for another four year-term.
However, Nigerian police said on Tuesday it had unearthed a plot by some
unnamed groups to mar the inauguration. "Some people have gone as far as
manufacturing explosives with the aim of using the same to cause panic and
make the country generally ungovernable," Nigeria's police boss, Tafa
Balogun, said in a statement broadcast on state radio.
 
Meanwhile, Nigeria's main opposition presidential candidate filed a court
petition to nullify the re-election of President Olusegun Obasanjo on the
grounds of widespread vote rigging and other irregularities. Muhammadu
Buhari, who came a distant second to Obasanjo in the 19 April ballot,
filed his claims on Tuesday at the Court of Appeal in Abuja. No date had
yet been fixed for a hearing.

For IRIN coverage on Nigeria see
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Nigeria


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