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WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 159
18 - 24 January 2003


CONTENTS:

COTE D'IVOIRE:  Paris round-table talks end
WESTERN SAHARA: MINURSO's mandate extended by two months
LIBERIA:  More aid needed for displaced
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE: Government in crisis
MAURITANIA: Food security still critical


COTE D'IVOIRE: Paris round-table ends

Cote d'Ivoire's main political parties and the three rebel groups, which
have been fighting the government, signed an agreement late on Thursday
night in Paris after nine days of negotiations aimed at ending the
four-month conflict.

The Linas-Marcoussis Agreement, named after the French suburb where the
talks took place from 15-24 January, is a 13 page document which addresses
all the major issues of Cote d'Ivoire's political life. Among other
things, the participants agreed in principle on amending some articles of
the Constitution, including Article 35, which sets the conditions of
eligibility for the post of the presidency, and agreed on the formation of
a government of national unity headed by a prime minister who would not be
able to run for the presidency at the next elections. They also addressed
human rights, the role of the media and humanitarian access to needy
populations.

The Ivorian round-table talks are expected to be followed this weekend by
a high level summit in Paris where participants, including Ivorian
President Laurent Gbagbo, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, would also
approve of the agreement.

The agreement capped a week that was marked by consecutive days of
fighting in Cote d'Ivoire.  On Tuesday, French troops clashed with
unidentified armed men, leaving two French soldiers wounded. On Wednesday,
troops of the national army also clashed with a group of unidentified men.
Both incidents took place in western Cote d'Ivoire, in the towns of
Duekoue and Toulepleu respectively.

Western Cote d'Ivoire, in recent weeks, has become the "hot spot" of the
Ivorian crisis as a string of clashes have taken place in the area.

On the humanitarian side, the UN Humanitarian Envoy, Carolyn McAskie,
visited the towns of Bouake and Yamoussoukro (centre) and Daloa and Guiglo
(west) to gain first-hand information on the crisis. She met with leaders
of the main rebel group, the Patriotic Movement of Cote d'Ivoire in
Bouake; visited the Nicla refugee camp in Guiglo, and held several meeting
with authorities and humanitarian agencies.

McAskie met President Gbagbo on Wednesday. She is expected in Liberia,
Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso in the following weeks.

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

WESTERN SAHARA:  MINURSO's mandate extended by two months

The Security Council on Thursday extended, by two months, the mandate of
the 13 -year old UN mission in Western Sahara, upon recommendation by UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, so to give time to the principal
belligerents to consider a new UN-backed peace plan. The mission's current
mandate was set to end on 31 January. The approved extension will extend
the mission until 31 March.

In a statement, the Council said members "agreed to extend the United
Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara," "recalled the need
to release without further delay all remaining prisoners of war," and
called on Morocco and the Polisario Front - the two belligerents - to
revive confidence-building measures that have stalled.

It also appealed to donors to provide the necessary resources to the World
Food Programme and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to cover the
needs of thousand of refugees affected by the conflict.

Annan's recommendation came in a 16 January report to the Council on the
UN mission in the north-western African territory.  Annan's personal envoy
for the conflict, former US Secretary James Baker, conducted a mission
last week in the region where he lobbied for a new peace plan.

For IRIN coverage of Western Sahara please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Western_Sahara

LIBERIA: More aid needed for displaced

The recent influx of Liberian returnees and other West African refugees
into Liberia calls for additional support to meet their needs, the UN
Humanitarian Coordinator, Marc Destanne de Bernis said on Tuesday.

In a briefing in the north-eastern town of Ganta following a three-day
assessment mission along the Liberia-Cote d'Ivoire border, de Bernis said
that the agencies taking care of the displaced, estimated by UNHCR at
about 70,000 were increasingly overwhelmed as the number of arrivals kept
increasing.  The figure included 25,000 Ivorian refugees, 39,000 Liberian
returnees and 5,000 nationals of other countries.

Non-food and food items, poor roads and insufficient trucks were the main
obstacles to the work of UN agencies and partner organisations.

In a report issued on Monday, UNICEF reported that "most humanitarian
agencies working in the country were not prepared to cope with this large
influx of people and are revising their initial plans. Until more
resources are made available, the agencies need to share meagre resources
with over 13,000 internally displaced persons in camps in other parts of
the country."

Also this week the Deputy High Commissioner for refugees, Mary Ann Wirsh
completed her Liberian leg of an 11-day West African tour. She seized the
opportunity to appeal for funds her agency's financial constraints that
need to be addressed because "there is a need for additional funding to
deal with the evolving humanitarian crisis in the region."  She also made
a stop in Sierra Leone.

Meanwhile internally displaced Liberians have also added their voice to
those of opposition parties in calling for transparent presidential and
general elections.  ON Wednesday, the displaced community petitioned the
Supreme Court to postpone general and presidential elections due on 14
October unless a national census is conducted. The displaced argued that
if the polls went ahead without a national census, they could be marred by
controversies since some of them would not be accessible to candidates.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the petition.

For IRIN coverage of Liberia please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Liberia

SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE: Government in crisis

Sao Tome and Principe's Prime Minister, Maria das Neves, and Chief
Justice, Alice Graca, launched an attempt to avert a constitutional crisis
on the archipelago following Tuesday's dissolution of parliament by
President Fradique de Menezes, news reports said on Friday.  De Menezes
also announced that early legislative elections would be held on 13 April.

Neves and Graca met de Menezes on Thursday to discuss a possible
compromise that could nullify the dissolution of parliament and avoid
early elections, the Agencia de Noticias de Portugal (Lusa), reported on
Friday. The compromise would oblige parliament to pledge to organize a
referendum on some constitutional changes, namely those reducing
presidential powers.

A constitutional crisis had loomed after several parliamentary leaders
threatened to ignore the dissolution and denounced Menezes' actions as
"unconstitutional". They said de Menezes was headed towards
"dictatorship", Lusa reported.

MAURITANIA: Food security still critical

Mauritania's food security situation remains worrisome as the government
has failed to galvanize sufficient international aid for thousand of
families facing famine, the US-AID Famine Early Warning System Network
(FEWS) said in its January update.

Although the county had received some aid from the World Food Programme
and the national Food Security Commission, it "won't be enough for
managing the crisis confronting farm families" in several areas of the
Sahelian country.

While affected households had not recovered from the January 2002 storms
that killed their sheeps and goats, spiraling market prices also limited
household access to staple foods.  Wild foods were so scarce that
remittances from migrating family members are the only support keeping
local residents alive.

Net grain production, which has been down several years in a row, could
meet only 25 percent of the country's annual needs for the period November
2002 to October 2003. "The joint assessment in June by the government's
Food Security Commission, World Food Program/Mauritania and FEWS
NET/Mauritania found 1 million (of 2.7 million) Mauritanians experiencing
various degrees of food insecurity," the network said.

FEWS' full report is available www.fews.net


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