Weekly Round-Up - IRINWA-165: 07-Mar-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
Tel: +225 22-40-4440
Fax: +225 22-41-9339
e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci
WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 165
01 - 07 March 2003
CONTENTS:
COTE D'IVOIRE: Stalemate continues
LIBERIA: Aid workers killed in fighting near Ivorian border
NIGERIA: Politician shot in Abuja, communal killings in the northeast
TOGO: New electoral commission appointed
GUINEA-BISSAU: UN official appeals for international help
CHAD: Food aid sent to the south
COTE D'IVOIRE: Stalemate continues
Leaders of Ivorian political parties and rebel groups met in Ghana on
Thursday and Friday in a bid to end a month-long stalemate over the
composition of a new government of national reconciliation. Their meeting
was part of efforts by the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS), through its chairman - President John Kufuor of Ghana - to
accelerate the resolution of Cote d'Ivoire's crisis.
Earlier in the week, ECOWAS convened a meeting of the chiefs of defence
forces from 15 West African countries to discuss the deployment of a
peacekeeping force in the West African country. ECOWAS and French troops
have been mandated by the United Nations to act as a buffer between
loyalist forces and rebels who took up arms against the state on 19
September 2002. The rebels control the northern part of Cote d'Ivoire and
parts of the west.
An Amnesty International team is now visiting Cote d'Ivoire to investigate
abuses committed since the start of conflict. The four-member team arrived
on Monday for a 10-day visit. It will investigate the "death squads,"
meet top government and civil society officials and visit detention
centres.
Humanitarian, human rights and media sources have linked the Ivorian
authorities to the death squads. However, at a news conference on 1 March,
President Laurent Gbagbo denied that his government had anything to do
with the killings.
[For more information from Amnesty on Cote d'Ivoire please visit
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/countries/cote+d'ivoire/
For IRIN stories on Cote d'Ivoire, please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Cote_d_Ivoire ]
LIBERIA: Aid workers killed in fighting near Ivorian border
Liberian defence ministry officials reported this week that government
troops recaptured Toe Town, near the border with Cote d'Ivoire, on Monday.
The town had been taken on Saturday by rebel forces which, Minister of
Defense Daniel Chea claimed, were armed and backed by the Ivorian
government. Cote d'Ivoire's armed forces denied the claim.
The fighting in Toe Town has lead to the death of an unknown number of
civilians, including the Liberia country director of the Adventist
Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), Emmanuel Sharpolu, and ADRA driver
Musa Kita. ADRA's Norway director, Karre Lund, was reported missing. The
three men had been on their way to an ADRA project in the area.
Toe Town was a transit point for more than 2,000 Ivorians, Liberians and
other nationals who fled fighting in western Cote d'Ivoire. The fighting
in the Liberian town has sent them on the move once again. Some went
towards Zwedru, north of Toe Town, while others fled south to Nimba
County, according to UNHCR.
Since fighting broke out in western Cote d'Ivoire last November, UNHCR has
assisted about 40,000 Ivorians, 45,000 Liberian refugees and 13,000
third-country nationals - mainly Malians and Burkinabes - forced to flee
to eastern Liberia.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report on Thursday that
Liberian rebels physically, sexually and psychologically abused five
nurses from a Liberian NGO, Merci, whom they abducted and detained for
three months in 2002. HRW said the rebels had forcibly recruited many
other people, forcing some to work for them. It added that it had also
documented human rights violations by both rebels and government forces.
[For the HRW report, see http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/03/liberia-accounts.pdf.
For IRIN reports on Liberia, please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Liberia]
NIGERIA: Politician killed in Abuja, communal killings in the northeast
Recent developments in Nigeria include the death of a leading opposition
politician in Abuja and the killing of 40 people in an attack by armed men
in the northeastern town of Dunme.
Marshall Harry, a member of the main opposition All Nigeria People's Party
(ANPP), was killed in his home by unidentified assailants. A former member
of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), Harry had joined the ANPP
after falling out with a top PDP official in his home state. He was a
member of the campaign team of former head of state Muhammadu Buhari, who
is running against the incumbent, Olusegun Obasanjo, at presidential polls
in April-May.
The deaths in Dunme occurred in a 28 February attack on the town by armed
men thought to be former Chadian rebels. Residents said they believed the
attack, in which eight members of the security forces and 32 civilians
were reported killed, was linked to a violent dispute over grazing rights
between local farmers and nomadic herdsmen in September 2002.
In other news, international agencies have urged Nigeria's authorities to
find ways to end resistance to polio immunisation efforts in nine northern
states, where 196 cases of the wild polio virus were detected in 2002.
The agencies include the World Health Organization, the U.S. Agency for
International Development, Rotary International and the UN Children's
Fund. They said they were worried because many children in the nine states
were not being presented for vaccination during immunisation campaigns.
Resistance to immunisation in parts of the north has been fuelled by
allegations by some Islamic preachers that the vaccines cause sterility
and contain HIV. To overcome such beliefs the agencies, working with top
Muslim doctors in the region, have conducted widely publicised evaluations
of the vaccines to prove to the public that there is nothing sinister
about immunisation.
They plan to conduct three sub-national immunisation drives in the nine
endemic states in 2003 in addition to two national immunisation days.
[For more IRIN reports on Nigeria, please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Nigeria ]
TOGO: New electoral commission appointed
Togo's parliament on Friday chose a new independent electoral commission
(CENI) made up of representatives of the ruling Rassemblement du Peuple
Togolais (RPT - Togolese People's Rally) and the opposition Coalition of
Democratic Forces (CFD - Coalition des Forces Democratiques).
However the commission does not include the main opposition Union des
Forces du Changement (UFC - Union of Forces for Change), led by former
presidential candidate Gilchrist Olympio. The UFC withdrew from the CFD on
Wednesday after the opposition umbrella agreed to sit on the commission
despite the fact that an electoral code approved by parliament on 6
February had weakened the mandate of the CENI, transferring responsibility
for organising elections from the commission to the Ministry of the
Interior.
The new code also mandates the Interior Ministry to appoint polling
officers whereas, under the old one, such officials were designated by the
government and the opposition. UFC had also come out against
constitutional amendments passed at the end of last year which allow
President Gnassingbe Eyadema to seek a third elected term in office.
Eyadema has ruled Togo since seizing power in a military coup 36 years
ago.
[For more IRIN reports on Togo, please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Togo]
GUINEA-BISSAU: UN official appeals for international help
Guinea-Bissau needs sustained assistance from the international community
to overcome immediate and longer-term hurdles, a senior UN official told
the UN Security Council on Wednesday.
In the immediate future, the international community needs to help finance
legislative elections slated for 20 April, said David Stephen, the UN
Secretary-General's Representative in Guinea-Bissau. Stephen, who also
heads the UN Support Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS), said UN assistance
would take the form of financing the election and helping to organise it.
He also urged the international community to do all it could to ensure
that the elections were free and fair.
In the long term, Guinea-Bissau needs help to alleviate widespread poverty
and strengthen governance and the rule of law, Stephen said. The
international community, he added, should not abandon or overlook a county
that has the potential to cause considerable instability in a region with
fragile economies and political systems.
[For IRIN reports on Guinea-Bissau, please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Guinea-Bissau ]
CHAD: Food aid sent to the south
The World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday sent 120 mt of maize flour and
six mt of oil to Gore on Chad's border with the Central African Republic
(CAR) in response to an appeal by the Chadian government for help for
thousands of people who have fled fighting in the CAR.
The fighting between government forces and rebels loyal to former CAR army
chief of staff Gen Francois Bozize has displaced thousands of Central
Africans and forced many Chadians who lived in the CAR to return to their
country.
[For IRIN reports on Chad, please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Chad]
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