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 196
04 - 10 October 2003


CONTENTS:

LIBERIA: UNICEF tells fighting groups to release child soldiers
COTE D'IVOIRE: Tension rises as army warns rebels 
MALI: Lecturers down tools, other workers resume work
NIGERIA: Unions call off nationwide strike
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE: Attorney General hands in resignation
BURKINA FASO: Coup suspects arrested, one dies in custody
BURKINA FASO: Plans to tackle poverty
CAMEROON-CHAD: Joining the oil producing countries
NIGER: Chiefs agree to spread HIV/AIDS messages
WEST AFRICA: Polio reported in three countries



LIBERIA: UNICEF tells fighting groups to release child soldiers

Concerned about the high number of child soldiers in Liberia, UNICEF on
Thursday demanded that the Liberian government and rebel groups let go
more than 15,000 child soldiers who are part of their fighting forces.

UNICEF-Liberia said a rapid assessment conducted in June 2003 found that
there has been an escalation in forced recruitment of children. It said
amongst some fighting groups, upto 70 percent of the combatants were
children.

"UNICEF and other child protection groups have been holding regular
consultations so as to have child soldiers demobilised as part of the
disarmament, demobilization and reintegration program in Liberia," the
UNICEF-Liberia communication officer, Durudee Sirichanya, told IRIN.

UNICEF was also carrying out a massive sensitisation programme as part of
its Back-to-School programme. Together with the government, UNICEF expects
to launch free, compulsory primary education in Liberia on 3 November. It
is targeting 750,000 war-affected children.

Meanwhile, the UN mission to Liberia (UNMIL) said the Liberian government
and the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD)
were cooperating with the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) to
remove weapons from the capital, Monrovia, by Thursday. The fighters, it
said, were complying with a 72-hour ultimatum that started on Tuesday to
make Monrovia arms-free.

The ultimatum was agreed at a meeting of representatives of the
government, LURD and the second rebel group, the Movement for Democracy in
Liberia (MODEL). It was prompted by a shootout between government fighters
and LURD rebels last week at a crowded commercial center in Paynesville,
in the eastern suburbs of Monrovia. Eyewitnesses said at least nine people
died and 36 were injured.

LURD on Tuesday asked the United Nations to deploy peacekeepers in
territories under its control after the country's transitional government
takes office on 14 October. LURD officials who held a closed-door meeting
with the UNMIL Commander, General Daniel Opande and diplomats from Ghana,
Nigeria and Sierra Leone, also called for a review of an 18 August
Liberian Peace Agreement.

Sekou Damate Conneh, LURD chairman, said another round of peace talks
ahead of the inauguration of the power-sharing government next week, was
necessary to "clarify" slots allocated to the parties to the Liberian
conflict under the peace agreement.

Meanwhile the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has asked donors for US $3.5
million for a humanitarian air service in Liberia and to replace vehicles
and other equipment looted or destroyed during recent fighting between
Liberian government troops and rebels. WFP spokesman Ramin Rafirasme said
donors had already contributed almost half of the $6.8 million the agency
had requested for special operations in Liberia, but said there were still
needs to be met.

WFP's transport operations include a light air shuttle between the
Liberian capital Monrovia, neighbouring capitals and several remote
destinations in the subregion, carrying relief workers, cargo and
equipment to isolated spots that would otherwise be impossible to reach
due to impassable roads and security problems.

"The deployment over the coming weeks of thousands more UN peacekeepers is
going to open up parts of the country that we have not been able to reach
for months," WFP Liberia Representative Justin Bagirishya said. "We know
there are large numbers of people in these areas who need our assistance,
so it is crucial for us to have the logistical capacity to provide it and
to ensure that it goes into the right hands."

In another development, the UN population fund, UNFPA, reported that the
number of displaced Liberian women who have contracted reproductive tract
infections and those dying from pregnancy related complications that could
be treated was alarming.
 
"The number of women dying as a result of treatable complications of
pregnancy remains alarmingly high. More funds are urgently needed to
expand services," Deji Popoola, UNFPA's Representative in Liberia, said.

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


COTE D'IVOIRE: Tension rises as army warns rebels

Tension rose in Cote d'Ivoire this week as the national army has called on
rebels who control the north of the country to stop a boycott of
peace-building efforts and abandon "all belligerent acts". According to
the army, the rebels were threatening peace and unity in the war-torn West
African nation.

Lt-Col Philippe Mangou, the Armed Forces of Cote d'Ivoire (FANCI)
operations commander, said that since 4 July, when both the army and rebel
fighters declared the end of war, the rebels had acted contrary to the
ceasefire declaration. He said rebel fighters were perpetuating a de-facto
territorial division of the country and deplored their withdrawal from a
joint committee mandated to map out a national disarmament, demobilization
and reintegration programme in September.

"FANCI will draw their own conclusions and will no longer stay indifferent
to the de-facto partition of the national territory, the acts committed on
populations that are held hostages and the different attacks on its
positions," the army said.

The rebel Patriotic Movement of Cote d'Ivoire (MPCI) deputy
secretary-general, Sidiki Konate, however told IRIN from their
headquarters in Bouake: "It is true that we've withdrawn from the
reunification committee, but we have not cut all contacts." However the
United Nations Mission in Cote d'Ivoire said a fresh outbreak of armed
conflict seemed remote.

The Ivorian crisis started on 19 September 2002 when mutinous soldiers who
failed to topple Gbagbo, retreated to the north and west, seizing control
of vast chunks of the territory. The mutineers formed the MPCI rebel group
and occupied several key towns including Bouake, Korhogo and Odienne in
the north, Man in the west.

The crisis has seriously affected education. On Monday, Cote d'Ivoire
called on donors to help rebuild the war-ravaged school system. Education
Minister Michel Amani N'Guessan told donors that the government needed to
hire 4,000 new teachers, who had been lost from schools around the country
due to war casualties, the effects of HIV-AIDS and those who had quit the
profession.

The government plans to reopen schools in rebel-held areas in January
2004. But N'Guessan said more funding would be needed to get schools
functioning properly in towns such as Korhogo, Bouake, Odienne and Man.

Meanwhile the United Nations office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs on Wednesday launched a country-wide project in Cote d'Ivoire
aimed at fostering a culture of peace and building upon ongoing efforts to
bring back stability to the war-torn West African country.

As part of the project, a "Peace train" will drive through Cote d'Ivoire,
before heading north to Burkina Faso. Along its 1,000-km trip, the train
will carry peace educators who will stop in towns along the way to teach
people about peace.

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

 
MALI: Lecturers down tools, other workers resume work

At least 300 lecturers in Malian institutions of higher learning started a
two-day strike on Wednesday, the day thousands of other workers ended a
two-day strike over what they said was government failure to fulfill
promises to improve their welfare.

The lecturers said their strike was a "48-hour warning" to press the
government to improve their living and teaching conditions. They said Mali
was one of the few African countries where university professors and
researchers did not receive any government subsidy to attend international
conferences, to conduct research and publish their work. The professors do
not also receive any housing subsidies.

On Monday, Mali's largest workers' union, the National Union of Malian
Workers (UNTM), called its strike saying government had not met demands
for increased minimum salaries, raising the retirement age in the private
sector, harmonization of salaries between consultants and full-time
workers. It also failed to reduce water, electricity and telephone costs.

The UNTM is the country's oldest union. In 1991 it played an important
role in toppling Malian President Moussa Toure. Of the country's 40 daily
and weekly newspapers, only two papers appeared on news stands in the
capital, Bamako, and in the rest of the country on Tuesday.

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


NIGERIA: Labour unions call off nationwide fuel strike

Nigerian labour unions called a general strike to protest a recent hike in
fuel prices. The strike which was to have begun on Thursday was called off
at the last minute after fuel marketing companies agreed to revert to old
prices.
 
Under an agreement to call off the strike, the price of petrol which rose
on 1 October to between 39.90 naira ($0.31) to 45 naira ($0.34) a litre,
will be lowered to the previous price of 34 naira (US $0.26) a litre. Most
schools and businesses remained closed on Thursday in various cities,
because most people had not yet heard that the strike had been suspended.

President Olusegun Obasanjo, in a late night national broadcast on state
radio and television accused the labour union of casting itself as a
"parallel government" and working in concert with opposition parties to
undermine his government.

The price of fuel is a touchy issue in Africa's leading oil producing
nation. Nigeria's 120 million people see cheap fuel as one of the few
benefits they derive in a country where successive regimes have since
independence in 1960 been characterised by widespread corruption and
plunder of national resources.

Meanwhile Nigeria angrily disputed the 2003 annual Corruption Perception
Index of anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI), which
for the second straight year said Nigeria was the second most corrupt
country in the world. The index did not reflect efforts by the government
of President Olusegun Obasanjo, a co-founder of TI, to curb corruption in
Africa's most populous country of more than 120 million people, a
spokesman said.

Scoring a mere 1.4 points out of a possible 10 in a global survey of 133
countries, Nigeria was only topped by Bangladesh as the most corrupt
country in the world in the perception of respondents that included
businessmen, academics and risk analysts. The two countries again topped
the chart last year.

This week Nigeria was rocked by a major corruption scandal after a federal
minister told a senate committee that two top senators had asked him for
54 million naira (US $418,604) in bribes to facilitate his approval in the
upper legislature, as a member of cabinet.

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


SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE: Attorney General hands in resignation

Months after an attempted coup rocked the tiny West African island nation
of Sao Tome and Principe, the Attorney General, Adelino Neto Pereira, was
on Monday reported to have resigned his post amidst claims by parliament
that his appointment was illegal.

Pereira was named Attorney General in a decree issued by President
Fradique de Menezes in April. Last week, the National Assembly said his
appointment was illegal because he had never worked in the country's
judiciary and asked Prime Minister Maria das Neves to review the
appointment.

Sao Tome and Principe was thrown into political turmoil when soldiers
seized power on 16 July. The soldiers however accepted to allow Menezes
back into office a few days later, after international mediators
intervened.

For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37059&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=SAO_TOME_AND_PRINCIPE
 

BURKINA FASO: Coup suspects arrested, one dies in police custody

Burkina Faso said on Tuesday it had arrested 12 suspects, mostly soldiers,
for allegedly plotting a coup against President Blaise Compaore. One later
died in police custody. State Prosecutor Abdoulaye Barry told reporters in
the capital, Ouagadougou, that the suspect, Moussa Kabore, 30, was born in
neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire but became a Seargent in an army unit in
Ouagadougou.
 
Pointing fingers at neighbouring countries, Barry said that the alleged
mastermind of the coup, one Captain Wally Luther Diapagri, had visited
"key officials" in Cote d'Ivoire and Togo in September.

Relations between Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire deteriorated following a
coup attempt in Abidjan in September 2002. The Ivorian authorities accused
Burkina Faso of supporting mutinous soldiers who tried but failed to
topple the Abidjan government. The soldiers seized chunks of northern and
western Cote d'Ivoire and still control those areas.

For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37131&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=BURKINA_FASO


BURKINA FASO: Plans to tackle poverty

Burkina Faso's government called a meeting with non-governmental
organisations and civil society groups to discuss an ambitious plan to
tackle poverty on Sunday. The country wants to reduce the number of people
living below the poverty line from nearly 50 to 35 percent over three
years.

The meeting endorsed a US $212 million plan, which is expected to run from
2004-2006 to raise the landlocked country's Gross Domestic Product to four
percent. The plan aims, among other things, to provide free basic
education for children aged six to 16 years old, from primary school to
ordinary level secondary school.

However donors who attended the meeting demanded more transparency in the
use of funds. A source among the donors told IRIN that the Strategic Paper
for Poverty Reduction did not contain enough guarantees of good
governance.

For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37025&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=BURKINA_FASO


CAMEROON-CHAD: Joining the oil producing countries

Cameroon and Chad, two of the world's poorest countries, this week joined
the worlds oil producing countries when the first shipment of 950,000
barrels of crude from their joint pipeline was shipped off to the
international market. The two signed an agreement to build the 1,070 km
long pipeline in 1996 from oilfields in southern Chad to ports in
Cameroon.

The Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project is expected
to generate an annual income of US $80 million for Chad and $20 million
for Cameroon over the next 25 years, the World Bank said in June when oil
production started. Environmentalists have however criticised the project,
arguing that it is not sensitive to the fragile ecosystems in the region.

For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37032&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CAMEROON-CHAD


NIGER: Chiefs agree to spread HIV/AIDS messages

Some 30 traditional chiefs in northern Niger have agreed to spread
HIV/AIDS messages among their people, the UN children's fund (UNICEF)
reported. The agency held a seminar for the chiefs at In Gall, 1,000 north
of the capital, Niamey on the sidelines of the "Salt Cure" festival on 25
September.

Niger, according to the UN Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has a low
adult prevalence rate of 0.87 percent. Many of the cases are migrant
workers coming back from neighbouring countries that have a higher
prevalence rate. Following an agreement between UNICEF and the chiefs in
2000, it was agreed that messages be spread to avoid a further escalation
in infection rates.

For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37099&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=NIGER


WEST AFRICA: Polio reported in three countries

Struggling to eradicate polio, the World Health Organisation on Wednesday
reported that eight new cases from a wild polio virus type were found this
year in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Togo. The three countries had been
polio-free since 2001. The WHO warned that the close proximity of the
three countries to Nigeria, one of the three main polio virus reservoirs
in the world, the risk of more cases being brought in, remained high.

Poliomyelitis (polio) is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus
which invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in a matter
of hours. The virus enters the body through the mouth and multiplies in
the intestine.

For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37132&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=West%20Africa


[ENDS]

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