Weekly Round-Up - IRINWA-184: 18-Jul-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 184
12 - 18 July 2003
CONTENTS:
LIBERIA: Fighting resumes, thousands again displaced
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE: Coup shatters the peace
COTE D'IVOIRE: Gunmen still active in the West
MAURITANIA: Islamists masterminded coup, says President
CHAD: Oil starts flowing from new pipeline
NIGERIA: Muslim groups urge resistance to vaccination
SENEGAL: No quarrying in conservation areas
WESTERN SAHARA: Accept new peace plan, diplomats urge
TOGO: Detained journalists end hunger strike
LIBERIA: Fighting resumes, thousands again displaced
Fighting resumed in Liberia thirty days after a ceasefire was agreed by
all the warring faction in the Ghanaian capital, Accra. On Thursday,
thousands of displaced people were again streaming from camps in the
outskirts of the capital, Monrovia, to the relatively safer city centre.
Relief agencies warned that continuing insecurity was hampering their
work. Many displaced people in Monrovia also continued to suffer frequent
incidents of rape, abduction, armed robbery and looting, World Vision said
on Wednesday. "Hundreds of thousands of displaced people [in Monrovia]
will soon face starvation if a peaceful solution [to the Liberian
conflict] is not reached immediately," it warned.
Liberia's Health Minister, Peter Coleman, called for international
peacekeepers to come and help improve security in the interior of the
war-torn country so that humanitarian aid could reach desperate people
living in rural areas.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 1,630 cases of cholera
were reported in Monrovia by 15 July. These led to 15 deaths. However WHO
said the fragile security situation made it difficult to obtain the true
number of cholera cases.
There had been no fighting in Liberia since rebel forces abandoned their
latest attempt to capture the city two weeks ago. Until Wednesday. The two
rebel groups trying to topple President Charles Taylor, the Liberians
United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for
Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) said government troops had attacked them in
three different places.
On Tuesday, Taylor told parliament that two of his ministers were killed
over a June coup attempt against him. At a meeting of people from
Liberia's northern Nimba County in Monrovia, elders reported that
Vice-President Moses Blah had confirmed the deaths of John Yormie, the
deputy minister of national security and Isaac Vaye, the deputy minister
of public works.
Both men had been followers of former warlord Prince Yormie Johnson, who
now lives in exile in Nigeria. Johnson headed the Independent National
Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL) from 1990-92 after breaking away from
Taylor's own rebel movement, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia. On
September 9 1990, Johnson captured former Liberian President Samuel Doe
and filmed a video of his torture and execution.
The United States promised to send troops to Liberia, but only in a second
wave of peacekeepers, once President Charles Taylor has stepped down and
left the country. US President George Bush said on Monday he was prepared
to send a limited number of US troops to Liberia for a short period to
support a West African intervention force in the country until the UN
could take over responsibility for peacekeeping operations.
Bush, who had been resisting pressure from African and European
governments and the UN to send US troops to Liberia, made the announcement
after a meeting with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Washington D.C.
Annan said the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was
thinking of sending a vanguard of 1,000-1,500 troops into Liberia. Taylor
would then leave and more international forces, including probably US
troops, would arrive.
For IRIN coverage of the Liberian crisis go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Liberia
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE: Coup shatters the peace
Major Fernando Pereira, the head of Sao Tome and Principe's military
training school, seized power and arrested leaders of the country's
elected government. Backed by a small opposition party the pre-dawn coup
in the mountainous and densely forested island, 240 km west of Gabon,
occurred on Wednesday while President Fradique de Menezes was visiting
Nigeria.
The ruling junta has said that it would establish an interim government, a
Council of State, whose main task will be to organize elections. While the
airport has remained closed, businesses and shops had steadily resumed in
the country.
Sao Tome and Principe, which gained independence from Portugal in 1975, is
one of several poor African countries on the verge of an oil boom. The
twin-island state, which has a population of about 170,000 people, signed
an agreement with Nigeria in 2001 to split the revenue from any oil found
in their shared offshore waters.
By Thursday, de Menezes was trying to negotiate with the rebels. The coup
was condemned by the African Union, the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
and numerous world leaders.
For IRIN coverage of the coup go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Sao_Tome_and_Principe
COTE D'IVOIRE: Gunmen still active in the West
French peacekeepers in Cote d'Ivoire said about 2,000 gunmen who formerly
fought for both government and rebel forces in the west of Cote d'Ivoire
were still at large. The French troops and West African peacekeepers were
deployed to bring peace to western Cote d'Ivoire in May. They succeeded in
reopening the main roads connecting the towns of Duekoue, Man, Danane,
Toulepleu and Guiglo, but security remains poor in more isolated
communities.
Travelers from the area told IRIN that gunmen were forcing Malian and
Burkinabe refugees fleeing the civil war in Liberia to pick cocoa and
coffee beans on plantations belonging to local people for them. "People
living to the south of the Zone of Confidence in the Tai region have been
left to fend for themselves, cut off from all food and medical supplies,"
a source said.
Officials of France, the Netherlands, Belgium and the United States and
other western donors were due to meet in Paris on Friday to discuss
requests for financial assistance to deploy more West African peacekeepers
in Cote d'Ivoire.
For IRIN coverage of Cote d'Ivoire go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Cote_d_Ivoire
MAURITANIA: Islamists masterminded coup, says President
A month after Mauritania suffered a coup attempt, President Maaouiya Ould
Taya accused Islamic fundamentalist leaders of masterminding the coup.
The president spoke about the 8 June coup attempt for the first time
during a visit to the northern iron-mining town of Zouerate last Saturday
and pointed an accusing finger at "those who preach in mosques, who called
for and even declared fatwas urging people to support the putsch and fight
against the current regime."
Military sources said about 150 soldiers and retired military personnel
had been picked up for questioning since the coup, including about 30
officers, but the three main ringleaders were still on the run.
For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=35420&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=MAURITANIA
CHAD: Oil starts flowing from new pipeline
Chad became an oil exporter this week, as crude oil started flowing down a
1,070 km pipeline to a floating export terminal off the coast of Cameroon.
Production from oilfields in the Doba basin were expected to build up from
an initial 50,000 barrels per day to 225,000 barrels per day and last for
25 to 30 years.
"I am confident the structures are in place to ensure that petroleum
resources will result in visible poverty reduction of the coming years and
improve living standards in the country," Gregor Binkert, the World Bank's
country manager in the capital N'Djamena said.
Callisto Madavo, the World Bank's vice-president for Africa said: "This
provides a unique opportunity to raise living standards in one of the
world's poorest countries."
For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=35414&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
NIGERIA: Muslim groups urge resistance to vaccination
Two Islamic groups in Nigeria urged Muslims to resist the government's
programme to eradicate polio claiming the immunisation was dangerous. The
Supreme Council for Shari'ah in Nigeria (SCSN) and the Kaduna State
Council of Imams and Ulama said in a communiqué at the end of a joint
meeting in the northern city of Kaduna on Sunday that they considered
government motives for the programme suspicious.
Muslims, the statement said, must be "wary of the polio vaccination being
aggressively and religiously pursued" by the government with the United
Nations agencies - World Health Organization and the UN Children's Fund
(UNICEF).
But UNICEF-Nigeria spokesman, Tom Mshindi said: "There has been absolutely
no evidence to back up what they are saying. In fact, the contrary is the
case - the vaccines have been independently verified and found to be
totally safe."
For IRIN reports on Nigeria go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Nigeria
SENEGAL: No quarrying in conservation areas
The Senegalese government said it would not grant any new permits for
quarrying and mining in the country's 233 forest conservation areas and
would encourage companies already operating there to move out as part of
efforts to reduce deforestation and protect the environment.
The new policy aims to reduce deforestation around the capital, Dakar, and
the towns of Tambacounda, Louga, Thies and Kaolack. According to the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization, Senegal lost over 45,000 hectares of
forest between 1990 and 2000.
For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=35385&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=SENEGAL
WESTERN SAHARA: Accept new peace plan, diplomats urge
Western diplomats this week urged Morocco and Polisario to accept a new
peace plan proposed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to advance the
peace process in Western Sahara. "The new plan has taken into
consideration many of the demands as possible by both sides in the
conflict," a diplomat told IRIN from the Moroccan capital, Rabat, on
Tuesday.
The conflict between Morocco and the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro (Polisario Front) broke out in 1975 when
Morocco annexed the territory following Spain's withdrawal from it. While
Morocco claims sovereignty over the northwest African territory, Polisario
wants self-determination for its people.
The plan proposes that a Western Sahara Authority (WSA) be responsible for
local government, territorial budget, taxation, economic development,
internal security, law enforcement, transportation, agriculture, mining,
fisheries, socio-cultural affairs, education and other basic
infrastructure.
Morocco would be responsible for foreign relations, national security and
external defence, all matters relating to the production, sale and
ownership or use of weapons by the law enforcement authorities of WSA. It
would also counter secessionist attempts.
For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=35470&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=WESTERN_SAHARA
TOGO: Detained journalists end hunger strike
Three Togolese journalists who have been in detention in the capital,
Lome, for over a month for "publishing false information and disturbing
public order" ended a hunger strike on Tuesday. The managing director of
the weekly L'Evénment, Philipe Evégnon and Editor Dimas Djokodo, and Jean
de Dieu Colombo Kpakpabia, a reporter with the Nouvel Echo weekly, were
arrested in June.
The Media Foundation for West Africa said that the three journalists were
detained for 11 days at the police criminal investigation department in
Lomé, where they were physically tortured before being transferred to a
civilian prison. It appealed to the Togolese authorities to either try the
journalists or release them.
For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=35472&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=TOGO
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