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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e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci


WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 202
17 - November 2003


CONTENTS:

COTE D'IVOIRE: No breakthrough in Accra talks
LIBERIA: Catholic church wants war crimes court for lawless fighters
GUINEA: Election campaign starts
GUINEA-BISSAU: UNOGBIS mandate extended
MALI: MSF tackles cholera outbreak
MAURITANIA: Another Ould Haidallah associate arrested
NIGERIA: Polio vaccines tested safe
WEST AFRICA: US $120.7 million for humanitarian aid


COTE D'IVOIRE: No breakthrough in Accra talks

Two days of top-level consultations in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, which
were aimed at breaking the current political impasse by persuading the
rebels now known as the "New Forces" back into the government of national
unity, failed to reach a consensus.

Cote d'Ivoire's Prime Minister, Seydou Diarra, and the leader of the rebel
forces, Guillaume Soro, arrived in Accra on Tuesday as guests of Ghanaian
President John Kufuor, who is also chairman of the Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS).

The consultations ended on Thursday with a brief statement from President
Kufuor's office which simply "expressed satisfaction with the outcome of
the consultations" and "thanked Diarra and Soro for their commitment and
determination to work to advance the peace process in Cote d'Ivoire".

There has been a political deadlock in Cote d'Ivoire since September when
rebel ministers relinquished their cabinet posts in the government of
national unity, protesting that they had been marginalised by Ivorian
President Laurent Gbagbo.

Soro and his colleagues say they will only return to government if, among
other things, they are given strong security guarantees and Diarra is
given full governing powers. The New Forces continue to hold large swathes
of the territory, particularly in the north since hostilities first broke
out in September 2002.

Meanwhile Cote d^ÒIvoire's continued climate of insecurity had once again
raised the need to guarantee human rights and protect thousands of
war-affected people, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement on Wednesday.

In another development, OCHA launched a Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP)
2004, dubbed "Cote d^ÒIvoire 2004 Plus Three" for $60 million in Cote
d'Ivoire's western town of Guiglo on Wednesday. The funds will be used to
assist over one million war-affected people in Cote d'Ivoire and those who
fled to Burkina Faso, Ghana and Mali, who were still in need of vital,
basic needs such as clean water, food, sanitation, and personal
protection.


LIBERIA: Catholic church wants war crimes court for lawless fighters

The Justice and Peace Commission (JPC), a specialised programme of the
Liberian Catholic Church, has called for the establishment of a war crimes
court to prosecute armed Liberian groups for gross human rights abuses
committed after the signing of the country's peace agreement on 18 August
in Ghana.

Francese Johnson-Morris, head of the JPC said on Wednesday called for the
establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission "to provide a forum
that will address issues of impunity, as well as an opportunity for both
the victims and perpetrators of human rights violations to share their
experiences, in order to get a clear picture of the past to facilitate
genuine healing and reconciliation."

Last week, UN Secretary General's Deputy Special Representative to
Liberia, Souren Saradayrian, warned Liberian warring parties that there
would be no amnesty for crimes against humanity after Liberia had ratified
the Convention on the International Criminal Court on 8 October.

In another development, the United Nations in Liberia on Thursday appealed
for US $137 million in 2004 to support efforts by humanitarian agencies to
reverse the impact of 14 years of civil war that have ravaged the West
African country.

Launching the Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal (CAP) in the capital,
Monrovia, the acting head of the United Nations Office for the
Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Liberia, Ahunna Eziakonwa,
said over 1.7 million people were in desperate need of humanitarian
assistance in Liberia.

The appeal aims to provide relief for the displaced population, Ivorian
and Sierra Leonean refugees in the country, as well as Liberian returnees
from neighbouring countries.

Eziakonwa said that the deployment of UN peacekeepers throughout Liberia
and an effective disarmament and demobilisation of combatants would
enhance delivery humanitarian assistance to population.

A UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia has so far deployed about 5,000
troops in and around Monrovia, but expects to deploy further afield when
it reaches full strength early next year.

A Dutch navy ship, the Rotterdam, arrived in Liberia on Tuesday on a three
month mission to provide support for the deployment of the UN peacekeepers
by sea into rural Liberia, the ship commander said.

Colonel Hank Ort, the commander of the Rotterdam, said that the ship,
which docked with 270 military crewmembers, would also perform
reconnaissance missions on the Liberian coastline. The Rotterdam,
manufactured in 1998 and 166 metres long, will also transport UNMIL
supplies between Sierra Leone and Liberia.

In a separate incident, 240 fighters of Liberia's former government that
was led by president Charles Taylor surrendered their weapons to
peacekeepers of the United Nations Mission to Liberia (UNMIL), along the
Monrovia-Buchanan highway last weekend, officials said.

Another 60 were disarmed by UN peacekeepers in the northern Nimba county
on Tuesday.

UNMIL expects to start on 7 December a nationwide disarmament and
demobilisation programme of fighters from all Liberia's warring groups,
including the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy
(LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), and militias
loyal to Taylor.


GUINEA: Election campaign starts

Campaigning for presidential elections in December officially got underway
on Wednesday night following a presidential decree broadcast on state
radio on Wednesday night.

The incumbent head of state, General Lansana Conte of the ruling Party for
Unity and Progress (PUP), is one of only two candidates authorised to
stand by Guinea's supreme court. His opponent is Ahmadou Bhoye Barry, of
the Union for National Progress, is unknown. Campaigning will continue
until December 20, with elections scheduled for the following day.

Meanwhile the UN office in Guinea on Wednesday appealed for US $38
million, mainly to address problems affecting vulnerable groups and
communities that host thousands of refugees and displaced people in 2004,
Herve Ludovic de Lys, head of the UN Office for Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told IRIN.

The assistance, he said, would help relieve some of the pressures of
hosting both refugees and returnees that local populations were
experiencing in Guinea and would motivate them to welcome people with such
needs in the future.

Guinea currently hosts 100,000 refugees in camps, but an estimated 70,000
live outside the camps. More than 100,000 Guineans also returned from Cote
d'Ivoire following the crisis that started in September 2002, OCHA Guinea
said in a press release.


MALI: MSF tackles cholera outbreak

A charter plane carrying medical equipment and staff arrived in Mali on
Tuesday. The items are to help curb a cholera epidemic that had, as at
Tuesday, killed 55 people along the River Niger, the medical charity
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said.

MSF said the 55 were out of the 693 confirmed cases among nomadic
fishermen living along the river. The epidemic, which was detected over
the past three weeks in the southern towns of Macina and Koulikoro, was
reportedly spreading from the southern part of the country to the north,
MSF said in a press release on Tuesday.

Luc Derlet, Operations Coordinator for MSF said seven cases had been
detected in Mopti, a bigger town to the north, putting a large population
in that area at risk. Half a million people were at risk, he said.


GUINEA-BISSAU: UNOGBIS mandate extended

The United Nations Security Council this week extended the mandate of the
UN Peace-building Support Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS) for one year,
a statement from the UN said.

The mandate was extended on the recommendation of Secretary-General, Kofi
Annan, to give the transitional government time to strengthen democratic
institutions. In a letter this week to the Council^Òs President for
November, Ambassador Ismael Abraao Gaspar Martins of Angola, Annan
proposed that UNOGBIS' mandate be extended to December 2004.

Annan said that the UN's role in Guinea-Bissau should help with upcoming
"free and transparent" elections and with the peaceful management of
differences, while also trying to "encourage the government to enact the
programme of small arms collection and destruction", among other
assignments.

UNOGBIS was established in 1999 under UN Resolution 1233. The office has
worked closely with the government to help it remedy some of the country's
socio-economic problems. It has provided training to the local judiciary
and has operated a Human Rights Unit (HRU).

The immediate former president Kumba Yala was deposed by the army in
September who promised to hand over power to a civilian leadership.

In early October, businessman Henrique Rosa was sworn in as President,
agreeing to lead an interim civilian administration until fresh
presidential elections can be held within one year. On Wednesday, Rosa
called on the Security Council to help meet a growing wage bill in his
country and to back his transitional government as it prepares for
parliamentary elections.


MAURITANIA: Another Ould Haidallah associate arrested

Mauritanian security agents arrested on Sunday another opposition
politician and close associate of jailed former presidential candidate
Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah, sources said.

Cheick Ould Horma, a medical doctor who transformed his house into
Haidallah^Òs campaign headquarters during campaigns for elections held on
7 November, was arrested in the capital Nouakchott. The state did not say
why he was arrested.

Ould Horma adds to the list of Haidallah collaborators who have been
arrested since 4 November, three days before the presidential elections in
which incumbent President Maaouya Ould Sid^ÒAhmed Taya won another six
years.

Two of Haidallah^Òs sons also remained in detention. Last week, one of
them, Sidi Mohamed Ould Haidallah, was transferred to a state prison in
the town of Aleg, 400 km east of Nouakchott.

Human rights activists in the country have said the arrest so far made
over the last two weeks, in which none of those arrested has been charged
in court, are illegal.


NIGERIA: Polio vaccines tested safe

Medical laboratory tests on polio vaccines used during a recent
immunization exercise in Nigeria have found no human immuno-deficiency
virus (HIV) or anti-fertility agents as alleged by some radical Muslim
groups, Nigerian officials said.

The results of tests at the National Hospital Abuja and the Ahmadu Bello
University Teaching Hospital in Kaduna State, released late on Monday,
declared the polio vaccines fit to be administered on Nigerian children.

Similarly another test conducted at the university hospital in Zaria by
consultant physician, Abdulmumini Rafindadi and experts recruited by the
Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria (SCSN) - the leading campaigner
against the polio vaccines - also found them free of HIV and
anti-fertility agents.

Polio immunization in Nigeria was suspended in October in three states in
the predominantly Muslim north over concerns, propagated by radical Muslim
groups such as SCSN, that the exercise was a guise by the West to
depopulate Muslim Africa by injecting children with sterilizing agents and
the virus that cause AIDS.

Meanwhile, operatives of the Nigerian Customs Service have seized 170,000
live bullets from smugglers, in perhaps the biggest ever haul made in
decades, officials said on Monday.

Ade Fadahunsi, head of the Customs special anti-smuggling squad, said the
smugglers abandoned a lorry laden with the illegal goods and fled into the
bush early last week when they sighted a roadblock mounted by his men on
the highway between Lagos and Benin city in western Nigeria.


WEST AFRICA: US $120.7 million for humanitarian aid

United Nations agencies launched an appeal for US $120.7 million for the
West African sub region to address critical protection, coordination and
peace building issues in the years ahead, the UN said in a statement.

OCHA, which is the agency responsible for CAP document, highlighted the
cases of Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia where it said civilians continued to
endure economic stagnation and violent conflict.

Despite the apparent end of hostilities in Sierra Leone, OCHA said, the
country was still recovering from an 11-year conflict and the population
still contends with pervasive poverty, a debilitated infrastructure, high
unemployment and inadequate social services to cope with the demands of
post-conflict recovery.

The agencies are appealing for about $62 million for relief and recovery
for Sierra Leone in 2004.

The agencies hope to provide protection to refugees, IDPs, migrant West
African nationals and returnees and prepare appropriate early warning and
preventive measures for the sub-region.

In addition, they hope to address the root causes of the conflicts at
political, social and economic levels and also implement long-term peace
building efforts.

The funds requested under the CAP for West Africa are to be used in the
agricultural sector, coordination and support services, food, health,
protection/human rights and rule of law within the countries of the sub
region.


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