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WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 203
22 - 28 November 2003


CONTENTS:

COTE D'ÒIVOIRE: Annan warns of chaos, diplomat balletcontinues
LIBERIA: Factions walk out of disarmament
MAURITANIA: Ould Haidalla to be tried on Monday
CHAD: First payment of oil sale
NIGERIA: Remaining Chevron-Texaco hostages released


COTE D'IIVOIRE: Annan warns of chaos, diplomatic balletcontinues

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday told visiting West African
diplomats that Cote d'ÒIvoire could "slip back into chaos" if a two-month
old stalemate, due to the withdrawal of rebels from the government, was
not resolved immediately.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had sent the
delegation, comprising of foreign ministers of Guinea, Cote d'ÒIvoire and
Ghana and the organisation'Òs executive secretary, to New York to brief
the UN Security Council on the Ivorian situation and demand that the
ECOWAS military force in the country be transform into a full UN
peacekeeping mission.

Annan said he would deploy an assessment mission before making such a
recommendation.

On Tuesday, the delegation travelled to Washington DC to meet US Secretary
of State, Colin Powell.

The US trip formed part of an intense week of diplomatic manoeuvres to
restore peace and stability in the country.

Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo on Friday travelled and met President
Amadou Toure of Mali, capping a week in which he also travelled to Burkina
Faso to meet with President Blaise Compaore. On Monday, Liberia'Òs
transitional president, Guyde Bryant, met Gbagbo in Abidjan.

Rebel leader Guillaume Soro also travelled to Niger where he met with
President Mamadou Tandja, then to Gabon where he talked with President
Omar Bongo. A source close to Soro said that he would lobby for the
holding of another international meeting, which would not be a "new
Marcoussis", to put the peace process back on track.

Since the beginning of the month, several West African cities, including
Dakar and Accra, have offered their good offices to receive various
Ivorian dignitaries to solve the crisis.


LIBERIA: Factions walk out of disarmament

Liberia'Òs three armed factions on Thursday boycotted talks on disarmament
with the United Nations, demanding jobs in return for handing in their
guns.

The boycott could endanger the planned start of the disarmament process
scheduled next week, but UNMIL disarmament official, Raul Carrera, said
the UN was determined to stay on track.

According to UNMIL, representatives of the Liberians United for
Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), the Movement for Democracy in Liberia
(MODEL) and fighters loyal to former president Charles Taylor walked out
of Thursday as they conditioned disarmament to the allocation to
ministerial and public corporations jobs.

The actual disarmament process was due to begin on 7 December in three
camps, including one in the capital Monrovia.

Demand for jobs and other posts in the administration has been a constant
fixture since the signing of the peace process three months ago in Accra,
Ghana.

A survey, conducted by the World Food Programme and other UN agencies, has
shown that 249,000 people are living in precarious conditions in camps for
displaced persons and in poor suburbs of the capital Monrovia.

According to WFP, most of them only ate one meal a day, had very few
possessions and spent 70 percent of any scant income on food.

The survey showed that some 100,000 people were living in "extremely
vulnerable" conditions, while another 146,000were "very vulnerable".

The survey also showed that over 10 percent of children under two years
old suffered from acute malnutrition, and that malaria, diarrhoea, cough
and high blood pressure were common illnesses.


MAURITANIA: Ould Haidalla to be tried on Monday

President runner-up Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla and 14 of his
collaborators are to be tried on Monday, Mauritanian legal and political
sources said on Thursday.

Ould Haidalla is a former army colonel who ruled Mauritania from 1980 to
1984 before being overthrown by current president Maaouya Ould Sid'ÒAhmed
Taya. Taya has extended by another six years in 19-year old regime by
winning the 7 November presidential elections with 66 percent of votes.

The detained men, who include Ould Haidalla'Òs campaign spokesman, a close
aide and member of parliament, one of his sons and seven other young
activists, are charged with "conspiracy to destroy or change the regime",Ô
"acts exposing Mauritania to a war declaration" and "Óconspiracy with
foreign powers"Ô.

The justice ministry has not publicly announced the date nor the venue of
the trial. Some sources speculated that the trial could be moved outside
of the capital Nouakchott to avoid public protest.

If proven guilty, sentences could range from 20 years of forced labor to
life prison, one of the lawyers, Brahim Ould Ebety, told IRIN.


CHAD: First payment of oil sale

The government of Chad has received its first US $6.5 million payment for
oil exports since crude oil began flowing from its Doba oilfield, the
World Bank said.

The World Bank said the money has been deposited into an escrow account at
Citibank in London where the government would only withdraw from to pay
for health, education, and rural developments projects, among other
socially useful projects.

The escrow was set up to prevent embezzlement, and all withdrawals must be
approved by a special committee consisting of representatives of the
government, the Supreme Court, parliament and civil society.

Chad's oil is pumped from its oilfield in Doba, southern Chad, and is
carried through a pipeline long of 1,070-km to the shores of neighbouring
Cameroon from where the oil is exported. While Cameroon also benefits from
the World Bank-supervised project, Chad is expected to earn US $2 billion
in revenue for the next 25 years.

The oil is expected to reach full production of 225,000 barrels per day by
the end of March 2004.


NIGERIA: Remaining Chevron-Texaco hostages released

Oil giant Chevron-Texaco announced on Monday that its last two workers,
part of a group of 18 kidnapped workers, were released on Saturday.

The company said officials of Bayelsa State, the southern state where the
company operates, had negotiated their release from the militant Ijaw
youths who had kidnapped the group from four oil facilities last week.

According to local newspapers, the young men kidnapped their workers in
demand for payment for security duties they claim they had performed for
the company.

The company said it lost 23,000 barrels per day of oil production during
the six-day closure of the four facilities.

It was the second abduction in three weeks where Chevron had been
involved.  Two weeks ago, 12 company workers were kidnapped while on their
way to production facilities. They've all been released.

Chevron, Nigeria's third biggest oil producer, has been losing 140,000
barrels per day of crude oil since July when it was forced to close down
all its swamp production facilities as a result of rising ethnic violence
in Delta State, in southern Nigeria.


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