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 206
13 - 19 December 2003


CONTENTS:

LIBERIA: UNMIL suspends disarmament 
COTE D IVOIRE: Military tension eases, but no disarmament yet
NIGERIA: Money and oil at root of delta violence, rights group says
GUINEA-BISSAU: UN sees new hope after coup
GAMBIA: Information minister sacked
GUINEA: Suspect soldiers released as election draws near
MAURITANIA: Haidalla trial in confusion, explosives stolen

LIBERIA: UNMIL suspends disarmament

The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) suspended on Wednesday the
disarmament process of the warring factions in Liberia until late January,
when it hopes to have more peacekeeping troops on the ground.

UNMIL said in a statement on Sunday night that the first disarmament camp
at Schieffelin military barracks near the capital, Monrovia, had been
swamped by more than 8,000 former combatants eager to surrender their
weapons since it opened on 7 December. It was only intended to accommodate
1,000 at a time.

Scheffelin, which was designed to receive fighters loyal to former
president Charles Taylor, would stop admitting new entrants and would stop
handing out a US $75 bounty for the surrender of each weapon on Wednesday,
it added.

UNMIL said the disarmament programme would resume on 20 January once
conditions at Schieffelin had been improved. Arrangements had been made to
start disarming fighters of the LURD and MODEL rebel movements as well.

UNMIL has plans to open up to 10 demobilisation camps across Liberia,
where combatants will spend three weeks being registered and screened
before receiving a demobilisation allowance of US $300.

Last week soldiers in the former government army rioted in Monrovia to
demand an up-front payment for handing in their guns, killing at least 12
people. UNMIL subsequently agreed to make a first payment of $75 to all
combatants immediately after they surrendered their weapons.

In another development, the UN Mission on Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) was
working closely with UNMIL to ensure that no weapons and arms cross the
border from Liberia into Sierra Leone. A delegation from UNAMSIL was due
in Monrovia on Saturday to discuss how to prevent this.

Sierra Leone put its army on a high alert earlier this week following
reports that LURD was amassing weapons near the border to take them abroad
beyond reach of the disarmament process.

UNAMSIL also announced that it was stepping up its air, land and river
patrols along the Liberian and Guinean borders to curb the infiltration of
arms

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

COTE D IVOIRE: Military tension eases, but no disarmament yet

The government army and rebel forces occupying the north of Cote d'Ivoire
began dismantling some checkpoints last weekend and withdrawing their
heavy artillery from the frontline, but disarmament is yet to start.

The long delayed process of disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation
(DDR) is expected to take several months once it finally gets under way,
but a senior United Nations official said on Monday that Cote d'Ivoire was
still in a "pre-DDR" phase.

There were still many unresolved issues before the costly and complex
process could get under way, he added. The process was due to continue
until Christmas Day. On 26 December, a joint team of UN military liaison
officers and West African peacekeepers is due to tour the country to
verify the process.

The rebels withdrew from a broad-based government of national
reconciliation at the end of September claiming that Gbagbo was failing to
implement in full a peace accord signed in January. And despite
international pressure for them to resume their eight abandoned
ministerial posts, they have yet to do so.

There have been unconfirmed reports throughout the week that the rebels
planned to return to the government.

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

NIGERIA: Money and oil at root of delta violence, rights group says

Ethnic loathing may have been the spur to the ferocious violence between
rival ethnic militias in Nigeria's Niger Delta this year, but the object
was control of government resources and money from stolen crude oil, Human
Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday.

"Although the violence has both ethnic and political dimensions, it is
essentially a fight over the oil money, both government revenue and the
profits of stolen crude," said Bronwen Manby, deputy director of HRW’s
Africa Division and the author of the 29-page report entitled "The Warri
Crisis: Fuelling Violence."

The report details fighting around the southern oil town of Warri
involving rival militias of the Ijaw, Itsekiri and Urhobo ethnic groups.
It said the conflict, which began in 1997, had killed hundreds of people
this year and left thousands displaced.

Both Ijaws and Urhobos allege their Itsekiri rivals are favoured by
government in the distribution of election constituency boundaries and oil
benefits.

HRW urged the Nigerian federal government to provide more honest and
accountable administration in Delta State. It also called on President
Olusegun Obasanjo to crack down on the theft of oil from pipelines, saying
the massive profits from this illegal trade had been used to flood the
region with guns.

HRW also specifically called for a re-run of this year's general elections
in Delta State, saying the levels of fraud and violence which accompanied
voting meant minimum international standards for an acceptable election
were not met.

For IRIN Coverage of Nigeria see
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Nigeria

GUINEA-BISSAU: UN sees new hope after coup

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called on the international community
to heed Guinea-Bissau's appeals for assistance as its broad-based
transitional government attempts to rebuild the economy and move towards
democracy following a coup in September.

In his latest report on Guinea-Bissau to the UN Security Council, Annan
offered a largely positive view of events in the small West African
country since former president Kumba Yala was toppled by a bloodless coup
after leading his government into bankruptcy and chaos.

Annan urged the international community "to consider how to deal
preventively with post-conflict situations, where governments, although
democratically elected, defy constitutional order, flout basic practices
of governance and thus become an added source of instability".

Although he noted with approval the transitional government's achievements
over the past three months.

But there were also caveats. Annan referred to "reported tensions among
the army rank and file over the longstanding backlog of salary arrears and
poor conditions in the barracks", even though the military leadership had
tried to break down factionalism and build army unity.

The World Bank, IMF and other donors have helped the government draw up a
seven-month emergency economic management plan for December 2003 through
to June 2004. This will be put to a round-table meeting of donors in
January.

For IRIN coverage of Guinea-Bissau see
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Guinea-Bissau

GAMBIA: Information minister sacked

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh sacked on Tuesday night his Information
Minister, Yankuba Touray, without giving an official explanation.

Touray, a 35-year-old former captain in the Gambian army, was considered
in political circles as Jammeh's closest aide and loyal supporter. He was
the propaganda manager for Jammeh's ruling Alliance for Patriotic
Reorientation and Construction (APRC) party and one of the longest serving
cabinet ministers in the Jammeh administration.

No official reason was given for Touray's dismissal, but intelligence
sources linked his fall from grace to an allegedly illegal land deal
involving a site reserved for Gambia's tourism development initiative.

Last month, the director of the National Tourism Authority was suspended
indefinitely as a commission of inquiry began looking into the affair.
Touray's sacking also came as another former presidential aide, House
majority leader Baba Jobe, was standing trial for economic crimes. Jobe
faces multiple charges for failing to pay import duty and other taxes on
imports for his business.

In October this year, The Gambia launched a crusade code-named "Operation
No Compromise" to deal with corruption in government. Jammeh has vowed to
spare no one.

For IRIN coverage of Gambia see
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Gambia

GUINEA: Suspect soldiers released as election draws near

Dozens of Guinean soldiers and gendarmes detained secretly by the
government at the end of November were released on Tuesday night, sources
close to the military said.

The government, which offered no comment at the time of the arrests, was
equally silent about their release. The sources were unable to give
precise figures for the number of military personnel arrested in the
run-up to a controversial presidential election on 21 December, which has
been boycotted by all the mainstream opposition parties.

Nor were they able to say exactly how many detainees had been freed as
President Lansana Conte, facing only one almost unheard of challenger,
awaits the ballot which is expected to give him a further seven years in
power.

One of those definitely released was Lieutenant Alpha Usman Diallo, a son
of the former speaker of parliament, Bubacar Biro Diallo. His wife told
IRIN that he had returned home and was in good health.

The Canada-based internet news service Guineenews reported that Commander
Aly Camara, the second-in-command of the presidential guard, had also been
released.

The wave of arrests of military personnel across the country began in the
last week of November. It followed remarks by Conté hinting at a possible
coup attempt.

A widespread debate has started in Conakry over the rationale behind the
releases which are expected to ease tension in this poor West African
country during the run-up to polling day on 21 December.

For IRIN coverage on Guinea see
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Guinea

MAURITANIA: Haidalla trial in confusion, explosives stolen

After a two-day suspension, the treason trial of former Mauritanian
president Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla and 14 co-defendants, resumed on
Thursday morning in the capital Nouakchott, only to be suspended again in
the early afternoon.

The latest suspension of the trial coincided with news that 26 cases of
explosives had been stolen from the state-run iron mining company SNIM in
the northern town of Zouerate. The theft raised fears that the explosives
might be used against the government.

Presiding Judge Ould Abdi suspended the trial of Ould Haidalla on Monday
after the prosecution failed to produce two key witnesses.

The judge announced a resumption of the trial on Thursday, but told the
court a few hours later he was suspending proceedings again because one of
the prosecution lawyers was absent from court. The two prosecution
witnesses had still failed to appear.

Ould Haidalla is a former army colonel who ruled Mauritania from 1980 to
1984, when he was overthrown by the current head of state, Maaouiya Ould
Sid'Ahmed Taya.

However Ould Haidalla and 14 of his close collaborators were arrested two
days after the poll on 7 November, and charged with plotting to overthrow
Ould Taya by force. If found guilty, they could face prison sentences of
anything from 20 years to life.

Opposition leaders and human rights activists have told IRIN that Ould
Haidalla faces a "political" trial in the sense the government is
determined to clamp down on anyone who dares to criticise Ould Taya's
authoritarian rule. The trial is to resume on Monday.

Meanwhile SNIM officials told IRIN that 26 cases of TNT explosive were
stolen from a company store in Zouerate on Monday.

They said that senior management officials of the iron mining company had
been suggesting privately that the explosives were stolen for sale to an
Egyptian construction company, Arab Contractors, which is building a new
road from Nouakchott to the northern port town of Nouadhibou.

SNIM has not commented publicly on the theft and the government has
remained tight-lipped on the matter.

For IRIN coverage of Mauritania see
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Mauritania


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Fax: +225 22-41-9339
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