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 189
16 - 22 August 2003


CONTENTS:

LIBERIA: Interim leader chosen, as fighting continued in Bong
COTE D'IVOIRE: Government orders reintegration of fighters
COTE D'IVOIRE-NIGERIA: Oil agreement signed
NIGERIA: Fighting ends in Delta, at least 100 killed 
NIGERIA: Court overturns stoning death verdict for rape
MALI: European tourists released
WESTERN SAHARA: ICRC initiates contact with Polisario on release of prisoners
WEST AFRICA: Food crop prospects mixed

LIBERIA: Interim leader chosen, as fighting continued in Bong

After 78 days of negotiations in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, delegates at
the Liberian peace talks on Thursday elected Gyude Bryant, a 54-year old
businessman, to head a two-year National Transitional Government that will
take over from Interim President Moses Blah on 14 October.

Bryant, a member of the Liberia Action Party, was chosen after an
all-night meeting of representatives of the Liberian government, two rebel
movements and 18 political parties.

Bryant's task will be to rebuild a nation shattered by 14 years of civil
war and organise elections in October 2005 for a democratic government
that is due to take power in January 2006.

Wesley Johnson, a 58-year-old economist and university lecturer, who was
put forward by the Liberian United People's Party, was elected
Vice-Chairman of the Transitional Government. Both men will be barred from
standing in the 2005 elections.

The talks were brokered by the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS). The two were chosen under the terms of a peace agreement signed
between the Liberian government and representatives of the Liberians
United for Democracy and Reconciliation (LURD) and the Movement for
Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) on Monday.

According to Mohammed Ibn Chambas, Executive Secretary of ECOWAS, the
election of the interim leaders was just one phase of the whole process.
The talks would now move to the Liberian capital, Monrovia, for the
formation of the 21-member cabinet, the 76-member uni-cameral national
transitional legislative assembly and a handover ceremony on 14 October.

Bryant said he hopes to bring a neutral character to the new government
and make it all-inclusive.

Bryant beat two other candidates for the post of chairman: former United
Nations official Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who was a runner up to Charles
Taylor in the 1997 presidential election, and Rudolph Sherman, who was
widely seen as sympathetic to ex-President Taylor.

In a separate incident, clashes between Liberian government troops and
rebels in central Bong County continued despite the signing of the peace
agreement on Monday, threatening to further displace some 60,000 displaced
people, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said.

MSF said the displaced, living in Maimu, Totota, and Salala camps, were
just 45 kilometers from the frontline.

According to aid workers the fighting was between government troops and
some rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy
(LURD). Diplomats in Accra said LURD officials had said they had ordered
their fighters in the field to ceasefire.

On Thursday, the military commander of the LURD rebel movement pledged to
help recover vehicles stolen from the United Nations and relief agencies
in Liberia and also promised aid workers free access to LURD-controlled
areas of the country.
 
The assurances were given by General Aliyu Sheriff, chief of staff of LURD
rebel movement, to Ross Mountain, the UN humanitarian coordinator in
Liberia.
 
The return of looted vehicles was one of the key demands made by Mountain
at the meeting in Tubmanburg, a town 68 km northwest of the capital
Monrovia, which serves as LURD's frontline military headquarters.

In another development, two ships carrying large commercial cargoes of
rice and fuel were due to arrive in Monrovia later this week, putting an
end to severe shortages of both essential commodities, local importers
said on Monday.

The European Union also said on Monday that Monrovia's main water
treatment plant was set to resume piped water supplies to western suburbs
of the capital on Thursday.

Engineers at the White Plains waterworks were already testing the pumps
that supply the pipeline to Bushrod Island, where according to government
estimates more than 300,000 people live.

Most of Monrovia has not enjoyed the luxury of piped drinking water since
1992. Relief agencies say providing safe drink water to the estimated 1.5
million population of this war-torn city is one of their top priorities.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) which operates the
hospital, is currently distributing water by trucks from there.

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

COTE D'IVOIRE: Government orders reintegration of fighters

The Ivorian government on Tuesday ordered the reintegration into the
national armed forces of all soldiers who had taken up arms against the
state and later deserted army ranks, the defense ministry announced on
state-run TV.

These included soldiers who had been threatened with punishment for
involvement in a series of military events that rocked the country since
2000, including a failed coup attempt in September 2002 that plunged the
country into an ongoing crisis.

In a separate development, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's Special
Representative in Cote d'Ivoire, Albert Tevoedjre, on Tuesday led a
high-level mission to the northern town of Korhogo - one of three towns
that were attacked along with Bouake and Abidjan by rebel forces on 19
September- to discuss with the heads of the rebel Ivorian Patriotic
Movement (MPCI) efforts to bring peace to the country. The ambassadors of
France and United States as well heads of UN agencies, participated in the
one-day trip.

COTE D'IVOIRE-NIGERIA: Oil agreement signed

Nigeria has signed a deal to supply Cote d'Ivoire with 30,000 barrels of
crude oil daily to block illegal supplies, after it traced stolen crude
oil from its Niger Delta oilfields to an Ivorian refinery, state
television reported on Wednesday.

Nigerian Television Authority said the agreement signed in the capital,
Abuja, on Tuesday followed a protest by President Olusegun Obasanjo to his
Ivorian counterpart President Laurent Gbagbo in early August. The Ivorian
authorities subsequently asked for direct crude oil supplies from Nigeria.

The Ivory Coast Minister for Mines and Energy, Emmanuel Leon Monnet, who
signed for his government, acknowledged that the state-owned Societe
Ivorien Raffinage had bought crude from Nigerian suppliers in the past
without knowing it was stolen, the television said.

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

NIGERIA: Delta militants agree to end fighting, at least 100 killed

Rival ethnic militias ended fighting after days of bloody clashes in
Nigeria's southern oil city of Warri in which at least 100 people died.

Fighting broke out in the city, which is a major centre for oil
transnationals operating in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta on Friday and
continued for the next four days despite a night curfew imposed by the
authorities.

The local Red Cross said at least 100 people were killed as Ijaw and
Itsekiri youths armed with automatic weapons battled each other on the
streets and set buildings ablaze despite the deployment of soldiers and
policemen.

NIGERIA: Court overturns stoning death verdict for rape

Meanwhile, an Islamic appeal court in the northern Nigerian state of
Jigawa on Tuesday overturned a sentence of death by stoning passed on a
convicted rapist and ordered him sent instead to a home for the mentally
ill.

Sarimu Mohammed Baranda, 54, was convicted of raping a nine-year-old girl
by a lower Shari'ah court in May last year. But his family launched a
last-minute legal challenge just before the mandatory appeal period
lapsed, pleading he was mentally ill.

Baranda subsequently told the appeal court the confession that was the
basis of his conviction was obtained under torture by the police. The
four-member appeal panel sitting in Dutse, the Jigawa State capital,
accepted his appeal.

Apart from Baranda, three other people are also pursuing appeals against
death by stoning sentences passed on them by Shari'ah courts for adultery
in parts of predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria, where 12 states have
adopted the strict Islamic legal code in the past four years.

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

MALI: European tourists released

Fourteen European tourists kidnapped by militants and held hostage for
over five months in the southern Sahara desert were released and flown out
of Mali this week following successful negotiations between the Malian
government and the kidnappers.

Released on Monday by an Algerian militant group, they were part of a
larger group of 32 European tourists who were kidnapped while touring the
desert in February and March. Some 17 of them were released in May.

Sources attributed the kidnapping to a pro-Algerian Islamist organisation,
the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) who are fighting for an
Islamist state in southern Algeria. The group is led by a former member of
the Algerian army. The tourists included nine Germans, four Swiss and one
Dutch.

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

WESTERN SAHARA: ICRC initiates contact with Polisario on release of
prisoners

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) initiated contact with
the Polisario Front and the Moroccan government to offer its services for
the repatriation of 243 Moroccan prisoners released by Polisario last
week.

In line with the principle of the international law, ICRC will conduct
private interviews with the prisoners to ascertain that they are
repatriated according to their free will.

On 15 August, the Polisario Front - the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro - announced it would release 243
Moroccan detainees in Tindouf, southwestern Algeria.

The Moroccan government put out a statement saying it had taken note of
announcement lauding the return of these 243 nationals to their country
and to their families.

The conflict between Morocco and the 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.

IRIN coverage of Western Sahara:
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Western_Sahara

WEST AFRICA: Food crop prospects mixed

Food crop prospects in nine West African Sahelian countries are mixed with
delayed onset of rainfall in Cape Verde, large-scale outbreak of
grasshoppers in Guinea-Bissau, grain-eating birds in Mali and desert
locusts in Niger, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported
last Thursday.

Prospects are favourable in Burkina Faso, Chad, The Gambia, Mali,
Mauritania and Niger following generally widespread rains in July over
most producing areas, FAO's Global Information and Early Warning System on
Food and Agriculture (GIEWS) said.

The nine countries covered by the report are drought-prone nations
belonging to the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in
the Sahel (CLISS). They lie within the Sahelian zones and receive rainfall
ranging from 250 - 1100 mm annually.

The full report can be found at:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/J0159e/J0159e00.htm


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2003


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