Weekly Round-Up - IRINWA-223: 30-Apr-04
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 223
24 - 30 April 2004
CONTENTS:
COTE D'IVOIRE: Amid impasse, opposition travels to rebel-held towns
LIBERIA: 60,000 fighters to disarmed, fighters urged to turn in weapons
NIGERIA: Opposition wants Obasanjo to quit
WESTERN SAHARA: Peace nowhere in sight
WEST AFRICA: Niger River action planned
COTE D'IVOIRE: Amid impasse, opposition travels to rebel-held towns
Traveling by road under the escort of UN soldiers, the "G7" coalition
traveled to the rebel-held towns of Korhogo and Bouake on Wednesday and
Thursday to prone peace and reconciliation and put pressure on President
Laurent Gbagbo to implement the Linas-Marcoussis Agreement.
The two-day road trip was filled with rallies meetings with the residing
communities. A highlight of the trip was a plea by Alphonse Djedje-Mady
who dropped to his knees to ask for forgiveness during the rally held in
Bouake.
The road trip is part of efforts by the opposition to push for
reconciliation, dispel talks of secession and show President Gbagbo that
the population is for "peace and the implementation of Marcoussis",
Djedje-Mady told IRIN. He said the coalition was planning other visits to
the rest of the country.
It was the first time that the "New Forces" have allowed such a large
delegation of opposition leaders to travel into cities and towns it has
controlled since war broke 17 months ago.
Nevertheless, Prime Minister Seydou Diarra has still not been able to
convince the opposition ministers to return to government. 26 ministers
withdrew more than a month ago in the aftermath of the violent repression
of a banned opposition public rally.
The opposition has set five pre-conditions before resuming political
dialogue. Djedje-Mady said the opposition would return when it takes note
"good-faith effort" by Gbagbo to meet those conditions. Last week, the UN
had asked the opposition to drop their conditions and resume their seat in
government.
French authorities have opened a preliminary enquiry into the
disappearance of a Franco-Canadian journalist, Guy-Andre Kieffer, who was
taken by unknown in an Abidjan supermarket two weeks ago. Kieffer, a
commodity specialist, has not seen since. The media has been speculating
that he was tortured to death by men close to the regime of President
Gbagbo.
On Friday, the UN Security Council warned actions against anyone who tries
to disrupt the activities of the UN mission and disturb the implementation
of the peace accord. It is in reaction to threats by "Young Patriots" that
they would target Europeans and UN soldiers if disarmament failed to start
within a month time.
For Cote d'Ivoire coverage please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Cote_d_Ivoire
LIBERIA: 60,000 fighters to disarmed, fighters urged to turn in weapons
The head of Liberia's disarmament commission, Moses Jarbo, announced on
Friday that 60,000 fighters are to disarmed, substantially more than the
initial figure of 40,000.
The new figure came out of a series of meetings with the three groups that
participate in the country's DDR process: MODEL, LURD, and former
government soldiers.
The new figure raised the importance of the need for disarming groups to
turn in weapons.
Disarmament officials said last week former fighters were showing up at
disarmament sites without their weapons, prompting a strong warning by UN
Force Commander Daniel Opande to turn the former warring factions to hand
all weapons and ammunitions.
"If you have more than one weapon, do not give me one and keep the other.
If you have a hundred rounds of ammunitions, a hundred weapons, bring them
all" Opande said.
Warlords pledged to turn in weapons, including heavy artillery.
The fear is that weapons that are not turned in could show in neighboring
countries such as Cote d'Ivoire and Guinea.
Liberia's DDR programme started two weeks ago, after a four-month delay
due to insufficient preparations. Disarmed fighters are due $150 after
turning in weapons, and another $150 upon completion of a skills training.
The head of the United Nations refugees agency (UNHCR) in Liberia, Moses
Okello, has urged more than 300,000 Liberian refugees scattered across
West Africa not to return home, but wait for a UN-organised repatriation
exercise scheduled to begin in October. Okello told reporters on Thursday
that most of the 50,000 refugees who have spontaneously returned to
Liberia from both Guinea and Sierra Leone since the signing of an August
peace deal have ended up in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps.
A fortnight ago, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Liberia Abou Moussa
announced that an organised repatriation of Liberian refugees would
commence in October as the rainy season comes to an end.
For Liberia coverage please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Liberia
NIGERIA: Opposition wants Obasanjo to quit
Opposition groups in Nigeria have called protest marches on Monday to
demand the resignation of President Olusegun Obasanjo in defiance of
police warnings that their protest plans are illegal, a official of the
Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), told IRIN. The CNPP
groups together 18 opposition political parties and plans to take to the
streets of the federal capital, Abuja.
At the same time in the southern commercial capital of Lagos, the United
Action for Democracy (UAD) - a coalition of 26 human rights and
pro-democracy groups - has scheduled simultaneous street protests. Both
groups accuse Obasanjo's government of rigging elections organised under
his rule and failing to meet the expectations of good government by
Nigerians. Their protests will demand that Obasanjo quits power and hands
over to a national unity government that will work out a new
constitutional order for the country of 126 million people, they said.
At least 20 people died in three days of clashes between rival ethnic
militias in central Plateau State, residents and officials said on
Tuesday. The clashes between ethnic Tarok fighters and their Fulani
rivals at Bakin Chiyawa in the Shendam district of the state began on
Saturday, Emmanuel Bakat, a local government official and resident of the
area, told IRIN.
He said the fighting was caused by a dispute over use of an area of land
designated for cultivation by the agrarian Tarok and for grazing by the
nomadic Fulani.
President Olusegun Obasanjo on Sunday ordered the military to crack down
on armed militants in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta after last weekend's
ambush on an oil company boat killed seven people, including two
Americans.
Obasanjo ordered troops stationed in the volatile region to arrest the
gunmen who attacked a boat carrying contractors working for US oil giant
ChevronTexaco and bring them to justice. The official death toll from the
attack late on Friday on the Benin River is seven - including two US
citizens, two navy guards and three Nigerian oil workers.
The slain oil workers were on an assignment to reopen ChevronTexaco oil
facilities abandoned in March 2003 in the wake of fighting between rival
Ijaw and Itsekiri ethnic militias near the oil town of Warri. The group
was ambushed by gunmen in three boats between ChevronTexaco's Olero Creek
and Dibi oil pumping facilities on the Benin River. The dozen oil
facilities being inspected were together capable of producing around
140,000 barrels of crude oil a day.
The attack came after rival ethnic Ijaw and Itsekiri militias indicated
last week they were abandoning a five-month fragile ceasefire and gearing
up for fresh violence.
Itsekiri militant leaders blame the Ijaw. According to them, ChevronTexaco
had begun dealing with Ijaws to accord them "host community status" in
areas from where the Itsekiri had been displaced in fighting last year.
Host community status affords benefits that include jobs, amenities and
other payoffs that the Itsekiri had previously received.
For Nigeria coverage please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Nigeria
WESTERN SAHARA: Peace nowhere in sight
The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned that UN
peacekeepers will be pulled out of the Western Sahara next February unless
the Moroccan government and the Polisario Front can come to some agreement
on how to bring peace to the troubled desert territory. According to
Annan, the international body is left with two options - the ending of the
UN presence in the Western Sahara or a continuation of the push for a
peaceful settlement.
"After the passage of more than 13 years and the expenditure of more than
US$ 600 million," Annan said that it had become apparent that "the United
Nations was not going to solve the problem of Western Sahara without
requiring that one or both of the parties do something that they would not
voluntarily agree to do." While the peace has held in Western Sahara for
more than a decade, there has been no real rapprochement between Morocco
and Polisario. Successive Moroccan governments have used maintained that
Western Sahara is an integral part of Moroccan national territory.
Polisario has continued to lobby for self-determination for the Saharawi
people.
Pressure is now on for the two sides to accept a peace plan put forward by
the UN special envoy to the Western Sahara, former US Secretary of State
James Baker in 2003.
That plan provides for a referendum to take place in four to five years
time. The final vote would offer the inhabitants of the territory a choice
between independence, autonomy within Morocco or complete integration with
Morocco.
The plan also proposed that, in the run-up to the referendum, an
autonomous Western Sahara Authority be made responsible for running key
parts of the administration, taking control of local government, taxation,
economic development, internal security and other dossiers.
But Morocco would retain control over foreign relations, national
security, external defence and all matters relating to the production,
sale, ownership and use of weapons during the interim period.
Polisario accepted the UN's Peace Plan for Self-Determination of the
People of Western Sahara in July 2003.
For Western Sahara coverage please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Western_Sahara
WEST AFRICA: Niger River action planned
African heads of state and senior representatives of the nine members of
the Niger Basin Authority (NBA) drafted and signed a blue print for the
sustainable use of the Niger River and it's tributaries during a two-day
meeting in Paris, which closed on Tuesday.
The Niger River is the third largest river in Africa, snaking through nine
sub-Saharan countries as it makes its 4,200 km journey from its source in
Guinea to the Niger Delta in Nigeria. An estimated 110 million people live
along its banks.
The two-day conference had been billed as an opportunity for a wider
discussion of the protection of the biodiversity and ecosystem of the
Niger Basin. However, the two-day meeting concentrated on the exploration
and protection of the Niger River itself.
While water specialists widely hailed the plan as a "turning point", a
demonstration of the nine nations' commitment to environmental
sustainability and poverty alleviation, the outlook for the Niger River is
bleak.
Climate change and rapidly growing populations are stretching the
resources of the Niger. Droughts in 1985 and 1990 caused parts of the
river to dry up completely, something which was previously unheard of.
Water experts estimate that the volume of the Niger has shrunk by one
third in the last thirty years alone.
For West Africa coverage please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=West_Africa
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