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 227
22 - 28 May 2004


CONTENTS:

COTE D'IVOIRE: Negotiations yield no concrete result yet
CHAD: Deby granted possible third term
LIBERIA: Suspected killers identified
NIGERIA: Kano drops polio boycott
TOGO: Nine students jailed


COTE D'IVOIRE: Negotiations yield no concrete result yet

The week in Cote d'Ivoire was marked by ongoing negotiations to lower the 
political tension and convince Presidnet Laurent Gbagbo and the opposition to 
get back to the government table. However the intense negotiations, as at 
Friday, did not yield any concrete result.

The main highlight, according to sources, was a meeting between Prime Minister 
Seydou Diarra and Gbagbo held on Sunday in Abidjan. Among the numerous 
meetings, Gbagbo on Wednesday night also met with the Follow-Up Committee of 
the Linas-Marcoussis Agreement. While Diarra has "suspended" his participation 
in government, the prime minister will definitely not resign, sources said.

The 'G7', an alliance of opposition parties and rebels who have boycotted 
government since March, also held internal consultations.

Cote d'Ivoire's political climate has been tense since last week when Gbagbo 
announced the sacking of three ministers, including rebel leader Guillaume Soro 
and government spokesman Patrick Achy of the Democratic Party of Cote d'Ivoire 
(PDCI). Gbagbo has appointed three ministers ad interim to replace those 
sacked.

In the western town of Guiglo, "Young Patriots" held a rally in front the 
French military camp, accusing French soldiers of inaction in front of 
insecurity in the area. In Abidjan opposition women held a rally on Thursday, 
pledging support to Diarra and the UN mission.

The leader of the "Young Patriot", Charles Ble Goude, is to hold a rally on 
Saturday in Abidjan to once press for disarmament.

Abidjan dailies covered widely this week the audition of a so-called brother in 
law of First Lady Simone Gbagbo on the disappearance of French journalist 
Guy-Andre Kieffer. According to some dailies and AFP, the man is being at the 
main Abidjan prison, accusing of being an ~Saccessory to assassination.~T 
Kieffer, who many believe is dead, has not been found alive since disappearing 
from a supermarket in Abidjan.

IRIN coverage on Cote d'Ivoire


CHAD: Deby granted possible third term

Parliament on Wednesday approved an amendment of the constitution that could 
allow President Idriss Deby to seek a third term in office amid an opposition 
boycott. the two-thirds approval needed was a formality as the governing 
Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS) have a substantial majority in parliament, 
with 113 out of the 155 seats, officials said.

Human rights activists said that the ruling party did everything it could to 
exclude the 31 opposition members from the debate.

The 17 opposition parties have accused Deby of wanting to install himself in 
the presidency for life. They called for a national strike and urged people to 
demonstrate outside the National Assembly building on the day of the vote.

Campaigning for re-election in 2001, Deby told a French newspaper in an 
interview: ~SI will not stand as a candidate in the 2006 presidential election. 
I will not change the constitution - even if I have a hundred percent 
majority~T.

IRIN coverage on Chad


LIBERIA: Suspected killers identified

Liberia's police said on Wednesday they had identified four suspects linked to 
the stabbing to death of an American civilian two days ago, adding that a four 
thousand dollar bounty has been offered for information leading to their arrest 
and prosecution.

Liberian police chief Clarence Massaquoi told reporters that four men, all in 
their twenties, were wanted by police in connection with the killing of John 
Auffery in his room at the Mamba Point Hotel in the early hours of Monday 
morning.

The suspects were named as Emmanuel Mulbah alias "Baltimore" aged 23 who was 
described as the ringleader, along with three other suspects: Charles Thomas, 
27, Jeff Williams, 20 and Mascara Kenneh also thought to be in his twenties. 
They also made away with US $8,000
  In jewellery, a cell hone and other items valued at $5,700

The victim had been working with the US Department of Defence, and formed part 
of a US 34-member Military Assessment team currently visiting war-ravaged 
Liberia to restructure the new Liberian army.  He was killed in the Mamba Point 
Hotel located in the diplomatic enclave of the city.

Liberian police is working with the US diplomats to search for the suspects, 
who, according to Massaquoi, also robbed an American female, Stacy Razim, 
working with a US-based logistics company, in her Mamba Point Hotel room while 
she was asleep.

Philip Dwuye, the head of the Liberia Refugees Repatriation and Resettlement 
Commission (LRRRC) warned refugees scattered across West Africa against 
returning home, saying they should wait in their country of asylum until the 
official UN-backed repatriation programme begins in October.

He said the government would not come to the aid of any refugees who wanted to 
return home ahead of the October 1 repatriation programme.

The government~Rs warning comes after a Nigerian vessel had to be rescued by a 
French warship from seas off Cote d~RIvoire last week when the engines failed, 
sending the boat adrift.

IRIN 
coverage on Liberia


NIGERIA: Kano drops polio boycott

Nigeria is still on course to eradicate polio by the end of the year after a 
boycott on the vaccine in the predominantly Muslim northern Kano State was 
dropped, Minister of Health Eyitayo Lambo said on Thursday.

Lambo said Nigerian and international agencies involved in polio immunisation 
were now planning "catch-up immunisation campaigns in Kano" ahead of nationwide 
exercises beginning in September.

However, United Nations agencies who were frustrated by the refusal of Kano 
authorities to participate in the polio immunisation programme, are more 
cautious. Geoffrey Njoku, spokesman for the UN Children's Fund, one of the 
global partners working for the eradication of polio, welcomed the end of the 
boycott, but told Irin that states where polio is endemic, such as Kano, would 
be unlikely to meet that end-year target.  He said the first quarter of 2005 
was a more realistic goal.

Kano, one of the world's last remaining reservoirs of the virus, dropped out of 
the global polio eradication effort last September.  Radical Islamic clerics 
preached in mosques that polio immunisation was part of a Western plot to 
reduce the population of Muslims and the vaccines contained the virus that 
causes AIDS, and could also cause cancer and infertility.

Nigeria currently accounts for about half of all polio cases worldwide and 
strains traced to Nigeria have infected nine west, central and southern African 
countries in the past year.

In other news, The newly appointed administrator of Plateau State, Retired 
General Chris Alli, has offered cash payments for the return of weapons in the 
hands of rival Muslim and Christian militia groups that have killed hundreds of 
people in an upsurge of sectarian violence in recent weeks.

Alli gave people until 7 June to surrender illegal weapons. After that 
deadline, the amnesty will end and possession of such weapons will be 
considered "a conscious preparation for violence, bloodshed and murder," the 
statement read.

Those who return automatic weapons or provide information leading to the 
recovery of caches of weapons will be paid 200,000 naira (US $1,515), while 
people who give up locally made rifles will be paid 25,000 naira for each 
weapon (US $189), said the statement read by government secretary, John Gobak.

Obasanjo declared the state of emergency after a mainly Christian ethnic Tarok 
militia killed hundreds of Muslims in the town of Yelwa on 2 May. The attack on 
the largely Muslim town was in apparent reprisal for a February massacre of 48 
Christians in a Yelwa church.  But the Yelwa attack on Muslims has triggered 
reprisal violence against Christians. Scores were killed in the predominantly 
Muslim city of Kano, in northern Nigeria, after a Muslim demonstration turned 
into a two-day riot targeting Christians earlier this month.

IRIN 
coverage on Nigeria


TOGO: Nine students jailed

A court in Togo has sentenced nine people to 18 months in jail, accused of 
causing violence and damage to goods and vehicles during days of protest at the 
campus last month, which led to violent clashes with the security forces, it 
said on Monday.

Fifteen people were brought before the court after the disturbances, the worst 
seen in Togo for several years. However, six were released without charge by 
the state prosecutor Baoubadi Bakaye.  Of the nine sentenced, six were students 
of the university, two were motorbike taxi-drivers and another one a 
photographer.

The students took to the streets on 30 April, to demand an improvement in their 
living conditions and the payment of government grants that were up to three 
years in arrears.

Education minister Kondi-Agba closed the University of Lome until further 
notice last month "in order to facilitate a genuine and constructive dialogue 
with the students."  According to the minister, the students were manipulated 
by opponents of President Gnassingbe Eyadema, Africa's longest serving head of 
state who has ruled this poor West African country for the past 37 years.

He accused them of throwing molotov cocktails, crude bombs, at the police and 
attempting to disrupt recently opened negotiations with the European Union 
aimed at restoring EU aid to Togo for the first time since 1993.

Students denied these accusations. Two weeks before the demonstration, they 
presented Kondi-Agba with a list of grievances on behalf of the 15,000 students 
at Lome University and Kara University in the north.

These included a demand for the payment of bursary arrears amounting to 80,000 
CFA, around US$ 150 per student.

IRIN 
coverage on Togo


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Appropriate Donations for International Disaster/Humanitarian Needs
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International                  web: www.cidi.org
     Disaster Information             listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
                                    guidelines: www.cidi.org/donate.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
West Africa                      www.cidi.org/humanitarian/irin/wafrica