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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e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci


WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 213
31 January - 6 February 2004


CONTENTS:

COTE D'ÒIVOIRE: Washington delays UN deployment,Gbagbo talks DDR with 
  Chira
LIBERIA: Conneh drops demand for Bryant to go
SIERRA LEONE: DDR shut down
BURKINA FASO: US $78 million to boost cotton sector

COTE D'ÒIVOIRE: Washington delays UN deployment, Gbagbo talks DDR with
Chirac

Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and Jacques Chirac of France held talks
on Thursday in Paris where talks centered on a long-delayed disarmament,
demobilization and reintegration programme.

After the two-hour meeting, Gbagbo told the press that he and Chirac
agreed that all illegal fighters, including the "ÓNew Force rebels needed
to disarm.

Cote d'Ivoire's DDR programme was slated to begin in August 2003. It has
been delayed several times for lack of preparedness.

The national DDR commission has set a preliminary figure of US $111
million to run it for some 30,000 fighters, DDR head Alain Donwahi said in
January.

But one day earlier in New York, the United States government delayed a
Security Council vote on a French-proposed plan to set 6,240 UN
peacekeepers to the West African country.

A diplomat with the UN Mission in Cote d^ÑIvoire (MINUCI) told IRIN on
Thursday that Washington requested that the vote be delayed until 27
February to give it more time to generate support for the move in
Washington and iron out other administrative obstacles.

But Wednesday^Òs Council meeting approved a three ^Öweek extension of
MINUCI. On 27 February, if the Council votes in favor of the UN^Òs ^Óblue
helmet^Ô soldiers, MINUCI would be transformed into the latest UN military
mission in West African.

The peacekeepers would oversee preparations for the holding of
presidential elections in 2005.

President Gbagbo is slated to return to Abidjan this weekend.

Meanwhile thousands of students, who have remained in the rebel-controlled
north, did not start classes this week as announced by the education
ministry. Classes were due to resume on Tuesday in Bouake, Man, Korhogo,
Odienne, Seguela. The holding of exit exams, the lack of teachers, ongoing
registration, persistent security and salary concerns all delayed a
resumption of classes, sources said. Classes would most likely start in
mid-February after the exit exams, the sources said.


LIBERIA: Conneh drops demand for Bryant to go

LURD leader Sekou Conneh on Thursday dropped his demand, made 10 days ago,
that Liberia^Òs transitional leader, Gyude Bryant, should resign.

Late January, Conneh and leader of MODEL, Charles Nimely-Yayah signed a
declaration that Bryant, who was selected to head Liberian until elections
in 2005, should relinquish his post because he was incompetent.

But on Thursday, in an interview with IRIN, Conneh, who is facing growing
discontent within his movement, dropped his demand.

He said he had no ^Ópersonal problem^Ô with Bryant and said he was
withdrawing his statement so as ^Ónot to derail the peace process^Ô.

Nimely personally has avoided making a statement, but senior MODEL members
had already distanced themselves from the declaration.

A two-day international donor meeting to reconstruct Liberia is to end on
Friday in New York.

The meeting, organized by the United Nations, aims to secure financial
pledges worth US $487.7 million for a World-Bank backed programme that
would rebuild the war-torn country over the next two years, ahead of
presidential elections in October 2005.

Fourteen years of near constant war has left social infrastructures in
chaos. Liberia has neither running water nor electricity.

In other news, UNICEF said on Tuesday that it had vaccinated 27,000
children against measles in Grand Cape Mount County, a rebel-held area
near the Sierra Leone border.

UNICEF said it immunized children between 6 months to 15 years old in the
three of the county^Òs districts. The campaign is part of a larger
campaign to vaccinate 1.4 million children throughout the country.

Since August 2003, some 780,000 children have been vaccinated against the
disease, mostly in and around Monrovia.


SIERRA LEONE: DDR shuts down

Sierra Leone this week completed a five-year programme to disarm and
rehabilitate more than 70,000 combatants who took part in the country^Òs
brutal civil war.

According to the national disarmament, demobilization and reintegration
committee, 72,490 fighters were disarmed including nearly 6,900 children.

The demobilized included fighters from militia groups such as the Civil
Defense Force, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, the RUF of late
Foday Sankoh

The Sierra Leone war forced the UN to deploy 17,500 ^Óblue helmets^Ô to
the country. More than 10,000 are still deployed in the country, but all
are due to leave by the end of the year.


BURKINA FASO: US $78 million to boost cotton sector

A consortium of European banks has agreed to pump a further US $78 million
into Burkina Faso^Òs booming cotton sector, which provides cash income for
hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers.

The parastatal cotton processing company Sofitex said that with the new
loan, it aims to raise cotton production by a further 20 percent to
600,000 tonnes in the coming year through the improved application of
fertilizers and pesticides. Last year, the country produced 500,000
tonnes.

Cotton is Burkina Faso^Òs largest source of foreign exchange and the main
cash crop of its poor farmers. It currently takes up to 15 percent of all
cultivated land in the county, which has risen to become Africa^Òs second
largest cotton producer. About 2.5 million of the country^Òs 12 million
population depends on the cash raised from growing cotton.


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