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WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 217
28 February - 5 March 2004


CONTENTS:

COTE D'IVOIRE: PDCI walks out of cabinet
NIGERIA: 2,500 displaced in Plateau State violence
GUINEA-BISSAU: Students go on the rampage after police break up demo
GHANA: Bail of suspected drug barons cancelled by new judge
LIBERIA-SIERRA LEONE: Hopes of family reunion as Sierra Leone refugees go 
  home
LIBERIA: Study of sexual abuse during civil war under way
GUINEA: Conte sacks economic team in reshuffle


COTE D'IVOIRE: PDCI walks out of cabinet

One of Cote d'Ivoire's two main opposition parties suspended on Wednesday
its participation in a broad-based government of national reconciliation,
accusing President Laurent Gbagbo of sabotaging the country's peace
process.

It withdrew from government as local newspapers reported that at least 11
people had been killed in a fresh outbreak of fighting between immigrant
farmers and villagers of Gbagbo's Bete tribe near the southern town of
Gagnoa.

Ministers of the Democratic Party of Cote d'Ivoire (PDCI), which was
founded by the country's first president, Felix Houphouet Boigny, failed
to attend Thursday's cabinet meeting.

The PDCI said it was "suspending the participation" of its seven ministers
in the coalition government because Gbagbo had plotted against the party,
undermined the authority of its ministers and humiliated its leader.

The PDCI walkout followed a similar boycott of government staged by rebels
occupying the north of the country at the end of last year.

The rebels, who are officially known as "The New Forces," ordered their
nine ministers to withdraw from the cabinet in September, accusing Gbagbo
of dragging his feet over the implementation of reforms demanded by the
January.

Political tension rose over the next three months while implementation of
the peace agreement remained frozen.  However, the rebels finally returned
to the government at the end of December after mediation by West African
leaders and the UN special envoy to Cote d'Ivoire Albert Tevoedjre.

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


NIGERIA: 2,500 displaced in Plateau State violence, says Red Cross

At least 2,500 people have fled Plateau State in central Nigeria this
week, following a fortnight of violence between Muslims and Christians
that has left 62 dead and more injured, the Red Cross said on Thursday.

Patrick Bawa, a spokesman for the Red Cross in Nigeria, told IRIN that his
organisation had registered 2,500 displaced people in neighbouring Bauchi
State by Wednesday afternoon and more were still arriving.

"We had 2,500 in five camps spread around Bauchi in the afternoon, but
more people arrived last night that are not yet included in our figures,"  
Bawa said.

Around 100 of the arrivals were injured and in need of treatment, 16 with
severe injuries.

Police said the latest outbreak of religious clashes in the Shendam and
Langtang districts of Plateau State had claimed at least 62 lives over the
past two weeks of Muslim/ Christian clashes.

IRIN coverage of Nigeria please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Nigeria


GUINEA-BISSAU: Students go on the rampage after police break up demo

Several hundred students went on the rampage in the capital of
Guinea-Bissau, after police used baton charges, tear gas and shots in the
air to break up a demonstration by secondary school pupils who were
protesting at a strike by their teachers who haven't been paid for four
months.

Eyewitnesses said several dozen students were arrested in the disturbances
that took place on Thursday. Bissau's main avenue was closed to vehicle
traffic and the city's main market was shut down as a result of the
clashes.
 
Schools in this former Portuguese colony of 1.3 million people have been
able to achieve very little over the past two years because of a series of
walkouts by unpaid teachers.
 
President Henrique Rosa, a respected businessman appointed by the army to
lead Guinea-Bissau back to democracy, said he blamed the striking
teachers, more than their pupils for the disturbances.

He questioned why the teachers had timed their strike just before the
parliamentary elections. Official campaigning is due to start on Monday.

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


GHANA: Bail of suspected drug barons cancelled by new judge

Six men arrested after Ghana's biggest ever drugs bust, were put back in
prison to await trial on Wednesday after a public outcry over their
release on bail.

The judge who originally granted the five foreigners and a Ghanaian bail
of $33,000 after they were caught in possession of 675 kg of cocaine worth
an estimated US$145 million, was hastily transferred to a new post in the
remote north of Ghana.

On Wednesday, Appeal Court Judge Stephen Farkye overruled the bail order
issued by the original trial judge, Justice Aggrey, who has been taken off
the case and posted to the Upper East Region near the border with Burkina
Faso.

"The tribunal should have taken into account the gravity of the offence
and the possibility of the suspects jumping bail. In granting bail, the
tribunal erred in exercising its discretionary powers," he said.

Ghanaian officials believe the drugs were flown from South America by
plane and dropped into Ghana's offshore waters, where they were retrieved
by tuna boats and taken ashore for onward shipment to Europe.

If convicted, the accused, three Britons, one German, one US citizen and a
Ghanaian could face a minimum of 10 years behind bars and have all their
property confiscated by the state.

IRIN coverage of Ghana please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Ghana


LIBERIA-SIERRA LEONE: Hopes of family reunion as Sierra Leone refugees go
home

The mood was upbeat on six UN trucks that ferried 67 Sierra Leonean
refugees back home from camps in Liberia this week.

The group leaving on Tuesday were the first that the UN had been able to
repatriate overland for almost two years.

Ready to take her place on one of the trucks was Massa Sheriff, a mother
with four children and all her worldly belongings gathered in bundles at
her feet. Despite the upheaval, she was pleased to be heading home for the
first time in more than a decade.

"I have been in Liberia for the past eleven years, but I feel very fine to
go back home and is doing so willingly," she told IRIN in Creole English.

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

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


LIBERIA: Study of sexual abuse during civil war under way

The United Nations and World Vision this week began a joint survey of
sexual violence committed during the last four years of Liberia's civil
war, which will be submitted to the country's Truth and Reconciliation
Commission.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said on Tuesday that 22
human rights monitors had been hired to conduct interviews with a random
sampling of 4,000 Liberians about their experiences between December 1989
and August 2003 when a peace agreement was signed.

This covers the four-year period during which the Liberians United for
Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement and its offshoot, the
Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) waged a bush war against the
government of former president Charles Taylor.

UNDP human rights officer Awa Dabo said initial findings from the first
600 interviews showed that 40 percent of Liberian civilians had fallen
victim to some sort of sexual abuse.

This ranged from rape, gang rape and the rape of children to women having
foreign objects being inserted into their vagina and being stripped and
put on public display.

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


GUINEA: Conte sacks economic team in reshuffle

Guinean President Lansana Conte has sacked his prime minister, his
powerful interior minister and his entire economic team in a two-stage
cabinet reshuffle that follows presidential elections on 21 December that
were boycotted by all the country's main opposition parties.

Conte, a former army colonel, who came to power in a 1984 coup, sacked his
prime minister for the past five years, Lamine Sidime, in the first phase
of the reshuffle, announced on 23 February.

Former Foreign Minister Francois Fall, fluent English speaker who is
widely regarded as pro-American, replaced Sidime, who often undertook
public engagements in place of the ailing president.

The first phase of the reshuffle also saw Interior Minister Moussa Solano,
the architect of Conte's sullied re-election, shifted sideways to the
Ministry of Employment. But his tenure was shortlived and he was kicked
right out of the cabinet in the second phase of the reshuffle on 1 March.

Jean Marie Dore, one of the leaders of the FRAD opposition grouping,
expressed delight at the departure of Solano from the political scene. But
he said it was too early to say whether Conte might now seek a genuine
dialogue with the opposition.

"We told you Solano was the greatest obstacle to true democracy in this
country and now we have been proved right," he told IRIN.

But asked whether the opposition would now resume a dialogue with the
government, he said: "Let's wait and see."

For IRIN coverage of Guinea please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Guinea


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