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 Round-Up 283
25 June - 1 July 2005


CONTENTS:

COTE D IVOIRE: Pretoria summit agrees to kick-start disarmament
MALI-NIGER: Aid agencies complain of poor response to famine appeal
   ahead of G8 summit
GUINEA-BISSAU: Second round of presidential election set for July 24
LIBERIA: 'What about us?' ask those Liberians who didn't fight or flee
NIGERIA: Constitutional change conference deadlocks over oil dispute
SIERRA LEONE: UN troops to leave by the end of the year
BENIN: Children crushing stones into gravel to get through school


COTE D IVOIRE: Pretoria summit agrees to kick-start disarmament

The main political factions in Cote d'Ivoire have agreed to kick-start a 
much-delayed process of disarmament and reaffirmed a commitment to hold 
presidential elections on 30 October.

The decisions were announced in a joint statement on Wednesday following 
two days of talks in Pretoria chaired by South African President Thabo 
Mbeki in his role as African Union mediator in the three-year-old 
Ivorian conflict.

The statement, signed by President Laurent Gbagbo, rebel leader 
Guillaume Soro and the leaders of the two main parliamentary opposition 
parties, said the disarmament of pro-Gbagbo militia forces in the 
government-controlled south of the country would begin immediately and 
end by 20 August.

Although a ceremony was held in the western town of Guiglo on 25 May to 
mark the start of disarmament by these shadowy militia groups, the 
declaration noted that "the actual disarmament and dismantling of the 
militia has not yet commenced." The rebels were refusing to hand in 
their weapons until the militias began disarming.

The statement said government and rebel military chiefs would meet again 
on 7 July to finalise a timetable for disarming the 42,000 rebel 
fighters who control the north of Cote d'Ivoire. These would start 
handing in their weapons to UN peacekeepers at special cantonment sites 
by the end of July, it added.

Full 
report


MALI-NIGER: Aid agencies complain of poor response to famine appeal 
ahead of G8 summit

Just a week before the world's richest countries gather for the G8 
summit in Scotland, international aid agencies have launched a campaign 
to remind them of their poor response so far to the famine affecting 
nearly five million people in Niger and Mali.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), Oxfam, and Action Against Hunger (ACF) 
all issued fresh appeals this week for food aid for these two landlocked 
countries on the southern fringes of the Sahara. Both suffered drought 
and invasion by locusts last year.

"International attention is slowly turning to the Sahel, but it has not 
yet led to sufficient increases in aid to the region," Oxfam Netherlands 
said in a statement on Thursday. "Donor governments must urgently 
provide more funding for emergency assistance, especially the provision 
of food, fodder for livestock and seeds for the coming planting season."

ACF noted that more than one in three children under the age of five in 
Niger and Mali currently suffer from acute malnutrition.

But it complained: "Although Mali is on the list of countries being 
considered for debt relief at the G8 conference in Edinburgh, Scotland 
next week, and both Mali and Niger are classified as among the poorest 
countries in the world by the United Nations, there has been almost no 
response to the call for emergency assistance.

On 19 May, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 
(OCHA) launched a flash appeal for US $16 million to help an estimated 
3.6 million people at risk of famine in Niger. The appeal was 
subsequently raised to $18.3 million.

But an official at OCHA's regional office for West Africa in Dakar said 
on Thursday that so far only $2.7 million - or 15 percent - of the sum 
sought - had been received.

Full 
report


GUINEA-BISSAU: Second round of presidential election set for July 24

The two leading contenders in Guinea-Bissau's presidential election, 
Malam Bacai Sanha and Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira, will take part in a 
second round run-off vote on 24 July, according to Malam Mane, the 
chairman of the National Electoral Commission.

The date was set after Kumba Yala, the third placed candidate in the 
first round of the election on 19 June, agreed on Monday to accept the 
result of the ballot.

Mane said the date of the second round would only be confirmed following 
the publication of the results of the first round of the election in the 
government's official gazette next week. But he and several other 
members of the National Electoral Commission assured reporters that the 
ballot would definitely take place on 24 July.

Bacai Sanha and Vieira are both veterans of the bush war against 
Portuguese colonial rule, which lasted from 1961 until the independence 
of this small West African country in 1974.

The two men fought alongside each other in the African Party for the 
Independence of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) liberation 
movement, which subsequently became the country's ruling party.

Full 
report


LIBERIA: 'What about us?' ask those Liberians who didn't fight or flee

The seven siblings scamper around the second-storey room in the Liberian 
capital, veering dangerously close to where the wall should be. One foot 
wrong and it's a twenty-metre drop onto a traffic-clogged road.

Aside from keeping a beady eye on her children, their mother Josephine 
also has to feed the entire family on less than a dollar a day. And all 
this in a chaotic city of one million people that still has no running 
water or mains electricity nearly two years after the end of the civil 
war.

When the war ended in August 2003, and the international community 
swarmed into town, Josephine hoped life would improve. Now she shakes 
her head and laughs sadly at her folly.

"Nothing has changed. Everything has got worse. The price of a cup of 
rice is now 20 Liberian dollars instead of 10. The international 
community is supporting us and rice is still that expensive," she 
explained, her agitation growing. "There's still no water, no 
electricity. How much longer will we have to wait for these things?"

The United Nations has its most expensive peacekeeping force in the 
world stationed in this West African nation. The Security Council has 
just approved a US $761 million budget for the coming financial year to 
pay for its 15,000 soldiers and policemen.

Liberians are unreservedly grateful that the fighting has stopped and it 
is safe to walk the streets again after 14 years of war. But 
frustrations are growing that everyday life for those that didn't fight 
or flee has barely changed in the two years of peace.

Full 
report


NIGERIA: Constitutional change conference deadlocks over oil dispute

A national conference called to fashion a new more balanced constitution 
for divided Nigeria has reached deadlock over a dispute on how to share 
out the country's immense oil wealth.

The conference was convened by President Olusegun Obasanjo in the 
federal capital Abuja in February and was due to have closed on 21 June. 
However, the meeting reached the brink of collapse earlier this month 
after delegates from the Niger Delta pulled out demanding a greater 
share of the oil wealth produced on their doorstep.

Its closing session has been twice postponed and the conference is 
effectively in limbo.

Faced with regular outbursts of ethnic and religious violence that 
threaten to rip Nigeria apart, Obasanjo called the conference to give 
Nigeria's 250 different ethnic groups a better say in their own affairs 
and to adjust the balance of power between the federal government and 
the country's 36 member states.

But lingering divisions between northerners and southerners over oil, 
which provides 90 percent of Nigeria's foreign exchange and is the 
lifeblood of the economy, are jeopardising his bid to provide lasting 
stability through constitutional change.

Scores of delegates from the south-eastern delta region that produces 
the bulk of Nigeria's oil, walked out on 16 June after the conference 
voted to peg the share of government oil revenue retained by each 
producer state at 17 percent, substantially less than the 50 percent 
they had demanded.

The conference was adjourned for a week to allow for backroom bargaining 
and was then put on ice again until 11 July after meetings between 
Obasanjo and various delegates failed to produce a deal.

Full 
report


SIERRA LEONE: UN troops to leave by the end of the year

The UN Security Council has voted to close down the UN peacekeeping 
operation in Sierra Leone by the end of December, with the next 
contingent of troops due to pull out in mid-August.

About 3,400 peacekeepers remain in the West African nation, three and a 
half years after the official end to a brutal civil war, which shocked 
the world with its images of drugged-up youths hacking the arms, legs, 
ears and lips off civilians.

On Thursday, the 15-nation Security Council, in an unanimous vote, 
extended UNAMSIL's mandate for a final period of six months until 31 
December.

In his latest report to the Council on Sierra Leone, UN 
Secretary-General Kofi Annan recommended that the drawdown of troops 
should begin in mid-August, but warned that the situation remained 
fragile and that much remained to be done to address the underlying 
causes of conflict in the country.

Annan also said that UNAMSIL needed to remain on its guard during the 
run-up to presidential and parliament elections in neighbouring Liberia 
on 11 October, since that country has also recently emerged from civil 
war.

"The last (UNAMSIL) infantry battalion and air assets should remain 
fully operational until the end of November, by which time the results 
of the elections in Liberia will be known," Annan wrote.

Full 
report


BENIN: Children crushing stones into gravel to get through school

A hammer is all any Beninese child needs to join the 200 chipping away 
at blocks of stones for hours on end in this village -- work declared 
harmful to health by a world convention on child labour that Benin has 
signed.

This vast quarry just outside the village of Tchatchegou, 250 km north 
of the capital Cotonou, stretches for several square kilometres, with 
mounds of gravel as far as the eye can see.

Sitting on a stone, like everybody else does, 17-year-old student Maxime 
told IRIN that crushing stones was about the only good work going in the 
area, where the soils have become too poor to produce much.

Like many of the children working there, Maxime said it was thanks to 
the quarry that he was putting himself through school.

"Sometimes I earn up to 1,500 CFA francs (US $3) that I use to pay 
school costs and to help my parents," he said.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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