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WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Round-Up 299
8 - 14 October 2005


CONTENTS:

LIBERIA: Voters thirsty for news as counting begins after landmark polls
COTE D IVOIRE: Killings, torture and rape go unpunished on both sides
   of the front line
WEST AFRICA: Rights activists urge UN to investigate abuse of migrants
GABON: Two top opposition figures to challenge Africa's
   longest-standing president
GUINEA-BISSAU: President, prime minister try to iron out tension, avert
   crisis
GUINEA: Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink


LIBERIA: Voters thirsty for news as counting begins after landmark polls


Liberians with a radio were in demand on Wednesday as a nation hungered
for any scrap of news about who might be their next president following
polls on the 11 October, but elections officials warned voters were in
for a long wait.

Officials said results were in from only one percent of the electorate,
a day after thousands of people braved huge lines to cast their ballot
for a leader they hope will lead them away from their war-torn past and
out of abject poverty.

These partial results, compiled from 39 polling stations, put
presidential favourites Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and George Weah neck and
neck.

The National Elections Commission said Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated
economist who would be Africa's first elected female leader if she won,
had 24.6 percent of the votes so far, with millionaire soccer star Weah
just behind on 21.2 percent.

Lawyer Charles Brumskine -- who led the Senate under former president
Charles Taylor before falling out with him -- and Winston Tubman - the
nephew of the country's longest serving president -- were in joint
third, with 10.2 percent.

However, Liberia's electoral chief, Frances Johnson-Morris, stressed
that this was an incomplete snapshot.

"Remember... there are 3,070 polling places that need to be compiled,
counted and tallied," she told a packed press conference on Wednesday.
"The entire process is expected to take three to seven days."

On the streets of the capital, Monrovia, where only two years ago
residents hardly dared venture out for fear of random mortars and stray
bullets, people stood on street corners with radios glued to their ears.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49517&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=LIBERIA

For the full package of IRIN's Liberia election reports see:

11 October 2005:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49487&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=LIBERIA

10 October 2005:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49458&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=LIBERIA

10 October 2005:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49454&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=LIBERIA

9 October 2005:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49438&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=LIBERIA

9 October 2005:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49437&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=LIBERIA

9 October 2005:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49435&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=LIBERIA



COTE D IVOIRE: Killings, torture and rape go unpunished on both sides of
the front line

More human rights violations including summary executions, politically
motivated arrests, torture and rape are taking place across war-torn
Cote d'Ivoire according to a UN report released this week.

The report came as the UN Security Council opened a special meeting on
Cote d'Ivoire in New York.

Spanning a three month period from June 2005, the report found that the
human rights situation in the one time bastion of stability and economic
success, continue to raise alarm.

"There is definitely a lack of improvement in the human rights situation
as more and more violations are taking place," UN human rights chief
Simon Munzu told IRIN. "The level of violations we observe is still so
high that we continue to be concerned."

Things took a serious turn for the worse in the cocoa-growing western
region, where in late May and early June, a spate of ethnic-motivated
revenge killings left some 70 people dead and tens of thousands of
villagers temporarily displaced.

Women and children were among those disembowelled and beheaded in the
violence. And with tensions unresolved, the risk of more killings
remains, Munzu warned.

But it isn't just the west that has been blighted by human rights
abuses, the rebel held north of the country, the government south and
even the zone of confidence that divides the two sides and is patrolled
by UN peacekeepers also had reported incidents of human rights abuses.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49545&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE

See also:

12 October 2005:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49519&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE

12 October 2005:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49521&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE

11 October 2005:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49477&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE



WEST AFRICA: Rights activists urge UN to investigate abuse of migrants

While Morocco continues deporting masses of West African migrants in the
face of international condemnation, a pan-African human rights group is
calling on the United Nations to investigate charges of rights
violations linked to border control.

"The UN high commission for human rights must open an investigation into
rights violations tied to immigration," Alioune Tine, secretary general
of the pan-African human rights group, Rencontre Africaine des Droits de
l'Homme (RADDHO), told IRIN.

The Moroccan government acknowledged on Thursday that its armed forces
had shot at illegal immigrants trying to scale a barrier between Africa
and Europe last week, and appealed for a Euro-African effort to tackle
illegal immigration and its root causes.

The thorny and long-standing problem came into the world media spotlight
in recent weeks, with televised images of desperate African migrants
being shot at and crushed trying to enter Europe and scores of others
deposited in the vacant sands of Morocco with no food or water.

Earlier this month hundreds of illegal African migrants attempted to
clear barbed-wire barriers to enter Spain's enclaves of Ceuta and
Melilla in Morocco. At least 14 were killed - some by crushing, others
by gunfire.

Morocco has drawn a sharp reprimand from humanitarian groups and other
international organisations for dumping some of the destitute migrants
in the desert.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49546&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=WEST_AFRICA

See also:

11 October 2005:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49488&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=SENEGAL



GABON: Two top opposition figures to challenge Africa's longest-standing
president

Two heavyweights of Gabon's opposition have announced they will try to
shake President Omar Bongo from nearly four decades of power, after
winning concessions on the make-up of the national election commission.

Speaking to supporters in Libreville on Sunday, Zacharie Myboto, a
former minister under Bongo, and Pierre Mamboundou, a presidential
contender in the previous election in 1998, promised a clean break from
38 years of rule under Bongo - Africa's longest-standing head of state.

Their announcements ended an opposition boycott of the national election
commission (NEC), which protesting politicians had accused of being
stacked with ruling party supporters.

Up to Friday the opposition had no seats on the 120-strong NEC. But
after negotiations with Bongo the opposition was granted 40 slots.

"Since the Gabon you want is one that means progress for all, I have
decided to run in the next presidential election," 67-year-old Myboto
said to a crowd of nearly 10,000 supporters, many waving banners that
read, "Zacharie Myboto for change."

Having spent 23 years in Bongo's government before leaving the ruling
party in 2001 and forming the Gabonese Union for Democracy and
Development party this year, Myboto asked forgiveness for the errors of
the past and promised to do away with corruption and cronyism.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49459&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GABON


GUINEA-BISSAU: President, prime minister try to iron out tension, avert
crisis

After giving each other the cold shoulder for almost two weeks,
Guinea-Bissau's new President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira and Prime
Minister Carlos Gomes Junior have finally met in a bid to set aside
personal differences and heal a country in crisis.

But despite this week's first encounter between the two men since Vieira
was sworn in as president on 1 October, fears remain of a top-level
"cold war" in the tiny volatile nation.

Coming out of the half-hour meeting, which he described as cordial,
Gomes Junior, who earlier this year called Vieira "a bandit and a
mercenary who betrayed his own people", said he expected the
relationship between the head of state and the head of government to be
smoother sailing from now on.

"Together we looked at the most pressing questions facing the country
today," he told the press outside the president's private residence. "As
you know, we have made commitments to the international community that
we have to keep."

This Portuguese-speaking West-African nation is hoping for more than
$200 million from the international community to rebuild an
infrastructure and economy devastated by years of fighting and neglect.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49544&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA-BISSAU



GUINEA: Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink

It's the rainy season in Guinea, one of West Africa's wettest countries,
but the taps in many of its towns have run dry.

Guinea is nicknamed West Africa's "water tower" because it contains the
headwaters of a number of the region's major rivers, including the
Senegal and the Niger. In parts of the country's interior, average
annual rainfall is close to four metres.

And yet, breakdowns at the national water company's treatment centres
have left major towns in the interior like Kindia and Labe with little
or no running water for weeks. N'zerekore, near the Liberian border, has
been without for the last five years.

This paradox is par for the course in a country where, despite large
reserves of bauxite, gold, and diamonds, the majority of people live on
less than a dollar a day.

Even the capital has not escaped the shortages. While the business
districts have a fairly reliable infrastructure, residents of many of
Conakry's areas find themselves forced to go looking for water.

"It's been two years since we had drinkable water in our neighbourhood,"
Thiany Yansane, a local councillor, told IRIN. "That's why I always keep
jerry-cans in my car in order to fill them up with water at the office."

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49542&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
2005


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