Weekly Round-Up - IRINWA-306: 02-Dec-05
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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WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Round-Up 306
26 November - 2 December 2005
CONTENTS:
GABON: Landslide win for Africa's longest serving president
COTE D IVOIRE: Deadlock could rumble on, and on - analysts
CHAD-SENEGAL: Habre to remain in Senegal pending decision by African
Union
LIBERIA: President-elect begins four nation peace tour
NIGER: Government demands closer consultation from aid agencies
NIGERIA-SUDAN: Fresh Darfur talks kick off with show of rebel unity
CHAD: President Deby lobs fresh 'destabilisation' charges at Sudan
GABON: Landslide win for Africa's longest serving president
Omar Bongo, president of Gabon since 1967, has won a landslide victory
at the polls, securing a further seven years at the helm of the small
oil-producing nation.
Already Africa's longest serving president after 38 years in office,
Bongo garnered almost 80 percent of the vote in Sunday's presidential
ballot, according to official results announced on national television
late Tuesday.
Bongo swept up 79.21 percent of votes cast, leaving his closest rival,
Pierre Mamboundou, trailing with 13.57 percent.
"And so, Omar Ondimba Bongo has been re-elected," declared Interior
Minister Clotaire-Christian Ivala.
Mamboundou and third place candidate, Zacharie Myboto, claimed massive
fraud, but the 30-odd international observers who monitored the poll
signed off broad approval.
"The vote passed off well, all in all," said Cheikh Gueye, a Senegalese
election observer for the International Organisation for French-speaking
countries (OIF). He noted however that polling stations in some regions
opened late due to the delayed arrival of ballot boxes or officials.
According to results from the National Electoral Commission, turnout was
63.29 percent, or 351,000 of the 555,000 eligible voters in the country
of 1.5 million people.
But a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, estimated
that no more than 30 or 35 percent of voters participated in Bongo's
third re-election since the adoption of multi-party politics in 1990.
Bongo worked hard and spared no expense in his campaign to secure
re-election.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50429&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GABON
See also:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50481&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GABON
COTE D'IVOIRE: Deadlock could rumble on, and on - analysts
Six weeks after a lapsed UN deadline, two African heavyweight leaders
fly in to divided Cote d'Ivoire at the weekend to make a fresh try at
finding a prime minister acceptable to all sides in the conflict. But
analysts are increasingly pessimistic of a quick fix.
After a failed mediation attempt just 10 days ago, South African
President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian President and African Union Chairman
Olusegun Obasanjo are due back on Sunday to attempt to wrest an
agreement on a new prime minister to shepherd the war-torn nation to
disarmament and elections before a UN deadline of October 2006.
"I am pessimistic about a resolution in Cote d'Ivoire within the next 12
months unless something cataclysmic happens outside the country that
changes the balance," said Richard Reeves, Associate Fellow of the
Africa Programme, Chatham House. "Even then, the situation would be
likely to get worse before getting better."
The appointment of the new head of government is the latest bone of
contention between rebels holding the north of the country and President
Laurent Gbagbo, who controls the fertile cocoa-growing south.
Under a UN Security Council plan hatched some weeks ago, Gbagbo, whose
mandate ended 31 October, is supposed to hand over much of his powers to
a new prime minister.
But the world's top cocoa producer has been the scene of a series of
botched peace deals over the past three years.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50479&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE
CHAD-SENEGAL: Habre to remain in Senegal pending decision by African
Union
Hissene Habre, the former Chadian leader wanted for crimes against
humanity, will be allowed to remain in Senegal until the African Union
rules on his judicial fate early next year, Foreign Minister Cheikh
Tidiane Gadio said on Sunday.
Moving to end two weeks of judicial high drama as well as lively
domestic debate over Habre's fate, the minister said Senegal opposed
impunity but believed it was the responsibility of the African continent
to issue a collective ruling on demands that Habre be brought to account
for his alleged crimes.
"It is up to the African Union leaders to recommend the jurisdiction
competent to judge this matter," Gadio told reporters. "President
[Abdoulaye] Wade has said this is an African matter, not strictly
Senegalese."
Habre, who has lived in exile in Senegal for 15 years, was detained on
15 November nearly two months after a Belgian extradition request on
charges of political killings and torture dating back to his term in
office from 1982 to 1990.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50340&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD-SENEGAL
LIBERIA: President-elect begins four nation peace tour
Seeking to shore up stability in the divided West Africa region,
president-elect Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf on Tuesday launched a week-long
tour of Liberia's neighbours to discuss peace.
"The visit is part of regular consultations that the president-elect is
embarking upon between herself and West African leaders -- especially
our neighbouring countries -- that is geared toward sustaining peace in
Liberia and the region at large," said Morris Dukuly, Sirleaf's
spokesperson.
Sirleaf, who won elections this month, started her tour in neighbouring
Cote d'Ivoire and will go onto neighbours Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Africa's first female president will also call in on Nigeria - an
important regional ally and one of the largest contributors of troops to
the 15,000-strong UN peacekeeping operation in Liberia.
Nigeria is also sheltering former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who
is wanted for war crimes in Sierra Leone.
On the future of Taylor, Sirleaf said on arrival in Cote d'Ivoire on
Tuesday: "Allow me to have consultations with West African leaders, whom
I am visiting, to take guidance from them before we take a position on
that."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50403&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=LIBERIA
NIGER: Government demands closer consultation from aid agencies
Talks this week among Niger and aid organisations on the response to the
country's food crisis are taking place amid demands by the government
that the humanitarian community respect its sovereignty.
Niger's government has slammed members of the aid community for what it
says is a failure to consult it on food aid policies and funding in the
massive effort to relieve this year's widespread food shortages, which
the UN estimated affected one in four of Niger's 12 million people.
"What is most unacceptable is this unfortunate tendency to flout the
government's role by certain donors - fortunately not all - who think
they can place more trust in international aid groups and NGOs than in
the government to save Nigerien lives," Prime Minister Amadou Hama said
on Wednesday at the talks in the capital, Niamey.
"In our eyes this is a denial of the credibility of our democracy and
even of our country's sovereignty," he said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50451&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=NIGER
NIGERIA-SUDAN: Fresh Darfur talks kick off with show of rebel unity
Talks to end the almost three-year conflict in Sudan's Darfur region
kicked off late Tuesday with rebels proclaiming a joint will for
progress and the international community pleading for a breakthrough.
"The moment of truth for all Sudanese gathered in this room has
arrived," said Salim Ahmed Salim, chief mediator of the African Union
(AU), opening a seventh round of talks between the Khartoum government
and the two Darfur rebel groups - the Sudanese Liberation Movement/Army
(SLM/A) and smaller Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
"It should now be clear to all that there cannot be a military solution
to the crisis," Salim added.
Speaking on behalf of the two rebel groups for the first time in such
talks, Ahmed Tugod Lissan, JEM's chief negotiator, said:
"We have come with full determination and will to find a lasting
solution."
The last round, in October, made only modest progress, Salim said at the
time. But that round of talks was clouded by internal divisions within
the SLM/A that this time appear to have been patched up.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50424&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=NIGERIA-SUDAN
See also:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50373&SelectRegion=East_Africa,%20West_Africa&SelectCountry=NIGERIA-SUDAN
CHAD: President Deby lobs fresh 'destabilisation' charges at Sudan
Sudan continues to provide arms and logistical support to Chadian
rebels, despite several appeals by the Chadian government, President
Idriss Deby said on Monday.
"We have proof. The Sudanese government has armed [rebels], put vehicles
at their disposal, given them logistics and communications materials,"
Deby told Radio France Internationale.
"The Sudanese government is complicit."
Deby said a group of Chadian rebels is based inside Sudan, about 200
kilometres from the border.
"We have officially requested of the Sudanese government the right [to
pursue the rebels]. The government refused."
Deby, an army officer turned president, has long faced dissension within
his armed forces.
In October he overhauled his presidential guard days after an
undetermined number of soldiers deserted their posts in the capital,
N'djamena, and fled to the volatile east. And earlier this month Deby
reshuffled officers in top military posts.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50367&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
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