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WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Round-Up 290
13 - 19 August 2005


CONTENTS:

LIBERIA: Ex-footballer Weah cleared to stand as election campaign kicks
   off
COTE D'IVOIRE: Peace process deadlocked with time running out before
   planned elections
WESTERN SAHARA: Polisario releases all remaining Moroccan prisoners of
   war
MALI: No famine, but a perennial problem of poverty
SENEGAL: Migration to Italy changes landscape, fortunes, lives


LIBERIA: Ex-footballer Weah cleared to stand as election campaign kicks
off

Campaigning kicked off for Liberia's first election since the end of its
bitter civil war, with 22 people from former footballers to ex-rebels to
veteran opposition leaders vying to be chosen president in the 11
October poll.

The National Elections Commission (NEC) cleared the former captain and
coach of Liberia's national soccer team, George Weah, to stand as a
presidential candidate over the weekend, dismissing a complaint over his
citizenship.

One of Weah's main rivals at the ballot box is likely to be veteran
opposition politician Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of the Unity Party, who
finished a distant runner-up to former president Charles Taylor in
Liberia's last elections, held in 1997 during a break in the civil war.

Since a peace deal in August 2003 ended 14 years of civil conflict,
Liberia has been run by a transitional government, composed of
representatives from all the main warring factions and civil society.

The presidential and parliamentary elections in October are designed to
seal the West African country's transition back to democracy and
Liberians are eager for that new chapter to begin.

"We are happy that after fighting among ourselves for 14 years, we are
now going to elections that will decide the future of our country. Gone
are the days of war," said Mulbah Kpawilly, a 30-year-old unemployed
resident in the capital, Monrovia, where political party stickers and
posters have started springing up.

Full report http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48585


COTE D'IVOIRE: Peace process deadlocked with time running out before
planned elections

"It's impossible to organise elections as scheduled," one African
diplomat in war-divided Cote d'Ivoire sighed. "The reason no-one is
saying it officially is because they don't want to annoy the mediators."

Ivorians are supposed to go to the polls on 30 October to restore peace
to a country that was once an oasis of prosperity and stability in West
Africa but for the last three years has been spilt into a government-run
south and a rebel-held north.

The African Union picked South African president Thabo Mbeki to oversee
Cote d'Ivoire's transition to peace but he is repeatedly running up
against obstacles, and dealing with each one is running down precious
days on the elections timetable.

The latest dispute is over a series of laws passed by Ivorian President
Laurent Gbagbo in mid-July on nationality, identity and the electoral
process.

The South African mediation last week gave the reforms the green light,
saying they conformed to the peace process, but the rebels have
protested and are refusing to move into cantonment sites ahead of an
eventual disarmament.

"The crux of the blockage is the electoral commission," one Western
diplomat told IRIN.

Despite the fact there are just over two months to go until the planned
polls, the Independent Electoral Commission is still not up and running
because there is disagreement about what its responsibilities are.

Full report http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48647


WESTERN SAHARA: Polisario releases all remaining Moroccan prisoners of
war

The Polisario Front, which is fighting for Western Sahara to be
recognised as an independent state, released all remaining Moroccan
prisoners-of-war, some of whom had been held in captivity for more than
20 years.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said 404 prisoners had been
released in Tindouf, Algeria, following mediation by the United States,
and were on their way home to Morocco.

"Their repatriation ends a long period of internment and marks an
important step in resolving the humanitarian consequences of the
conflict in Western Sahara," the Geneva-based group said in a statement.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan -- who earlier this month
opposed scaling down the size of MINURSO, the UN mission in Western
Sahara -- said he hoped that Thursday's prisoner release would trigger
other break-throughs.

"The Secretary-General considers the release a positive step and
expresses his hope that it will serve to foster better relations between
the parties and contribute to overcoming the present political impasse,"
his office said in a statement.

A territorial dispute has raged in Western Sahara for nearly 30 years,
since former colonial power Spain withdrew from this sliver of desert
land in 1976. Morocco moved in to fill the void, incurring the wrath of
the Polisario who staked their own claim and vowed to fight for
independence.

The prisoners released on Thursday were among more than 2,000 captured
in the 16-year armed guerrilla campaign the Polisario waged against the
Moroccan forces, which came to an end with a UN-brokered ceasefire in
1991.

Full report http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48653


MALI: No famine, but a perennial problem of poverty

Mali is not in a state of famine, aid workers say. Instead, like many
countries in the region, Mali suffers from deep rooted poverty that
means children die every year of hunger and only long-term development
and investment will end the cycle.

Years of successive drought and a vicious plague of locusts in 2004,
left crops and vegetation stripped bare. As a result, food stores across
the Sahel region are empty, herds of animals have died and millions are
hungry.

Though aid workers say this year is worse than usual, the sad fact is
that mothers lose their children to hunger every year in countries like
Mali.

"It's not just this year, it is always a difficult year," explained
Patricia Hoorelbeke, who is heading up Action Contre la Faim missions in
Mali and Niger. "Even in a normal year there are problems of food
insecurity and child malnutrition to a severe level - it's that that's
serious."

Mali is one of the poorest of the world's countries. According to the
World Bank, total annual national income divided amongst the whole
population leaves the average Malian only US $290 each. That's over 40
percent less than the sub-Saharan African average.

Even in an average year, one in four Malian children aged between six
months and five years, are malnourished to some degree, the World Bank
data shows.

Full report http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48586


SENEGAL: Migration to Italy changes landscape, fortunes, lives

With five children, a luxurious home and a husband in Italy she rarely
sees, Mai Dieng is like thousands of women in her region of northern
Senegal.

She knows little to nothing of her husband's life abroad.

"Doesn't he tell you when he comes back?" a curious neighbour asks.
Dieng laughs, patting her body to suggest what happens when her husband
returns home.

Dieng lives in Kebemer which lies on the main road north about 155 km
from the capital Dakar. Here in this sleepy town, almost every household
boasts a relative living in Italy.

"This town lives to the rhythm of emigration," said Mansour Tall, a
consultant for UN Habitat which recently sponsored a study with the
Senegalese Ministry of Housing.

"In some villages in the Louga region (which includes Kebemer)
emigrants' money transfers represent 90 percent of household income,"
Tall explained.

Contributions from Senegalese living abroad are a pillar of the West
African country's economy. The regional central bank estimated that
private money transfers to Senegal were 195 billion CFA francs (about US
$3.66 million) in 2003 - nearly a quarter of that year's budget.

Full report http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48613


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2005


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