Weekly Round-Up - IRINWA-321: 17-Mar-06
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 321
11 - 17 March 2006
CONTENTS:
WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 321 covering 11-17 March 2006
LIBERIA-NIGERIA: "Time to bring Taylor issue to closure," says Sirleaf
GUINEA-BISSAU-SENEGAL: Fighting continues along shared border
BENIN: Date of presidential run-off triggers new tiff
CAMEROON: Bird Flu confirmed in fourth African country
COTE D'IVOIRE: Rebel leader attends first cabinet meeting in over a year
CHAD: Coup attempt foiled, government says
SENEGAL: Lights out in Dakar
LIBERIA-NIGERIA: "Time to bring Taylor issue to closure," says Sirleaf
Liberia has requested the extradition from Nigeria of former Liberian
head of state Charles Taylor, the Nigerian presidency said on Friday.
President Olusegun Obasanjo's office said in a statement that Liberia's
newly elected head of state, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, had made a
"formal request" for the extradition of the former warlord.
And while on a visit to the US on Friday, Liberian President Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf told the UN Security Council in New York that "it is
time to bring the Taylor issue to closure."
Taylor, who was indicted for war crimes by a UN-backed Special Court in
Sierra Leone, fled into exile to Nigeria in 2003 as rebel forces closed
in on the capital Monrovia and the United States led international calls
for him to step down.
Taylor's exit from power was crucial to the signing of a 2003 peace deal
in Liberia that ended 14 years of a brutal on-off civil war, and despite
repeated calls for his handover to the court, Obasanjo had always
insisted he would only hand him over to a government that had been
democratically elected.
Johnson-Sirleaf, who is currently on a visit to the United States, was
elected to office last November in the first democratic polls held in
the country since the peace deal.
"In keeping with his commitment to give consideration to any formal
request from a democratically elected government of Liberia for the
return of former president Charles Taylor, President Olusegun Obasanjo
has duly notified the chairmen of the African Union (AU) and the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) that President
Johnson-Sirleaf has made such a request," the Nigerian statement said.
Nigeria will consult with the AU and ECOWAS before responding to
Sirleaf's request, it added.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52294&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=LIBERIA-NIGERIA
GUINEA-BISSAU-SENEGAL: Fighting continues along shared border
Clashes involving Senegalese separatists and Guinea Bissau troops
entered a fourth day on Friday, forcing over a thousand people from
their homes in the border region.
Since Thursday evening some 300 people - mostly women and children -
from Guinea Bissau have packed into trucks and crossed the forested
border, arriving in Ziguinchor, the main town in Senegal's southern
Casamance region. Guinea Bissau radio said the more than 1,000 residents
of the town of Sao Domingos had deserted their homes after an attack on
Friday.
Many more people are thought to be hiding in the dense forest or
displaced within Guinea Bissau, having fled their homes in panic as
rebel fighters from Casmance crossed into Guinea Bissau.
"The rebels came towards Sao Domingos at around 5 p.m. firing in every
direction," said Awa Mane, who abandoned her home and all her belongings
to flee with her children. "Faced with that, most people decided to
flee."
A string of communities along the main road between the Guinea Bissau
frontier town Suzana and San Domingos eight kilometres to the south had
been abandoned, according to Guinea Bissau radio.
In Senegal's southern Casamance region, separated from the rest of the
country by the thin sliver of land that makes up the Gambia, fighters
from the Movement of the Democratic Forces of the Casamance (MFDC) have
led a two-decade rebellion that has fizzled in recent years. And in
December 2004 MFDC political leaders signed a peace deal with the
Senegalese government.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52292&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA-BISSAU-SENEGAL
See also:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52274&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA-BISSAU-SENEGAL
BENIN: Date of presidential run-off triggers new tiff
The date for the final run-off round in Benin's key presidential poll
has triggered a new tiff in the problem-fraught poll.
After holding an extraordinary cabinet meeting late on Thursday, the
government announced the second and final round in the race for the
presidency would take place Sunday, 19 March.
But the country's National Electoral Commission (CENA) protested, saying
the results of the first 5 March round had been announced only this week
and that there was insufficient time left to organise a final round by
Sunday.
CENA chairman Sylvain Nouwatin called for a postponement of four days
until Wednesday 22 March in order to give the two candidates time to
campaign.
Nouwatin's appeal was backed by the Constitutional Court which has
called on the government to put the election to next week. A statement
from the government is said to be forthcoming.
Under the constitution, failing an outright victory of more than 50
percent in the first election round, a second round should be held two
weeks after the first poll. But provisional results were released only
this week, followed by an official proclamation on Wednesday.
"Given the delay in announcing the first round results CENA cannot
materially organise an election for 19 March," Nouwatin said on
Thursday.
The Constitutional Court on Wednesday announced that political newcomer
and former banker Boni Yayi, and veteran politician and lawyer Adrien
Houngbedji, would face off in the race to become Benin's next president.
Official results showed Yayi led the field of 26 contenders with 35.64
percent of the vote while Houngbedji garnered 24.12 percent.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52295&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=BENIN
For final result tally, see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52249&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=BENIN
CAMEROON: Bird Flu confirmed in fourth African country
Tests on a dead duck from a small village in the far north of Cameroon
confirmed the country's first case of the deadly H5N1 virus, said a
government statement released on Sunday.
"Bird flu has been detected in Cameroon. A duck was detected positive
with bird flu among 10 birds which died recently in Maroua," said the
statement read on state radio and television. Officials said the birds
died between 12 and 21 February.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Cameroon's Minister of Livestock,
Fisheries and Animal Industries Aboubakary Sarki said that all foul in
the three poultry farms where the birds died had been slaughtered.
Cameroon shares a 1,600-kilometre border with Nigeria, in early February
the first country in Africa to register a case of the deadly H5N1 bird
flu virus. By late February authorities had confirmed bird flu in Egypt
in northern Africa and in Niger, which also borders Nigeria.
The government of Cameroon promised "to take care of" affected poultry
farmers, though it did not give any figures. Sarki said that the
government will also carry out a culling and vaccination programme and
that some 700 veterinarians are being trained to fight the virus.
"We envisage slaughtering and destroying all birds from the infected
region of the country, but we also aim to vaccinate chickens nationwide
to prevent the H5N1 virus from spreading," Sarki told reporters.
However, Sarki said the government did not have a store of vaccinations
at the ready and would have to rely on donor contributions in order to
buy them.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52160&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountryEMEROON
COTE D'IVOIRE: Rebel leader attends first cabinet meeting in over a year
ABIDJAN, 15 Mar 2006 (IRIN) - Guillaume Soro, leader of the New Forces
rebels that occupy the north of war-divided Cote d'Ivoire attended his
first cabinet meeting in over a year on Wednesday.
Up to now Soro had refused to travel to the main city Abidjan in the
government-controlled south after President Laurent Gbagbo's forces
broke a long-held ceasefire agreement in November 2004.
The rebel leader late last year was named minister for reconstruction
and reinsertion - a new post and the number-two position in government.
All but three of the current government's 32 ministers attended the
session seen as a key first step towards staging elections by October
2006 - a new poll deadline set after the country failed to hold
elections in 2005.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52239&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE
CHAD: Coup attempt foiled, government says
DAKAR, 15 Mar 2006 (IRIN) - The Chadian government on Wednesday said it
had thwarted an attempt by army defectors to shoot down President Idriss
Deby's plane on his return from a trip abroad.
The government said security forces on Tuesday captured at least two
military officers involved in the coup attempt, while several other
plotters got away.
A 15 March government statement named seven military officers who
allegedly "aimed to shoot down" Deby's plane as he returned from a
summit of central African leaders in Equatorial Guinea.
"Having been informed of the intentions of these coup plotters,
government defence and security forces stepped in to stop them,"
Communications Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said in the statement.
Deby returned to the capital, N'djamena, on Tuesday evening, according
to the statement.
The alleged coup attempt comes a month and a half ahead of a scheduled
presidential election in which Deby is expected to run thanks to a
disputed constitutional amendment passed last year that scrapped a
two-term limit.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52235&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
SENEGAL: Lights out in Dakar
Senegal residents are thinking twice before buying anything that needs
to be kept cold these days, and many hesitate to leave their homes after
sundown. With mass power cuts suddenly the rule rather than the
exception, refrigeration, streetlights and all things electrical, are
now touch and go.
"With these power cuts, I'm asking myself, what do we dare put in the
refrigerator?" says Bator Sall, as he plugs in a mobile phone charger at
the office, the battery fully drained after an all-night power cut at
home.
Reliable energy is rare in West African capital cities, but in Senegal,
which experiences seasonal glitches at the height of the hot season when
air conditioners are running on full, cuts as serious as those of recent
weeks have not been seen in decades. "We've not seen anything like this
in 30 years," said Samuel Diadhiou, an athletics coach who returned from
Europe to live in his native land in 1976.
So for the businesses and international organisations that chose to set
up their West Africa headquarters in Dakar because of reliable
electricity, water and phones, life has become a nightmare of computer
crashes and candlelight showers as outages hit even the central business
district and black out some neighbourhoods for up to 20 hours at a time.
"A country out of cash," screamed a front-page headline in the Le
Quotidien tabloid on Friday. An editorial in the paper carried the
headline "In 2006 Dakar is like Conakry", the Guinean capital where
students can be found most evenings studying on the grounds of the
airport - the only place that has light every night.
As it faces growing anger from a public unaccustomed to being blacked
out, Senegal's state-owned electricity utility Senelec blames the cuts
mainly on the breakdown last December of an aging 50-megawatt power
station, and on the main oil refinery's failure to supply diesel oil to
several production facilities.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52291&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=SENEGAL
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