Weekly Round-Up - IRINWA-315: 03-Feb-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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e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci
WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Round-Up 315
28 January - 3 February 2006
CONTENTS:
LIBERIA: New president's anti-corruption drive targets finance ministry
COTE D IVOIRE: Three names submitted for sanctions
COTE D IVOIRE: UN will not tolerate more violence, Annan warns
SIERRA LEONE: In historic hearing, top fighter appears in Special Court
GUINEA-BISSAU: UN alarmed at rise in drug trafficking
CHAD: Parliament votes to prolong its mandate
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC-CHAD: Budget shortfalls loom as more refugees
flee into Chad
LIBERIA: New president's anti-corruption drive targets finance ministry
Liberia's new president, "Iron Lady" Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has sacked
every political appointee from the outgoing administration at the
ministry of finance as part of her crackdown on corruption.
Initial reports that Sirleaf had sacked the entire finance ministry
including civil servants were a result of "confusion", said Presidential
Press Secretary Spencer Browne in a statement late Thursday.
All finance ministry officials appointed by the outgoing transitional
government have been sacked, clarified the statement, but civil servants
will remain in place pending an investigation.
Sirleaf marched into the finance ministry unexpected on Wednesday when
she reportedly dismissed "all staff" including civil servants without
notice and announced that corruption investigations would to begin.
"You should have nothing to fear because if you pass the test, you will
retain your position. But if you fail then you will disappear from the
ministry," Sirleaf said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51515&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=LIBERIA
COTE D'IVOIRE: Three names submitted for sanctions
A group of UN Security Council members has put forward a list of three
political figures from Cote d'Ivoire who could face sanctions for
inciting violence or blocking peace efforts in the divided West African
nation, diplomats said on Friday.
Consensus has been growing at the United Nations over the need to slap a
travel ban and assets freeze on political leaders troubling the peace,
after four days of violent anti-UN protests last month.
Diplomats said the names on the list included Charles Ble Goude, leader
of the pro-government Young Patriots movement that called supporters
into the street to demand the departure of UN and French peacekeepers,
and Eugene Djue, also a member of the movement.
The third name cited by diplomats who asked not to be identified was
Fofie Kouakou, a commander of the rebel New Forces who control the
northern half of the country.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51532&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE
COTE D'IVOIRE: UN will not tolerate more violence, Annan warns
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday warned both the president
and army chief of staff of Cote d'Ivoire that they would be held
personally responsible in the case of renewed attacks on UN staff or
installations.
"The Secretary-General is deeply concerned about reported threats
against United Nations personnel in Cote d'Ivoire, and the possibility
of major violence being unleashed in Abidjan and other areas," Annan's
spokesman said in a statement released in New York.
Around 400 UN staff were evacuated from Cote d'Ivoire to Gambia and
Senegal last week as consensus mounted within the UN Security Council on
slapping sanctions against Ivorian leaders seen as whipping up violence
and blocking peace efforts.
UN vehicles and facilities were torched and ransacked and hundreds of
peacekeepers forced to retreat in four days of anti-UN protests a
fortnight ago that were unleashed by youth protesters who support
President Laurent Gbagbo.
The unprecedented violence against the 7,000-strong peacekeeping mission
in Cote d'Ivoire, tasked with ending three years of conflict between
Gbagbo and rebels who control the northern half of the country, has
bolstered moves to adopt individual sanctions, such as travel bans and
asset freezes.
The statement added that: "the Secretary-General wishes to remind, in
the strongest possible terms, the highest civilian and military
authorities of Cote d'Ivoire, including President Gbagbo and Chief of
Staff General Mangou, of their personal responsibility for preventing
violence, including attacks targeted against United Nations personnel
and installations throughout the country, as well as ethnically
motivated violence.
"Such acts will not be tolerated by the international community."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51496&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE
See also:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51487&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE
SIERRA LEONE: In historic hearing, top fighter appears in Special Court
The former militia leader revered by many Sierra Leoneans as having
fought off the country's dreaded rebels has appeared before a judge on
war crimes charges, telling the UN-backed Special Court his militia
answered to President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.
Samuel Hinga Norman - one of 13 people indicted by the Special Court for
crimes against humanity in the country's decade-long civil war - led the
Civil Defence Forces (CDF) militia, made up of traditional hunters who
battled rebels alongside Kabbah's soldiers.
Norman, who initially rejected the Court's jurisdiction, made his first
appearance before judges last week, saying President Kabbah had led the
CDF defence effort. Norman's defence team said the president should come
before the court.
Norman told the court that Kabbah enlisted his help, saying: "'Chief,
this is where we need the support of the [Kamajor] hunters of Sierra
Leone in support of the people in rejecting military government.'"
In the absence of former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, who is
living in exile in Nigeria and backed the Sierra Leone Revolutionary
United Front (RUF) rebel group, and RUF leader Foday Sankoh who died of
a stroke while in the Court's custody, Norman is the most high profile
figure to appear on war crimes charges.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51495&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=SIERRA_LEONE
GUINEA-BISSAU: UN alarmed at rise in drug trafficking
Drug trafficking gangs shipping South American narcotics to Europe are
using the tiny West African nation of Guinea Bissau as a transit centre,
drawn by the cash-strapped government's lack of capacity to tackle the
problem, warned UN officials.
A five-day mission led by the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime
in West Africa, Antonio Mazzitelli, found that the government's weak
border security had attracted international criminal networks to Guinea
Bissau.
"Guinea Bissau does not have the capacity to monitor its borders,"
leading to a dramatic rise in criminal activity, Mazzitelli said at a
press conference on Friday.
Last October, Guinea Bissau's top drug enforcement official told IRIN
that the country was the main West African transit point for drugs
passing illegally to Europe.
The former Portuguese colony is ranked 172 of 177 countries in the UN's
Human Development Index. The cash-strapped government has no coast
guard, police have no cars and the navy no boats for patrolling national
waters where scattered tiny islands make a haven for smugglers.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51451&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA-BISSAU
CHAD: Parliament votes to prolong its mandate
Chad's parliamentarians have voted to extend their own terms in office
by over a year, saying the cash-strapped country cannot hold legislative
elections along with the presidential poll later this year as scheduled.
But opposition politicians say the law - introduced by President Idriss
Deby's cabinet - is a deliberate move by Deby to keep close allies in
the government in troubled times.
Of Chad's 155-member parliament - heavily dominated by Deby's party -
131 took part in Monday's vote, approving the extension by 129 votes to
0 with two abstentions, according to Abderamane Djasnabaille, minister
of parliamentary affairs and human rights.
Legislative elections, normally held every four years, were to take
place in 2006 along with a presidential poll. The law, if ratified by
the president, would postpone parliamentary elections until 2007.
"We cannot organise presidential, legislative and local elections all in
2006," Djasnabaille told IRIN, pointing to Chad's recent falling out
with the World Bank, which has halted all loans to the country and
frozen an oil escrow account over Chad's management of its petrodollars.
But opponents of the extension are crying foul.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51466&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC-CHAD: Budget shortfalls loom as more refugees
flee into Chad
The UN refugee agency in Chad says new waves of refugees from the
Central African Republic are putting a strain on funds already stretched
thin in a country where the UN is assisting almost a quarter of a
million refugees.
UNHCR says at least 1,000 Central Africans have fled to Chad in recent
weeks, fleeing village raids by armed men in northern Central African
Republic (CAR) - a region long plagued by violence which the UN has said
could trigger a major humanitarian crisis if left unchecked.
Refugees described scenes of "near total anarchy," according to UNHCR,
with summary executions, house burnings and violent village raids
carried out by rebel factions and armed gangs. Some refugees said armed
bandits were kidnapping children and demanding ransom.
The new wave brings to about 13,000 the number of Central Africans who
have fled to Chad since June 2005. They joined some 30,000 refugees
living in camps in southern Chad since fleeing fighting in CAR in 2003.
"Any further influx from CAR could severely stretch UNHCR's capacity to
provide protection and basic assistance to refugees in the south," the
agency said in a statement at the weekend.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51434&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_AFRICAN_REPUBLIC-CHAD
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