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
Tel: +225 21-73-54 Fax: +225 21-63-35 e-mail: irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup of Main Events 50 in West Africa covering the period (Friday-Thursday) 22-28 May 1998
SENEGAL: Election doubts
A coalition of six Senegalese opposition political parties this week called for the annulment of Sunday's parliamentary elections citing fraud and the use of the state-machinery in favour of the ruling Parti Socialiste (PS), news organisations reported.
The coalition includes the Renouveau Democratique (RD), a breakawy of the Parti Socialiste (PS) for which early projections had forecast a strong showing. The others are And Jef, the Parti de l'Independence et du Travail (PIT), le Mouvement pour le Socialisme et l'Unite (MSU), the Convention Demcratique et Sociale (CDS) and the Parti Democratique Senegalais (PDS). In a joint statement, they said they would seek the invalidation of the elections through the Constitutional Court.
Ruling party rejects fraud charges
The PS which has ruled the country since independence, however, rejected the fraud allegations, news reports said. Minister of State Ousmane Tanor Dieng in a statement, quoted by AFP, dismissed the charges saying that the "elections took place in great transparency and the results are genuine and credible". The Constitutional Court has yet to announce the results.
Voting calm, except in Casamance
Voting was calm in most parts of the country, except for a number of incidents in the troubled southern province of Casamance, where the BBC said two soldiers were killed and three wounded on Sunday as they transported ballot papers from polling booths.
In other incidents during a weekend army offensive, news organisations reported the deaths of 30 separatists, five civilians and a soldier. Officials said three rebel bases of the separatist Mouvement des Forces Democratiques de Casamance (MFDC) had been destroyed in the operation, the BBC said. On Saturday, in a separate attack on a funeral party blamed on the MFDC, at least four people were killed. AFP said mortar exchanges could be heard in the Casamance capital, Ziguinchor, on Sunday but that voting had not been disrupted.
Casamance refugees flee to The Gambia
In a related development, the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) in Abidjan told IRIN that 2,289 Senegalese refugees had fled Casamance between 20-23 May to the northern Fone Bintan Karanai district in The Gambia. The IFRC called on the international community for funds to handle the new influx of refugees who joined 1,500 already in the country.
SIERRA LEONE: New ECOMOG offensive
Aircraft of the West African intervention force, ECOMOG, this week conducted daily bombing raids on rebel strongholds in Sierra Leone to flush out ousted military junta supporters accused of committing widespread atrocities. ECOMOG Force Commander, Major General Timothy Shelpidi, told IRIN that the daily raids had been going on for "some time", but he declined to be more precise.
Areas targeted so far, were mainly between the towns of Makeni and Kabala in central Sierra Leone. Shelpidi said ECOMOG had no details on the number of casualties sustained by the rebels, whose campaign of mutilating civilians has been described by Amnesty International as among the "worst atrocities of their kind in Africa".
Shelpidi also said he had received reports that the rebel fighters were running out of supplies and ammunition, and were raiding villages to sustain themselves.
Surrendering fighters to be treated as POWs
Shelpidi also said any rebels who surrendred would be treated in accordance with international conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war.
US pledges support for ECOMOG operations
The US State Department said it would provide US$ 3.9 million to support ECOMOG, in its efforts to restore security in Sierra Leone. A state department spokesman told IRIN that the decision to provide the assistance had been taken in consultation with the United Nations.
ECOMOG ousted the military junta and restored the democtatically elected government to power in March, but has had difficulty securing control of northern areas bordering Guinea. Information Minister Julius Spencer, quoted by AFP, said that ECOMOG could defeat the ousted junta supporters if it had better manpower and logistical support.
Concern for refugees
The UNHCR and WFP warned in a joint statement last Friday that more than 42,000 Sierra Leoneans out of the 200,000 in southwest Guinea could face serious shortages of emergency supplies within six weeks. Appealing to donors for more vehicles, Paul Ares, WFP regional manager said: "If we are not able to move more food during the next two to three weeks, thousands of refugees will go hungry." UNHCR and WFP also sought at least 40 additional lorries to transfer refugees to camps with adequate facilities.
NIGERIA: Clashes in lagos claim several lives
At least 12 people were killed in rioting between rival Muslim groups in Nigeria's economic capital Lagos on Wednesday, news organisations reported. Authorities investigating the cause of the clash, said the dead included four policemen. News reports said the rioters had fired guns as well as bows and arrows when police intervened to qull the rioting.
Opposition pledges anti-government protests
On the political front, two key Nigerian opposition coalitions, the United Action for Democracy (UAD), and the Joint Action Committee of Nigeria (JACON), pledged to step up their campaign to stop General Sani Abacha becoming the country's civilian ruler, Reuters reported on Thursday.
"We wish to assure the dictatorship that its time is up and that there is no turning back on the process of liberation we have commenced,'' said a UAD statement in Lagos. JACON which groups 45 pro-democracy organisations, announced a series of protests starting 29 May and culminating with a one-day strike on 12 June to mark the fifth anniversary of the 1993 presidential election annulled by Abacha.
Political tension has been on the upsurge in the oil-producing country of 104 million people since five officially recognised political parties chose Abacha as sole candidate for the 1 August presidential election.
Court backs Abacha
While news organisations quoted an Abacha spokesman as saying he would "soon" decide whether he would accept the nomination, the Federal High court this week dismissed an opposition suit to block the nomination on the grounds that he had not officially accepted it yet
Europe and United States concerned at human rights violations
In separate statements carried by news organisatiions this week, the European Union (EU) and the US Department of State expressed concern at human rights violations in Nigeria. The EU noted a "marked increase in recent weeks of arbitrary arrests and harassment of pro-democracy and rights activists. Both called on the government to release all political prisoners and charge or release those held after recent demonstrations.
CAMEROON: Acute food shortage in the north
Warning that nearly a quarter of a million people in northern Cameroon were facing acute food shortages, WFP said this week it would provide 6,000 mt of relief food over the next three months. It said the extreme northern province, one of the poorest in the country, has been badly affected by insufficient rainfall and crop devastation by locusts, birds and elephants which have destroyed more than 55,000 hectares of cultivated land.
WFP also said the harvest had dropped by 50 per cent from 450,000 mt in 1997 to 250,000 mt in 1998. "The food shortage is so acute in some districts that people are resorting to eating grains buried in termite nests," said Daly Belgasmi, WFP representative in Cameroon.
Human rights group condemns violations
Meanwhile, a French-based NGO, the Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme (FIDH), has called on the international community to link aid to human rights in Cameroon, AFP reported on Monday. In a report on Cameroon, the FIDH provided a list of some 59 people detained before the 1997 presidential elections who were still to be charged or released. It also called for the release of journalist, Pius Njawe, who was sentenced to a year in jail for allegedly "disseminating false information" on the Cameroonian leader's health.
LIBERIA: Army restructuring
President Charles Taylor of Liberia said the restructuring of the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) would only take place once the National Assembly had approved it, independent Star Radio reported last Friday. It said Taylor had told a defence ministry meeting that the present demobilisation and retirement exercise was aimed at soldiers who had joined the army during the war. He announced the establishment of a 17-member committee to monitor the demobilisation and retirement process.
Disabled combatants tackle presidential bodyguards
Meanwhile, disabled combatants resorted to violence and held several top officials hostage in the capital Monrovia on Saturday night demanding payment of their retirement packages, news reports said. The former fighters attacked aides of President Taylor and bodyguards with crutches and sticks outside the office of the National Patriotic Party (NPP) and briefly held some officials hostage.
UNHCR says refugee operation well underway
A UNHCR statement at the weekend said that at least 26,000 Liberians had returned home neighbouring West African countries since December, AFP reported. It said UNHCR called for funding to for reintegration programmes, health and education needs. The agency had received US$ 4.35 million out of the required US $39 million for its repatriation programme.
EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Separatist trial opens
A group of 116 people accused of separatist attacks in the island of Bioko appeared before a military court this week to face charges of terrorism and threatening state security, news organisations reported. The case arises out of alleged attacks in Bioko in January which claimed nine lives. At the time, the government blamed the attacks on the separatist Movimento para la Autodeterminacion de la Isla de Bioko (MAIB). AFP quoted Celestino Obiang, a lawyer defending four Spanish citizens of Equatorial Guinea origin, as saying he had not been able to meet his clients or study the case against them until they appeared in court.
He called the court proceedings a "masquerade". However, Miguel Oyono, the foreign minister, said everything necessary was being done to ensure a "transparent process" with "respect for the rights of defence". He stressed that the hearing was also open to the press and that it was not a trial aimed at judging ethnic Bubi minority of Bioko island. The case was expected to last several days.
TOGO: Presidential election postponed
The presidential election in Togo has been postponed by a week until 21 June because of organisational problems, according to news reports on Monday. News agencies quoting a government broadcast on state radio said the poll, in which President Gnassingbe Eyadema is running for re-election, had already been postponed once before from 7 June to comply with constitutional provisions. Eyadema, Africa's longest serving head of state, faces five rivals in his bid for another five-year term.
The broadcast said that in the event that there is no clear winner on 21 June, a second round will be held on 5 July.
WEST AFRICA: Tuberculosis threat to women
The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported new research this week showing tuberculosis to be the biggest killer of women in the world, the BBC reported. Figures show that 200 million women world-wide are infected with the disease, and that in 1998, more than one million of them would die from the disease. Women of childbearing age between the ages of 15 and 44 are more likely than men of the same age to fall sick with the disease. Experts on the disease are meeting in Stockholm, Sweden to look at the biological, social and cultural differences in the occurrence of TB.
Abidjan, 29 May 1998 0800 gmt
[The material contained in this communication comes to you via IRIN West Africa, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. UN IRIN-WA Tel: +225 21 73 66 Fax: +225 21 63 35 e-mail: irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci for more information or subscription. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this report, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. IRIN reports are archived on the Web at: http://www.reliefweb.int/emergenc or can be retrieved automatically by sending e-mail to archive@dha..unon.org. Mailing list: irin-wa-weekly]
distributed by - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Volunteers in Technical Assistance Disaster Information Center lists: listproc@vita.org sitreps nat-dsr web: www.vita.org appeal fireline - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - West Africa - http://www.vita.org/humanitarian/wafrica