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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IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup of Main Events 69 for West Africa covering the period (Friday-Thursday) 2 - 8 October 1998
NIGERIA: Armed youths seize Shell helicopters
Armed youths in the oil-rich southern Niger Delta seized two helicopters of the Anglo-Dutch oil giant, Shell, on Wednesday as they were taking off from a facility in Bayelsa State. The youths also reportedly attacked Shell officials and other facilities, forcing the company to evacuate its staff from the installations. The trouble started as a protest last weekend against local election plans in an area where the communities want a share of the vast oil wealth for themselves. There were similar attacks against oil installations of the Italian company ENI and threats against Texaco, media reports said.
Shell said the attacks forced the closure of 10 flow stations, losing it 270,000 barrels per day (bpd) in exports. ENI also had been forced to shut pipelines, which normally carry 120,000 bpd. Since mid-September, two ethnic groups in Ondo State have been fighting for control of local government headquarters. At least 50 people have been killed and thousands of others forced to flee their homes.
High turn-out for voter registration
Media reports said this week thousands of people had signed up to cast their ballot in polls designed to restore civilian rule by May next year. AFP said Nigeria's new Independent Elections Commission (INEC) had hired over 222,000 registration officials and some 11,000 supervisors to deal with the expected 60 million voters expected to register before a 19 October deadline.
Nigeria's new military ruler General Abdulsalami Abubakar announced the election programme and pledged to end military rule after he came to power in June following the sudden death of hardline predecessor General Sani Abacha.
Five leading exiles return home
Meanwhile, five prominent opposition leaders returned to Nigeria this week ending four years of exile. The exiles, who arrived in Lagos from London this week were Dan Suleiman, a leading figure of the opposition National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), former state governor John Oyegun and his former deputy The Reverend Peter Obaban, former member of parliament Tokunboh Afikuyomji and a former senator, Bola Tinubu. They praised those who stayed in Nigeria to fight Abacha's regime, but said that since Abubakar assumed power, there had been "some positive and promising signals".
However, AFP reported that they also criticised Abubakar's refusal to name a non-military government of national unity to oversee the return to civilian rule and his refusal to organise a sovereign national conference. They recalled that Abubakar had still not scrapped Decree Two, which was used by successive military administrations to suppress dissent. The decree grants the authorities powers of arbitrary arrest, and detention without trial. The most celebrated exile, Nobel literature laureate Wole Soyinka, has not yet given a date for his return.
Abubakar names new advisors
In separate developments reported this week, Abubakar named a group of new advisors to replace eight key officials appointed by Abacha, AFP reported. Mohammed Haruna, a former managing director of the state run 'New Nigerian' newspaper, was appointed press secretary replacing David Attah whom, AFP said, was "unpopular with journalists". Oil industry specialist Gary Aret Adams was named advisor on petroleum resources. He will oversee the repair and privatisation of the country's four refineries in a bid to end crippling domestic fuel shortages. A former governor of Kaduna State, Abba Musa Rimi, became the special advisor on political affairs, while Charles Emeka Eze was named special advisor on drugs and financial crimes. AFP said other appointments included Theophilus Akingbola Shoeipo, chief of protocol, Abdullhi Gwari as protocol liaison officer, and Sadiq Mohmood as principal secretary.
Commonwealth ministers meet to discuss Nigeria
Commonwealth ministers began a two-day meeting in London this week to help Nigeria with its transition to democracy. "This is the first time that the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) will meet since the new transition programme for Nigeria was announced by its new head of state," a Commonwealth statement said. Meanwhile, Nigerian Foreign Minister Ignatius Olisemeka was scheduled to meet on Friday with Commonwealth ministers and Secretary-General Emeka Anyaoku to explain the military government's election plans. Nigerian television quoted Olisemeka as saying: "The main objective, of course, is to put across to the Commonwealth, in view of the events of the past, all the efforts the present administration has been making to bring Nigeria back to the fold."
Nigeria was suspended from the body in 1995 following the execution of minority rights campaigner Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists. A conference official in London told IRIN that Commonwealth consultants and training experts will help Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) organise elections.
High-speed sell-off of state businesses launched
In a new step towards privatisation, Nigeria started a search this week for buyers to take controlling shares in select state-owned businesses, AFP reported. It said advertisements appeared in the media inviting national and international tenders to bid in companies such as the national telecommunications giant, NITEL, and the power company, NEPA. The government has invited investors "to bid for a licence to build, own and operate a second national carrier" to compete with NITEL. DRC-NIGERIA: Kabila will not get Nigerian military help
President Laurent-Desire Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) paid a two-day visit to Nigeria this week winning pledges, but failed to secure a promise of military help against anti-government insurgents. Abubakar had invited Kabila to Nigeria to discuss bilateral relations and the situation in DRC. In a joint communique carried by Radio Nigeria at the end of talks with Abubakar, both men called for "the need for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Congo-Kinshasa as a major step towards creating a conducive environment for the resolution of the conflict".
SIERRA LEONE: Rebel chief Sankoh pleads not guilty
Sierra Leone rebel chief Foday Sankoh pleaded not guilty this week to nine counts of treason after a judge ruled he should stand trial despite the lack of a defence lawyer, news reports said. Reuters reported that when asked by Judge Samuel Ademusu whether he could defend himself, Sankoh said, "God will defend me but it is advisable to have legal representation from an overseas country." However, Ademusu ruled that under Sierra Leone's Public Order Act on States of Emergency "the trial could and should go ahead", Reuters reported. AFP said lawyers in Sierra Leone have been unwilling to defend Sankoh, who faces the death penalty if convicted.
Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) joined forces with the ousted military junta of Major Johnny Koroma, which was routed in February by the Nigerian-led West African intervention force, ECOMOG.
RUF asks for peace talks, but maintains mutilation campaign
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that the remaining RUF leadership had asked the government for peace talks backed by the UN and the Commonwealth. The agency quoted a diplomat as saying that rebels had contacted the UN office in Freetown and the Commonwealth Secretariat in London "asking them to facilitate talks". Septimus Kaikai, the spokesman for Sierra Leone President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, said the government was not interested in "power-sharing" talks with the rebels.
At the same time, media reports said the RUF had resumed its campaign of mutilating civilians this week.. AFP quoted one analyst as saying he had noticed a rise in the number of mutilations, amputations, rapes, tortures, people burned alive, and villages destroyed. Hospitals were also reportedly treating children, women and men "with their private parts missing". AFP said humanitarian organisations in the capital, Freetown, estimated that "only one in three mutilated people could survive" and that between 3,000 and 4,000 people had been attacked since February.
According to the BBC, thousands of civilians also fled renewed fighting this week north of Freetown between ECOMOG and the RUF. It quoted refugees arriving in the capital as saying the battles had started a week ago in Kambia district, some 90 km to the northeast, near the border with Guinea. A Guinean officer told Reuters that Guinean ECOMOG units had intervened, "leading to fighting in towns and villages in the area in which about 50 people died". Some 5,000 civilians are thought to have fled into Guinea, the BBC said, adding to more than 100,000 others already there.
UNHCR also confirmed that over 3,000 Sierra Leoneans had crossed into the Forecariah area of Guinea on 29 September after rebels killed civilians and burned dozens of houses in Kukuna village, four km from the border. UNHCR said it had given each refugee two weeks of emergency rations and transferred them to existing camps.
Freetown asks international community to remain
Meanwhile, Sierra Leone urged the international community this week to remain in the country until it has a properly-functioning army. Speaking to delegates at the 53rd session of the UN General Assembly, Foreign Minister Sama Banya said prompt action by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had demonstrated "what a regional organisation could achieve if the determination and the leadership are there". However, he said, despite ECOMOG's capacity to deliver, "it needs the tools, which only the international community could provide". He conceded that although 90 percent of the country was "secure and safe", remnants of the ousted military junta and their allies in the east and the northeast of the country continued to operate".
UNICEF Director pleads for child soldiers
UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy ended a 24-hour visit to Sierra Leone this week, during which she held talks with Kabbah and pleaded for the disarmament of child soldiers. UN officials in Freetown told IRIN that she had visited camps for displaced persons in Kenema in the east and Bo in the south of the country. AFP said she had expressed concern at the fact that some 2,500 children had been forced to fight in the ranks of RUF. Bellamy was quoted as saying: "It is essential that these young people, both the authors and the victims of violence, put down their arms and are demobilised".
LIBERIA: Government demands removal of US warship
Liberia's government demanded this week that the United States withdraw a patrol boat on stand-by in waters off the capital, Monrovia. AFP and Star Radio quoted a Liberian government statement urging Washington to unconditionally remove the 'USS Chinook'. "The unannounced arrival and the deployment of the US military vessel in the Liberian territorial waters is a violation of Liberia's territorial integrity and sovereignty," the statement said.
The patrol boat was dispatched following a diplomatic row between the two countries, which started on 18 September when government forces routed the stronghold in central Monrovia of the ethnic Krahn leader, Roosevelt Johnson. Johnson took refuge in the embassy and was subsequently flown out of the country. The Monrovia-based independent Star Radio quoted Liberia's foreign ministry as saying the government was now opening an investigation into the incident.
Johnson in Sierra Leone
Meanwhile, Johnson unexpectedly turned up this week in neighbouring Sierra Leone. Media reports said Liberia and the United States had reportedly agreed Nigeria should accept him into protective custody. Johnson was spotted limping around Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, apparently recovering from wounds sustained during last month's fighting.
GUINEA BISSAU: Lusophone group proposes new peace talks
The Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP) recommended this week that new peace take place to resolve a four-month stalemate between army rebels and the government in Guinea Bissau. The Portuguese news agency, Lusa, said that CPLP and ECOWAS had already adopted a joint strategy to mediate in the crisis, and CPLP had now suggested new talks be held in Cape Verde 13-15 October. Cape Verde's Foreign Minister Jose Luis de Jesus who is co-ordinator for the CPLP, was also quoted as saying that he would "suggest an agreement" on an observation group in Guinea Bissau and a UN buffer force "to end the presence of Senegalese and Guinean troops in the country".
Nevertheless, Senegal's Foreign Minister Jacques Baudin insisted to the 53rd session of the UN General Assembly earlier this week that his country's military intervention fell under a bilateral defence treaty with President Joao Bernardo Vieira's government and was only designed to secure peace. Baudin said the intervention was also aimed at "ending the threat to public security and to foreigners, and contribute to reinforcing stability and security in the sub-region and in Africa".
Rebel negotiators cleared to return home
Meanwhile, Lusa said Guinea Bissau's rebel leadership had accepted a deal allowing negotiators stranded in Banjul to return home three weeks after the last round of peace talks in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. The delegation had been unable to come back because the Senegalese government had denied permission to overfly its territory. Lusa said the negotiators would now leave for Bissau aboard a French aircraft with the protection of French, Swedish and Portuguese diplomats.
Humanitarian developments
UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Sergio Vieira de Mello said this week that he has been encouraged by reports of the return of internally-displaced people in Guinea Bissau. A statement by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that preliminary information by a recent UN Inter-Agency Mission to Guinea Bissau indicated that over 200,000 internally displaced people had already returned to their homes in Bissau city. The statement said de Mello "remained concerned" at recent reports of increased looting in Bissau. He called on warring parties to honour the ceasefire and "ensure that international humanitarian law and humanitarian principles are respected".
NIGER: Local elections postponed, opposition party defects
Niger has postponed next month's local elections until 7 February "to ensure it takes place calmly and with full transparency." News reports quoted government spokesman Abdoulrahamane Seydou, also the minister of state for youth and sports, as saying the Commission electorale nationale independante (CENI), "had asked for more time to prepare for the poll". The polls are the last phased stage of a return to democracy after President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara's January 1996 coup against Mahamane Ousmane.
Meanwhile, one of the FRDD's eight parties defected to the government this week after an aide to Mainassara became its leader, media reports said. State television reported that the Parti progressiste nigerien-Rassemblement democratique africaine {PPN-RDA) had quit the FRDD bringing to 16, the number of parties supporting Mainassara.
Government slashes university scholarships
Minister for Higher Education Boube Oumarou announced "a sharp reduction" in government grants this week for university students because of financial constraints, AFP reported. Students in Niamey will now receive 25,000 francs CFA (100 CFA = Ffr 1) a month rather than 35,000 CFA. Allocations for Niger students abroad were also to be reduced. The Union des scolaires nigeriens (USN) rejected the cuts as "another blow to already deteriorating university standards".
SENEGAL: Security forces tortured human rights worker
A Dakar-based human rights group has accused security forces in Senegal's troubled southern province of Casamance of torturing one of its members. The Rencontre africaine pour la defense des droits de L'Homme (RADDHO) told IRIN this week that Senegalese troops had "arrested, tortured and threatened to kill" its Casamance executive secretary, Ankiling Diabone. RADDHO said Diabone had been dragged out of a taxi at an army check point for no apparent reason, bound with nylon cord and repeatedly beaten before finally being released. Senegal's army spokesman in Dakar was unavailable for comment on the alleged incident.
GABON: Fifth opposition candidate
The leader of Gabon's main opposition Rassemblement National de Boucherons (RNB), Father Paul Mba Abessole, officially declared himself a candidate at the weekend to run against President Omar Bongo in elections scheduled for December, AFP reported. Analysts had earlier questioned whether the RNB would be able to hold together following a rift between Abessole, and his former deputy, Pierre-Andre Kombila, whom Abessole accused in July of "treachery and indiscipline". Kombila supporters held their own congress in turn to accuse Abessole of "high treason" and nominated Kombila to run against Bongo as an independent candidate.
BURKINA FASO: Three presidential candidates approved
Burkina Faso's Supreme Court approved three presidential candidates for elections scheduled for 15 November, agencies reported this week. They are the incumbent Blaise Compaore, 47, Congres pour la democratie et le progres (CD); Ram Ouerdraogo, 48, of the Verts, and Frederic Fernand Guirma, 67, of the Rassemblement democratique africaine (RDA).
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE: Parliamentary elections
President Miguel Trovoada of Sao Tome and Principe has announced parliamentary elections for 8 November, AFP reported this week. In a despatch quoting a government statement, it said a second round of voting would be scheduled if necessary. The incoming parliament would be the third since the adoption of a new constitution in 1990 and at least six parties are expected to contest the election, it said.
WEST AFRICA: Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire pledge to fight border crime
Senior police and security officials from Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire have pledged to fight gun-running and drug-smuggling across their borders, the BBC reported this week. In a statement following a two-day meeting in the Guinean capital, Conakry, the two sides also pledged to curb money-laundering. It said the two countries were expected to deploy more troops and customs officials along their common border.
Environmentalists protest oil pipeline plan
An environmental pressure group has asked the World Bank to withhold funds for a 1,000-km oil pipeline from Chad to the Cameroonian port of Kribi, the BBC reported this week. A spokeswoman for Friends of the Earth, Andrea Durbin, said the bank "should lead in promoting wind and solar energy instead of projects that threatened the environment". The BBC quoted bank officials as saying the pipeline would not harm the environment and that the project has not been finalised.
Abidjan, 9 October, 1998 15:30 gmt
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