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IRIN-WA Update 314 of Events in West Africa (Monday 12 October 1998)
NIGERIA: Foreign oil workers ordered out
A hitherto unknown group, the Federated Niger Delta Izon Communities (FNDIC), has told hundreds of foreign oil workers to leave the area by today (Monday) because their safety could "no longer be guaranteed".
Media reports said FNDIC gave the warning on Friday, saying it represented the Ijaw community in the area. Ijaws form one of the largest ethnic groups in the area and have been spearheading recent clashes with oil workers.
Shell External Relations Manager Albert Arambi said on Friday that 400 armed Ijaw youths had seized the company's terminal at Forcados, Delta State. This forced the company to shut down its Forcados and Bonny terminals.
He said the youths were protesting the non-payment of compensation by the US oil company Mobil for a spillage in the area earlier in 1998 and also seeking a greater share in the region's oil wealth and the establishment of a local government headquarters in the area. In an open letter on Friday to Nigerian military leader General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the FNDIC said it supported the seizures in the Delta and the neighbouring Bayelsa and Rivers states.
Other oil companies operating in the area are France's ELF and Total, Italy's ENI, and Mobil, Texaco and Chevron of the United States.
Floods leave 100,000 homeless in Nigeria
Heavy rains and floods have left at least 100,000 villagers homeless in Nigeria's western Kwara State. The government-run 'Daily Times' newspaper reported today that almost 70 villages in the Patigi local government area had been flooded. It said floods caused some US $10 million in damage. Patigi official Alhaji Yahaya Yusuf appealed for federal government help. Meanwhile, Kwara State Administrator Lieutenant-Colonel Rashed Shekoni has promised urgent help.
Commonwealth ministers ready to readmit Nigeria
Commonwealth foreign ministers meeting in London on Friday said Nigeria should participate in its activities to "facilitate its early return" to the body.
Media reports said the eight-nation Ministerial Action Group also recommended that individual Commonwealth members, which had imposed sanctions against Nigeria, "begin forthwith to lift them".
Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth in 1995, after the late hardline military ruler, General Sani Abacha, executed nine minority rights activists. Abacha's successor, Abubakar, has promised to hand power to an elected government on 29 May.
In a related development, Abubakar reiterated his appeal for exiled politicians to return home and join the democratisation process. He was speaking on Saturday with the Nigerian community in Ghana, ahead of a two-day working visit to neighbouring Togo.
MALI: Former Malian president goes on trial
Former Malian President Moussa Traore, and his wife Miriam, appeared in court today on charges of economic crimes, including the embezzlement of some US $4 million.
"The couple are accused of misuse or complicity in misuse of public property and unlawful personal enrichment," AFP said.
Traore is charged with four close associates: Brother-in-law Abraham Douah Cissiko, formerly director of customs, former Finance Minister Tiena Coulibaly, former Minister for Territorial Administration General Sekou Ly, and Moussa Kone, the former head of the French office of the Development Bank of Mali.
Traore, 62, a former army general who ruled for 23 years, has been in prison since his overthrow in a 1992 which paved the way for democratic elections.
Traore was been found guilty of murder, following the
violent repression of demonstrations by the opposition
in 1991 in which at least 200 hundred people died,
the BBC reported.
Traore's wife, who has been in prison with her husband,
has claimed her innocence. AFP said she claimed that
their fortune came from a gift of 250 million francs
CFA (about US $462,962) from the late Ivorian president,
Felix Houphouet-Boigny.
SENEGAL: Unions seek OAU human rights assistance
The country's main trade union, L'Union nationale des syndicats autonomes du Senegal (USAS), has decided to protest the detention of its members to the African Human Rights Commission, AFP reported today.
This follows the arrest on 23 July of 25 union officials of the nation's electricity power company, Le Syndicat unique des travailleurs de l'electricite (SUTELEC). The Commission, a specialised agency of the Organisation of African Unity, is due to sit 19-31 October at its headquarters in Banjul, the Gambian capital.
The union officials are due to appear in a Dakar court on Thursday to answer charges of inciting disorder, wrecking public property and threatening public order.
CAMEROON: Presidential pardon for jailed journalist
Cameroonian newspaper editor Pius Njawe, who has served nine months of a one-year term for publishing "false information", has been pardoned by President Paul Biya, media reports said at the weekend.
State radio, which announced the decision on Saturday, did not say whether Njawe, edtior of 'Le Messager', had left New Bell Central Prison in the port city of Douala, AFP reported. Njawe, one of the country's best known journalists, was sentenced to prison on 14 April and fined 300,000 francs CFA (Ffr 3,000) for publishing and article suggesting Biya had a heart ailment.
The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling three months ago that Njawe serve six months for defamation and rejected his appeal for release on health grounds. Njawe's initial sentence of two years was reduced to one year by the Appeals Court. The sentence attracted harsh criticism from international human rights and press freedom bodies. French President Jacques Chirac and a number of other heads of state also asked Biya to exercise clemency.
GUINEA BISSAU: City quiet following weekend shooting
Humanitarian sources in Guinea Bissau's capital told IRIN today that the city was now quiet following renewed shooting at the weekend between army rebels and government troops backed by an intervention force from neighbouring Senegal.
The three-month conflict ended with a truce in July. However, media reports said fighting had broken out again near Bissau's main airport following an alleged attempt by rebels to infiltrate government-held areas to the north of the city.
According to one source, President Joao Bernardo Vieira appealed to his troops to cease all offensive activities on Saturday, but his move came was too late to stop hundreds of people fleeing affected parts of the city.
The fighting in Guinea Bissau started on 7 June after the former armed forces chief, Ansumane Mane seized a military base in the capital and took control of the international airport after he was fired by Vieira.
SIERRA LEONE: Military court convicts junta supporters
A military court in Sierra Leone has found at least 34 people guilty of treason for collaborating with the former Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC). Media reports said among those now facing the death penalty were two former armed forces chiefs of staff, Hassan Conteh and Samuel Koroma, the brother of former AFRC chairman Johnny Paul Koroma, who is still wanted by Sierra Leone's civilian government along with some 40 other military personnel. A number of other people are still on trial including the rebel leader, Foday Sankoh.
The AFRC and its allies from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) ruled Sierra Leone from May 1997 to February 1998, when the Nigerian-led West African intervention force in Sierra Leone, ECOMOG, forcibly restored President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.
In August, death sentences passed on 16 civilians, convicted of colluding with the AFRC, raised a storm of protest from the international community and have not yet been carried out.
Regional analysts told IRIN-WA today the latest court decision had raised expectations the government would take a tough line against military personnel, but take a more lenient line with civilians. "Kabbaj is under pressure to show he is tough... these sentences allow him to do that with regard to AFRC, but also open the way to a more accomodating approach towards international appeals for clemency," one analyst said.
The court also found Corporal Tamba Gborie, who announced the May coup, guilty of "treason, murder and aiding and abetting the enemy".
LIBERIA: Government "regrets" US embassy shootings
Liberia's government said on Friday that it regretted a shooting incident at the US embassy in Monrovia last month, which wounded two US citizens and killed at least one Liberian, media reports said.
The stand-off ensued after troops loyal to President Charles Taylor shot after a former faction leader, Roosevelt Johnson, as he took refuge in the embassy following fighting between Johnson supporters and Taylor's forces in central Monrovia.
AFP quoted an official statement as saying the government "regretted" any injuries to persons "protected by international law", whose security it considered "indispensable" to international relations.
However, diplomatic sources told IRIN today that the Liberia government statement seemed to fall short of the full apology the US embassy has demanded before it re-opens for normal business.
Abidjan, 12 October 1998 18:00 GMT
[ENDS]
[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 or can be retrieved automatically by sending e-mail to <archive@ocha.unon.org> - mailing list: irin-wa-updates]
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 18:26:44 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 314 for 1998.10.12 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.981012182551.12030A-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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