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IRIN-WA Update 374 of Events in West Africa (Wednesday 6 January)
SIERRA LEONE: Rebels take presidency
Rebel forces from the Revolutuionary United Front (RUF) and the ousted Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) stormed into Freetown today (Wednesday), seizing the presidency, burning the Nigerian embassy and UN House and sending most of the remaining expatriate community fleeing to neighbouring countries for safety.
But a UN official in Conakry, the Guinean capital, told IRIN today that Francis Okelo, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, was still in the Sierra Leonean capital. Five other officials of his team, the United Nations Military Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL), among them Chief Military Observer Brigadier-General Subhash Joshi, were with Okelo. All other UNOMSIL staff have been flown to Guinea.
The military situation in Freetown is still fluid. The official said Nigerian ECOMOG troops controlled the heliport in Aberdeen and the country's only international airport at Lungi, across the bay from the city. UN officials arriving in Conakry from Lungi said they did not see any ECOMOG reinforcements arriving at the airport.
They said rebels entered Pademba Prison in Freetown but failed to find Foday Sankoh, the RUF leader who was being held there pending an appeal against his death sentence for treason.
More details of the fighting in Freetown moved earlier in two special IRIN reports.
RUF offers truce if leader freed
Reuters quoted rebel commander Sam Bockarie as saying the rebels would agree a ceasefire with ECOMOG if Sankoh was freed. Speaking by satellite telephone from his guerrilla hideout, Bockarie told Reuters his fighters had taken over most of Freetown and that President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah may have left the city. There was no independent information on the whereabouts of the president.
ICRC still has men trapped in Freetown
The International Committee of the Red Cross in Cote D'Ivoire told IRIN today that five of its staff members were still trapped in Brookfields, a sector of the city which the rebels entered this morning
Reinforcements still awaited
Malian and Gambian reinforcements for ECOMOG have still not arrived in Freetown. Malian President Alpha Omar Konare told President Kabbah on Monday he would send troops to support ECOMOG and an advance party of senior Malian officers had been expected to go to Freetown next week for talks on deployment with ECOMOG.
The Gambia's secretary of state for foreign affairs, Sedat Jobe, told IRIN today that logistical difficulties had made it difficult for an advance Gambian military team to go to Sierra Leone and review mechanisms for a troop deployment. He said Britain had offered one million pounds sterling (US $1.65 million) to help Gambia deploy but no arrangements had been made to get the troops to Freetown.
Gambian political analysts told IRIN that the nation's participation in ECOMOG would be complicated by President Yahya Jammeh's offer to negotiate and end to the fighting. The analysts said The Gambia could not be a peace broker and at the same time a combatant in the war.
UNHCR says fighting raises spectre of refugee exodus
The UNHCR said today the upsurge of fighting in Sierra Leone raised the spectre of another refugee exodus from Sierra Leone. In a statement received by IRIN, the UNHCR said an estimated 350,000 people were now displaced persons within the country. Many are in the Kenema area, in eastern Sierra Leone. "Over the past few days, over one hundred refugees have fled into neighbouring Guinea," it said.
The agency said it had received reports of another 5,800 IDPs in the western border area of Kambia who possibly intended to cross into Guinea if the fighting continued.
UNHCR said it was prepared to received new arrivals on the Guinean side of the border. The agency said about 210,000 people fled Sierra Leone to Guinea in 1998, hundreds of whom arrived mutilated by rebels who "systematically terrorised the rural population".
In all, there are 350,000 Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea and another 90,000 in Liberia, UNHCR said.
MAURITANIA: Groups demand politicians' release
About 100 women protested yesterday (Tuesday) in front of the National Assembly in the capital Nouakchott to demand the release of three opposition politicians of l'Union des forces democratiques (UFD), AFP said. The three men, Ahmed Ould Daddah, Mohameden Ould Babah and Mohameden Ould Icheddou, were arrested on 16 December for saying at a mass rally that the government wanted to accept Israeli nuclear waste for dumping on Mauritanian territory. They had called for an international commission to investigate the alleged agreement, news agencies said.
Meanwhile, the opposition group Forces de liberation africaines de Mauritanie (FLAM), in a statement issued yesterday from Senegal, also called for the "unconditional" release of the politicians and said their proposal to create the international commission was "legitimate", AFP reported. The three men, who have not been charged, are being held in Boumdeit, some 500 km east of Nouakchott.
BURKINA FASO: Commission to start death probe
An independent commission to investigate the death of outspoken local journalist Norbert Zongo is expected to begin its work tomorrow, Radio Burkina said yesterday. The radio, monitored by the BBC, quoted Minister of Territorial Administration and Security Yero Boly as saying the investigative commission will include 10 civilians and clergymen, four law enforcement representatives as well as members of international organisations. "It is a commission that is quite capable of doing its work" Boly said.
Zongo's death under unclear circumstances last month has sparked demonstrations in the capital Ouagadougou and several other towns in the country. On Sunday, police used tear gas to disperse hundreds of demonstrators in Ouagadougou, RFI said, adding that several people including some opposition party leaders had been arrested.
NIGERIA: International loan ban to be lifted
Nigeria has decided to lift an embargo on external loans in the face of diminishing oil earnings, AFP said yesterday. Quoting Finance Minister Ismaila Usman, AFP said the collapse in international oil prices, on which Nigeria's economy is based, has led it to seek concessional loans and credits from multinational and bilateral sources, including the World Bank.
"Because of the projected deficit envisaged in the budget, government has decided to lift the 1994 embargo," Usman said at a press conference yesterday. The 1999 budget, presented by head of state General Abdulsalami Abubakar on Friday, forecasts a slip in the year's oil earnings to US $5.2 billion, down from US$ 6.8 billion earned during 1998, Usman said. Nigeria already has more than US$ 30 billion in overseas debts, AFP said.
Usman said the 1999 budget aims to tackle the country's "structural economic crisis" with increased backing for poverty alleviation programmes, hospital spending, development of the solid minerals sector, privatisation of state-owned enterprises and economic liberalisation, AFP added.
GUINEA: Lawyers allowed to see Conde
Lawyers in Guinea have been allowed to see Alpha Conde, a defeated candidate in December's presidential election, for the first time since he was arrested on December 15, Reuters reported yesterday. It quoted a spokesman for the team, Sydrame Camara, as saying that: "Judging by appearances he is well. His living conditions are acceptable, especially as regards food."
Camara said an informal visit lasting 15 minutes was allowed on Monday in the presence of public prosecutor Moundjou Cherif. According to Camara, Conde was in a villa in Conakry's Cite de l'OUA, an area close to government ministries and the presidency. He told his lawyers he had been kidnapped and detained illegally. His legal team was trying to negotiate formal visiting times with the examining magistrate, Reuters said.
The authorities have said Conde, who received nearly 17 percent of the votes in the election, was arrested as he fled to neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire the day after the December 14 poll. The most serious charge against him is attempted subversion. Cherif has said this referred to an alleged plan "to recruit and train (mercenaries) and wage war with a view to replacing by force the government of the republic." Other charges include alleged plans for the fraudulent transfer of foreign currency, violence against the police and violation of a decree closing Guinea's land borders during the election. The election was won by incumbent President Lansana Conte with more than 56 percent of the vote.
LIBERIA: Lofa deaths not linked to haemorrhagic fever
Investigations have revealed no evidence of haemorrhagic fever in northeast Liberia where local authorities had recently reported the possible presence of the disease, a WHO official said today. Health authorities in Lofa county had suspected that eight deaths since October may have been due to Rift Valley Fever. However, results of laboratory tests conducted in Abidjan and at the Pasteur Institute in Paris have shown no trace of a haemorrhagic fever including Rift Valley Fever, a WHO official in Abidjan told IRIN. An investigative mission to the area between 14-23 December saw no signs of Rift Valley Fever, such as abnormally high animal death rates, the official added.
BENIN: Resurgence of guinea worm reported
A resurgence of guinea worm disease has been reported in northern Benin, PANA said today. Several youths are reportedly affected by the disease in the Gouka and Ale areas of Bante district, it said. The resurgence has been attributed to the contamination of water ponds in Ale village. The disease was prevalent in the area until 1980 when a WHO-supported guinea worm eradication programme was launched, PANA added.
Abidjan, 6 January 1999, 18:30 GMT
[ENDS]
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 18:53:52 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.ocha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 374 for 1999.01.06
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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