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IRIN-WA Update 526 of events in West Africa (Wednesday 11 August)
SIERRA LEONE: Government unable to confirm rebel claims
One of the field commanders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) accused Guinea on Tuesday of violating the ceasefire in Sierra Leone and threatened "all-out war" if the alleged attacks continued, news organisations reported.
Sam Bockarie telephoned the BBC from the bush and accused Guinean troops backing the Sierra Leone government of attacking rebel positions in the Koindu area near the border with Guinea.
"If action is not taken within the next 48 hours it will be an all-out war," Bockarie told the BBC, adding that President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, must take responsibility for maintaining the peace process.
In response, Sierra Leone's Information Minister, Julius
Spencer told IRIN on Wednesday: "We deplore such
statements and cannot verify these claims. Our security
people checked with the Guinean government and it says
it is not involved. There is nothing we can do."
Spencer added that RUF leader Foday Sankoh would be
talking to Bockarie "probably sometime today,"
about the situation.
UN welcomes release of hostages
The RUF field commander's warning came hours after the release of the last of a group of hostages held by rebels of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) in the Occra Hills, some 70 km east of Freetown.
In a statement issued on Tuesday by his spokesman Fred Eckhard, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed their release and acknowledged the crucial role played by the government of Sierra Leone and other regional leaders and parties in seeking a peaceful resolution to the situation.
The UN-led team comprising military observers, journalists, civilians and ECOMOG soldiers had been taken hostage on 4 August while on a mission to collect a large group of women and children abducted by the AFRC in January.
NIGERIA: Gearing up for battle with environmental foes
Losing about 50 metres to the Atlantic Ocean and some two kilometres to the Sahara Desert annually, Nigeria is faced with a creeping environmental disaster that has caught the attention of its government.
President Olusegun Obasanjo was in Lagos on Monday to visit the city's beach front, where the ocean has advanced by more than a kilometre in the past two years. The sea is now poised just a few steps from the main street and posh residences of the rich suburb of Victoria Island.
Obasanjo pledged to make urgent efforts to deal with the problem in Lagos and in other areas threatened by coastal erosion.
Last week he was in the north-eastern state of Gombe to launch a tree-planting campaign which, he said, was imperative to overturn what for now appears to be a losing battle with deforestation. The government plans to plant 4,000 hectares of trees by the end of next year, he said.
[See Item: irin-english-1401, titled 'NIGERIA: IRIN Special Report on environmental challenges']
Obasanjo speaks on violence
Obasanjo suggested on Tuesday during a visit to the northern town of Kano that there were other forces behind the recent social unrest there, news organisations reported.
He said he could not understand the definition of the fighting as an ethnic clash. "An ethnic clash between whom? We have Sudanese Kano, Niger Republic Kano, Malian Kano, Chadian Kano etc," 'The Guardian' quoted him as saying.
Obasanjo was visiting Kano as part of a tour of areas affected by recent unrest, reportedly between Nigeria's two biggest ethnic groups, the Hausas, the majority of whom live in the north, and the Yorubas, who live mainly in the south.
Fighting broke out there two weeks ago, just days after clashes between Hausas and Yorubas in the southern town of Shagamu led to the death of more than 70 people, the BBC said. The fighting in Kano is widely believed to have started when local Hausas decided to seek revenge for the attacks on the Hausa minority in Shagamu.
During a visit to Shagamu on Monday, Obasanjo said the ethnic unrest had been orchestrated by opponents of the new civilian government. He did not identify those he suspected, but said the perpetrators would be prosecuted, the BBC reported.
In an interview broadcast on state television, Obasanjo said that local leaders in both towns had told him that the fighting was not done by indigenes, according to AFP.
Obasanjo defends allowances
Meanwhile Obasanjo has defended his government in the controversy surrounding the allowances approved for members of the national assembly, saying the stipends had been decided by the last military regime before it left office in May.
AFP quoted Obasanjo as saying in a television interview on Tuesday that the money was earmarked by the former government to allow the furnishing of parliamentarians' homes and his government would not be "revisiting it."
He said that he had told the parliamentarians it was not personal money and should be spent properly, with written guarantees to that effect.
Each of the 109 federal senators is to receive 3.5 million naira (US $33,600) while the 360 members of the House of Representatives are to get 2.5 million naira (US $24,000) per person, about 800 times the monthly minimum wage of 3000 naira (US $29).
Hundreds of trade unionists demonstrated on Tuesday against the size of the allowances.
NIGER: Elections postponed
Niger's government has postponed by more than a month presidential elections that were to have been held on 3 October, a media source told IRIN from Niamey.
Major Daouda Mallam Wanke, head of the ruling Conseil de Reconciliation Nationale (CRN) junta, announced the postponement on Tuesday. He said the polls would now be held in the first half of November.
The reasons given for the postponement, the source said, included a shortage of funds to finance the operation, partly because help hoped for from the international community has been slow in coming.
The Comite electoral national independant (CENI) has opened an election account to which the local private sector and individuals have been contributing, but much of that money has been used to train election officials in the hinterland, the source told IRIN.
Another reason given for the postponement, he said, was that 3 October coincides with the harvest season, which would mean an extremely low turnout in the rural areas since people would be busy on their farms.
TOGO: Paritary committee holds its first meeting
A paritary committee comprising representatives of Togo's government and opposition held its first meeting on Tuesday in Lome, AFP reported.
The 24-member committee, equally divided between the ruling party and the opposition, was created under the Lome Accord, an agreement signed between the two sides on 29 July at inter-party talks in the Togolese capital.
The committee's work includes ensuring the implementation of the Lome Accord, whose main provisions are the establishment of an independent electoral commission and the drawing up of a law on political parties as well as one that makes provisions for ex-heads of state.
The paritary committee is also supposed to prepare a national reconciliation forum.
July's talks were held to resolve a political crisis
that came to a head with presidential elections in
June 1998. President Gnassingbe Eyadema was proclaimed
the winner but the opposition rejected the result,
charging that the election was rigged.
COTE D'IVOIRE: Cabinet reshuffle
Three ministers were dropped and two added to Cote d'Ivoire's cabinet in a reshuffle that saw the number of ministerial posts reduced from 36 to 35, the government announced in a communique issue on 10 August.
The incoming ministers are Admiral Atin Oria Ambroise (Public Health) and Seri-Assia Jerome (junior minister in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Decentralisation).
Those dropped from the cabinet include Pierre Kipre, replaced by Anney Kablan Norbert at the helm of the Ministry of National Education and Basic Training and Atsain Achi, replaced by Zirimba Aka Michel as Minister of Labour, Public Service and Social Security.
Also removed from the cabinet is Health Minister Maurice Kakou Guikahue, whose ministry has been in the spotlight since June, when the European Union suspended aid to Cote d'Ivoire in reaction to the misuse of 18 billion CFA francs (about US$ 30 million) in assistance to the health sector.
In its communique, the government said the main aims of the reshuffle included vigorously pursuing reforms aimed at achieving its programme and reducing the country's foreign debt, reinforcing its policy of rigour and good management with a view to enhancing good governance and favouring the development of the private sector and private investment.
The reshuffle has also been done with a view to "constantly
seeking solutions to the main problems of Ivoirian
society, in particular reforms to the education system,
the collection of household garbage (and) monitoring
prices with due regard for the laws of the market and
the rules of competition", according to the communique.
Abidjan, 11 August 1999, 18:00 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1404
[This item is delivered in the "irin-english" service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information or free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or fax: +254 2 622129 or Web: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer.]
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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