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IRIN-WA Update 535 of events in West Africa (Tuesday 24 August)
SIERRA LEONE: Agriculture minister charged with corruption
Sierra Leone's minister of agriculture, Harry Will, was sacked on Monday and arrested in connection with corruption charges, news organisations reported on Monday.
According to a presidential statement, the arrest of the minister and two senior aides is part of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's drive against corruption. The precise allegations against the three were not detailed but Reuters reported senior officials as saying they related to misappropriation of foreign aid money.
The arrests come shortly after authorities began investigating fraud in the Education Ministry. According to the BBC, nine ministry officials have been arrested and accused of colluding with police officers to misappropriate teachers' salaries worth US $100 million.
Sankoh returns from Libya to tour West Africa
The leader of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), Foday Sankoh, said on Monday that he planned to tour West Africa before taking up his duties in Freetown, news organisations reported.
He returned to Togo at the weekend after spending several days in Libya, which has been accused in the past of providing support to the rebels. According to AFP, he said he had wanted to thank President Muammar Gaddafi for his country's mediation in the peace process.
Sankoh plans to travel to Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia to visit "good friends" before finally returning to Sierra Leone at a date which he did not specify. He said his return had been delayed by "security and accommodation problems", AFP reported.
Under a peace accord signed on 7 July between the government and the RUF, Foday Sankoh is to chair a Commission for the Management of Strategic Resources, National Reconstruction and Development, and would be answerable only to Kabbah.
LIBERIA: Fighting sets back refugee programmes in Lofa
Insecurity in Lofa County in north-western Liberia is a major setback for programmes that target Liberian returnees and Sierra Leonean refugees, a UNHCR official told IRIN.
The fighting that broke out in Lofa some two weeks ago between government troops and rebels is affecting the Liberian refugee repatriation programme and the Sierra Leonean refugee care and maintenance programme, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Liberia, Ebou Camara, said.
"Everything that we need for the Sierra Leonean refugee care and maintenance programme has been looted," Camara told IRIN in Monrovia on Saturday.
(See Item: irin-english-1472, titled 'Fighting sets back refugee programmes in Lofa')
CHAD: Food needed urgently for flood victims, OCHA says
Chad urgently needs food deliveries for at least 128,000 flood victims in 11 of its 14 provinces, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a `Situation Report' on 23 August.
In addition to the 450 mt of cereals required, OCHA said, the government needed urgent supplies of medicines, tents, blankets and plastic sheets. "In order to allow the affected population to rebuild their homes quickly, hand tools are urgently needed," OCHA added.
Heavy rains in late July caused the rivers Batha and Bahr Azoum to flood in this mostly arid country, seriously affecting Batha, Biltine, Chari-Baguirmi, Guera, Kanem, Lac, Mayo-Kebbio and Moyen-Chari.
As of mid-August, the Chad Ministry of Interior noted that 5,200 homes had been destroyed and at least 165,000 ha of agricultural land submerged, the report said. Livestock losses were put at 5,000 head.
In Batha, the worst affected province, one-third of the 30,000 people in Ati, the provincial capital, were made homeless and most of the cereal stock was washed away, OCHA said.
So far, the United States has contributed US $25,000 to the Chad Red Crescent Society. OCHA said it would serve as a channel to receive cash contributions for immediate relief and provide written confirmation of their use.
Funds should be transferred to OCHA Account No. CO-590.160.1 at the UBS AG, PO Box 2770, CH-1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland, with reference: OCHA -Chad - Floods 1999, the UN body said.
SENEGAL: At least 16 fishermen die in storm
At least 16 fishermen have died in a tropical storm that slammed Senegal's coast between Wednesday and Friday in one of the worst sea disasters in the West African nation in decades, news organisations reported.
Fifty-eight fishermen were saved on Sunday in a joint rescue operation by the Senegalese and French armed forces, but around 73 others were missing, the official 'Le Soleil' daily reported on Tuesday.
CAMEROON: Trial of alleged secessionists adjourned
The trial in Yaounde of English-speaking Cameroonians suspected of taking part in a secessionist rebellion has been adjourned to 28 September, media sources told IRIN on Monday.
The sources said most of the 57 accused have denied the charges against them, which include arson, illegal possession of arms, and murder. AFP reported that 18 of them denied taking part in armed attacks on 27-28 March 1997 in North-West Province, in the English-speaking part of the country.
The defendants are being tried by a military tribunal. However, their lawyer, Joseph Mbanda, said the cases were outside that tribunal's jurisdiction because his clients are accused of political offences. "It's a kangaroo court," he said.
(See separate item titled 'Trial of suspected secessionists adjourned')
GUINEA-BISSAU: Preparing for elections
Voter registration for presidential elections billed for 28 November was launched on Sunday in Guinea-Bissau's capital, according to sources there.
Elsewhere in the country, election officials are undergoing three-day training programmes after which they will register voters over a two-week period, a humanitarian source in Bissau told IRIN.
Political parties have until 29 September to field their candidates for the presidential race, the source said.
The elections are to be held on 28 November, according to an agreement signed late last year between then president Joao Bernardo Vieira and a Military Junta which mutinied against him in June 1998 and eventually overthrew him in May 1999.
Police confirm former minister was murdered
Preparations for the elections were clouded by the death on Sunday of former minister Nicandro Barreto. A Portuguese radio station quoted police as confirming that he had been killed.
"We believe this was the work of a killer or killers whose aim was to murder Mr Nicandro Pereira Barreto," Police Inspector Jose Lima told Portugal's RDP Antena 1 radio on Monday.
Barreto was a former home affairs minister, attorney-general
and justice minister under Vieira.
NIGERIA: More than 30 drown after boat capsizes
More than 30 people were missing after their boat capsized in a river in northern Nigeria on Saturday, news organisations reported on Monday.
About 34 persons were aboard the boat. Only one body had so far been found near the scene of the accident on the Matan Marfa river at Argungu in the north-western state of Kebbi, Reuters reported.
Six die in student protest
At least six people were killed when police fired on students demonstrating against the non-payment of teachers' salaries at a polytechnic in Iree, some 200 km northeast of Lagos, AFP reported on Saturday.
Police had been deployed to enforce the closure of the polytechnic following a demonstration by students to put pressure on the government to pay overdue salaries.
Grant worth 300 million euros to be made available
Nigeria will receive a grant of 300 million euros (US $319 million) from the European Development Fund but details of how the money will be used are still to be finalised, Ambassador Veli Ollikainen, head of delegation of the European Commission, told IRIN on Tuesday.
Ollikainen and the minister of state in the Foreign Ministry, Dubem Onyiam, met in Abuja on Monday to discuss the grant, which had been suspended during the regime of late General Sani Abacha, as well as other assistance.
BURKINA FASO: Opposition stresses accountability
A group of opposition parties, unions and human rights activists have said that the culture of impunity in Burkina Faso must end before it will agree to a government of national unity proposed by the government, news organisations reported.
The group, known as the Collectif, said the circumstances surrounding the deaths of independent journalist Nobert Zongo and David Ouedraogo must be clarified first, AFP reported.
Ouedraogo, a one-time chauffeur for President Blaise Compaore's brother, Francois, was tortured to death in January 1998, reportedly by members of the presidential guard. Zongo, who had been investigating Ouedraogo's death, was found dead in December 1998 along with three others in his vehicle.
So far, AFP said, just three presidential guards have been arrested for their role in Ouedraogo's death and "no arrests have been made in the Zongo case".
In a recent report, a council of elder statesmen including former presidents proposed a government of national unity as a way out of the country's political quagmire.
In a statement, the Collectif demanded that Francois Compaore and six guards suspected of killing Zongo be arrested and tried and called for an immediate and complete reform of Burkina Faso's justice system.
It also said that "the militias recruited and led for the most part by government ministers, deputies and mayors should be disarmed", AFP said.
Abidjan, 24 August 1999, 17:15 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1481
[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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